Even though my new daughter-n-law was hanging back in this picture I love how it came out. I took this about 15 minutes before Shannon walked down the isle to be wed to my son Mark...had to be one of the happiest days of my life. The church, Saint Vincent De Paul in Los Angeles, was an absolutely amazing piece of architecture. I wish I had taken more pictures of the chapel but my photo taking has been nonexistent. Hope everyone is well and I'll try to catch up on your streams.

FF: im a little hesitant about this picture. whatever, this is how im feeling. i want hide from everything. can you guys see the words? anyone know where thats from?! whoever guesses it right is a freakin' genius.

 

so there's this person that i'm thinking about, &i've tried so hard not to think about him, but its soooo daaaammn haaarrrd! sometimes i just want to punch him in the face just for being there, sometimes when i catch myself thinking of him i punch him in the face, in my mind of course. ugh, i just hate it. i just want to hide from him.

  

oh yeah, i constantly have this feeling that i am nonexistent , someone out there please make me feel aliveeee.

 

ahaha, flickr is like my blog. lol. btw, can you guys spot my scar?

 

so much better if you View On Black

**explored #27 june 7

 

vote for my photo: brickfrish!

 

i need the money, you want me to go to college, riiight?

Hand drawn map of a nameless imaginary city, with elements of a typical Austrian place: lakesides, multiple important railway stations, tramways, compact city center and not very large - most 'inhabitants' live directly outside town.

 

2012.

Kapinovski Waterfall (the spelling of that in Bulgarian is questionable).

 

Or why you need to buy ND filters for all lenses you carry.

 

Note: the ND filter is a dark tint glass that gets screwed on the lens and darkens the scene. This enables you to take pictures with low shutter speed. In plain English, this means that we can shoot waterfalls with silky smooth water.

 

The Place:

Kapinovski Waterfall can be found relatively easy. Just follow the signs for Kapinovskiy Monastery (signs are scarce, but with a good map you will be fine.) At one point, about a kilometer before the monastery you will reach Kapinovski Monastery Camping and Hotel Complex. There's a tavern "Pri Vodopada" you just go around it and the path will lead you right to the waterfall.

 

The waterfall itself is not high, just 7 meters, but the pool around it in combination with the rocks that surround it makes the scene really impressive. Access is really esay, but you'll need trainers, if you plan to climb up the rocks.

 

The story behind the shot:

We're there, I'm armed with two lenses – a 10-18 (Wide-angle) and a 17-55 (normal). So far so good, but I have a ND filter only for the normal lens. I keep thinking it would work, but when I climbed the rocks, I understood that no, I need space, and space above the waterfall is almost nonexistent. So cursing my own stupid mind and I do something really, REALLY hate to do while on terrain – lens changing – I replaced the normal one with the wide-angle Lens. Which has NO ND filter. On top of that around the waterfall was quite sunny, so that the picture has a chance to burn (a part of the image that is completely white and there is no image captured by the sensor). Long live RAW files and Photoshop!

 

Photoadvice:

This place is very popular for bathing in the summer, so you just give up the idea of summer pictures. The proximity of the Complex (which I think ruins the whole place) guarantees you crowds at almost any time. Even I as I was there, when the complex was closed, there were several people.

So try early spring (then the waterfall has more water in it) or autumn.

 

Necessary Gear:

ND Filter!!!! (Mandatory, especially if you want silky water), a tripod and a remote trigger. You need two lenses - a wide-angle for photos from above the waterfall and a normal one, or telephoto lens - because when you go down by the pool, can't get closer to the waterfall.

Good hiking shoes are a must so that you don’t end up in the water.

 

ATTENTION! The pool is around 6 meters deep, and the rocks under the water ARE REALLY SLIPPERY. So if you don't want to lose your tripod (and camera) forever, just don't put it on wet rocks.

Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet and Vietnam

 

english

 

Religion in Korea encompasses a number of different traditions. Traditional Buddhism, Mugyo with a background of Korean Confucianism and later Christianity all play a role in Korea's religious tradition. The modern separation of Korea into North and South Korea has also shaped religious practice, especially in the communist North.

 

Religion in South Korea

 

Just over 53 percent of South Koreans profess religious affiliation. That affiliation is spread primarily among three traditions - Buddhism (43 percent), Christianity (55 percent), and Mugyo (0.2 percent).[6] These numbers should be treated with some caution, however, as (with the exception of Christianity) there are few if any meaningful distinctions between believers and nonbelievers in Buddhism and Confucianism, which comprise more of a set of ethical values than a religion. The cultural impact of these movements is far more widespread than the number of formal adherents suggests. A variety of "new religions" have emerged since the mid-19th century, including Cheondogyo. Very small Muslim and Bahá'í minorities also exist due to the emigration of South Asians.

 

Religion in North Korea

 

Traditionally, Koreans have practiced Buddhism and observed the tenets of Korean Confucianism. Besides a number of practicing Buddhists (about 11.4 million, under the auspices of the official Korean Buddhist Federation), the population also includes some Christians (about 10,000 Protestants and 4,000 Roman Catholics, under the auspices of the Korean Christian Federation) and an indeterminate number of native Cheondogyo (Heavenly Way) adherents. However, religious activities in North Korea are almost nonexistent. North Korea has 300 Buddhist temples, but they are considered cultural relics rather than active places of worship. Several schools for religious education exist, including three-year religious colleges for training Protestant and Buddhist clergy. In 1989 Kim Il Sung University established a religious studies program, but its graduates usually go on to work in the foreign trade sector. Although the constitution provides for freedom of religious belief, in practice the government severely discourages organized religious activity except as supervised by the aforementioned officially recognized groups. Constitutional changes made in 1992 allow authorized religious gatherings and the construction of buildings for religious use and deleted a clause about freedom of anti-religious propaganda. The constitution also stipulates that religion "should not be used for purposes of dragging in foreign powers or endangering public security."

 

Mugyo

 

Koreans, like other East Asians, have traditionally been eclectic rather than exclusive in their religious commitments. Their religious outlook has not been conditioned by a single, exclusive faith but by a combination of indigenous beliefs and creeds imported into Korea. Belief in a world inhabited by spirits is probably the oldest form of Korean religious life, dating back to prehistoric times. There is a rather unorganized pantheon of literally millions of gods, spirits, and ghosts, ranging from the "god generals" who rule the different quarters of heaven to mountain spirits (sansin). This pantheon also includes gods who inhabit trees, sacred caves, and piles of stones, as well as earth spirits, the tutelary gods of households and villages, mischievous goblins, and the ghosts of persons who in many cases met violent or tragic ends. These spirits are said to have the power to influence or to change the fortunes of living men and women.

 

Shamans, most of whom are women, are enlisted by those who want the help of the spirit world. Female shamans (mudang) hold kut, or services, in order to gain good fortune for clients, cure illnesses by exorcising evil spirits, or propitiate local or village gods. Such services are also held to guide the spirit of a deceased person to heaven.

 

Often a woman will become a shaman very reluctantly—after experiencing a severe physical or mental illness that indicates "possession" by a spirit. Such possession can allegedly be cured only through performance of a kut. Once a shaman is established in her profession, she usually can make a good living.

 

Many scholars regard Korean shamanism as less a religion than a form of medicine in which the spirits are manipulated in order to achieve human ends. There is no notion of salvation or moral and spiritual perfection, at least for the ordinary believers in spirits. The shaman is a professional who is consulted by clients whenever the need is felt. Traditionally, shamans had low social status and were members of the ch'ommin class. This discrimination has continued into modern times.

 

Korean folk beliefs are strongly associated with the culture of fishing villages and are primarily a phenomenon found in rural communities. Shamans also treat the ills of city people, however, especially recent migrants from the countryside who find adjustment to an impersonal urban life stressful. The government has discouraged belief in shamanism as superstition and for many years minimized its persistence in Korean life. Yet in a climate of growing nationalism and cultural self-confidence, the dances, songs, and incantations that compose the kut have come to be recognized as an important aspect of Korean culture. Beginning in the 1970s, rituals that formerly had been kept out of foreign view began to resurface, and occasionally a Western hotel manager or other executive could even be seen attending a shamanistic exorcism ritual in the course of opening a new branch in Seoul. Some of these aspects of kut have been designated valuable cultural properties that should be preserved and passed on to future generations.

 

The future of shamanism itself was uncertain in the late 1980s. Observers believed that many of its functions in the future probably will be performed by the psychiatric profession as the government expands mental health treatment facilities. Given the uncertainty of social, economic, and political conditions, however, it appears certain that shamans will find large numbers of clients for some time to come.

 

Buddhism and Confucianism

 

Buddhism was the dominant religious and cultural influence during the Silla (668–935) and Koryo (918–1392) dynasties. Confucianism also was brought to Korea from China in early Three Kingdoms period, but it occupied a subordinate position until the establishment of the Choson Dynasty where it became the state ideology.

 

Christianity

 

Roman Catholic missionaries did not arrive in Korea until 1794, a decade after the return of the first baptized Korean from a visit to Beijing. However, the writings of the Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci, who was resident at the imperial court in Beijing, had been brought to Korea from China in the seventeenth century. It appears that scholars of the Sirhak, or practical learning, school were interested in these writings. Largely because converts refused to perform ancestor rites, the government prohibited the proselytization of Christianity. Some Catholics were executed during the early nineteenth century, but the anti-Christian law was not strictly enforced. By the 1860s, there were some 17,500 Roman Catholics in the country. There followed a more rigorous persecution, in which thousands of Christians died, that continued until 1884.

 

Protestant missionaries entered Korea during the 1880s and, along with Catholic priests, converted a remarkable number of Koreans. Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries were especially successful. They established schools, universities, hospitals, and orphanages and played a significant role in the modernization of the country. During the Japanese colonial occupation, Christians were in the front ranks of the struggle for independence. Factors contributing to the growth of Protestantism included the disorganized state of Korean Buddhism, the efforts made by educated Christians to reconcile Christian and Confucian values (the latter being viewed as purely a social ethic rather than a religion), the encouragement of self-support and selfgovernment among members of the Korean church, and the identification of Christianity with Korean nationalism.

 

A large number of Christians lived in the northern part of the peninsula where Confucian influence was not as strong as in the south. Before 1948 P'yongyang was an important Christian center: one-sixth of its population of about 300,000 people were converts. Following the establishment of a communist regime in the north, however, most Christians had to flee to South Korea or face persecution.

 

New religions

 

Ch'ondogyo, generally regarded as the first of Korea's "new religions," is another important religious tradition. It is a synthesis of Confucian, Buddhist, shamanistic, Daoist, and Catholic influences. Ch'ondogyo grew out of the Donghak Movement (also called Eastern Learning Movement) established by Choe Je-u, a man of yangban background who claimed to have experienced a mystic encounter with God, who told him to preach to all the world. Ch'oe was executed by the government as a heretic in 1863, but not before he had acquired a number of followers and had committed his ideas to writing. Tonghak spread among the poor people of Korea's villages, especially in the Cholla region, and was the cause of a revolt against the royal government in 1894. While some members of the Tonghak Movement-- renamed Ch'ondogyo (Teachings of the Heavenly Way)--supported the Japanese annexation in 1910, others opposed it. This group played a major role, along with Christians and some Confucians, in the Korean nationalist movement. In the 1920s, Ch'ondogyo sponsored Kaebyok (Creation), one of Korea's major intellectual journals during the colonial period.

 

Ch'ondogyo's basic beliefs include the essential equality of all human beings. Each person must be treated with respect because all persons "contain divinity;" there is "God in man." Moreover, men and women must sincerely cultivate themselves in order to bring forth and express this divinity in their lives. Self-perfection, not ritual and ceremony, is the way to salvation. Although Ch'oe and his followers did not attempt to overthrow the social order and establish a radical egalitarianism, the revolutionary potential of Ch'ondogyo is evident in these basic ideas, which appealed especially to poor people who were told that they, along with scholars and high officials, could achieve salvation through effort. There is reason to believe that Ch'ondogyo had an important role in the development of democratic and anti-authoritarian thought in Korea. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ch'ondogyo's antecedent, the Tonghak Movement, received renewed interest among many Korean intellectuals.

 

Apart from Ch'ondogyo, major new religions included Taejonggyo, which has as its central creed the worship of Tangun, legendary founder of the Korean nation. Chungsanggyo, founded in the early twentieth century by Chungsan Kang, emphasizes magical practices and the creation of a paradise on earth. It is divided into a great number of competing branches, the largest being Jeungsando and Daesun Jinrihoe.[7] Wonbulgyo, or Won Buddhism, attempts to combine traditional Buddhist doctrine with a modern concern for social reform and revitalization. There are also a number of small sects which have sprung up around Mount Kyeryong in South Ch'ungch'ong Province, the supposed future site of the founding of a new dynasty originally prophesied in the eighteenth century.

 

Several new religions derive their inspiration from Christianity. The Chondogwan, or Evangelical Church, was founded by Pak T'ae-son. Pak originally was a Presbyterian, but was expelled from the church for heresy in the 1950s after claiming for himself unique spiritual power. By 1972 his followers numbered as many as 700,000 people, and he built several "Christian towns," established a large church network, and managed several industrial enterprises.

 

Because of its overseas evangelism, the Hold Spirit Association for the Unification of the World Christianity, or Unification Church (T'ongilgyo), founded in 1954 by Reverend Sun Myong Moon (Mun Son-myong), also a former Christian, is the most famous Korean new religion. During its period of vigorous expansion during the 1970s, the Unification Church had several hundred thousand members in South Korea and Japan and a substantial (although generally overestimated) number of members in North America and Western Europe. Moon claimed that he was the "messiah" designated by God to unify all the peoples of the world into one "family," governed theocratically by himself. Like Pak's Evangelical Church, the Unification Church has been highly authoritarian, demanding absolute obedience from church members. Moon, for example, has arranged marriages for his younger followers; United States television audiences were treated some years ago to a mass ceremony at which several hundred young "Moonies" were married. Also like Pak, Moon has coupled the church's fortunes to economic expansion. Factories in South Korea and abroad manufacture arms and process ginseng and seafood, artistic bric-a-brac, and other items. Moon's labor force has worked long hours and been paid minimal wages in order to channel profits into church coffers. Virulently anticommunist, Moon has sought to influence public opinion at home and abroad by establishing generally unprofitable newspapers such as the Segye Ilbo in Seoul, the Sekai Nippo in Tokyo, and the Washington Times in the United States capital, and by inviting academics to lavish international conferences, often held in South Korea. At home, the Unification Church was viewed with suspicion by the authorities because of its scandals and Moon's evident desire to create a "state within a state." His influence, however, had declined by the late 1980s.

 

Islam

 

The number of Muslims in South Korea is estimated at about 35,000 mainly consisting of people who converted during the Korean War and their descendents and not including migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia. The largest mosque is the Seoul Central Mosque in the Itaewon district of Seoul; smaller mosques can be found in most of the country's major cities.[8]

 

In addition to native Korean Muslims, there are some 100,000 foreign workers from Muslim countries,[9] particularly Bangladesh and Pakistan.[

  

Judaism

 

The Jewish presence in South Korea effectively began with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. At this time a large number of Jewish soldiers, including the chaplain Chaim Potok, came to the Korean peninsula. Today the Jewish community is very small and limited to the Seoul metropolitan area. There have been very few Korean converts to Judaism.

 

Capitol Reef National Park is an American national park in south-central Utah. The park is approximately 60 miles (97 km) long on its north–south axis and just 6 miles (9.7 km) wide on average. The park was established in 1971 to preserve 241,904 acres (377.98 sq mi; 97,895.08 ha; 978.95 km2) of desert landscape and is open all year, with May through September being the highest visitation months.

 

Partially in Wayne County, Utah, the area was originally named "Wayne Wonderland" in the 1920s by local boosters Ephraim P. Pectol and Joseph S. Hickman. Capitol Reef National Park was designated a national monument on August 2, 1937, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the area's colorful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths; however, it was not until 1950 that the area officially opened to the public. Road access was improved in 1962 with the construction of State Route 24 through the Fremont River Canyon.

 

The majority of the nearly 100 mi (160 km) long up-thrust formation called the Waterpocket Fold—a rocky spine extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell—is preserved within the park. Capitol Reef is an especially rugged and spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold by the Fremont River. The park was named for its whitish Navajo Sandstone cliffs with dome formations—similar to the white domes often placed on capitol buildings—that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold. Locally, reef refers to any rocky barrier to land travel, just as ocean reefs are barriers to sea travel.

 

Capitol Reef encompasses the Waterpocket Fold, a warp in the earth's crust that is 65 million years old. It is the largest exposed monocline in North America. In this fold, newer and older layers of earth folded over each other in an S-shape. This warp, probably caused by the same colliding continental plates that created the Rocky Mountains, has weathered and eroded over millennia to expose layers of rock and fossils. The park is filled with brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs, gleaming white domes, and contrasting layers of stone and earth.

 

The area was named for a line of white domes and cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, each of which looks somewhat like the United States Capitol building, that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold.

 

The fold forms a north-to-south barrier that has barely been breached by roads. Early settlers referred to parallel impassable ridges as "reefs", from which the park gets the second half of its name. The first paved road was constructed through the area in 1962. State Route 24 cuts through the park traveling east and west between Canyonlands National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, but few other paved roads invade the rugged landscape.

 

The park is filled with canyons, cliffs, towers, domes, and arches. The Fremont River has cut canyons through parts of the Waterpocket Fold, but most of the park is arid desert. A scenic drive shows park visitors some highlights, but it runs only a few miles from the main highway. Hundreds of miles of trails and unpaved roads lead into the equally scenic backcountry.

 

Fremont-culture Native Americans lived near the perennial Fremont River in the northern part of the Capitol Reef Waterpocket Fold around the year 1000. They irrigated crops of maize and squash and stored their grain in stone granaries (in part made from the numerous black basalt boulders that litter the area). In the 13th century, all of the Native American cultures in this area underwent sudden change, likely due to a long drought. The Fremont settlements and fields were abandoned.

 

Many years after the Fremont left, Paiutes moved into the area. These Numic-speaking people named the Fremont granaries moki huts and thought they were the homes of a race of tiny people or moki.

 

In 1872 Almon H. Thompson, a geographer attached to United States Army Major John Wesley Powell's expedition, crossed the Waterpocket Fold while exploring the area. Geologist Clarence Dutton later spent several summers studying the area's geology. None of these expeditions explored the Waterpocket Fold to any great extent.

 

Following the American Civil War, officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City sought to establish missions in the remotest niches of the Intermountain West. In 1866, a quasi-military expedition of Mormons in pursuit of natives penetrated the high valleys to the west. In the 1870s, settlers moved into these valleys, eventually establishing Loa, Fremont, Lyman, Bicknell, and Torrey.

 

Mormons settled the Fremont River valley in the 1880s and established Junction (later renamed Fruita), Caineville, and Aldridge. Fruita prospered, Caineville barely survived, and Aldridge died. In addition to farming, lime was extracted from local limestone, and uranium was extracted early in the 20th century. In 1904 the first claim to a uranium mine in the area was staked. The resulting Oyler Mine in Grand Wash produced uranium ore.

 

By 1920 no more than ten families at one time were sustained by the fertile flood plain of the Fremont River and the land changed ownership over the years. The area remained isolated. The community was later abandoned and later still some buildings were restored by the National Park Service. Kilns once used to produce lime are still in Sulphur Creek and near the campgrounds on Scenic Drive.

 

Local Ephraim Portman Pectol organized a "booster club" in Torrey in 1921. Pectol pressed a promotional campaign, furnishing stories to be sent to periodicals and newspapers. In his efforts, he was increasingly aided by his brother-in-law, Joseph S. Hickman, who was the Wayne County High School principal. In 1924, Hickman extended community involvement in the promotional effort by organizing a Wayne County-wide Wayne Wonderland Club. That same year, Hickman was elected to the Utah State Legislature.

 

In 1933, Pectol was elected to the presidency of the Associated Civics Club of Southern Utah, successor to the Wayne Wonderland Club. The club raised U.S. $150 (equivalent to $3,391 in 2022) to interest a Salt Lake City photographer in taking a series of promotional photographs. For several years, the photographer, J. E. Broaddus, traveled and lectured on "Wayne Wonderland".

