2024 Oklahoma Sooners football team

# 2024 Oklahoma Sooners football team

## Abstract

The 2024 Oklahoma Sooners football team represents the University of Oklahoma in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) during the 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season, the 130th season for the Oklahoma Sooners. They will be led by third-year head coach Brent Venables and will play their home games at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. This will be their first year as members of the SEC.

## Offseason

### Departures

#### Outgoing transfers

Quarterback Dillon Gabriel transferred to Oregon after two seasons with the Sooners. Coming over from UCF, Gabriel ranked sixth among all FBS quarterbacks this season in passing yards with 3,660, while also ranking eighth in passing touchdowns with 30 and was tenth in completion percentage in his second season with the Sooners.

### Additions

#### Incoming transfers

Purdue transfer Deion Burks committed to the Sooners after a breakout season, finishing with 629 receiving yards, 47 catches, and 7 touchdown catches and later being named second-team All-Big Ten honors. Casey Thompson committed to the Sooners from Florida Atlantic after previous stints with Nebraska and Texas. Thompson, the son of former Sooners quarterback Charles Thompson, returned to the state of Oklahoma, where he will play his seventh season. He joins Paul Moriarty and Brenen Thompson as the third player in modern history to start out at Texas and transferred to Oklahoma.

#### Recruiting

## Preseason

### Preseason SEC awards

### SEC media poll

The 2024 SEC Media days were held on July 15–18, 2024 at Omni Hotel Dallas in downtown Dallas, Texas. The preseason polls was released on July 19, 2024. Each team had their head coaches available to talk to the media at the event. OU representatives were available on July 16, 2024. Head coach Brent Venables along with Jackson Arnold, Danny Stutsman and Billy Bowman Jr represented the Sooners. Coverage of the event was televised on SEC Network and ESPN.

## Schedule

Oklahoma and the SEC announced the 2024 conference schedule on December 13, 2023. The 2024 schedule consists of 7 home games, 4 away games and 1 neutral-site game in the regular season. The Sooners will host all 4 non-conference games against Temple, Houston, Tulane, and Maine.

The Sooners will host three SEC conference opponents against Tennessee, South Carolina, and Alabama and will travel to four SEC conference opponents against Auburn, Ole Miss, Missouri, and LSU. The Sooners will face Texas in Dallas, Texas at the Cotton Bowl in the Red River Rivalry. The Sooners will have their bye week in Week 6 (October 5) and Week 12 (November 16).

## Personnel

### Coaching staff

Source: 2024 Oklahoma Sooners Roster

Offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby was named the next head coach at Mississippi State after two years with the Sooners. With Lebby, the Sooners scored 65+ points three times with a 43.2 points scoring average. Defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Ted Roof mutually agreed to part ways after two years with the Sooners. Head coach Brent Venables offered Roof an opportunity to remain on the staff in a different role, however Roof declined. With Roof, the Sooners improved from 98th in scoring defense and 121st in total defense last season to being ranked 46th and 78th respectively this season.

### Spring game

at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK

- Date: Saturday, April 20, 2024

- Game time: 2:30 p.m. CDT

- Game attendance: 45,861

## Game summaries

### vs. Temple

at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK

- Date: Friday, August 30, 2024

- Game time: 6:00 p.m.

- Game weather: Cloudy Temperature: 84

- Game attendance: 83,329

- Referee: Jeff Heaser

- TV announcers (ESPN): Anish Shroff (play-by-play), Andre Ware (analyst), and Paul Carcaterra (sideline)

### Houston

at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK

- Date: Saturday, September 7, 2023

- Game time: 6:45 p.m. CDT

- Game weather: Sunny Temperature: 78

- Game attendance: 83,653

- Referee: Stephen Baron

- TV announcers (SEC Network): Tom Hart (play-by-play), Jordan Rodgers (analyst), and Cole Cubelic (sideline)

### Tulane

at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK

- Date: Saturday, September 14, 2024

- Game time: 2:30 p.m. CDT

- Game weather: Sunny Temperature: 91

- Game attendance: 83,325

- Referee: Chris Lamertina

- TV announcers (ESPN): Dave Pasch (play-by-play), Dusty Dvoracek (analyst), and Taylor McGregor (sideline)

### No 6. Tennessee

at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK

- Date: Saturday, September 21, 2024

- Game time: 6:30 p.m. CDT

- TV: ABC

### At Auburn

at Jordan-Hare Stadium Auburn, AL

- Date: Saturday, September 28, 2024

- Game time: CDT

### Texas

at Cotton Bowl Dallas, TX

- Date: Saturday, October 12, 2024

- Game time: 2:30 p.m. CDT

- TV: ABC or ESPN

### South Carolina

at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK

- Date: Saturday,October 19, 2024

- Game time: CDT

### At Ole Miss

at Vaught–Hemingway Stadium Oxford, MS

- Date: Saturday, October 26, 2024

- Game time: CDT

### Maine

at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK

- Date: Saturday, November 2, 2024

- Game time: 1:30 p.m. CDT

- TV: SECN+/ ESPN+

### At Missouri

at Faurot Field Columbia, MO

- Date: Saturday, November 9, 2024

- Game time: CST

### Alabama

at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK

- Date: Saturday, November 23, 2024

- Game time: CST

### At LSU

at Tiger Stadium Baton Rouge, LA

- Date: Saturday, November 30, 2024

- Game time: CST


Gae Aulenti

# Gae Aulenti

## Abstract

Gaetana "Gae" Emilia Aulenti (pronounced; 4 December 1927 – 31 October 2012) was an Italian architect and designer based in Milan. Beginning her career in the early 1950s, Aulenti was one of the few prominent female architects in post-war Italy.

At this time, modern architecture was the predominant international architectural style. However, Aulenti adopted the principals of Neo-liberty, a controversial architectural theory which argued for an ongoing place for tradition and history in design; for recognising artistic merit; and, for freedom of design within the modern aesthetic.

Through her career, Aulenti used her architecture and design skills in different professional forums ranging from furniture design to major architectural transformation.

Aulenti is known for transforming the Gare d'Orsay to the Musée d'Orsay. She was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d' Honneur and in 1995, the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

## Early life and education

Aulenti, was born in Palazzolo dello Stella in the Friuli region of northeast Italy to Aldo Aulenti, an accountant and his wife, a school teacher. The Aulenti family, with origins in Calabria and Apulia, included doctors, lawyers and clergy.

When Aulenti was a child, her family moved to Biella, in the Piedmont region in northern Italy. In her teens, Aulenti lived under the Nazi occupation of Northern Italy during World War II. During the war, Aulenti continued her education in Turin and Florence. Her views were influenced by those of the partisans (partigiani).

In 1953, Aulenti completed a diploma in architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan. Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Franca Stagi and Cini Boeri were contemporaries at the Polytechnic.

On graduating, Aulenti opened her first design studio in a room in her apartment on Via Cesariono in Milan. She moved her studio to Via dell’ Annunciata 7 in 1965. This was a rented house where Aulenti created the ambiance of the salon. In 1974, Aulenti created her last studio in a small building on Piazza San Marco. Aulenti connected her studio to a larger building on Via Fiori Oscuri which became Aulenti's private residence.

Aulenti married her fellow Polytechnic alumnus, Francesco Buzzi and had a daughter, Giovanna Buzzi, who is a costume designer. The couple divorced when Giovanna was three years of age. Giovanna said she was close to her mother and saw her as a mentor due to her strength, curiosity, intelligence, openness and hard work.

## Architectural and design philosophy

Aulenti said,

The architecture in which I would like to recognize myself derives from three fundamental capacities of an aesthetic and not a moral order. The first is the analytical one, in the sense that we must be able to recognize the continuity of both conceptual and physical urban and geographical traces, as specific essences of architecture. The second is the synthetic one, that is to know how to operate the necessary synthesis in order to render priority and evident the principles of the architecture. The third is the prophetic one, typical of artists, poets and inventors.

## Career

### Industrial design

Aulenti had a prolific career in industrial design. Her works contributed to the international dominance of modern Italian design.

One of Aulenti's early but lasting designs is the Pipistrello lamp (1965). In keeping with her design philosophy, Aulenti did not see a lamp as just a machine that makes light but a part of the overall effect of a space. The Pipistrello (the word means "bat" in Italian in reference to the wing shapes of the shade) is 66 cm in height and 55 cm in width. The lamp is innovative in that the neck of the lamp extends by 20 cm so that the lamp can sit on a table or the floor. The lamp, model number 620, was manufactured by Elio Martinelli, the founder of the Martinelli Luce lighting company, using methacrylate copolymer molding. Another design for Martinelli Luce was the La Ruspa lamp (1967). In 2024, the La Ruspa lamps in white, yellow, grey and cream, sold for tens of thousands of US dollars in high-end, vintage shops.

Aulenti's first furniture piece, Sgarsul (1962) produced by Poltronova compan, is a chair made in bent beech wood with a slung leather seat with soft polyurethane padding. It represents the Neo-Liberty movement with reference to Thonet's Rocking Chair No.1. (1862). Aulenti's design is also used in the Locus solus chair.

Aulenti was commissioned by Olivetti, a maker of small precision office machines, to design their show rooms in Paris (1967) and Buenos Aires (1968). In Paris, Aulenti used the concept of the piazza, with its steps and levels as an architectonic device. The machines were displayed on a central inverted cone of white laminate with spokes of polished wood. All the surfaces around the central display were red, giving the feeling of being in a capsule and representing the future.