 

In 1933, Pectol was elected to the legislature and almost immediately contacted President Franklin D. Roosevelt and asked for the creation of "Wayne Wonderland National Monument" out of the federal lands comprising the bulk of the Capitol Reef area. Federal agencies began a feasibility study and boundary assessment. Meanwhile, Pectol guided the government investigators on numerous trips and escorted an increasing number of visitors. The lectures of Broaddus were having an effect.

 

Roosevelt signed a proclamation creating Capitol Reef National Monument on August 2, 1937. In Proclamation 2246, President Roosevelt set aside 37,711 acres (15,261 ha) of the Capitol Reef area. This comprised an area extending about two miles (3 km) north of present State Route 24 and about 10 mi (16 km) south, just past Capitol Gorge. The Great Depression years were lean ones for the National Park Service (NPS), the new administering agency. Funds for the administration of Capitol Reef were nonexistent; it would be a long time before the first rangers would arrive.

 

Administration of the new monument was placed under the control of Zion National Park. A stone ranger cabin and the Sulphur Creek bridge were built and some road work was performed by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. Historian and printer Charles Kelly came to know NPS officials at Zion well and volunteered to watchdog the park for the NPS. Kelly was officially appointed custodian-without-pay in 1943. He worked as a volunteer until 1950, when the NPS offered him a civil-service appointment as the first superintendent.

 

During the 1950s Kelly was deeply troubled by NPS management acceding to demands of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission that Capitol Reef National Monument be opened to uranium prospecting. He felt that the decision had been a mistake and destructive of the long-term national interest. It turned out that there was not enough ore in the monument to be worth mining.

 

In 1958 Kelly got additional permanent help in protecting the monument and enforcing regulations; Park Ranger Grant Clark transferred from Zion. The year Clark arrived, fifty-six thousand visitors came to the park, and Charlie Kelly retired for the last time.

 

During the 1960s (under the program name Mission 66), NPS areas nationwide received new facilities to meet the demand of mushrooming park visitation. At Capitol Reef, a 53-site campground at Fruita, staff rental housing, and a new visitor center were built, the latter opening in 1966.

 

Visitation climbed dramatically after the paved, all-weather State Route 24 was built in 1962 through the Fremont River canyon near Fruita. State Route 24 replaced the narrow Capitol Gorge wagon road about 10 mi (16 km) to the south that frequently washed out. The old road has since been open only to foot traffic. In 1967, 146,598 persons visited the park. The staff was also growing.

 

During the 1960s, the NPS purchased private land parcels at Fruita and Pleasant Creek. Almost all private property passed into public ownership on a "willing buyer-willing seller" basis.

 

Preservationists convinced President Lyndon B. Johnson to set aside an enormous area of public lands in 1968, just before he left office. In Presidential Proclamation 3888 an additional 215,056 acres (87,030 ha) were placed under NPS control. By 1970, Capitol Reef National Monument comprised 254,251 acres (102,892 ha) and sprawled southeast from Thousand Lake Mountain almost to the Colorado River. The action was controversial locally, and NPS staffing at the monument was inadequate to properly manage the additional land.

 

The vast enlargement of the monument and diversification of the scenic resources soon raised another issue: whether Capitol Reef should be a national park, rather than a monument. Two bills were introduced into the United States Congress.

 

A House bill (H.R. 17152) introduced by Utah Congressman Laurence J. Burton called for a 180,000-acre (72,800 ha) national park and an adjunct 48,000-acre (19,400 ha) national recreation area where multiple use (including grazing) could continue indefinitely. In the United States Senate, meanwhile, Senate bill S. 531 had already passed on July 1, 1970, and provided for a 230,000-acre (93,100 ha) national park alone. The bill called for a 25-year phase-out of grazing.

 

In September 1970, United States Department of Interior officials told a house subcommittee session that they preferred about 254,000 acres (103,000 ha) be set aside as a national park. They also recommended that the grazing phase-out period be 10 years, rather than 25. They did not favor the adjunct recreation area.

 

It was not until late 1971 that Congressional action was completed. By then, the 92nd United States Congress was in session and S. 531 had languished. A new bill, S. 29, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah and was essentially the same as the defunct S. 531 except that it called for an additional 10,834 acres (4,384 ha) of public lands for a Capitol Reef National Park. In the House, Utah Representative K. Gunn McKay (with Representative Lloyd) had introduced H.R. 9053 to replace the dead H.R. 17152. This time, the House bill dropped the concept of an adjunct Capitol Reef National Recreation Area and adopted the Senate concept of a 25-year limit on continued grazing. The Department of Interior was still recommending a national park of 254,368 acres (102,939 ha) and a 10-year limit for grazing phase-out.

 

S. 29 passed the Senate in June and was sent to the House, which dropped its own bill and passed the Senate version with an amendment. Because the Senate was not in agreement with the House amendment, differences were worked out in Conference Committee. The Conference Committee issued its report on November 30, 1971, and the bill passed both houses of Congress. The legislation—'An Act to Establish The Capitol Reef National Park in the State of Utah'—became Public Law 92-207 when it was signed by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971.

 

The area including the park was once the edge of a shallow sea that invaded the land in the Permian, creating the Cutler Formation. Only the sandstone of the youngest member of the Cutler Formation, the White Rim, is exposed in the park. The deepening sea left carbonate deposits, forming the limestone of the Kaibab Limestone, the same formation that rims the Grand Canyon to the southwest.

 

During the Triassic, streams deposited reddish-brown silt that later became the siltstone of the Moenkopi Formation. Uplift and erosion followed. Conglomerate, followed by logs, sand, mud, and wind-transported volcanic ash, then formed the uranium-containing Chinle Formation.

 

The members of the Glen Canyon Group were all laid down in the middle- to late-Triassic during a time of increasing aridity. They include:

 

Wingate Sandstone: sand dunes on the shore of an ancient sea

Kayenta Formation: thin-bedded layers of sand deposited by slow-moving streams in channels and across low plains

Navajo Sandstone: huge fossilized sand dunes from a massive Sahara-like desert.

 

The Golden Throne. Though Capitol Reef is famous for white domes of Navajo Sandstone, this dome's color is a result of a lingering section of yellow Carmel Formation carbonate, which has stained the underlying rock.

The San Rafael Group consists of four Jurassic-period formations, from oldest to youngest:

 

Carmel Formation: gypsum, sand, and limey silt laid down in what may have been a graben that was periodically flooded by sea water

Entrada Sandstone: sandstone from barrier islands/sand bars in a near-shore environment

Curtis Formation: made from conglomerate, sandstone, and shale

Summerville Formation: reddish-brown mud and white sand deposited in tidal flats.

Streams once again laid down mud and sand in their channels, on lakebeds, and in swampy plains, creating the Morrison Formation. Early in the Cretaceous, similar nonmarine sediments were laid down and became the Dakota Sandstone. Eventually, the Cretaceous Seaway covered the Dakota, depositing the Mancos Shale.

 

Only small remnants of the Mesaverde Group are found, capping a few mesas in the park's eastern section.

 

Near the end of the Cretaceous period, a mountain-building event called the Laramide orogeny started to compact and uplift the region, forming the Rocky Mountains and creating monoclines such as the Waterpocket Fold in the park. Ten to fifteen million years ago, the entire region was uplifted much further by the creation of the Colorado Plateau. This uplift was very even. Igneous activity in the form of volcanism and dike and sill intrusion also occurred during this time.

 

The drainage system in the area was rearranged and steepened, causing streams to downcut faster and sometimes change course. Wetter times during the ice ages of the Pleistocene increased the rate of erosion.

 

There are more than 840 species of plants that are found in the park and over 40 of those species are classified as rare and endemic.

 

The closest town to Capitol Reef is Torrey, about 11 mi (18 km) west of the visitor center on Highway 24, slightly west of its intersection with Highway 12. Its 2020 population is less than 300. Torrey has a few motels and restaurants and functions as a gateway town to Capitol Reef National Park. Highway 12, as well as a partially unpaved scenic backway named the Burr Trail, provide access from the west through the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument and the town of Boulder.

 

A variety of activities are available to tourists, both ranger-led and self-guided, including auto touring, hiking, backpacking, camping, bicycling (on paved and unpaved roads only; no trails), horseback riding, canyoneering, and rock climbing. The orchards planted by Mormon pioneers are maintained by the National Park Service. From early March to mid-October, various fruit—cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, or apples—can be harvested by visitors for a fee.

 

A hiking trail guide is available at the visitor center for both day hikes and backcountry hiking. Backcountry access requires a free permit.

 

Numerous trails are available for hiking and backpacking in the park, with fifteen in the Fruita District alone. The following trails are some of the most popular in the park:

 

Cassidy Arch Trail: a very steep, strenuous 3.5 mi (5.6 km) round trip that leads into the Grand Wash to an overlook of the Cassidy Arch.

Hickman Bridge Trail: a 2 mi (3.2 km) round trip leading to the natural bridge.

Frying Pan Trail: an 8.8 mi (14.2 km) round trip that passes the Cassidy Arch, Grand Wash, and Cohab Canyon.

Brimhall Natural Bridge: a popular, though strenuous, 4.5 mi (7.2 km) round trip with views of Brimhall Canyon, the Waterpocket Fold, and Brimhall Natural Bridge.

Halls Creek Narrows: 22 mi (35 km) long and considered strenuous, with many side canyons and creeks; typically hiked as a 2-3 day camping trip.

 

Visitors may explore several of the main areas of the park by private vehicle:

 

Scenic Drive: winds through the middle of the park, passing the major points of interest; the road is accessible from the visitor center to approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) into the Capitol Gorge.

Notom-Bullfrog Road: traverses the eastern side of the Waterpocket Fold, along 10 mi (16 km) of paved road, with the remainder unpaved.

Cathedral Road: an unpaved road through the northern areas of the park, that traverses Cathedral Valley, passing the Temples of the Sun and Moon.

 

The primary camping location is the Fruita campground, with 71 campsites (no water, electrical, or sewer hookups), and restrooms without bathing facilities. The campground also has group sites with picnic areas and restrooms. Two primitive free camping areas are also available.

 

Canyoneering is growing in popularity in the park. It is a recreational sport that takes one through slot canyons. It involves rappelling and may require swimming and other technical rope work. Day-pass permits are required for canyoneering in the park, and can be obtained for free from the visitor's center or through email. It's key to know that each route requires its own permit. If one is planning on canyoneering for multiple days, passes are required for each day. Overnight camping as part of the canyoneering trip is permitted, but one must request a free backcountry pass from the visitor center.

 

It is imperative to plan canyoneering trips around the weather. The Colorado Plateau is susceptible to flash flooding during prime rainy months. Because canyoneering takes place through slot canyons, getting caught in a flash flood could be lethal. Take care to consult reliable weather sources. The Weather Atlas shows charts with the monthly average rainfall in inches.

 

Another risk to be aware of during the summer months is extreme heat. Visitors can find weather warnings on the National Weather Service website. The heat levels are detailed by a color and numerical scale (0-4).

 

One of the most popular canyoneering routes in Capitol Reef National Park is Cassidy Arch Canyon. A paper by George Huddart, details the park's commitment to working with citizens to maintain the route as well as the vegetation and rocks. The canyon route is approximately 2.3 miles long (0.4 miles of technical work), consisting of 8 different rappels, and takes between 2.5 and 4.5 hours to complete. The first rappel is 140 ft and descends below the famous Cassidy Arch.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

I saw my first-of-year Bluebird just 9 days ago, but didn’t get any decent photos. Today however, I found at least 4 birds and got within photo range more than once. With this nearly nonexistent winter, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s still February and not April. Hennepin County, MN 02/21/24

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

Editor's Note: Here is a story about a somewhat traumatic thing I saw yesterday on the Chicago Transit Authority's Green Line. If you are a person negatively affected by reading accounts of somewhat traumatic things, you should perhaps not read on.

 

I had a strange and sad experience on the Green Line on the way home yesterday afternoon. Here's a picture I took in the middle of it, as I was standing with a bunch of people beneath the Green Line tracks at the Pulaski Station. I never get off at Pulaski. Here, I'd gotten off with everybody else on the train.

 

Here's what happened.

 

I got lucky when I climbed up onto the platform at Clinton just as the train pulled into the station, and I almost hopped onto the car that stopped right in front of me. Instead, I moved one car forward, and I'm glad I did. For one thing, one of the backward-facing seats by the window was open, and I always prefer those to the aisle-facing seats. For another thing, I avoided directly experiencing what happened here.

 

The ride was normal for a while, though we stopped for an unusual amount of time at the Garfield Park Conservatory station. It wasn't much. We sat for maybe an extra minute or two before we moved on, and I now suspect that's because people were talking to the train operator over the intercom. But then at the next station, Pulaski, we sat for a good five minutes. The doors were open, and it was cold, and I was starting to get concerned. And then somebody from the next car walked into the door and said, "If you all are wondering why we're sitting here, it's because somebody just died in the next car. That's why we're stopped."

 

Now, that's just not the kind of thing you regularly hear on a commute, and it took a minute for it to sink in. I heard a woman's voice behind me call out, "For real?" And the guy, visibly shaken, just kind of nodded. "For real," he said. "I think it's a heart attack or a drug overdose or something. But he's dead."

 

A large group of loud high school kids had gotten on a couple of stops earlier, and they got all excited and jumped off the car to go see. They wound up intermingled with all the people who'd been on the next car and had exited but were still gathered around the doorway. One woman who'd been on that car shook her head and stared at the kids in exasperation. "He is dead, you all," she said. "He is blue. For real. Why do you want to see that?"

 

But everybody except me and a couple of other people had left my car by that time and joined the crowd by the door of the next car up, craning their necks to take a look. So after about five minutes, I went to take a look, too.

 

Each CTA car is equipped with a little compartment on one end that can be closed to create a driver compartment. If a car isn't driving the train, this compartment is left open so that people can go in there and sit. A lot of people call this the "hobo corner," because you often find homeless people camped out there. That compartment was empty on my car, so I got up and went into the compartment to see what I could see of the next car through the windows.

 

The next car was empty, all except for one person. He was facing me, slumped against the window in one of the forward-facing seats. He was a small man, maybe my age, maybe younger if he'd had a rough life. Color seemed to have left him, and he almost didn't look real, almost as if he'd come from a black-and-white world. I've never seen a dead person outside of a funeral home, when they've been prepared by people skilled at making a body mimic life. There was no mimicry here. This person was obviously gone.

 

The paramedics finally arrived as I was standing there, and I watched them flood the car and lift the man from his seat, lay him on the floor, and start chest compressions, and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I should have been doing that all along. I don't know that it would have made a difference. I don't know how long he'd been gone by the time the train stopped, and we had been stopped ten minutes before I got up and saw him. He'd looked so unreal that it had never occurred to me that maybe there was something to be done. About that time, somebody shoved in next to me with a telephone to film the thing, and that's when I decided I'd seen enough and went back to sit down.

 

I sat for another ten minutes and thought about the world while the train driver made periodic announcements about the possibility of shuttle buses coming to take us along the route. I texted Robin at one point to let her know I was stuck on the train and that getting home might be an ordeal, then my phone battery died. And then finally, the train operator told us all to go down to the street to catch shuttle buses, which turned out not to be there. And that's where I took this picture, as everybody was standing around looking for nonexistent shuttle buses.

 

Robin got online after I texted her to check the CTA status board. The Green Line was experiencing "significant delays between Ashland and Harlem because of a sick passenger at Pulaski," and was shut down in both directions. I looked this morning to see what the news had to say about this, but evidently this wasn't a significant enough event to make the news. That's just the kind of city this is.

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

(Photo montage using Illustration by Matt Mahurin)

 

The complete article ( www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_ele... ), with Web-only citations, follows. Talk about it in our National Affairs blog, or see exclusive documents, sources, charts and comment www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=171ary.

 

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House. BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

  

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush -- and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in ''tinfoil hats,'' while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ''conspiracy theories,''(1) and The New York Times declared that ''there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.''(2)

 

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

 

The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count.(11)

 

Any election, of course, will have anomalies. America's voting system is a messy patchwork of polling rules run mostly by county and city officials. ''We didn't have one election for president in 2004,'' says Robert Pastor, who directs the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University. ''We didn't have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.''

 

But what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.(13) (See Ohio's Missing Votes) In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots.(14) And that doesn?t even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.(15)

 

''It was terrible,'' says Sen. Christopher Dodd, who helped craft reforms in 2002 that were supposed to prevent such electoral abuses. ''People waiting in line for twelve hours to cast their ballots, people not being allowed to vote because they were in the wrong precinct -- it was an outrage. In Ohio, you had a secretary of state who was determined to guarantee a Republican outcome. I'm terribly disheartened.''

 

Indeed, the extent of the GOP's effort to rig the vote shocked even the most experienced observers of American elections. ''Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen,'' Lou Harris, the father of modern political polling, told me. ''You look at the turnout and votes in individual precincts, compared to the historic patterns in those counties, and you can tell where the discrepancies are. They stand out like a sore thumb.''

 

I. The Exit Polls

The first indication that something was gravely amiss on November 2nd, 2004, was the inexplicable discrepancies between exit polls and actual vote counts. Polls in thirty states weren't just off the mark -- they deviated to an extent that cannot be accounted for by their margin of error. In all but four states, the discrepancy favored President Bush.(16)

 

Over the past decades, exit polling has evolved into an exact science. Indeed, among pollsters and statisticians, such surveys are thought to be the most reliable. Unlike pre-election polls, in which voters are asked to predict their own behavior at some point in the future, exit polls ask voters leaving the voting booth to report an action they just executed. The results are exquisitely accurate: Exit polls in Germany, for example, have never missed the mark by more than three-tenths of one percent.(17) ''Exit polls are almost never wrong,'' Dick Morris, a political consultant who has worked for both Republicans and Democrats, noted after the 2004 vote. Such surveys are ''so reliable,'' he added, ''that they are used as guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World countries.''(18) In 2003, vote tampering revealed by exit polling in the Republic of Georgia forced Eduard Shevardnadze to step down.(19) And in November 2004, exit polling in the Ukraine -- paid for by the Bush administration -- exposed election fraud that denied Viktor Yushchenko the presidency.(20)

 

But that same month, when exit polls revealed disturbing disparities in the U.S. election, the six media organizations that had commissioned the survey treated its very existence as an embarrassment. Instead of treating the discrepancies as a story meriting investigation, the networks scrubbed the offending results from their Web sites and substituted them with ''corrected'' numbers that had been weighted, retroactively, to match the official vote count. Rather than finding fault with the election results, the mainstream media preferred to dismiss the polls as flawed.(21)

 

''The people who ran the exit polling, and all those of us who were their clients, recognized that it was deeply flawed,'' says Tom Brokaw, who served as anchor for NBC News during the 2004 election. ''They were really screwed up -- the old models just don't work anymore. I would not go on the air with them again.''

 

In fact, the exit poll created for the 2004 election was designed to be the most reliable voter survey in history. The six news organizations -- running the ideological gamut from CBS to Fox News -- retained Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International,(22) whose principal, Warren Mitofsky, pioneered the exit poll for CBS in 1967(23) and is widely credited with assuring the credibility of Mexico's elections in 1994.(24) For its nationwide poll, Edison/Mitofsky selected a random subsample of 12,219 voters(25) -- approximately six times larger than those normally used in national polls(26) -- driving the margin of error down to approximately plus or minus one percent.(27)

 

On the evening of the vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed, had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call.(28) In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating his relationship with President-elect Kerry.(29)

 

As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states -- including commanding leads in Ohio and Florida -- and winning by a million and a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing down Bush's neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North Carolina.(30) Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000.(31) ''Either the exit polls, by and large, are completely wrong,'' a Fox News analyst declared, ''or George Bush loses.''(32)

 

But as the evening progressed, official tallies began to show implausible disparities -- as much as 9.5 percent -- with the exit polls. In ten of the eleven battleground states, the tallied margins departed from what the polls had predicted. In every case, the shift favored Bush. Based on exit polls, CNN had predicted Kerry defeating Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points. Instead, election results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent. Bush also tallied 6.5 percent more than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9 percent more in Florida.(33)

 

According to Steven F. Freeman, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in research methodology, the odds against all three of those shifts occurring in concert are one in 660,000. ''As much as we can say in sound science that something is impossible,'' he says, ''it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote count in the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error.'' (See The Tale of the Exit Polls)

 

Puzzled by the discrepancies, Freeman laboriously examined the raw polling data released by Edison/Mitofsky in January 2005. ''I'm not even political -- I despise the Democrats,'' he says. ''I'm a survey expert. I got into this because I was mystified about how the exit polls could have been so wrong.'' In his forthcoming book, Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count, Freeman lays out a statistical analysis of the polls that is deeply troubling.

 

In its official postmortem report issued two months after the election, Edison/Mitofsky was unable to identify any flaw in its methodology -- so the pollsters, in essence, invented one for the electorate. According to Mitofsky, Bush partisans were simply disinclined to talk to exit pollsters on November 2nd(34) -- displaying a heretofore unknown and undocumented aversion that skewed the polls in Kerry's favor by a margin of 6.5 percent nationwide.(35)

 

Industry peers didn't buy it. John Zogby, one of the nation's leading pollsters, told me that Mitofsky's ''reluctant responder'' hypothesis is ''preposterous.''(36) Even Mitofsky, in his official report, underscored the hollowness of his theory: ''It is difficult to pinpoint precisely the reasons that, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters.''(37)

 

Now, thanks to careful examination of Mitofsky's own data by Freeman and a team of eight researchers, we can say conclusively that the theory is dead wrong. In fact it was Democrats, not Republicans, who were more disinclined to answer pollsters' questions on Election Day. In Bush strongholds, Freeman and the other researchers found that fifty-six percent of voters completed the exit survey -- compared to only fifty-three percent in Kerry strongholds.(38) ''The data presented to support the claim not only fails to substantiate it,'' observes Freeman, ''but actually contradicts it.''

 

What's more, Freeman found, the greatest disparities between exit polls and the official vote count came in Republican strongholds. In precincts where Bush received at least eighty percent of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of ten percent. By contrast, in precincts where Kerry dominated by eighty percent or more, the exit polls were accurate to within three tenths of one percent -- a pattern that suggests Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in Bush country.(39)

 

''When you look at the numbers, there is a tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of election fraud,'' concludes Freeman. ''The discrepancies are higher in battleground states, higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with greater proportions of African-American communities and higher in states where there were the most Election Day complaints. All these are strong indicators of fraud -- and yet this supposition has been utterly ignored by the press and, oddly, by the Democratic Party.''

 

The evidence is especially strong in Ohio. In January, a team of mathematicians from the National Election Data Archive, a nonpartisan watchdog group, compared the state's exit polls against the certified vote count in each of the forty-nine precincts polled by Edison/Mitofsky. In twenty-two of those precincts -- nearly half of those polled -- they discovered results that differed widely from the official tally. Once again -- against all odds -- the widespread discrepancies were stacked massively in Bush's favor: In only two of the suspect twenty-two precincts did the disparity benefit Kerry. The wildest discrepancy came from the precinct Mitofsky numbered ''27,'' in order to protect the anonymity of those surveyed. According to the exit poll, Kerry should have received sixty-seven percent of the vote in this precinct. Yet the certified tally gave him only thirty-eight percent. The statistical odds against such a variance are just shy of one in 3 billion.(40)

 

Such results, according to the archive, provide ''virtually irrefutable evidence of vote miscount.'' The discrepancies, the experts add, ''are consistent with the hypothesis that Kerry would have won Ohio's electoral votes if Ohio's official vote counts had accurately reflected voter intent.''(41) According to Ron Baiman, vice president of the archive and a public policy analyst at Loyola University in Chicago, ''No rigorous statistical explanation'' can explain the ''completely nonrandom'' disparities that almost uniformly benefited Bush. The final results, he adds, are ''completely consistent with election fraud -- specifically vote shifting.''

 

II. The Partisan Official

No state was more important in the 2004 election than Ohio. The state has been key to every Republican presidential victory since Abraham Lincoln's, and both parties overwhelmed the state with television ads, field organizers and volunteers in an effort to register new voters and energize old ones. Bush and Kerry traveled to Ohio a total of forty-nine times during the campaign -- more than to any other state.(42)

 

But in the battle for Ohio, Republicans had a distinct advantage: The man in charge of the counting was Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of President Bush's re-election committee.(43) As Ohio's secretary of state, Blackwell had broad powers to interpret and implement state and federal election laws -- setting standards for everything from the processing of voter registration to the conduct of official recounts.(44) And as Bush's re-election chair in Ohio, he had a powerful motivation to rig the rules for his candidate. Blackwell, in fact, served as the ''principal electoral system adviser'' for Bush during the 2000 recount in Florida,(45) where he witnessed firsthand the success of his counterpart Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state who co-chaired Bush's campaign there.(46)

 

Blackwell -- now the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio(47) -- is well-known in the state as a fierce partisan eager to rise in the GOP. An outspoken leader of Ohio's right-wing fundamentalists, he opposes abortion even in cases of rape(48) and was the chief cheerleader for the anti-gay-marriage amendment that Republicans employed to spark turnout in rural counties(49). He has openly denounced Kerry as ''an unapologetic liberal Democrat,''(50) and during the 2004 election he used his official powers to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens in Democratic strongholds. In a ruling issued two weeks before the election, a federal judge rebuked Blackwell for seeking to ''accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000.''(51)

 

''The secretary of state is supposed to administer elections -- not throw them,'' says Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Cleveland who has dealt with Blackwell for years. ''The election in Ohio in 2004 stands out as an example of how, under color of law, a state election official can frustrate the exercise of the right to vote.''

 

The most extensive investigation of what happened in Ohio was conducted by Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.(52) Frustrated by his party's failure to follow up on the widespread evidence of voter intimidation and fraud, Conyers and the committee's minority staff held public hearings in Ohio, where they looked into more than 50,000 complaints from voters.(53) In January 2005, Conyers issued a detailed report that outlined ''massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio.'' The problems, the report concludes, were ''caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.''(54)

 

''Blackwell made Katherine Harris look like a cupcake,'' Conyers told me. ''He saw his role as limiting the participation of Democratic voters. We had hearings in Columbus for two days. We could have stayed two weeks, the level of fury was so high. Thousands of people wanted to testify. Nothing like this had ever happened to them before.''

 

When ROLLING STONE confronted Blackwell about his overtly partisan attempts to subvert the election, he dismissed any such claim as ''silly on its face.'' Ohio, he insisted in a telephone interview, set a ''gold standard'' for electoral fairness. In fact, his campaign to subvert the will of the voters had begun long before Election Day. Instead of welcoming the avalanche of citizen involvement sparked by the campaign, Blackwell permitted election officials in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive purge of their voter rolls, summarily expunging the names of more than 300,000 voters who had failed to cast ballots in the previous two national elections.(55) In Cleveland, which went five-to-one for Kerry, nearly one in four voters were wiped from the rolls between 2000 and 2004.(56)

 

There were legitimate reasons to clean up voting lists: Many of the names undoubtedly belonged to people who had moved or died. But thousands more were duly registered voters who were deprived of their constitutional right to vote -- often without any notification -- simply because they had decided not to go to the polls in prior elections.(57) In Cleveland's precinct 6C, where more than half the voters on the rolls were deleted,(58) turnout was only 7.1 percent(59) -- the lowest in the state.

 

According to the Conyers report, improper purging ''likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide.''(60) If only one in ten of the 300,000 purged voters showed up on Election Day -- a conservative estimate, according to election scholars -- that is 30,000 citizens who were unfairly denied the opportunity to cast ballots.

 

III. The Strike Force

In the months leading up to the election, Ohio was in the midst of the biggest registration drive in its history. Tens of thousands of volunteers and paid political operatives from both parties canvassed the state, racing to register new voters in advance of the October 4th deadline. To those on the ground, it was clear that Democrats were outpacing their Republican counterparts: A New York Times analysis before the election found that new registrations in traditional Democratic strongholds were up 250 percent, compared to only twenty-five percent in Republican-leaning counties.(61) ''The Democrats have been beating the pants off us in the air and on the ground,'' a GOP county official in Columbus confessed to The Washington Times.(62)

 

To stem the tide of new registrations, the Republican National Committee and the Ohio Republican Party attempted to knock tens of thousands of predominantly minority and urban voters off the rolls through illegal mailings known in electioneering jargon as ''caging.'' During the Eighties, after the GOP used such mailings to disenfranchise nearly 76,000 black voters in New Jersey and Louisiana, it was forced to sign two separate court orders agreeing to abstain from caging.(63) But during the summer of 2004, the GOP targeted minority voters in Ohio by zip code, sending registered letters to more than 200,000 newly registered voters(64) in sixty-five counties.(65) On October 22nd, a mere eleven days before the election, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett -- who also chairs the board of elections in Cuyahoga County -- sought to invalidate the registrations of 35,427 voters who had refused to sign for the letters or whose mail came back as undeliverable.(66) Almost half of the challenged voters were from Democratic strongholds in and around Cleveland.(67)

 

There were plenty of valid reasons that voters had failed to respond to the mailings: The list included people who couldn't sign for the letters because they were serving in the U.S. military, college students whose school and home addresses differed,(68) and more than 1,000 homeless people who had no permanent mailing address.(69) But the undeliverable mail, Bennett claimed, proved the new registrations were fraudulent.

 

By law, each voter was supposed to receive a hearing before being stricken from the rolls.(70) Instead, in the week before the election, kangaroo courts were rapidly set up across the state at Blackwell's direction that would inevitably disenfranchise thousands of voters at a time(71) -- a process that one Democratic election official in Toledo likened to an ''inquisition.''(72) Not that anyone was given a chance to actually show up and defend their right to vote: Notices to challenged voters were not only sent out impossibly late in the process, they were mailed to the very addresses that the Republicans contended were faulty.(73) Adding to the atmosphere of intimidation, sheriff's detectives in Sandusky County were dispatched to the homes of challenged voters to investigate the GOP's claims of fraud.(74)

   

Name: Skidawkie

 

Class: Sentient Species

 

Appearance: Skidawkie are incredibly similar to Toa in appearance, being a bipedal humanoid. The only noticeable physical differences are that the Skidawkie have fewer gaps and holes in their grafted armor; most of their pistons, other mechanical parts, and organic pieces are hidden by the armor; longer, more skeletal fingers; generally six feet tall; and their faces look a lot like the masks of their power.

 

Physiology: Like most Matoran Universe Beings, Skidawkie are biomechanical beings, mostly machine with various organic parts that help maintain the mechanical parts. Despite their similarities to Toa, they're slower, weaker, and less durable than the Toa, but they are physically more powerful and faster than Matoran and Turaga. Blows that would otherwise just knock down a Toa could easily severely injure or kill a Skidawkie, only able to survive due to their incredible healing abilities. Their bodies can heal incredibly quick, repairing damage as it's being taking and pushing out physical items hitting/in their bodies and even repair their armor. Though to help them even further, they have greater senses than Toa possess: better sight (can see farther and nightvision on par with Toa of Earth), hearing (close, but not quite on Toa of Sonics level), smell, balance, flexibility and reflexes, acrobatics (better than Toa of Air), response times, accuracy, and sense of danger. They have great kinetic senses, able to feel and sense the changes of energy (I.E. able to feel a pillar of earth/stone about to rise underneath them or a blast of energy coming towards their back). While having about the same intelligence level as Toa, their minds can process information faster and break out of illusions or tricks quicker as a result.

 

Powers: For their powers, it is separated into three categories: Mask/Disk powers (Primary), Metru Kanoka powers (Secondary), and Elemental (Tertiary).

 

Primary: Their primary power is that of Kanohi, Kanoka, or Krana. Originally they were only able to do the same as these masks, but have since evolved and become more powerful, something more akin to Toa Elemental Powers. At base levels, they can create, alter, and even absorb whatever power they possess, but it is not always guaranteed that they will be able to do all three. For example, a Skidawkie who's primary power is that of the Great Hau can create force fields that can protect against all physical attacks, even against unknown or unseen attacks. He can form the energy into weapons or whatever construct he can imagine and deactivate the Hau shield and other similar force field energies. Or as another example, a Skidawkie could have the Kanoka power of Weakening and thus able to greatly weaken structures, but unable to remove/absorb weakness.

 

Though there are some minor limitations to their primary power, or at least what a Skidawkie might get as their primary power. Legendary mask powers are impossible for them to have and the rarer the mask, the rarer it is for a Skidawkie to have that power. So Skidawkie with the power of an Olmak are near to nonexistent. Skidawkie could have the power of Nuva masks if they are Destined to become Nuva and changed by Energized Protodermis, but do not exist naturally. Ones that receive a Noble version of the power instead of a Great can result in having different abilities given that some Noble masks work differently than their Great counterparts instead of just being weaker versions.

 

Skidawkie are able to use Kanohi, but not all of them can use Great and Noble masks. Some can only use Noble while others can use both, depending on what power they received. While Skidawkie do not grow physically weaker when they lose their Kanohi, they do lose access to their primary power. If they wear a mask that does not have the same power as their own, they can still use their main power, but it will be halved. Hence why most Skidawkie wear the mask that is the same as their own power (i.e. have the power of a Great Hau, going to wear the Great Hau).

 

Secondary: The secondary power Skidawkie possess is based upon the Metru exclusive traits of Kanoka disks and can affect their personality, powers, and physical traits. For example, one that has the power of Ta-Metru will be physically stronger and have an easier time moving things out of the way. Or the Ga-Metru power, able to do physics defying stunts by being able to suddenly course correct jumps, spins, etc.

 

Though unlike the primary power, this one isn't nearly as random. It is usually determined by what element the Skidawkie has, so a Skidawkie of Fire is more likely to have the Ta-Metru trait. However, if they are a secondary element (like Plasma), then what Metru trait they receive is whatever is closest in similarity to the main six elements or their personality. If their personality is strong or different enough from the personalities Toa of that element would have, it's entirely possible then that the Skidawkie will receive a Metru trait unrelated to their element (such as a Skidawkie of Fire having the Onu-Metru power instead).

 

Tertiary: The final power of the Skidawkie is that of their elemental powers. Though like the Matoran, this elemental power is inaccessible to them and only benefits them as physical traits. However, it is far greater than the Matoran's level or even the Turaga, almost to a Toa's base level of inactive power. So a Skidawkie of Fire can withstand great heat and work in environments that would otherwise be too hot even for Ta-Matoran.

 

How Skidawkie get their element is not by a random process. Instead, their element is chosen by either a Matoran or Makuta. Prior to their element being chosen, their armor is a dull, lifeless silver and have only their primary power. Whatever element they are given is what their armor colors will become. The only Skidawkie who don't have their element chosen for them are the ones who's primary power was that of an elemental Kanohi or Kanoka. While it is possible for there to be Skidawkie of Light or Shadow, none exist naturally and those elements can't be chosen for them. Skidawkie would have to purge their moral shadow to become Light or have a Shadow Leech to make them Shadow.

 

Weapons: Skidawkie tend to use unusual weapons in comparison to other species. Due to their better center of gravity and balance, their weapons are designed to be purposefully unbalanced and disproportionate. And with their long, thin fingers, the handles on most of their weapons are both too wide and short for others to hold. Should anyone other than a Skidawkie try to use their weapons, it will be incredibly unwieldy and so off kilter to the point of being useless or breaking in various places. Leading most to believe that Skidawkie can actually manipulate the strength and balance of weapons, but how they use them as properly made weapons is unknown. Not all Skidawkie weapons are this way, as their thin fingers allow them to do delicate mechanical work and can create complex machinery weapons.

 

Other: Skidawkie's faces resemble what mask power they have as to make it easy for Matoran to identify what mask the Skidawkie needs. The Infection power of Kraata and Makuta are especially devastating to Skidawkie. If not cured in time, they mutate into Rahkshi-Toa esc monsters, growing spines and their faces able to split open and screech like the Rahkshi in Mask of Light. Their element becomes Shadow and the Metru trait is replaced by the level one Kraata power of whatever power the Makuta prefers/represents them the most. Most of their organics rot away, with the interior become just a husk of armor holding a larger Kraata. The Kraata is more intelligent than the Shadow Kraata, can wear and use Kanohi, and can enter empty robotic shells to use as bodies (Exo-Toa, Bohrok, etc.).

 

History: The exact origin of the Skidawkie has been of some debate by various researchers and scientists, due to a number of different tales. Even the Skidawkie themselves do not know their origin, so discovering it has been difficult. However, those within the Order of Mata Nui believe they have pieced together the puzzle of their creation.

 

Whereas most beings in the universe are either created by the Great Beings or Mata Nui, Skidawkie hold none of the trademark designs of either. Rather, two other races entirely are responsible for these beings; Makuta and Matoran. Makuta made their being, Matoran made their body, and together they formed their spirit. This is how it was believed to have gone about.

 

In times past, before the Makuta's jealousy grew so large as to rebel against the Great Spirit, the praise given to Toa and Mata Nui gnawed at their hearts. In attempts to prove that they could give the Matoran better heroes than Mata Nui, one of their brothers was tasked with creating their replacement. For those who know this Makuta, they simply refer to him as Equinox, for he appears just as often and in such great showing. And so Makuta Equinox got to work, quickly creating a the race as he did not want to spend much time on that project. Though even in his haste, he created what he thought Matoran would greatly enjoy, focusing on Kanohi due to Matoran's own reliance on the masks. And when he had finished, he placed them on an island called Miyrt, down in the south away from others. Leaving them there under observation to prove if they were ready.

 

And in the time he was gone, two significant events happened to the Skidawkie. The first was being discovered by Matoran. A large group of Matoran had unfortunately been lost at sea, tossed about in the Southern Islands when they finally were able to stop on one within eyesight of Miyrt. Without Toa of their own or any other protectors, they were quickly attracted to the Skidawkie for their resemblance to their heroes. Though it was not long for them to realize that they were not Toa, not in power nor in skill. And being naive beings at this time, who were also taught that Matoran should be trusted, the Skidawkie did not put up a fight against the Matoran altering them. In the end however, the Matoran considered their efforts a failure and were ashamed of what they done. They left the Skidawkie, having used them to get a means for a rescue, never mentioning these events to anyone. The only record of this account is from some of the older Skidawkie.

 

The second event however is one all Skidawkie remember well. Sometime shortly after the Matoran had gone, a fiendish Makuta known for tampering with other races stopped by. Despite his own great failure, he had learned of his brother's pet project and decided to see for himself. In which he was so disappointed in what he considered to be crude Matoran craftsmanship, decided to make his own alterations. After his tampering, he had Visorak unleashed on the island, killing or mutating much of the species, leaving the survivors scattered to the universe. And for this, the next time Equinox would rise, it was to punish his brother.

 

Since then Skidawkie have evolved into the powers they are known for today. Some have become local heroes, others mercenaries, some inventors, and others into various jobs. Though where ever they go, their move into the north has caused quite a disruption. Accusations of being false Toa or assassinated by Dark Hunters mistaking them as such, others trying to mutate them into Rahkshi nightmares, and so on. It has been a great strain on the Order to try and relocate, kill, or recruit such potentially useful beings.

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

"Auto Museum Volkswagen - Germany - Wolfsburg"

_______________________________________

 

The Ford Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie, T‑Model Ford, Model T, T, Leaping Lena, or flivver) is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that opened travel to the common middle-class American; some of this was because of Ford's efficient fabrication, including assembly line production instead of individual hand crafting.

 

The Ford Model T was named the most influential car of the 20th century in the 1999 Car of the Century competition, ahead of the BMC Mini, Citroën DS, and Volkswagen Type 1. With 16.5 million sold it stands eighth on the top ten list of most sold cars of all time as of 2012.

 

Although automobiles had already existed for decades, they were still mostly scarce and expensive at the Model T's introduction in 1908. Positioned as reliable, easily maintained mass market transportation, it was a runaway success. In a matter of days after the release, 15,000 orders were placed. The first production Model T was produced on August 12, 1908 and left the factory on September 27, 1908, at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan. On May 26, 1927, Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth Model T Ford roll off the assembly line at his factory in Highland Park, Michigan.

 

There were several cars produced or prototyped by Henry Ford from the founding of the company in 1903 until the Model T was introduced. Although he started with the Model A, there were not 19 production models (A through T); some were only prototypes. The production model immediately before the Model T was the Model S, an upgraded version of the company's largest success to that point, the Model N. The follow-up was the Ford Model A (rather than any Model U). The company publicity said this was because the new car was such a departure from the old that Henry wanted to start all over again with the letter A.

 

The Model T was Ford's first automobile mass-produced on moving assembly lines with completely interchangeable parts, marketed to the middle class. Henry Ford said of the vehicle:

 

I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one – and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces.

 

Although credit for the development of the assembly line belongs to Ransom E. Olds with the first mass-produced automobile, the Oldsmobile Curved Dash, beginning in 1901, the tremendous advancements in the efficiency of the system over the life of the Model T can be credited almost entirely to the vision of Ford and his engineers.

 

CHARACTERISTICS

The Model T was designed by Childe Harold Wills, and Hungarian immigrants Joseph A. Galamb and Eugene Farkas. Henry Love, C. J. Smith, Gus Degner and Peter E. Martin were also part of the team. Production of the Model T began in the third quarter of 1908. Collectors today sometimes classify Model Ts by build years and refer to these as "model years", thus labeling the first Model Ts as 1909 models. This is a retroactive classification scheme; the concept of model years as we conceive it today did not exist at the time. The nominal model designation was "Model T", although design revisions did occur during the car's two decades of production.

 

ENGINE

The Model T had a front-mounted 2.9 L inline four-cylinder engine, producing 20 hp (15 kW), for a top speed of 64–72 km/h. According to Ford Motor Company, the Model T had fuel economy on the order of 13–21 mpg-US (16–25 mpg-imp; 18–11 L/100 km). The engine was capable of running on gasoline, kerosene, or ethanol, although the decreasing cost of gasoline and the later introduction of Prohibition made ethanol an impractical fuel for most users.

 

The ignition system used an unusual trembler coil system to drive the spark plugs, as used for stationary gas engines, rather than the expensive magnetos that were used on other cars. This ignition also made the Model T more flexible as to the quality or type of fuel it used. The need for a starting battery and also Ford's use of an unusual AC alternator located inside the flywheel housing encouraged the adoption of electric lighting (standard fitment as of 1915), rather than oil or acetylene lamps, but it also delayed the adoption of electric starting, which was not offered until 1919.

 

TRANSMISSION AND DRIVE TRAIN

The Model T was a rear-wheel drive vehicle. Its transmission was a planetary gear type billed as "three speed". In today's terms it would be considered a two-speed, because one of the three speeds was reverse.

 

The Model T's transmission was controlled with three foot pedals and a lever that was mounted to the road side of the driver's seat. The throttle was controlled with a lever on the steering wheel. The left pedal was used to engage the gear. With the floor lever in either the mid position or fully forward and the pedal pressed and held forward the car entered low gear. When held in an intermediate position the car was in neutral. If the left pedal was released, the Model T entered high gear, but only when the lever was fully forward – in any other position the pedal would only move up as far as the central neutral position. This allowed the car to be held in neutral while the driver cranked the engine by hand. The car could thus cruise without the driver having to press any of the pedals. There was no separate clutch pedal.

 

When the car was in neutral, the middle pedal was used to engage reverse gear, and the right pedal operated the transmission brake – there were no separate brakes on the wheels. The floor lever also controlled the parking brake, which was activated by pulling the lever all the way back. This doubled as an emergency brake.

 

Although it was uncommon, the drive bands could fall out of adjustment, allowing the car to creep, particularly when cold, adding another hazard to attempting to start the car: a person cranking the engine could be forced backward while still holding the crank as the car crept forward, although it was nominally in neutral. As the car utilized a wet clutch, this condition could also occur in cold weather, when the thickened oil prevents the clutch discs from slipping freely. Power reached the differential through a single universal joint attached to a torque tube which drove the rear axle; some models (typically trucks, but available for cars as well) could be equipped with an optional two-speed Ruckstell rear axle shifted by a floor-mounted lever which provided an underdrive gear for easier hill climbing. All gears were vanadium steel running in an oil bath.

Transmission bands and linings

 

Two main types of band lining material were used:

 

Cotton – Cotton woven linings were the original type fitted and specified by Ford. Generally, the cotton lining is "kinder" to the drum surface, with damage to the drum caused only by the retaining rivets scoring the drum surface. Although this in itself did not pose a problem, a dragging band resulting from improper adjustment caused overheating transmission and engine, diminished power, and – in the case of cotton linings – rapid destruction of the band lining.

Wood – Wooden linings were originally offered as a "longer life" accessory part during the life of the Model T. They were a single piece of steam bent cottonwood[citation needed] fitted to the normal Model T transmission band. These bands give a very different feel to the pedals, with much more of a "bite" feel. The sensation is of a definite "grip" of the drum and seemed to noticeably increase the feel, in particular of the brake drum.

 

SUSPENSION AND WHEELS

Model T suspension employed a transversely mounted semi-elliptical spring for each of the front and rear beam axles which allowed a great deal of wheel movement to cope with the dirt roads of the time.

 

The front axle was drop forged as a single piece of vanadium steel. Ford twisted many axles through eight full rotations (2880 degrees) and sent them to dealers to be put on display to demonstrate its superiority. The Model T did not have a modern service brake. The right foot pedal applied a band around a drum in the transmission, thus stopping the rear wheels from turning. The previously mentioned parking brake lever operated band brakes acting on the inside of the rear brake drums, which were an integral part of the rear wheel hubs. Optional brakes that acted on the outside of the brake drums were available from aftermarket suppliers.

 

Wheels were wooden artillery wheels, with steel welded-spoke wheels available in 1926 and 1927.

 

Tires were pneumatic clincher type, 76 cm in diameter, 8.9 cm wide in the rear, 7.5 cm wide in the front. Clinchers needed much higher pressure than today's tires, typically 60 psi (410 kPa), to prevent them from leaving the rim at speed. Horseshoe nails on the roads, together with the high pressure, made flat tires a common problem.

 

Balloon tires became available in 1925. They were 53 cm × 11 cm all around. Balloon tires were closer in design to today's tires, with steel wires reinforcing the tire bead, making lower pressure possible – typically 35 psi (240 kPa) – giving a softer ride. The old nomenclature for tire size changed from measuring the outer diameter to measuring the rim diameter so 530 mm (rim diameter) × 110 mm (tire width) wheels has about the same outer diameter as 76 cm clincher tires. All tires in this time period used an inner tube to hold the pressurized air; "tubeless" tires were not generally in use until much later.

 

Wheelbase was 254 cm and standard tread width was 142 cm; 152 cm tread could be obtained on special order, "for Southern roads", identical to the pre-Civil War track gauge for many railroads in the former Confederacy.

 

COLORS

By 1918, half of all the cars in the US were Model Ts. However, it was a monolithic bloc; Ford wrote in his autobiography that in 1909 he told his management team that in the future “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”.

 

However, in the first years of production from 1908 to 1913, the Model T was not available in black but rather only gray, green, blue, and red. Green was available for the touring cars, town cars, coupes, and Landaulets. Gray was only available for the town cars, and red only for the touring cars. By 1912, all cars were being painted midnight blue with black fenders. It was only in 1914 that the "any color so long as it is black" policy was finally implemented. It is often stated that Ford suggested the use of black from 1914 to 1926 due to the cheap cost and durability of black paint. During the lifetime production of the Model T, over 30 types of black paint were used on various parts of the car. These were formulated to satisfy the different means of applying the paint to the various parts, and had distinct drying times, depending on the part, paint, and method of drying.

 

BODY

Although Ford classified the Model T with a single letter designation throughout its entire life and made no distinction by model years, there were enough significant changes to the body over the production life that the car can be classified into five distinct generations. Among the most immediately visible and identifiable changes were in the hood and cowl areas, although many other modifications were made to the vehicle.

 

1909–1914 – T1 – Characterized by a nearly straight, five-sided hood, with a flat top containing a center hinge and two side sloping sections containing the folding hinges. The firewall was flat from the windshield down with no distinct cowl.

1915–1916 – T2 – The hood design was nearly the same five sided design with the only obvious change being the addition of louvers to the vertical sides. There was a significant change to the cowl area with the windshield relocated significantly behind the firewall and joined with a compound contoured cowl panel.

1917–1923 – T3 – The hood design was changed to a tapered design with a curved top. the folding hinges were now located at the joint between the flat sides and the curved top. This is sometime referred to as the low hood to distinguish if from the later hoods. The back edge of the hood now met the front edge of the cowl panel so that no part of the flat firewall was visible outside of the hood. This design was used the longest and during the highest production years accounting for about half of the total number of Model T's built.

1923–1925 – T4 – This change was made during the 1923 calendar year so models built earlier in the year have the older design while later vehicles have the newer design. The taper of the hood was increased and the rear section at the firewall is about an inch taller and several inches wider than the previous design. While this is a relatively minor change, the parts between the third and fourth generation are not interchangeable.

1926–1927 – T5 – This design change made the greatest difference in the appearance of the car. The hood was again enlarged with the cowl panel no longer a compound curve and blended much more with the line of the hood. The distance between the firewall and the windshield was also increased significantly. This style is sometimes referred to as the high hood.

 

The styling on the fifth generation was a preview for the following Model A but the two models are visually quite different as the body on the A was much wider and had curved doors as opposed to the flat doors on the T.

 

DIVERSE APPLICATIONS

When the Model T was designed and introduced, the infrastructure of the world was quite different from today's. Pavement was a rarity except for sidewalks and a few big-city streets. (The sense of the term "pavement" as equivalent with "sidewalk" comes from that era, when streets and roads were generally dirt and sidewalks were a paved way to walk along them.) Agriculture was the occupation of many people. Power tools were scarce outside factories, as were power sources for them; electrification, like pavement, was found usually only in larger towns. Rural electrification and motorized mechanization were embryonic in some regions and nonexistent in most. Henry Ford oversaw the requirements and design of the Model T based on contemporary realities. Consequently, the Model T was (intentionally) almost as much a tractor and portable engine as it was an automobile. It has always been well regarded for its all-terrain abilities and ruggedness. It could travel a rocky, muddy farm lane, cross a shallow stream, climb a steep hill, and be parked on the other side to have one of its wheels removed and a pulley fastened to the hub for a flat belt to drive a bucksaw, thresher, silo blower, conveyor for filling corn cribs or haylofts, baler, water pump, electrical generator, and many other applications. One unique application of the Model T was shown in the October 1922 issue of Fordson Farmer magazine. It showed a minister who had transformed his Model T into a mobile church, complete with small organ.

 

During this era, entire automobiles (including thousands of Model Ts) were even hacked apart by their owners and reconfigured into custom machinery permanently dedicated to a purpose, such as homemade tractors and ice saws,. Dozens of aftermarket companies sold prefab kits to facilitate the T's conversion from car to tractor. The Model T had been around for a decade before the Fordson tractor became available (1917–18), and many Ts had been converted for field use. (For example, Harry Ferguson, later famous for his hitches and tractors, worked on Eros Model T tractor conversions before he worked with Fordsons and others.) During the next decade, Model T tractor conversion kits were harder to sell, as the Fordson and then the Farmall (1924), as well as other light and affordable tractors, served the farm market. But during the Depression (1930s), Model T tractor conversion kits had a resurgence, because by then used Model Ts and junkyard parts for them were plentiful and cheap.

 

Like many popular car engines of the era, the Model T engine was also used on home-built aircraft (such as the Pietenpol Sky Scout) and motorboats.

 

An armored car variant (called the FT-B) was developed in Poland in 1920.

 

Many Model Ts were converted into vehicles which could travel across heavy snows with kits on the rear wheels (sometimes with an extra pair of rear-mounted wheels and two sets of continuous track to mount on the now-tandemed rear wheels, essentially making it a half-track) and skis replacing the front wheels. They were popular for rural mail delivery for a time. The common name for these conversions of cars and small trucks was "snowflyers". These vehicles were extremely popular in the northern reaches of Canada where factories were set up to produce them.

 

A number of companies built Model T–based railcars. In The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux mentions a rail journey in India on such a railcar. The New Zealand Railways Department's RM class included a few.

 

PRODUCTION

MASS PRODUCTION

The knowledge and skills needed by a factory worker were reduced to 84 areas. When introduced, the T used the building methods typical at the time, assembly by hand, and production was small. The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant could not keep up with demand for the Model T, and only 11 cars were built there during the first full month of production. More and more machines were used to reduce the complexity within the 84 defined areas. In 1910, after assembling nearly 12,000 Model Ts, Henry Ford moved the company to the new Highland Park complex.

 

As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in three-minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, reducing production time by a factor of eight (requiring 12.5 hours before, 93 minutes afterwards), while using less manpower. By 1914, the assembly process for the Model T had been so streamlined it took only 93 minutes to assemble a car. That year Ford produced more cars than all other automakers combined. The Model T was a great commercial success, and by the time Henry made his 10 millionth car, 50 percent of all cars in the world were Fords. It was so successful that Ford did not purchase any advertising between 1917 and 1923, instead it became so famous that people now considered it a norm; more than 15 million Model Ts were manufactured, reaching a rate of 9,000 to 10,000 cars a day in 1925, or 2 million annually, more than any other model of its day, at a price of just $260 (or about $3,240 in 2016 dollars). Model T production was finally surpassed by the Volkswagen Beetle on February 17, 1972.

 

Henry Ford's ideological approach to Model T design was one of getting it right and then keeping it the same; he believed the Model T was all the car a person would, or could, ever need. As other companies offered comfort and styling advantages, at competitive prices, the Model T lost market share. Design changes were not as few as the public perceived, but the idea of an unchanging model was kept intact. Eventually, on May 26, 1927, Ford Motor Company ceased US production and began the changeovers required to produce the Model A. Some of the other Model T factories in the world continued a short while.

 

Model T engines continued to be produced until August 4, 1941. Almost 170,000 were built after car production stopped, as replacement engines were required to service already produced vehicles. Racers and enthusiasts, forerunners of modern hot rodders, used the Model T's block to build popular and cheap racing engines, including Cragar, Navarro, and famously the Frontenacs ("Fronty Fords") of the Chevrolet brothers, among many others.

 

The Model T employed some advanced technology, for example, its use of vanadium steel alloy. Its durability was phenomenal, and many Model Ts and their parts remain in running order nearly a century later. Although Henry Ford resisted some kinds of change, he always championed the advancement of materials engineering, and often mechanical engineering and industrial engineering.

 

In 2002, Ford built a final batch of six Model Ts as part of their 2003 centenary celebrations. These cars were assembled from remaining new components and other parts produced from the original drawings. The last of the six was used for publicity purposes in the UK.

 

Although Ford no longer manufactures parts for the Model T, many parts are still manufactured through private companies as replicas to service the thousands of Model Ts still in operation today. On May 26, 1927 Henry Ford and his son Edsel, drove the 15 millionth Model T out of the factory. This marked the famous automobile's official last day of production at the main factory.

 

PRICE AND PRODUCTION

The assembly line system allowed Ford to sell his cars at a price lower than his competitors due to the efficiency of the system. As he continued to fine-tune the system, he was able to keep reducing his costs. As his volume increased, he was able to also lower the prices due to fixed costs being spread over a larger number of vehicles. Other factors affected the price such as material costs and design changes.

 

The figures below are US production numbers compiled by R.E. Houston, Ford Production Department, August 3, 1927. The figures between 1909 and 1920 are for Ford's fiscal year. From 1909 to 1913, the fiscal year was from October 1 to September 30 the following calendar year with the year number being the year it ended in. For the 1914 fiscal year, the year was October 1, 1913 through July 31, 1914. Starting in August 1914, and through the end of the Model T era, the fiscal year was August 1 through July 31. Beginning with January 1920 the figures are for the calendar year.

 

RECYCLING

Henry Ford used wood scraps from the production of Model Ts to make charcoal. Originally named Ford Charcoal, the name was changed to Kingsford Charcoal after Ford's brother-in-law E. G. Kingsford brokered the selection of the new charcoal plant site. Lumber for production of the Model T came from the same location, built in 1920 called the Ford Iron Mountain Plant, which incorporated a sawmill where lumber from Ford purchased land in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was sent to the River Rouge Plant; scrap wood was then returned for charcoal production.

 

FIRST GLOBAL CAR

The Ford Model T was the first automobile built by various countries simultaneously since they were being produced in Walkerville, Canada and in Trafford Park, Greater Manchester, England starting in 1911 and were later assembled in Germany, Argentina, France, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan, as well as several locations throughout the US. Ford made use of the knock-down kit concept almost from the beginning of the company as freight and production costs from Detroit had Ford assembling vehicles in major metropolitan centers of the US.

 

The Aeroford was an English automobile manufactured in Bayswater, London, from 1920 to 1925. It was a Model T with distinct hood and grille to make it appear to be a totally different design, what later would have been called badge engineering. The Aeroford sold from £288 in 1920, dropping to £168-214 by 1925. It was available as a two-seater, four-seater, or coupé.

 

ADVERTISING AND MARKETING

Ford created a massive publicity machine in Detroit to ensure every newspaper carried stories and advertisements about the new product. Ford's network of local dealers made the car ubiquitous in virtually every city in North America. As independent dealers, the franchises grew rich and publicized not just the Ford but the very concept of automobiling; local motor clubs sprang up to help new drivers and to explore the countryside. Ford was always eager to sell to farmers, who looked on the vehicle as a commercial device to help their business. Sales skyrocketed – several years posted around 100 percent gains on the previous year.

 

CAR CLUBS

Cars built before 1919 are classed as veteran cars and later models as vintage cars. Today, four main clubs exist to support the preservation and restoration of these cars: the Model T Ford Club International, the Model T Ford Club of America[51] and the combined clubs of Australia. With many chapters of clubs around the world, the Model T Ford Club of Victoria[52] has a membership with a considerable number of uniquely Australian cars. (Australia produced its own car bodies, and therefore many differences occurred between the Australian bodied tourers and the US/Canadian cars.) In the UK, the Model T Ford Register of Great Britain celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010. Many steel Model T parts are still manufactured today, and even fiberglass replicas of their distinctive bodies are produced, which are popular for T-bucket style hot rods (as immortalized in the Jan and Dean surf music song "Bucket T", which was later recorded by The Who). In 1949, more than twenty years after the end of production, 200,000 Model Ts were registered in the United States. In 2008, it was estimated that about 50,000 to 60,000 Ford Model Ts remain roadworthy.

 

WIKIPEDIA

this was how the Pacific was behaving today - calm. Went out for round two of my surfing career in SF this morning. Was hoping to trade into a different board but didn't happen so I kept my pro board today (I am as far from pro as you can be). Needless to say, I had some difficulty catching the waves today given they were nearly nonexistent. And there were about 100 times more seagulls than surfers - at least some life form can enjoy the waves when they are as weak as today.

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

• Telspleem: An omnivore of neutral disposition that can be found on Virslagly as a common and archetypical form of wildlife. It dwells in most regions across the planet but prefers environments that are somewhat less barren than the average Virslagly climate. The Telspleem is a squishy, typically slouched creature that one might easily mistake to be slow and dumb based on its appearance, but which is in actuality craftier than most and rather inexplicably fleet–footed. Their fully–grown specimens ranging between three and five feet tall, Telspleems have stout, squarish torsos, two standard arms, four (deceptively) short and thick legs with feet to match, and very long necks that jut horizontally from the front–tops of their bodies and arc upwards so that the head ends up being positioned at a fairly typical angle regardless. Their eyes are very outwardly complex, visually consisting of rows of "stripes", and their mouths are composed of several "flaps" that rather messily slurp and suck up food material. Telspleems also have singular horn–like structures atop their skulls which are actually neural accessory organs similar to those of the local humanoids, the Hexpultis. Compared to the "horns" of a Hexpultis, the Telspleem's cranial protrusion serves a lesser function, semi–superfluously enhancing existing senses rather than being essential for key mental abilities.

The most obvious candidate for this creature's most defining physical trait, however, is not any of the above, but instead its immensely long, winding, slender tail which generally totals 15–20 feet in length and is usually held up in a networked "knot" behind the Telspleem's main body. This tail has a weighted, buzz–producing noisemaker at its end and is very maneuverable and powerful, being able to act as both a striking "whip" and as a constrictive weapon.

Telspleem durability values range from 500–800.

 

• Phiortrask: An avian of small–to–medium size native to Namyufefe. Phiortrasks stand upright at about three feet and have durability values of 400–600. They are omnivores, more specifically describable as equal–opportunity eaters with tendencies of resourceful scavenging, whose main populations are naturally situated on and around mesas and prairies, two types of terrain that can be found in adjacency at many locations across Namyufefe's planetary landscape. The Phiortrask has an appearance that can semi–paradoxically be described as both "scruffy" and "majestic". Its body is largely covered in feathers of various, but predominantly "hot", colors and frizzy, uneven orientation. It has a moderate wingspan, with its pair of wings occupying the entire shoulder space in terms of their origin points; as a result, the Phiortrask's arms originate midway down the length of its body as opposed to just below the head. While such a limb arrangement would likely disorient most other beings, the Phiortrask has naturally adapted to it and is able to make ample use of its arms.

As for the wings, while the Phiortrask can indeed fly, its ability to do so is limited. It requires rest after a relatively short period of aviation, and has a seemingly irrational aversion to extreme heights, meaning that it is generally unwilling to ascend too high into the air; the bird's self–imposed "limit" on elevation appears to be somewhere near 500 feet. The mating, egg–birthing and childrearing methods and patterns of this creature are comparable to those of most other avians.

The simple Hernolalls occasionally eat (or try to eat) Phiortrasks and seldom otherwise interact with them, while the much more advanced Yunstoxars, who dominate Namyufefe, are much more appreciative of the rugged birds and have domesticated many of them, keeping some as pets while training and utilizing others as short–distance delivery carriers. The likeness of the Phiortrask has become a common, general–purpose symbol seen throughout Yunstoxar society and culture (to a greater extent than any other animal–based symbol), and through that race's presence in many colonies throughout the Prime Galaxy, the creature's image has come to be recognized by numerous members of other races.

 

• Gaiggoot: A brutish, bulky and cold–blooded creature from Olsuclund, most commonly found dwelling in moderately–elevated settings and existing more or less consistently across all regions of the planet's geographical map. Gaiggoots are slow tripodal beasts with strong and muscular but rather short arms, bladed shoulders and heads that are almost seamless with the upper–fronts of their bodies, for they have no necks of any description. While having only a single large eyeball, they have multiple pupils, giving them a wide range of vision both spatially and in terms of the light spectrum. The Gaiggoot is herbivorous, but is highly prone to (often irrationally) violent outbursts toward other beings that it perceives as threats, whether or not they actually pose any; it is highly territorial and, in a way, "paranoid" of creatures besides its own kind. Commencement of hostility is usually "announced" by a warning gesture consisting of the creature slamming its hands/fists together several times. Conversely, Gaiggoots get along very well with each other most of the time, and despite solitude being their "default" mode of living, it is far from unheard of to find small packs of them living together.

A Gaiggoot's most notable uncommon ability lies in its feet and their immense gripping power which allows the animal to climb up very steep inclines and across jagged series of rocks with relative safety and stability. Even if it does fall, it will usually manage to literally land on its feet and be cushioned by their strength, though landing on any other part of its body after a significant drop is more often than not fatal.

The nearly–consistent durability value of the Gaiggoot is 1,200, and it stands between five and six feet tall on average. It can live for up to eight decades, giving it the longest lifespan of any creature native to Olsuclund due to the short one of the planet's humanoid race, the Favredians.

 

• Bethraether: A now–"lost" animal of great caliber and majesty that could be found on Ultavnah and presumably (and hopefully) still dwells on that planet which is cut off from contact with all others for what will probably amount to eternity. Like the Drajelaos and the other inhabitants and general features of Ultavnah, the Bethraether is a very large and powerful creature, though even it pales in comparison to the aforementioned Drajelaos, which were created with the specific intent that they be the most powerful of all mortals, humanoid and otherwise. As of the only scientific census of Ultavnah's properties ever taken, Bethraethers are/were similar in population to Drajelaos, numbering near but under one million as a total estimate and being on neutral terms with the giant humanoids. The Bethraether is classified as a mammal, though it was noted when categorizing it that the creature only barely met the qualifications for being able to be called such and was considered quite nonstandard in form and appearance for a mortal beast.

Measuring approximately twenty feet tall, the animal walks on four short legs attached to a "base" that is similar in shape and size to what constitutes the main overall bodies of many lesser quadrupeds and, in the Bethraether's case, supports a tall, lean midsection. On the back of the upper dorsal is a hump of muscle sporting a small number of large and thick quills, and atop the whole midsection is a neckless, almost perfectly dome–shaped head. The Bethraether's facial area is yellowish–to–reddish in pigment, and sports three eyes, the middle of which is distinctly different from the ones to either of its sides, being smaller and simpler. The reason for this strange optical arrangement is unknown, for the methods that would otherwise have allowed this peculiarity and the function, if any, behind it were not developed until long after Ultavnah was rendered inaccessible. The Bethraether's most "signature" feature of all, and one whose purpose is knowable, is entailed by its arms, or rather their "sub–appendages". Attached by carbonic rods to either of the creature's forearms (which themselves have an unusually decorative, gauntlet–like appearance for belonging to a mortal creature) are long, bladed poles of likewise carbonic composition. These natural accessories, which are not present in newborn Bethraethers but develop very quickly following birth, are used not only as weapons but also as more general tools for tasks such as reaching.

The typical Bethraether's durability value was estimated at 3,500. As an inhabitant of Ultavnah, this being's entire body has a moderately strong resistance to heat and burning.

 

• Honbonky: A vicious predatory mammal living on Barserinv that is the closest thing to a truly threatening natural foe that the Kierraplip race has to deal with. The Honbonky is fairly large, and the ratio of its size to that of other creatures of comparable nature is similar to that of a Kierraplip's size to the average humanoid's. It has a very unique body structure; its four long legs are attached to the corners of its very large head, from the bottom of which hangs a small and simple torso with a small and simple pair of arms that are used mainly for trivial manual tasks, the monster's mouth and large feet being its main utilities when attacking. Honbonkies are very fast and can chase their intended victims for miles on end with great stamina and tenacity. They are capable of lunging significant distances, though performing such a leap seems to take a lot of energy out of the Honbonky in question, the post–landing recovery time lasting several seconds; thus, while giving chase, the creatures will generally only attempt to lunge at their prey if confident that they will successfully catch them then and there by doing so. Other unusual features of the Honbonky include a large, protruding snout with a pair of long, tube–like parts that serve as "nostrils" dangling from it as well as an extra, extra–sharp tooth jutting from the bottom of said nose and overlaying the creature's main mouth. The level of threat posed by these beasts to the Kierraplips and other more peaceful animals on Barserinv is mitigated by several factors: their low population, their severe lack of cooperation with other specimens when they are present, their sub–par intelligence and their moderate lack of motivational direction when unable to find prey (in contrast to their tenacity when it is in sight).

The Honbonky's mean durability value is 900. Overall, it is comparable in many ways to the Krinchu of Terramos, also located in the Alpha Octant, though it is considered marginally less "evil" than that creature and, unlike the Krinchu, has never needed to be "quelled" or "purged" due to its aforementioned "shortcomings" as a threat.

 

• Zelrofience: An angel found in both Neo–Skyhold and Paradise and created by EldaChusii, being constructed specifically and exclusively by the face of "The Guardian". It is the most powerful type of being spawned from any aspect of the Heavenly Lord of Tolerance. The Zelrofience is a highly unique creature with many unusual attributes, and it is widely placed among the higher tiers in unofficial hierarchical rankings of Heavenly beings. It has two distinct components or "bodies", one extra–corporeal and the other extra–extra–corporeal, that together comprise an overall entity similar in perceivable nature to that of a mortal person piloting a vehicular machine, though the Zelrofience's existence predates all humanoid–made forms of such technology within the Nava–Verse. What could easily, and quasi–erroneously, be considered the angel's "main" or "true" body consists centrally of a massive eyeball–like sphere, two meters in diameter almost exactly, and peripherally of various tentacle–like appendages, including a pair that function essentially as the creature's "arms" and a bundle of five on which it may shamble about on the ground, them being its "legs". The Zelrofience's "other body" consists of a unique frame–like apparatus, sometimes called an "Overcarriage" (unofficial name), that connects to and securely fastens the eyeball–esque body via both physical grips and anchors and magical bonds. The name "Overcarriage" is considered a derivative of "Oversoul", the official name of a similar "sub–body" belonging to Bestamiak and to which the Zelrofience's "vehicle" has been likened. The angel's nature has also been compared to that of yet another Heavenly Lord, Vaynmizs, and his power source, Qual.

The two components that comprise the Zelrofience are intrinsically linked and drawn to one another, and if separated, they will actively and intelligently seek to reunite, for they are next–to–powerless without each other compared to what they can do together while the angel is in its complete state; truly, the "total" form of this being is far greater than the sum of its parts. When in its complete state, the Zelrofience boasts a greater number of distinct abilities than any other non–Archangel. The "eyeball" body's main power is telekinesis of a strength equal to roughly 1/3 that of Junt'Vubis (the single most powerful telekinetic being in the Nava–Verse), while the "Overcarriage" possesses a level of Rainbow Energy–based firepower that no non–magical machine with its physical form could possibly match. When both are together, not only are the base abilities of either amplified significantly in raw strength, but the complete Zelrofience gains access to multiple combinational techniques utilizing the powers of both its components in direct conjunction. On the whole, it is essentially a flying, psychic tank that only the most advanced and recently–created of humanoid–made war machines could even hope to match.

Zelrofiences have additional potential roles outside of combat, and additional abilities to facilitate these duties, such as absorbing, storing and transferring additional Rainbow Energy into and out of themselves and mending damaged structures with a special repair beam that is emitted from the "pupil" of the "eyeball". They are fully sentient and fluent in all common languages, and speak telepathically in a voice that is calm and soothing at all times, and would never be raised even if one of the angels were to make a furious death threat (which would obviously never happen, given its particularly wise and stoic nature even by angelic standards).

The durability value of a Zelrofience whose components are fully synchronized is nearly 4,000. The durability of either body when separated from the other is closer to 1,000.

 

• Movalorrt: A rare and particularly insidious demon, often considered to be one of the most despicable varieties of all due to the prolonged suffering that many of its victims are subjected to and to which most would consider death preferable. The Movalorrt is a truly rogue being, lacking allegiance to or association with Satan, Meth Stoph, Genome, Lord Reson or any other higher demonic power, and its general place of origin within the Underworld, assuming there even is a specific spatial plane designated as its place of spawning, is unknown. It is, however, known that this demon is able to travel to and from (as well as throughout) the mortal realm far more freely than almost any other known Hellish entity… though exactly how it does this is also unknown. Movalorrts are sentient and capable of speech, though their overall intellect level seems to be below that of a majority of mortal humanoids and they seldom have anything to say beyond wicked cackling. They are average in size compared to mortal humanoids – between four and five feet – but have comparatively immense strength and resilience almost on par with that of humanoid Archfiends, the demon's durability value being estimated at around 3,000.

The Movalorrt is a wholly corporeal and mostly organic demon. Its form is that of a hideous, grinning, many–armed humanoid with necrotic flesh and legs that are permanently, bloodily stitched together and dangle with unsettling stillness as the monster hovers from place to place. The two pairs of arms oriented near the front of its body are standard in form and hand structure, while the other pair of pairs, growing from the fiend's upper dorsal area, have appendages that are far more ghastly in both appearance and function: massive, blood–red scissors/clippers and oversized syringes filled with glowing green liquid, respectively. These instruments, the syringes in particular, serve as the Movalorrt's tools for inflicting harm, and are also the only non–organic parts of its body. While the "clippers" are generally used in a fairly standard manner and have no "special" properties beyond simply being powerful instruments of cutting, the syringes constitute a far more complex and disturbing weapon, as elaborated upon below.

 

Movalorrt attacks, like the demons themselves, are rare, with the average number reported annually rounding down to nine. When one of these monsters attacks a person, its intention is not necessarily to kill the victim. Rather, its very specific goal is to inject that specific person with one or both of their syringes. The scissor–like weapons are rarely implemented during such attacks, and when they are, it is usually against others who attempt to stop the demon from injecting its target rather than the actual target. They are never deliberately used on the main target with the specific intention of killing them, and conversely, "interfering" parties besides the target are never deliberately injected. There have been several separate eyewitness reports of attacking Movalorrts uttering intelligible words and phrases, usually of "Out of the way!" or "Resistance is futile!"–type sentiments. Once it has successfully administered its "shot", the Movalorrt will flee the scene, dashing away for a short distance before disappearing, presumably back to the Underworld or outer space, in a flashing burst of Infernal Energy and usually cackling as it does so. Once the demon has resolved to attack someone and initiated its assault on them, it will not relent nor flee until it has either succeeded in its goal or been killed. While it is uncertain, it is more likely than not that Movalorrts' victims are chosen on a random whim.

 

The effects of what has been termed "Movalorrt Toxin" are various and variable, seemingly randomly so, and cannot be stopped from taking effect once it has been injected into a person. The following have all been verifiably witnessed in multiple victims:

• Near–instant and seemingly painless death with no visible physical atrophy.

• A much slower and agonizing death caused by extreme inflammation and swelling throughout all parts of the body.

• A coma that lasts no less than one year and no more than a decade; if cared for and kept safe for its duration, the victim may eventually make a full recovery.

• Varying degrees of general brain damage.

• A permanent semi–vegetative state, similar to the effects of a lobotomy.

• An extended bout of extreme pain, more severe than what seems to be felt during the fatal "swelling" effect, which has no visible physical symptoms and eventually goes away after anywhere from a few hours to a few days. This is actually considered one of the least horrible results of Movalorrt Toxin injection due to its short–term nature.

• Rapid, progressive necrotic decay of one or more limbs, starting at and spreading upwards from the extremities. If the affected areas are not amputated, the decay will eventually consume the whole body, resulting in the most painful death that any effect of Movalorrt Toxin can bring about.

• Permanent, inexplicable chronic depression, often leading to eventual suicide.

• A complete wiping of all memories, including much of the basic knowledge learned in early life, basically resetting the victim's mind to what it was during their infancy.

• General insanity, turning the victim into a demented lunatic.

• Horrific hallucinations catering to the victim's particular fears; usually has an end result similar to the previous effect.

• Perpetual severe illness (with typical symptoms such as fever, vomiting, etc.) that can be treated indefinitely but will never cease causing various complications.

• A short coma, followed by the victim awakening as a murderous, rabid lunatic that will attack almost anyone and everyone they see, as if their mind has been replaced with that of a vicious animal.

 

…Among other possibilities, some of which have only ever been observed once. Needless to say, the effects of Movalorrt Toxin are invariably malign, with some of them entailing fates far worse than the average death. On related notes, the back ends of the Movalorrt's syringes seem to exist in pocket dimensions from which the vials may be replenished with an endless supply of toxin, and which spot on one's body any injection is made into does not seem to affect what the toxin's effects will be, even if the spot pierced does not lead into the bloodstream at all. The amount of toxin doesn't seem to matter, either; among known cases where both syringes and their contents were used, the ratio of "lesser" symptoms to more extreme effects has been similar to that among known cases in which the victim received only one "dose" or Movalorrt Toxin. Once a Movalorrt has gotten its needle into its target, the injection process takes less than two seconds; it is unknown what would happen if someone was injected with less than one vial's worth of the demon's toxin.

 

The Movalorrt is considered similar to the dream–invading Sybruchar in the sense that both demons seemingly wander the universe in search of people to attack and often leave their surviving victims with permanent mental or spiritual damage. Despite being somewhat more mundane in its methods (compared to the Sybruchar), the Movalorrt has managed to remain just as elusive and mysterious a beast as its unofficial "counterpart". While several of them have been killed, no Movalorrt has ever been captured alive or otherwise questioned, and all specimens that have been killed were slain in battle before they could poison their targets; in every single case where a Movalorrt has successfully made an injection, it has subsequently been just as successful in making its escape. The exact nature of the demon's apparent ability to travel throughout the Nava–Verse and between its realms with relative ease is unclear, unlike with the Sybruchar, as sightings of it in the Underworld are few and fleeting while sightings in outer space are nonexistent. Sightings of more than one specimen together are just as rare as the former; it is highly unlikely that the total number of Movalorrts exceeds three digits… and thank goodness for that!

Well lookie here, it's my birthday. 16 and all. Apparently I can now play the lottery, choose my own doctor, and have legal sex with my nonexistent girlfriend.

 

My main pressie this year was the beautiful Panton chair, my all-time favourite chair (or overall design), as readers of my blog know all too well. Now I have one all to myself. It's bloody gorgeous.

 

With some more dosh from my friends, I'll place a massive Bricklink order and get some pieces in order to finish JCiii. Until then, just leave me alone with my chair :P

 

~John

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One of my top favorite pictures from this trip!!

 

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

Attack of the Crab Monsters (Allied Artists, 1957). One Sheet (27" X 41").

youtu.be/tTVWQ8dxPW0

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS is one of a handful of B films that Roger Corman did for Allied Artists when he wasn't churning 'em out for Nicholson and Arkoff at AIP. It also happens to be one of his most beloved 50s monster efforts. Frequent collaborator Charles Griffith concocted the script and strays from the abundant humor present in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, playing it straight this time (that is if you can accept a giant talking crab as serious). Griffith also appears in the film (he gets decapitated early on) and directed some underwater scenes.

A group of scientists find themselves marooned on a nuclear-affected atoll in the Pacific where they have come searching for members of a previous expedition. After doing some research, they learn that the other scientists were eaten by giant mutated land crabs, and that these creatures have also absorbed their minds. The menacing crustaceans begin to snack on this new set of guests, using telepathy (articulating with the voices of the person they just devoured) in order to summon their next victim.

 

Like all of the early Corman films, this was made on shoestring but was reportedly his highest grosser up until that time. It's a tight 60+ minute effort with very little time for chat, and the giant crabs don't look too bad at all in comparison with other 50s sleaze creatures. The film boasts a classic Corman stock ensemble: Richard Garland (PANIC IN YEAR ZERO) and Pamela Duncan (THE UNDEAD) are the heroic love interests, the vastly underrated Russell Johnson (still years away from "Gilligan's Island") is a life-saving technician, Mel Welles and Leslie Bradley are scientists with accents (you haven't lived until you've heard a giant crab speak with Welles' Mushnik persona, and Beach Dickerson and Ed Nelson are in there as well. Nelson also operated the crab and legend has it that Jack Nicholson did as well!

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS has been released on DVD by Allied Artists Classics, a company whose legitimacy is still in question. Previously released on VHS, they utilize the same substandard transfer and it fairs no better on the digital format. The full frame black and white image is looks generations down in quality, with nonexistent black levels and video tape dropouts during the start of the show. The print source is in decent shape, but the overall appearance is dark and dingy. Sound quality is OK, if you can get past some hiss. This would be fine if this was an under-$10 budget release, but this baby retails for about $25! If you're willing to shell out the bucks, the quality is acceptable and this title is essential to any 50s monster movie buff's collection. Also included is the original trailer and a still gallery

Director Roger Corman capitalizes on the H-bomb hysteria of the 1950s by setting this tale on a remote island designated for weapons testing. Science meets nature, with horrifying results. Errant radiation spawns mind reading, mutant crabs bent on destroying the group of scientists who have landed on the island to investigate the disappearance of the previous team. Beauty is no match for the beast on this spectacular one sheet, with a terrified but lovely Pamela Duncan in the clutches of one angry crustacean.

 

youtu.be/tTVWQ8dxPW0

Starring Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson, Leslie Bradley, Mel Welles, and Ed Nelson. Directed by Roger Corman.

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS is one of a handful of B films that Roger Corman did for Allied Artists when he wasn't churning 'em out for Nicholson and Arkoff at AIP. It also happens to be one of his most beloved 50s monster efforts. Frequent collaborator Charles Griffith concocted the script and strays from the abundant humor present in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, playing it straight this time (that is if you can accept a giant talking crab as serious). Griffith also appears in the film (he gets decapitated early on) and directed some underwater scenes.

A group of scientists find themselves marooned on a nuclear-affected atoll in the Pacific where they have come searching for members of a previous expedition. After doing some research, they learn that the other scientists were eaten by giant mutated land crabs, and that these creatures have also absorbed their minds. The menacing crustaceans begin to snack on this new set of guests, using telepathy (articulating with the voices of the person they just devoured) in order to summon their next victim.

 

Like all of the early Corman films, this was made on shoestring but was reportedly his highest grosser up until that time. It's a tight 60+ minute effort with very little time for chat, and the giant crabs don't look too bad at all in comparison with other 50s sleaze creatures. The film boasts a classic Corman stock ensemble: Richard Garland (PANIC IN YEAR ZERO) and Pamela Duncan (THE UNDEAD) are the heroic love interests, the vastly underrated Russell Johnson (still years away from "Gilligan's Island") is a life-saving technician, Mel Welles and Leslie Bradley are scientists with accents (you haven't lived until you've heard a giant crab speak with Welles' Mushnik persona, and Beach Dickerson and Ed Nelson are in there as well. Nelson also operated the crab and legend has it that Jack Nicholson did as well!

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS has been released on DVD by Allied Artists Classics, a company whose legitimacy is still in question. Previously released on VHS, they utilize the same substandard transfer and it fairs no better on the digital format. The full frame black and white image is looks generations down in quality, with nonexistent black levels and video tape dropouts during the start of the show. The print source is in decent shape, but the overall appearance is dark and dingy. Sound quality is OK, if you can get past some hiss. This would be fine if this was an under-$10 budget release, but this baby retails for about $25! If you're willing to shell out the bucks, the quality is acceptable and this title is essential to any 50s monster movie buff's collection. Also included is the original trailer and a still gallery

 

A group of scientists travel to a remote island to study the effects of nuclear weapons tests, only to get stranded when their airplane explodes. The team soon discovers that the island has been taken over by crabs that have mutated into enormous, intelligent monsters. To add to their problems, the island is slowly sinking into the ocean. Will any of them manage to escape?

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

My grandmother sent me a letter today. It read (or some of it did anyway):

 

"Study hard these next few weeks of school. High School in the fall. Can you believe it?"

 

Uhm. No. No I can't. xDD

 

Anyway, prepare for an extremely long description.

 

I've made it to my 100th 365 day! But since it took me so long, I’m posting this list on my 101st photo.

My 100th photo didn’t really relate to 100. But this project is about learning more about yourself, right? Sorta. Well, I thought I would take the time to write down 100 random facts about myself (and my beliefs) at the moment.

 

1. I'm disgusted at how huge my shadow is in my 100th picture. So I've made a new commitment of losing at least 5 pounds every month. I need to get a scale so I can track it.

 

2. What inspired me to lose weight was a Dove Chocolate wrapper that had a message inside. It read: "If they can do it, so can't you."

 

3. I believe that my soul mate could be anyone, regardless of gender (age, race, you get the picture :P).

 

4. "Right Down the Line" by Gerry Rafferty and "Faithfully" by Journey are two of my favorite love songs.

 

5. I can lip-sync to the movie National Treasure word for word.

 

6. I met both of my best friends online. I've known them for about 3 years.

 

7. I'm not very good expressing myself through talking, and I often offend people because I don't explain myself clearly.

 

8. I'm a very different person online and often taken advantage of the fact that no one can reach me through my computer screen.

 

9. I have the logic of a five year old. If you can't see it, it can't see you. That is the sentence that repeats through my head after I have watched a horror film and I'm trying to sleep.

 

10. Movies that animals die in (such as Mighty Joe Young and King Kong) make me bawl. But I don't cry when humans die. D:

 

11. I want to get snake bite piercings.

 

12. I watch movies online that I probably shouldn't.

 

13. Although I really like scary movies, I can't watch anything that has a possessed character in it (like the Exorcist). I've only seen clips of that movie and I bet I won't see it until I'm a lot older. Possession scares the crap out of me.

 

14. I think Dita Von Teese and Liv Tyler are two of the most beautiful women in the world. Anthony Hopkins and Joaquin Phoenix are two of the most handsome men. :P

 

15. Guys should have the long hair and girls should have the short.

 

16. When I was little, I had to get my tonsils out. I used to hide my medicine in my favorite recliner so I wouldn't have to take it. I have a fear of medicine going into my body. I even refuse to take tylenol or advil for a headache unless it's extremely painful.

 

17. When people used to ask me where my dad was, I would always make a story up. Two of the ones I can remember are “He drowned in his boat” and “When he was making something in his workshop he cut off his hand died.” Yes, my mind morbid even when I was young.

 

18. Metallica was my first ever obsession. I have posters, CDs, a t-shirt, magazines, a purse, and stickers all with their logo.

 

19. In my lifetime, I think I have completed only two stories that I started writing. They were both for school projects.

 

20. I think that serial killers are interesting. Not for what they did, but how they explain what they did and why they did it.

 

21. I despise cleanliness. My room is filled with clutter and I like it that way. Usually it’s not filthy (like I don’t have food under my bed and mold growing on my pillows) but I like it when there is stuff on the floor.

 

22. I’ve considered abandoning the thought of becoming a CSI and becoming an actress or musician instead.

 

23. I’m a very jealous person and I used to flip every time someone commented on my friend’s Myspace page (hence why I never will go on that site again).

 

24. I would like to become nocturnal but it’s nearly impossible for me to sleep during the day.

 

25. I spent 6 years of my life playing Neopets and I still can’t believe how much time I wasted on there.

 

26. When I was in pre-school, I remember I used to kiss the boys and pretend they were my boyfriends. Yes, very sad, I know.

 

27. I would really like to learn French and would probably make the compromise of going to public school if I could learn it.

 

28. If I am interested in a certain subject or person I will learn as much as I can about it/them. Hopefully it’s not considered like… stalking or something but I know a lot about certain celebrities.

 

29. I like having crooked teeth, but a lot of my family dislikes them.

 

30. Thinking about the future makes my stomach really weak. I’m often worried what this world is coming to.

 

31. I would like to become an old rodent lady. I want to have rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, rats, chinchillas, hamsters, mice… all that jazz. I really like little fuzzy things like that.

 

32. One of my favorite things to do when I’m in Maine is watch reality TV shows with my brother. Parental Control and Sweet 16 are two of the ones we like watching.

 

33. I don’t have a lot of motivation and I’m not proud of most of the things I have done that other people are proud of me for doing. I’m not even sure how I was motivated enough to get this far in my list!

 

34. I often have to stop myself in the middle of conversations to rethink what I was going to say without chatspeak.

 

35. I feel that some people take advantage of me, but I never do anything about it. Like I worry that people are just talking to me to rant to me so I can give them advice. But it stinks because then their problems become mine and I get extremely frustrated.

 

36. Even though I’m a very fortunate person, I often find myself wanting more or wanting to get away and lead a different life.

 

37. Grapes of Wrath is one of my favorite books, but I’ve only read it once.

 

38. One of the things that turns me off about people I meet is how they have to bring God into a conversation or they have to make everything they do somehow… revolve around God. Although I find myself to be an open-minded person, I’m somewhat offended when people think that everyone is religious and those that aren’t need to be ‘saved’.

 

39. Again, I find myself a very open-minded person, but two of the things I refuse to try to understand are Republican beliefs and Scientology.

 

40. You know how some people are racist, prejudice, sexist, etc.? Well, I’ve been told that I’m a ‘cliquest’ because strongly dislike the emo and scene styles.

 

41. I usually don’t finish things that I have started. For example, (like I mentioned above) I don’t usually finish stories I begin writing. I don’t finish many art projects I start, it takes me a long time to finish a movie, and it takes me a really long time to finish cleaning my room.

 

42. One of the reasons why I hate writing reports for school is because of the program Microsoft Word. It frustrates me greatly.

 

43. I consider myself to me a pretty good liar. I’m good with eye contact when I need to lie, but I usually end up blushing in the end which gives it away.

 

44. One of my dreams is to marry a retired actor and live in the woods in a house with a tower, away from the rest of the word.

 

45. I have an interest in a wide range of music. I listen to pop, R&B, metal, soundtrack stuff, rock, oldies, etc. The only genres I really can’t stand are opera, jazz, and orchestra like stuff unless it’s EXTREMELY powerful.

 

46. Unlike music, I don’t have a very wide range of movies I’m interested in. I like watching horrors and thrillers with this occasional comedy or romance. I’m also a sucker for any 80s film.

 

47. One of my worst fears is dying while I’m asleep. I like to be fully aware of what’s happening.

 

48. Another one of my worst fears is becoming attached to people. When I become attached to a person, it means that I’ll become very jealous if anyone else is involved with them. I worry that if they see how jealous I am, that they won’t think I’m a safe person to be around.

 

49. I don’t really understand why people are offended by nudity. D: Especially when they think that life is such a gift and all.

 

50. I dislike pretty much everything that has to do with the mouth except for the tongue. Teeth and chewing noises gross me out.

 

51. It’s hard for me to feel bad for people who have died during natural disasters. Like in hurricanes or tornados. I figure that there is a reason for it.

 

52. My dream wedding would take place on the rocks that Merry, Pippin, Frodo, Sam, Boromir, Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli (is that all of them?) grieved for Gandalf. I think the location is in New Zealand.

 

53. The form of my nonexistent future children’s names is a family name and a musician’s name.

 

54. I have a birthmark near an unmentionable place that I discovered a couple months ago. xD

 

55. The movie Requiem for a Dream is more powerful than D.A.R.E., and is one of my favorite movies. Seriously. If you have a teenage child you should watch it with them. That movie is one of the reasons why I will never consider doing drugs.

 

56. I like putting glue on my fingers and letting it dry to peel it off.

 

57. Another one of my favorite bands in Shiny Toy Guns. My best friend and I dubbed them ‘our band’ because it’s the only band that we both can agree we like. (I listen to the heavier stuff and he listens to more pop).

 

58. My step-dad says that I have a thing for guys named Andrew. I know three guys named Andrew and at some point, I’ve had a crush on each of them.

 

59. I have a fear of going over to other people’s houses to eat if they eat meat. Over the summer, my dad and step-mom didn’t accept that I ate meat and I had to survive off poptarts and chips. D: That’s part of the reason.

 

60. When I think, nearly every other word is a swear.

 

61. My favorite drink is a Strawberry Daiquiri. Virgin, of course. ;o

 

62. A video I found on YouTube narrated by Pamela Anderson is what inspired me to become a vegetarian.

 

63. Two of my most prized possessions are a seashell box given to me by my grandmother and Rollin’ Stone interviews with Axel Rose from May of ’92 given to me by my Mom.

 

64. When I was younger I used to watch a show called Big Wolf On Campus. One of the characters drove a hearse and that has been my dream car since then.

 

65. My aunt Lisa is my role-model.

 

66. I often scare my friend because I tell her the ideas I have of contraptions and traps similar to the ones in Saw.

 

67. My first CD ever was Britney Spears’ Oops… I Did it Again.

 

68. One of my favorite memories is of a day at the beach with two of mom’s friends and my old babysitters. J, I’ll call him, and I went for a walk on the beach and left our shoes in some random place. When we went to try to find them, we walked past them several times on accident because a couple had set up their spot and were making out. When J finally saw the shoes, we both couldn’t stop laughing.

 

69. I’ve looked into how much it costs to get pointed caps for your teeth so I could be a ‘vampire’.

 

70. I have glasses, but I barely wear them. They’re for reading.

 

71. I like to be confined into small places and don’t freak out in small areas, unless I can barely breathe.

 

72. AXE deodorant is the only kind that I’ve tired that doesn’t make me itch. ):

 

73. I often begin following trends once they’re considered ‘so last year’.

 

74. My guitars are named Griffin and Kadae.

 

75. My favorite smilie is ‘xD’ and I usually use it after every sentence when I am talking online, and sometimes even accidentally use it in my stories. xDD I’ll go through and be like, “’xD’? Why is this here? xDD”

 

76. I have a very strong conscience. Once, in third grade, a group of my friends (I guess you could call us the popular bullies) took a girl’s lunch box and hid it behind a trash can. I was so upset and felt so guilty that when I got him, I called the girl to tell her where her box was.

 

77. When I was around three or four, we lived in Maine in an apartment complex. One day while I was out playing, these teenagers decided it would be a good idea to put me in the baby swing and leave me there. I was a chunky toddler, so I got stunk in there and had to scream at the top of my lungs for my mom to come and get me. If I remember correctly my mom and the man helping to pull me out discussed calling the fire department. Since then I have always hated those swings.

 

78. One of my biggest pet-peeves is when people call black and white colors. Example:

Person 1: “What’s your favorite color?”

Person 2: “Black.”

Person 3: “Oh. You’re so badass. ;o”

-enters the chat- Me: “Psh. No. They’re not. Black isn’t a color.”

 

79. I used to walk around the house pretending to be Xena. I put a butterknife in my underwear and walked around. One time, I cut my chest and I have a bit of a scar.

 

80. My Top 10 most played songs on iTunes are:

I’m the Man – Anthrax (94 plays)

Du hast – Rammstein (91)

All Over You – Live (81)

Would? – Alice in Chains (74)

Touch, Peel & Stand – Days of the New (69)

Iris – Live (66)

More Than a Feeling – Boston (65)

DotA – Basshunter (50)

Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex – CSS (50)

Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey (49)

 

81. My favorite food is a dish that my mom makes with pasta, peppers, black beans, onions and some other stuff. I think I’ve asked for it for my birthday the past two years.

 

82. One of my goals as an adult is to build a huge collection of movies. (Like, 1000+ movies.)

 

83. Depression started to kick in with me when I was about 11.

 

84. I probably think about something related to death as much as guys think about sex (studies say that’s almost every 8 seconds).

 

85. I’m jealous of how Canadians are so proud of their country.

 

86. I learned the ‘f’ word at a hockey game when I was like 8 or 9.

 

87. I’ve been brainstorming of ideas of what to paint on the rock in Lee for nearly 2 years.

 

88. Another reason why I would like to lose weight and keep it off is so I can get a huge tattoo on my back when I’m older.

 

89. I have a mannequin chest in my room that I stick needles into. I’ve considered dying patches of it red, but decided against it because mom might use it to model her bags.

 

90. I’ve nearly trained myself not to dream. For about a week, I was afraid to go to sleep because I killed someone in one. My dreams are often very clear and graphic, so I was tired of seeing the things I was and just told myself to stop. One dream I can remember was a dream of a wolf/beaver/fox thing that was chasing after me, and it has scared me for pretty much ever.

 

91. I’m afraid to go into my grandmother’s backroom in her house because I used to believe (and still kind of do) that there are evil white unicorn type creatures in there. They’re actually really cool, in my mind. I should try using them in a story sometime.

 

92. I think that 365 is one of the most challenging things that I’ve ever tried to do by myself! My set isn’t very exciting, but I am learning more about myself through my pictures and I’ve begun to see the world in a different way. Maybe that’s just because I am getting older, but I am not sure.

 

93. One of the first things people tell me online is “Holy cow? You’re 14? I thought you were like… 18 or something.” It gets on my nerves.

 

94. I’ve always wanted a dog but I’ve pretty much stopped begging my parents for one. My cats and Brooke would probably gang up on it.

 

95. I was in a fire when I was younger, but I can’t remember any of it. I think that’s one of the things that I’m most upset about not remembering. Maybe the smoke inhalation did something to my brain. That would explain a lot.

 

96. I have a blanket that I’ve had since I was a baby. Luckily it was rescued from the fire mentioned above. I seriously don’t know how different my life would be without that blanket. XD We call it the ‘ABC’ blanket because it has the alphabet all over it. It used to be really bright, but now it’s… pastel. xD

 

97. I purposefully burned the side of my eye to see what it would feel like. (Shoot… I don’t think I ever admitted that to mom…)

 

98. Even though barely anyone knows, I have a very perverted mind. I often find it very hard not to laugh at little things and have a laughing fit every time I see condoms in a store.

 

99. I like country/hick boys (men? I dunno if you can call them that) a lot for some reason. There are a lot of my dad’s friends that I’d probably like if they weren’t so stupid. xD

 

100. And… ugh. Last one. This is hard. Ohoh! My first celebrity crush was Hayden Christensen in the first Star Wars. I was so in love with that kid. 8D

 

Okay. This is a very boring list. If you actually made it through this all, cheers to you!

 

Hey lovelies, I will be retiring some of my older work (2yrs+) for good.. They can be found inworld at the mainstore for 25$L each.

 

Group members: Wear the group tag and fain these items for 1$L (Group is pay to join) - maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jupiter/164/74/2812

 

LM- maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Vogue/224/186/22

V.I.P Group - world.secondlife.com/group/baa590dc-5e51-850b-abda-35eaca...

 

~~ONCE THEY ARE GONE THEY WILL BE NONEXISTENT INWORLD AND ON MARKETPLACE~~

 

#Sl #Secondlife

Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.

Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.

 

Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

(Photo: GoGirl)

 

A perfect stocking stuffer for active women, GoGirl allows the simple convenience of taking bathroom breaks standing up in situations where restrooms are unfit or nonexistent.

 

Website

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Sigh....

New Year resolution: STOP waiting for the nonexistent or I'll end up like this chick.

Japanese Beetles were almost nonexistent the previous three years, but they're back with a vengeance this year and playing merry hell with my roses.

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

Vliste

Gateway city on a large island, 1-2 hours sailing from a mainland. All resembles The Netherlands. 2011.

 

Leamington is a municipality in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. With a population of 28,403, it is the second largest municipality in the Windsor-Essex County area (after the separated municipality of Windsor, Ontario). It includes Point Pelee, the southernmost point of mainland Canada.

 

Known as the "Tomato Capital of Canada", it is the location of a tomato processing factory owned by Highbury-Canco, previously owned until 2014 by the Heinz Company. Due to its location in the southernmost part of Canada, Leamington uses the motto "Sun Parlour of Canada". In 2006, MoneySense Magazine ranked Leamington as the No. 1 best place to live in Canada.

 

Leamington enjoys the second warmest climate in Canada, after the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

 

Leamington has been known for its tourism and attractions and is known as the tomato capital of Canada. Leamington's attractions include cycle paths and nearby Point Pelee National Park. Leamington also has a large and modern marina. The town's water tower, visible for miles in the flat southern Ontario landscape, is also in the shape and colour of a giant tomato. Celebrating its position as an agricultural powerhouse and its heritage as the H. J. Heinz Company's centre for processing "red goods," the city hosts a "Tomato Festival" each August, as a kickoff of the tomato-harvesting season. Car shows, beauty pageants, parades, and a fair are featured at the festival.

 

Leamington's position on the north shore of Lake Erie makes it an important recreational centre. The tourist information booth in the centre of town is a large fiberglass tomato.

 

Leamington is also home to Point Pelee National Park, which contains the southernmost point on mainland Canada and draws thousands of visitors annually and is also home to one of the largest migrations of Monarch butterflies annually.

 

Known as the tomato capital of Canada, Leamington became the home of the H. J. Heinz factory in 1908. The Heinz products are shipped from Leamington, with English and French labels, mostly to the United States. Ketchup and baby food are the main products. In November 2013 Heinz announced that it would close the Leamington plant in 2014, meaning job losses for 740 employees at the plant and hundreds more support workers.

 

Due to a 54-year-old law in Canada, which bans the use of tomato paste in tomato juice, Highbury Canco still produces tomato juice and other products for Heinzs. Around 250 workers still process canned products at the over 100 year old factory.

 

Leamington has also been known for its greenhouses, and now has the largest concentration of commercial greenhouses in all of North America, with 1,969 acres (797 ha) of greenhouse vegetable production in the general area. Major products of the greenhouse industry, in addition to tomatoes, are peppers, cucumbers, roses, and other flowers. Hydroponic farming has been very successfully adopted by many greenhouse operators in Leamington. Historically, tobacco was an important crop in the area, but tobacco production declined in the 1960s and today is virtually nonexistent.

 

Migrant workers, mostly Mexican and Caribbean seasonal labourers, annually arrive in the region to work in Leamington's greenhouses and farms. Several Mexican and Jamaican shops and a Mexican consulate have opened to service the migrants.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leamington,_Ontario

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

Chuck E. Cheese's #39 (10,253 square feet)

5612 Albemarle Road, Dollar Tree Plaza, Charlotte, NC

Opened in November 1991; originally Milton's Clothing Cupboard (October 1984-March 1986)/Jesse Brown's Outdoors (November 1984-1986)/Leaf 'N Petal (November 1984-spring 1987), later Cloth World (July 1987-February 1991)

 

This Charlotte store is actually somewhat special: it's one of very few locations on the East Coast outside of Florida with a Road Stage! This was CEC's first in-house iteration of the Munch's Make Believe Band format; the band was introduced in 1990 as a reskinning of the Rockafire Explosion characters at converted Showbiz Pizza restaurants, but this was the first time CEC implemented it on their own Cyberamics as a replacement for Balcony, Porch, and Rocker stages of the 1980s. The design, which lasted from 1990 to 1991, is sort of a prototype for the more refined 2-stage and 1-stage formats that followed. Chuck E. is the only full-bodied character here, with the other four placed within individual boxes that cover their nonexistent bottom halves. I was excited to finally see this stage in person, but that's about the only positive thing I can say about it...

Back in late 2007, TFM AC4400CW 2629 leads a stack train east into Joliet, IL. By now, TFM units are almost nonexistent.

Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.

 

No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.

 

The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.

 

Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")

 

When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.

 

When I visited the Palm Springs Air Museum in 2021, I wasn't able to get a picture of the nose art on "Bunny," one of the museum's P-51 Mustangs--it was undergoing maintenance at the time, so the cowling was on the floor. When we revisited in June 2023, "Bunny" was back in one piece, so I definitely made sure to get this shot of the nose art.

 

"Bunny" is in the colors of the famous 332nd Fighter Group--the legendary "Tuskegee Airmen"--and thus has a very rare example of African-American nose art. Most of the 332nd didn't carry nose art on their P-51s (though most had names), but the group's favorite pin-up girl was actress Lena Horne. "Bunny" is very much flyable.

 

Il mio nuovo sito: marcoartferrari.it/

 

My new site: marcoartferrari.it/

 

Foto originale 1, original photo 1: www.flickr.com/photos/zaffiroeacciaio/2170856253/

 

Foto originale 2, original photo 2: www.flickr.com/photos/zaffiroeacciaio/1526045730/

Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.

Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.

 

Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals

After so many years, the details tend to get a bit fuzzy, y'know? Still, it's my own history, so I'm very familiar with it, and the basic chronology here is quite accurate.

The story begins in the fall of 1962, when I was nine years old. This was when I started watching a live local show on TV. Basically, it featured a bunch of high school students dancing to the music as a disc jockey played the hits of the day. One of the first records I remember from direct experience was the Four Seasons' smash hit, "Sherry".

Well, I kept watching week by week. I found the music fascinating, even though I didn't understand the boy/girl stuff at all at that age. A major breakthrough came in February of 1964, when the Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Now the fascination attained a whole new level. Eventually, I became more interested in listening than watching. "House Party" was on CHSJ radio every Saturday morning, when they counted down the top 50. The show culminated when the host played the 'BIG GUN NUMBER ONE!" just before signing off at noon.

The host was a guy who went by the nickname "Rockin' Robbert" (with two 'b's). Robbert left sometime in the summer of '65 and was replaced by Pat Donelan. He'd keep mentioning these "Smart Charts" listing all the hits, and I kept getting more curious about what the things looked like. So I eventually got sufficiently curious to pick one up at MRA's, a long-established uptown department store (in those days, malls were almost nonexistent in Saint John). Thus, I became a bit of a chart addict. I obsessively watched as my favourite songs climbed (or fell down) the chart. I was eager to hear the latest from the Beatles-----and everybody else. So I got my first Smart Chart in November 1965, and continued the habit almost every week throughout '66 and into the start of '67.

For some reason, I stopped getting the Smart Charts in January of 1967, though I still listened to the music. In fact, I KEPT listening to the music well into the '70s-----until Disco, a genre I could not stand, came along and started dominating.

Pat Donelan stayed in the radio business for many years, though not in Saint John. In fact, he was only the DJ at CHSJ for a few months before a new guy took over.

But December, 1965, was a great era for memorable music. I've got at least SOME recollection of virtually every song on this chart. CHSJ was big on promoting "Canadian Talent", with no fewer than seven homegrown groups or singers in the top 50 records. "Rocket record of the week" was an interesting feature, highlighting the song that had climbed the chart faster than any other. The all-time CHSJ feat in that department came in February, 1966, when the Beach Boys "Barbara Ann" shot from nowhere to number one in a single week! Then there was the "Pick to Click", which sometimes clicked and sometimes bombed. "Thunderball" wasn't a big hit, but I liked it enough to buy the 45 rpm single-----which I still have to this day.

 

Many conventional diabetes diets rely on meat or grains as the major source of calories. This strategy has serious drawbacks. This type of diet is rich in macro nutrients, but lacking in micro nutrients, especially those derived from green vegetables. Micro nutrients are necessary for the body’s cells to function properly. Even modest micro nutrient insufficiency can lead to DNA damage, mitochondrial decay and telomere deterioration, promoting premature cellular aging.

A high-nutrient, low glycemic diet is the most effective method of preventing and reversing type 2 diabetes. In a recent study of type 2 diabetics following this type of diet, 90 percent of the participants were able to come off all diabetic medications and their mean HbA1c after one year was 5.8 percent, which is within the non-diabetic (normal) range. A diet rich in vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, and fresh fruits can prevent and reverse disease, while fostering long-term health. These five types of foods are optimal for diabetics, and can even help prevent the disease from occurring in the first place.

Green Vegetables

These nutrient-dense vegetables are the most important foods to focus on for diabetes prevention and reversal. Higher green vegetable consumption is associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and among those who have the disease, a higher intake is associated with lower HbA1c levels, which measures average blood glucose over a three-month period. A recent meta-analysis found that greater leafy green vegetable consumption was associated with a 14 percent decrease in the risk of type 2 diabetes. One study reported that each serving of leafy greens produces a 9 percent decrease in risk. This category of vegetable includes lettuces, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower. I always advise eating at least one large salad each day to be sure of getting a good supply of these important vegetables.

Non-starchy Vegetables

Non-green, non-starchy veggies like mushrooms, onions, garlic, eggplant, and peppers are essential. These foods have almost nonexistent effects on blood sugar and are packed with fiber and phytochemicals.

Beans

Eating beans daily will help to stabilize your blood sugar, reduce your appetite, and protect against colon cancer. An ideal carbohydrate source, beans are low in glycemic load due to their abundant soluble fiber and resistant starch, making them an ideal weight-loss food because they are digested slowly. The fiber in beans promotes satiety and helps prevent food cravings and the resistant starch is fermented by bacteria in the colon, forming products that protect against colon cancer.

Nuts and Seeds

The Nurses’ Health Study found a 27 percent reduced risk of diabetes in nurses who ate five or more servings of nuts per week. Among nurses who had diabetes, this same quantity reduced the risk of heart disease by 47 percent. Nuts are low in glycemic load, promote weight loss, and have anti-inflammatory effects that may prevent insulin resistance.

Fresh Fruit

To satisfy sweet cravings, fresh fruit is an excellent choice. Rich in fiber, antioxidants, and nutrient-dense, eating three servings of fresh fruit a day is associated with an 18 percent decrease in the risk of developing diabetes. If you are already diabetic, I recommend selecting only the low-sugar fruits like berries, kiwi, oranges, and melon to minimize glycemic effects.

If you are committed to improving your health and reducing your risk of disease or reversing your disease so that your medications can be reduced or eliminated, a nutritional approach works. Source BY JOEL FUHRMAN. To know more visit www.yogagurusuneelsingh.com Pic by Sidd

Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.

Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.

 

Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals

BOX DATE: None

APPROXIMATE RELEASE DATE: 2012

MANUFACTURER: M.G.A.

DOLLS IN LINE: Cloe; Yasmin; Sasha; Jade

BODY TYPE: 2010; pink painted panties; bend & snap legs

HEAD MOLD: 2001; parted lips; pierced ears

 

PERSONAL FUN FACT: I have said this time and time again, but hair gimmick doll lines are some of my favorites to collect. This phase started as a kid, and has extended into my adulthood. There is immense novelty in a Bratz hair themed line, as they were nonexistent back in the day when I played with Bratz as a child. In 2011 and 2012, there were a ton of different hair line options--Featherageous, All Glammed Up, and of course Crystalicious! It's really difficult for me to choose a favorite hair line from this era, as they each have something unique to offer. Originally, I wasn't planning on buying the Crystalicious dolls, because I thought that their outfits looked a bit "cheap." I definitely don't have that opinion now--on the contrary, I love the metallic/sequin bedazzled look of these Crystalicious ensembles. I was super duper glad when the line went on sale, because truth be told, I'm not sure how long I could have held off from buying it. I got Yasmin, Cloe, and Jade together at Toys 'R' Us, if I'm not mistaken, sometime in 2012. I already had purchased Sasha months before, for full price. I honestly don't have a favorite doll from this line, because they are all gorgeous. I love how Yasmin's eyes almost look like a 2010 Bratz doll's--they are very cartoon like and lack loads of iris detail. But she has the smaller, more defined lips of later Bratz--it's a very unique combination that I very much admire. Most of all, I am drawn to her glittery pink eye shadow--it just looks so stunning with her tan skin and medium brown hair. I was actually taken aback when I purchased my Yasmin doll and discovered she had nylon hair (albeit it's very soft, silky, deceiving nylon hair), because all my other Crystalicious dolls have saran. It's honestly hard to tell in photographs and even in person. It's just slightly lighter weight feeling and slightly less waxy in texture than saran. This Yasmin doll is such a babe, and I'm so glad I was able to add her to my collection because of TRU's wonderful sales!

The Reconquest began in Asturias. It was the begining of the formation of the Christian Empire. The center was Asturias.

 

Wikipedia

 

The Kingdom of Asturias (Latin: Regnum Asturorum) was a Kingdom in the Iberian peninsula founded in 718 by Visigothic nobles under the leadership of Pelagius of Asturias.[1] It was the first Christian political entity established following the collapse of the Visigothic kingdom after Islamic conquest of Hispania. In 722, Pelagius subsequently defeated the Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of Covadonga, in what is usually regarded as the beginning of the Reconquista. The kingdom lasted until 924, when Fruela II became King of León.

 

Indigenous background

 

The birthplace of the Asturian kingdom was the western and central territory of the Cantabrian Mountains part of the Gallaecia, particularly the Picos de Europa and the central area of Asturias. The main political and military events during the first decades of the kingdom's existence took place in this region. According to the descriptions of Strabo, Dio Cassius and other Graeco-Roman geographers, the lands of Asturias were inhabited in the beginning of the Christian era by several peoples, amongst whom the more important were: From the Cantabrians, the Vadinienses, who inhabited the Picos de Europa region and whose settlement gradually expanded southward during the first centuries of the modern era; the Orgenomesci, who dwelled along the Asturian eastern coast; and from the Astures, the Saelini, whose settlement extended through the Sella valley; the Luggones, who had their capital in Lucus Asturum and whose territories stretched between the rivers Sella and Nalón; the Astures (in the strictest sense), who dwelled in inner Asturias, between the current councils of Piloña and Cangas del Narcea; and the Paesici, who had settled along the coast of Western Asturias, between the mouth of the Navia river and the modern city of Gijón.

Classical geographers give conflicting views of the ethnic description of the above mentioned peoples: Ptolemy says that the Astures extended along the central area of current Asturias, between the Navia and Sella rivers, fixing the latter river as the boundary with the Cantabrian territory. However, other geographers placed the frontier between the Astures and the Cantabri more eastwards: Julius Honorius stated in his Cosmographia that the springs of Ebro river were located in the land of the Astures (sub asturibus). In any case, ethnic borders in the Cantabrian mountains were not so important after that time, as the clans divisions that permeated the pre-roman societies of all the peoples of Northern Iberia fell under similar political administrative culture impossed on them by the Romans.

 

This situation started to change during the Late Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages, when an Asturian identity started to develop gradually: The centuries-old fight among Visigoths or Suebians nobles may have helped to forge a distinct identity among the peoples of the Cantabrian districts. Several archaeological digs in the castro of La Carisa (municipality of Lena) have found remnants of a defensive line whose main purpose was to protect the valleys of central Asturias from invaders who came from the Meseta through the Pajares pass: the construction of these fortifications reveals a high degree of organization and cooperation between the several Asturian communities, in order to defend themselves from the southern invaders. Carbon-14 tests have found that the wall dates from the period 675-725 AD, when two armed expeditions against the Asturians took place: One of them, headed by Visigothic king Wamba; the other by Muslim governor Musa bin Nusair, during the Islamic conquest of Iberia who settled garrisons over its territory.

 

The Asturian identity that was gradually forming led to the creation of the Kingdom of Asturias after Pelayo's coronation and the victory over the Muslim garrisons in Covadonga. The Chronica Albeldense, in narrating the happenings of Covadonga, stated that "Divine providence brings forth the King of Asturias".

 

Islamic occupation and Asturian revolt

 

The kingdom was established by the Visigothic nobleman Pelayo (Latin: Pelagius), who had returned to his country after the Battle of Guadalete where, in the Gothic tradition of Theias, he was elected by the other nobles as leader of the Astures, and founded the Kingdom of Asturias. However, Pelayo's kingdom was initially little more than a rallying banner for existing guerilla forces.[2][3]

 

In the progress of the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the main cities and administrative centers fell in the hands of Muslim troops. Control of the central and southern regions, such as the Guadalquivir and Ebro valleys, presented few problems for the newcomers, who used the existing Visigothic administrative structures, ultimately of Roman origin. However, in the northern mountains, urban centers (such as Gigia) were practically nonexistent and the submission of the country had to be achieved valley by valley. Muslim troops often resorted to the taking of hostages to ensure the pacification of the newly conquered territory.

 

After the first incursion of Tarik, who reached Toledo in 711, the Yemeni viceroy of Ifriqiya, Musa ibn Nusair, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar the following year and carried out a massive operation of conquest that would lead to the capture of Mérida, Toledo, Zaragoza and Lerida, among other cities. During the last phase of his military campaign, he reached the northwest of the Peninsula, where he gained control of the localities of Lugo and Gijon. In the latter city he placed a small Berber detachment under a governor, Munuza, whose mission was to consolidate Muslim control over Asturias. As guarantee of the submission of the region, some nobles – some argue that Pelayo was among them, although his origin is unknown – had to surrender hostages from Asturias to Cordoba. The legend says that his sister was asked for, and a marriage alliance sought with the local Berber leader. Later on, Munuza would try to do the same at another mountain post in the Pyrenees, where he rebelled against his Cordoban Arab superiors. The Berbers had been converted to Islam barely a generation earlier, and were considered second rank to Arabs and Syrians.

 

But, as is told in the Rotensian Chronicle (chronicle of Alfonso III of Asturias in which Pelayo is considered the successor of the kings of Toledo, with clear goals of political legitimacy) as well as in that of Al-Maqqari (a Moroccan historian of the 16th century who died in Cairo, Egypt, and who could have used the Rotensian Chronicle and rewrite it eight centuries later, making it useless as a historical document), Pelayo escaped from that city during the governorship of Al Hurr (717-718) and his return to Asturias triggered a revolt against the Muslim authorities of Gijon. The identity of Pelayo, however, is still an open subject, and this is only one of the theories. The leader of the Astures, whose origin is debated by historians, had at that time his home in Bres (in the district of Piloña) and Munuza sent his troops there under officer Al-Qama. After receiving word of the arrival of the Muslims, Pelayo and his companions hurriedly crossed the Piloña River and headed toward the narrow, easily defended valley of Auseva mountain, and took refuge in one of its caves, Covadonga. After an attempt at siege was abandoned due to the weather and the exposed position of the deep valley gorge, the troops are said to have taken to exit through the high ports to the south, in order to continue in the search and destroy action against other rebels. There the locals were able to ambush the Muslim detachment, which was annihilated. The rest of its survivors continued south to the plains of Leon, leaving the maritime districts of Asturias exposed and weakened of defenders. The most commonly accepted hypothesis for this battle (epic as described by Christian chronicles, but a mere skirmish in Muslim texts) is that the Moorish column was attacked from the cliffs and then fell back through the valleys towards present day Gijón, but was attacked whilst in retreat by the retinue and nearly destroyed.

 

The victory - relatively small, as only a few Berber soldiers were involved — resulted in great prestige for Pelayo and provoked a massive insurrection by other nobles in Galicia and Asturias who immediately rallied around Pelayo, electing him King or military Dux.

 

Under Pelayo's leadership, the attacks on the Berbers increased. Munuza, feeling isolated in a region increasingly hostile, decided to abandon Gijon and headed for the Plateau (Meseta) through the Mesa Trail. However, he was intercepted and killed by Astures at Olalíes (in the current district of Grado). Once he had expelled the Moors from the eastern valleys of Asturias, Pelayo attacked León, the main city in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and secured the mountain passes, isolating the region from Moorish attack. Pelayo continued attacking those Berbers who remained north of the Asturian-Galician Mountains until they withdrew, but mostly deserted their garrisons at the wider rebellion against Arab control from Cordoba. He then married his daughter, Ermesinda to Alfonso, the son of Peter of Cantabria, the leading noble at the still-independent Visigothic dukedom of Cantabria. His son Favila was married to Froiliuba.

 

Recent archaeological excavations have found fortifications in Mount Homon and La Carisa (near the Huerna and Pajares valleys) dated between the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth centuries. These Berber fortifications included watchtowers and moats of almost two meters, in whose construction and defense many hundreds may have participated. This would have required a high degree of organization and firm leadership, probably by Pelayo himself.[4] For this reason, experts consider that it is probable that the construction of the defensive line was intended to prevent the reentry of Moors into Asturias through the mountain passes of Mesa and Pajares.[5]

 

After Pelayo's victory over the Moorish detachment at the Battle of Covadonga, a small territorial independent entity was established in the Asturian mountains that was the origin of the kingdom of Asturias. Pelayo's leadership was not comparable to that of the Visigothic kings. The first kings of Asturias referred to themselves as "princeps" (prince) and later as "rex" (king), but the later title was not firmly established until the period of Alphonse II. The title of "princeps" had been used by the indigenous peoples of Northern Spain and its use appears in Galician and Cantabrian inscriptions, in which expressions like "Nícer, Príncipe de los Albiones"[6] (on an inscription found in the district of Coaña) and "princeps cantabrorum"[7] (over a gravestone of the municipality of Cistierna, in Leon). In fact, the Kingdom of Asturias originated as a focus of leadership over other peoples of the Cantabrian Coast that had resisted the Romans as well as the Visigoths and that were not willing to subject themselves to the dictates of the Umayyad Caliphate. Immigrants from the south, fleeing from Al-Andalus, brought a Gothic influence to the Asturian kingdom. However, at the beginning of the 9th century, Alphonse II's will cursed the Visigoths, blaming them for the loss of Hispania. The chronicles on which knowledge of this period is based, written all during the reign of Alphonse III when there was great Gothic ideological influence, are the Sebastianensian Chronicle (Crónica Sebastianense), the Albeldensian Chronicle (Crónica Albeldense) and the Rotensian Chronicle (Crónica Rotense).

 

During the first decades, the Asturian dominion over the different areas of the kingdom was still lax, and for this reason it had to be continually strengthened through matrimonial alliances with other powerful families from the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, Ermesinda, Pelayo's daughter, was married to Alfonso, Dux Peter of Cantabria's son. Alphonse's son Fruela married Munia, a Basque princess from Alava, while his daughter Adosinda married Silo, a local chief from the area of Flavionavia, Pravia.

 

After Pelayo's death in 737, his son Favila (or "Fafila") was elected king. Fafila, according to the chronicles, was unexpectedly killed by a bear while hunting in one of the trials of courage normally required of the nobility in that era. But there is no other such incident known from the long history of monarchs and others at the sport, and the case is suspiciously similar to the Roman legend of their first king, Romulus, taken by a sudden storm. The immediate consequence was that the rule of the Asturians passed to his brother-in-law, ruler of the neighboring independent domain, through a marriage alliance to Fafila's sister. The female ties and rights of inheritance were still respected, and in later cases would allow the regency or crown for their husbands too.

 

Pelayo founded a dynasty in Asturias that survived for decades and gradually expanded the kingdom's boundaries, until all of northwest Iberia was included by ca. 775. The reign of Alfonso II from 791-842 saw further expansion of the kingdom to the south, almost as far as Lisbon, Portugal.

 

Initial expansion

 

Favila was succeeded by Alphonse I, who inherited the throne of Asturias thanks to his marriage to Pelayo's daughter, Ermesinda. The Albeldensian Chronicle narrated how Alphonse arrived in the kingdom some time after the battle of Covadonga to marry Ermesinda. Favila's death made his access to the throne possible as well as the rise to power of one of the most powerful families in the Kingdom of Asturias: the House of Cantabria. Initially only Alphonse moved to the court in Cangas, but after the progressive depopulation of the Plateau and the Middle Valley of the Ebro, where the main strongholds of the Duchy of Cantabria such as Amaya, Tricio and City of Cantabria were located, the descendants of Duke Peter withdrew from Rioja towards the Cantabrian area and in time controlled the destiny of the Kingdom of Asturias.

 

Alphonse began the territorial expansion of the small Christian kingdom from its first seat in the Peaks of Europe, advancing toward the west to Galicia and toward the south with continuous incursions in the Duero valley, taking cities and towns and moving their inhabitants to the safer northern zones. This eventually led to the strategic depopulation of the plateau, creating the Desert of the Duero as a protection against future Moorish attacks.[8]

 

This depopulation, defended by Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz, is doubted today, at least concerning its magnitude.[8] Two main arguments are used to refute it. First, the minor toponymy was preserved in multiple districts. Second, there are biological and cultural differences between the inhabitants of the Cantabrian zone and those of the central Plateau. What is true is that in the first half of the eighth century there was a process of rural growth that led to the abandonment of urban life and the organization of the population in small communities of shepherds. Several causes explain this process: The definitive breakdown of the production system based on slavery in existence from the time of the late Roman Empire, the continuous propagation of epidemics in the area, and the abandonment of Al Andalus by the Berber regiments after the revolt of 740-741. All this made possible the emergence of a sparsely populated and ill-organized area that isolated the Asturian kingdom from the Moorish assaults and allowed its progressive strengthening.

 

The campaigns of kings Alphonse I and Fruela in the Duero valley were probably not very different from the raids that the Astures made in the same area in the pre-Roman era. The initial Asturian expansion is carried out mainly through Cantabrian territory (from Galicia to Vizcaya) and it will be necessary to wait until the reigns of Ordoño I and Alphonse III for the Kingdom of Asturias to take effective possession of the territories located south of the Cantabrian Mountains.

 

Fruela I, Alphonse I's son, consolidated and expanded his father's domains. He was assassinated by members of the nobility associated with the House of Cantabria.

 

[edit] Social and political transformations

 

Written sources are concise concerning the reigns of Aurelio, Silo, Mauregato and Bermudo I. Generally this period, with a duration of twenty-three years (768-791), has been considered as a long stage of obscurity and retreat of the kingdom of Asturias. This vision, defended by some historians, who even named this phase of the history of the Asturian kingdom as that of the "lazy kings," originated because it appears that in that moment there were no important military actions against Al-Andalus. However, during those years there were relevant and decisive internal transformations in the Asturian kingdom. They all prepared and provided a foundation, in all respects, for the strengthening and the expansion of Asturias.

 

First, the first internal rebellion, led by Mauregato (783-788), occurred during those years. The rebellion removed Alphonse II from the throne (although he became king again later, from 791 to 842), and initiated a series of rebellions whose principal leaders were members of ascending aristocratic palace groups and landowners who, based on the growing economic development of the area, tried to displace from power of the reigning family of Don Pelayo. The important rebellions of Nepociano, Aldroito and Piniolo, during the reign of Ramiro I (842-50), are part of this process of economic, social, political and cultural transformation of the Asturian kingdom that occurred during the eighth and ninth centuries.

 

Second, neighboring rebellions by Basques and Galicians failed, aborted by Asturian kings. These rebellions, in turn, took advantage of the internal rebellions of the central and Eastern part of Asturias, and, on occasions, provided help to one or another contender of the Asturian aristocracy: refuge to Alphonse II in lands of Alava, after his flight; the support to Nepociano's rebellion in some Asturian areas or the adherence of Galicians to the cause of Ramiro I.

 

Finally, other evidence suggests important internal transformations of the Asturian kingdom during this time. Rebellions of freedmen (serbi, servilis orico and libertini, according to the Chronicles) occurred during the reign of Aurelio I. The property relationship between master and slave broke down progressively. This fact, together with the growing role of the individual and the restricted family in detriment of the role that until that time had fulfilled the extended family, is another indication that a new society was emerging in Asturias at the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth centuries.

 

Fruela I (757-68) is succeeded by Aurelio (768-74), Peter of Cantabria's grandson, who will establish the court in lands of what is today the district of San Martin del Rey Aurelio, which previously belonged to Langreo, between the years of his reign. Silo (774-83) succeeded Aurelio after his death, and transfers the court to Pravia. Silo was married to Adosinda, one of the daughters of Alphonse I (and therefore, Pelayo's granddaughter).

 

Alphonse II was elected king after Silo's death, but Mauregato organized a strong opposition and forced the new king to withdraw to lands in Alava (his mother, Munia, was Basque), obtaining the Asturian throne. This king, despite the bad reputation attributed by history, had good relations with Beato de Liebana, perhaps the most important cultural figure of the kingdom, and supported him in his fight against adoptionism. Legend says that Mauregato was Alphonse I's bastard son with a Moorish woman, and attributes to him the tribute of a hundred maidens. He was succeeded by Bermudo I, Aurelio's brother. He was called the deacon, although he probably only received minor vows. Bermudo abdicated after a military defeat, ending his life in a monastery.

 

[edit] Recognition

 

It was not until King Alfonso II of Asturias (791-842) that the kingdom was firmly established with Alfonso's recognition as king of Asturias by Charlemagne and the Pope. He conquered Galicia and the Basques. During his reign, the holy bones of St. James the Great were declared to be found in Galicia, at Santiago de Compostela (from Latin campus stellae, literally "the field of the star"). Pilgrims from all over Europe opened a way of communication between the isolated Asturias and the Carolingian lands and beyond.

 

The first capital city was Cangas de Onís. Then, in Silo's time, it was moved to Pravia. Alfonso II chose Oviedo as the definite capital of the Kingdom. The kingdom was known as Asturias until 924, when it became the Kingdom of León. It continued under that name until incorporated into the Kingdom of Castile in 1230, after Ferdinand III became joint king of the two kingdoms.

  

Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.

Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.

 

Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals

Eidi or Eide. Peninsular city on a plain adjacent to a mountain (a bit like Gibraltar). 2009.

"Friday the 13th - Better Than Monday Whatever"

 

marketplace.secondlife.com/p/CHILLaXe-Friday-13th-Shorts/...

 

Swap your Monday blues for some Friday thrills with these hilarious "Friday the 13th - Better Than Monday Whatever" shorts! Featuring an adorable Baby Jason donning his iconic hockey mask, these black shorts are perfect for those who prefer their scares cute and their Mondays nonexistent. Whether you're chilling at home plotting your next move or slashing through beach waves, these shorts will keep you comfy and ready for any mischief. Because honestly, Mondays has nothing on Friday....😈🎃

Camera Nikon D5000

Lens Nikkor 18-55mm

Exposure 8.0 sec

Aperture f/29

Focal Length 19 mm

ISO Speed 200

 

Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades. The street is an icon of Hollywood celebrity culture and the phrase "Sunset Boulevard" is an enduring shorthand for the glamor associated with Hollywood.

 

Approximately 24 miles in length, the famous boulevard passes through or near Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Bel-Air, Brentwood, and Pacific Palisades. Other than West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, which are independent incorporated cities, the places named above are all districts and neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles. In the Bel-Air district of Los Angeles, Sunset Boulevard runs along the northern boundary of the UCLA Westwood campus, and it also serves as the postal divider between north and south west of Beverly Hills.

 

The boulevard is winding and treacherous in some areas. It is at least four lanes in width for all of its route. Car accidents are not uncommon due to its numerous hairpin curves and blind crests, and the lack of a center divider on most sections. Sunset (along with Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards) is frequently congested with traffic loads far beyond its design capacity. As a result, it is also notorious for cracks and potholes. Traffic on Sunset is often slow-moving, with bumper-to-bumper congestion not infrequent during rush hour in both directions. However, when traffic is mild or nonexistent, Sunset is an extremely fast thoroughfare as it encounters few (and short timed) traffic lights west of Doheny Drive. Even at rush hours, traffic generally flows well through the Holmby Hills and Bel Air, west of Whittier in Beverly Hills, as the lights are very well spaced and timed.

 

Sunset Boulevard historically extended farther east, starting at Alameda Street near Union Station and beside Olvera Street in the historic section of Downtown, but the portion of Sunset Boulevard east of Figueroa on the north end of Downtown Los Angeles was renamed Cesar Chavez Avenue, in 1994, along with Macy Street and Brooklyn Avenue, in honor of the late Mexican-American trade union leader and civil rights activist.

 

In the 1970s, the area between Gardner Street and Western Avenue, became a seedy red-light district afflicted with street prostitution. It was at the corner of Sunset and Courtney Avenue that actor Hugh Grant pulled over and picked up prostitute Divine Brown in the early morning of June 27, 1995. He then drove a few blocks east and parked at the corner of Curson and Hawthorn Avenues. Police arrested him and the prostitute for lewd conduct in a public place and he was later fined $1,200. Shortly after this police raids drove out the majority of prostitutes in this area and the majority of those turned to on-line escort services, thus diminishing the long held red-light district.

 

Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood is also sometimes called "Guitar Row" due to the large number of guitar stores and music industry-related businesses, including the legendary recording studios Sunset Sound Studios and United Western Recorders. Also, many young, struggling actors, musicians, and other artists continue to live in the area.

 

The best-known section of Sunset Boulevard is probably the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, which is a center for nightlife in the Los Angeles area.

Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet and Vietnam

 

english

 

Religion in Korea encompasses a number of different traditions. Traditional Buddhism, Mugyo with a background of Korean Confucianism and later Christianity all play a role in Korea's religious tradition. The modern separation of Korea into North and South Korea has also shaped religious practice, especially in the communist North.

 

Religion in South Korea

 

Just over 53 percent of South Koreans profess religious affiliation. That affiliation is spread primarily among three traditions - Buddhism (43 percent), Christianity (55 percent), and Mugyo (0.2 percent).[6] These numbers should be treated with some caution, however, as (with the exception of Christianity) there are few if any meaningful distinctions between believers and nonbelievers in Buddhism and Confucianism, which comprise more of a set of ethical values than a religion. The cultural impact of these movements is far more widespread than the number of formal adherents suggests. A variety of "new religions" have emerged since the mid-19th century, including Cheondogyo. Very small Muslim and Bahá'í minorities also exist due to the emigration of South Asians.

 

Religion in North Korea

 

Traditionally, Koreans have practiced Buddhism and observed the tenets of Korean Confucianism. Besides a number of practicing Buddhists (about 11.4 million, under the auspices of the official Korean Buddhist Federation), the population also includes some Christians (about 10,000 Protestants and 4,000 Roman Catholics, under the auspices of the Korean Christian Federation) and an indeterminate number of native Cheondogyo (Heavenly Way) adherents. However, religious activities in North Korea are almost nonexistent. North Korea has 300 Buddhist temples, but they are considered cultural relics rather than active places of worship. Several schools for religious education exist, including three-year religious colleges for training Protestant and Buddhist clergy. In 1989 Kim Il Sung University established a religious studies program, but its graduates usually go on to work in the foreign trade sector. Although the constitution provides for freedom of religious belief, in practice the government severely discourages organized religious activity except as supervised by the aforementioned officially recognized groups. Constitutional changes made in 1992 allow authorized religious gatherings and the construction of buildings for religious use and deleted a clause about freedom of anti-religious propaganda. The constitution also stipulates that religion "should not be used for purposes of dragging in foreign powers or endangering public security."

 

Mugyo

 

Koreans, like other East Asians, have traditionally been eclectic rather than exclusive in their religious commitments. Their religious outlook has not been conditioned by a single, exclusive faith but by a combination of indigenous beliefs and creeds imported into Korea. Belief in a world inhabited by spirits is probably the oldest form of Korean religious life, dating back to prehistoric times. There is a rather unorganized pantheon of literally millions of gods, spirits, and ghosts, ranging from the "god generals" who rule the different quarters of heaven to mountain spirits (sansin). This pantheon also includes gods who inhabit trees, sacred caves, and piles of stones, as well as earth spirits, the tutelary gods of households and villages, mischievous goblins, and the ghosts of persons who in many cases met violent or tragic ends. These spirits are said to have the power to influence or to change the fortunes of living men and women.

 

Shamans, most of whom are women, are enlisted by those who want the help of the spirit world. Female shamans (mudang) hold kut, or services, in order to gain good fortune for clients, cure illnesses by exorcising evil spirits, or propitiate local or village gods. Such services are also held to guide the spirit of a deceased person to heaven.

 

Often a woman will become a shaman very reluctantly—after experiencing a severe physical or mental illness that indicates "possession" by a spirit. Such possession can allegedly be cured only through performance of a kut. Once a shaman is established in her profession, she usually can make a good living.

 

Many scholars regard Korean shamanism as less a religion than a form of medicine in which the spirits are manipulated in order to achieve human ends. There is no notion of salvation or moral and spiritual perfection, at least for the ordinary believers in spirits. The shaman is a professional who is consulted by clients whenever the need is felt. Traditionally, shamans had low social status and were members of the ch'ommin class. This discrimination has continued into modern times.

 

Korean folk beliefs are strongly associated with the culture of fishing villages and are primarily a phenomenon found in rural communities. Shamans also treat the ills of city people, however, especially recent migrants from the countryside who find adjustment to an impersonal urban life stressful. The government has discouraged belief in shamanism as superstition and for many years minimized its persistence in Korean life. Yet in a climate of growing nationalism and cultural self-confidence, the dances, songs, and incantations that compose the kut have come to be recognized as an important aspect of Korean culture. Beginning in the 1970s, rituals that formerly had been kept out of foreign view began to resurface, and occasionally a Western hotel manager or other executive could even be seen attending a shamanistic exorcism ritual in the course of opening a new branch in Seoul. Some of these aspects of kut have been designated valuable cultural properties that should be preserved and passed on to future generations.

 

The future of shamanism itself was uncertain in the late 1980s. Observers believed that many of its functions in the future probably will be performed by the psychiatric profession as the government expands mental health treatment facilities. Given the uncertainty of social, economic, and political conditions, however, it appears certain that shamans will find large numbers of clients for some time to come.

 

Buddhism and Confucianism

 

Buddhism was the dominant religious and cultural influence during the Silla (668–935) and Koryo (918–1392) dynasties. Confucianism also was brought to Korea from China in early Three Kingdoms period, but it occupied a subordinate position until the establishment of the Choson Dynasty where it became the state ideology.

 

Christianity

 

Roman Catholic missionaries did not arrive in Korea until 1794, a decade after the return of the first baptized Korean from a visit to Beijing. However, the writings of the Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci, who was resident at the imperial court in Beijing, had been brought to Korea from China in the seventeenth century. It appears that scholars of the Sirhak, or practical learning, school were interested in these writings. Largely because converts refused to perform ancestor rites, the government prohibited the proselytization of Christianity. Some Catholics were executed during the early nineteenth century, but the anti-Christian law was not strictly enforced. By the 1860s, there were some 17,500 Roman Catholics in the country. There followed a more rigorous persecution, in which thousands of Christians died, that continued until 1884.

 

Protestant missionaries entered Korea during the 1880s and, along with Catholic priests, converted a remarkable number of Koreans. Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries were especially successful. They established schools, universities, hospitals, and orphanages and played a significant role in the modernization of the country. During the Japanese colonial occupation, Christians were in the front ranks of the struggle for independence. Factors contributing to the growth of Protestantism included the disorganized state of Korean Buddhism, the efforts made by educated Christians to reconcile Christian and Confucian values (the latter being viewed as purely a social ethic rather than a religion), the encouragement of self-support and selfgovernment among members of the Korean church, and the identification of Christianity with Korean nationalism.

 

A large number of Christians lived in the northern part of the peninsula where Confucian influence was not as strong as in the south. Before 1948 P'yongyang was an important Christian center: one-sixth of its population of about 300,000 people were converts. Following the establishment of a communist regime in the north, however, most Christians had to flee to South Korea or face persecution.

 

New religions

 

Ch'ondogyo, generally regarded as the first of Korea's "new religions," is another important religious tradition. It is a synthesis of Confucian, Buddhist, shamanistic, Daoist, and Catholic influences. Ch'ondogyo grew out of the Donghak Movement (also called Eastern Learning Movement) established by Choe Je-u, a man of yangban background who claimed to have experienced a mystic encounter with God, who told him to preach to all the world. Ch'oe was executed by the government as a heretic in 1863, but not before he had acquired a number of followers and had committed his ideas to writing. Tonghak spread among the poor people of Korea's villages, especially in the Cholla region, and was the cause of a revolt against the royal government in 1894. While some members of the Tonghak Movement-- renamed Ch'ondogyo (Teachings of the Heavenly Way)--supported the Japanese annexation in 1910, others opposed it. This group played a major role, along with Christians and some Confucians, in the Korean nationalist movement. In the 1920s, Ch'ondogyo sponsored Kaebyok (Creation), one of Korea's major intellectual journals during the colonial period.

 

Ch'ondogyo's basic beliefs include the essential equality of all human beings. Each person must be treated with respect because all persons "contain divinity;" there is "God in man." Moreover, men and women must sincerely cultivate themselves in order to bring forth and express this divinity in their lives. Self-perfection, not ritual and ceremony, is the way to salvation. Although Ch'oe and his followers did not attempt to overthrow the social order and establish a radical egalitarianism, the revolutionary potential of Ch'ondogyo is evident in these basic ideas, which appealed especially to poor people who were told that they, along with scholars and high officials, could achieve salvation through effort. There is reason to believe that Ch'ondogyo had an important role in the development of democratic and anti-authoritarian thought in Korea. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ch'ondogyo's antecedent, the Tonghak Movement, received renewed interest among many Korean intellectuals.

 

Apart from Ch'ondogyo, major new religions included Taejonggyo, which has as its central creed the worship of Tangun, legendary founder of the Korean nation. Chungsanggyo, founded in the early twentieth century by Chungsan Kang, emphasizes magical practices and the creation of a paradise on earth. It is divided into a great number of competing branches, the largest being Jeungsando and Daesun Jinrihoe.[7] Wonbulgyo, or Won Buddhism, attempts to combine traditional Buddhist doctrine with a modern concern for social reform and revitalization. There are also a number of small sects which have sprung up around Mount Kyeryong in South Ch'ungch'ong Province, the supposed future site of the founding of a new dynasty originally prophesied in the eighteenth century.

 

Several new religions derive their inspiration from Christianity. The Chondogwan, or Evangelical Church, was founded by Pak T'ae-son. Pak originally was a Presbyterian, but was expelled from the church for heresy in the 1950s after claiming for himself unique spiritual power. By 1972 his followers numbered as many as 700,000 people, and he built several "Christian towns," established a large church network, and managed several industrial enterprises.

 

Because of its overseas evangelism, the Hold Spirit Association for the Unification of the World Christianity, or Unification Church (T'ongilgyo), founded in 1954 by Reverend Sun Myong Moon (Mun Son-myong), also a former Christian, is the most famous Korean new religion. During its period of vigorous expansion during the 1970s, the Unification Church had several hundred thousand members in South Korea and Japan and a substantial (although generally overestimated) number of members in North America and Western Europe. Moon claimed that he was the "messiah" designated by God to unify all the peoples of the world into one "family," governed theocratically by himself. Like Pak's Evangelical Church, the Unification Church has been highly authoritarian, demanding absolute obedience from church members. Moon, for example, has arranged marriages for his younger followers; United States television audiences were treated some years ago to a mass ceremony at which several hundred young "Moonies" were married. Also like Pak, Moon has coupled the church's fortunes to economic expansion. Factories in South Korea and abroad manufacture arms and process ginseng and seafood, artistic bric-a-brac, and other items. Moon's labor force has worked long hours and been paid minimal wages in order to channel profits into church coffers. Virulently anticommunist, Moon has sought to influence public opinion at home and abroad by establishing generally unprofitable newspapers such as the Segye Ilbo in Seoul, the Sekai Nippo in Tokyo, and the Washington Times in the United States capital, and by inviting academics to lavish international conferences, often held in South Korea. At home, the Unification Church was viewed with suspicion by the authorities because of its scandals and Moon's evident desire to create a "state within a state." His influence, however, had declined by the late 1980s.

 

Islam

 

The number of Muslims in South Korea is estimated at about 35,000 mainly consisting of people who converted during the Korean War and their descendents and not including migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia. The largest mosque is the Seoul Central Mosque in the Itaewon district of Seoul; smaller mosques can be found in most of the country's major cities.[8]

 

In addition to native Korean Muslims, there are some 100,000 foreign workers from Muslim countries,[9] particularly Bangladesh and Pakistan.[

  

Judaism

 

The Jewish presence in South Korea effectively began with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. At this time a large number of Jewish soldiers, including the chaplain Chaim Potok, came to the Korean peninsula. Today the Jewish community is very small and limited to the Seoul metropolitan area. There have been very few Korean converts to Judaism.