During the 1960s, Aulenti also designed exhibition spaces and showrooms in Turin, Zurich, and Brussels for the car manufacturer, Fiat. For these projects, Aulenti created inclined and mirrored platforms. For the furniture in the showrooms, she collaborated with the Kartell furniture company who were experimenting with plastic injection moulding.

Aulenti's Locus Solus (1964) was named after the Raymond Roussel 1914 novel set at a country estate by the same name. It included chairs, a table, an adjustable lamp, sofa, sun lounger, and bench. The furniture pieces were manufactured in tubular cold-formed steel. Aulenti collaborated with design students from a Pistoia art school again giving reference to the bentwood furniture of Michael Thonet. The collection was manufactured by the Poltronova furniture company. The collection was used in the 1969 film La Piscine. A replica collection in off-white and yellow, was produced for sale in 2023.

Aulenti collaborated with the American modern furniture design and manufacturing company, Knoll in the late 1960s and 1970s. The first design was the "Jumbo table", in Carrara marble. The second was a full furniture set presented as "The Aulenti Collection" in 1976. It included a lounge, side chairs and, high and low tables.

Aulenti's projects reached beyond furniture design. For example, she collaborated with the French fashion house, Louis Vuitton, to design a watch with a matching pen and silk scarf. The design is known as the "Monterey" (1988). There were two versions. The Monterey I design was reminiscent of a elaborately decorated pocket watch with multiple functions. The Monterey II was notable for its black, polished ceramic case. In 1996, Aulenti designed a line of porcelain sanitary ware named "Orsay".

### Architectural design

#### Musée d'Orsay

The Gare d'Orsay (Orsay railway station) was built in 1900 in the beaux-arts style by Victor Laloux.

In 1975, the French government, under François Mitterrand, engaged the architectural firm, ACT to commence an adaptive reuse project. The new Musée d'Orsay would house art works created between 1848 and 1914 by finding a 20,000 m floor area in the pre-existing structure.

Aulenti entered a competition to complete the new museum's interior design but discord between ACT and the curators led Aulenti to have a larger role in the architectural plan and in fulfilling the vision and functional requirements of the curators. Aulenti succeeding in arguing for alterations to the ACT design, which the curators felt was excessively beholden to the neo-classical style and overly ornate. Some features of the Gare d'Orsay were preserved, including the mansard roof, a large gilded clock, large busts of Mercury (messenger of the gods) and stone rose casing on the ceiling of the concourse.

Aulenti divided the station space into three levels. On the ground floor, Aulenti's design allows visitors to move along the long axis of the building, entering galleries on either side. She used limestone of varying shades throughout, blended it over the surfaces of a long ramp, platforms to support statuary and at one end, two towers. The towers give an architectural reference to the statuary beyond. The galleries of the mezzanine and the attic (upper floor) are entered from balconies which look out over the concourse of the ground floor (usually called the "nave") and the atrium.

Natural light enters the museum from the large glass barrel vault ceiling, the windows facing the Rue de Lille and from oculi. With the installation of additional artificial lighting, Aulenti was able to create a consistent quality of light throughout the museum.

The museum interior design has since been changed with halogen lighting, dark wood floors and grey walls.

Charles Jencks, cultural theorist and architectural historian, describes the Musée d'Orsay as an example of a " postmodern museum" where there is tension due to the past needing to exist in the present and, the artistic in the academic. Jencks said, "The train shed, a symbol of nineteenth-century power and materialism, meets thirteenth-century cathedral layout in a twentieth-century temple to the contradictions of nineteenth-century art."

He wrote of the museum,

The linear suiting trains also suits historical sequence with startling results. They give a clear beginning, middle and end to the gentle stroll through history. Overhead, the wide barrel vault of the old station spreads a generous light that pulls one gently up the progression of French art. The floor and the visitor mount slowly, too... Gae Aulenti has articulated the walls to either side of this nave space in heavy Egyptian tones, but also with horizontal streamlines that push forward... thus, the railway station becomes a cathedral with the left aisle housing the avant-garde and the right aisle holding the Academy. Up the middle, the nave mixes the two competitors but not indiscriminately.

The new museum opened to the public on 9 December 1986 to mixed review. Paul Goldberger, architecture critic, wrote in The New York Times,

Unfortunately, the results of this ambitious project are, architecturally speaking, not natural at all. They are contrived, awkward and uncomfortable. The newly created Musee d 'Orsay may be the most ambitious conversion of an old building into a museum in the modern history of Paris, but it is also a work of architecture that is deeply insensitive both to the original Gare d'Orsay and to the works of art it is supposed to be protecting and displaying. It will do little to advance the art of museum design, and it may well set the business of architectural ''recycling'' back a generation.

Aulenti received the Chevalier de Legion d'Honneur, conferred by the president of the Republic of France, François Mitterrand in 1987 for her contribution.

#### Centre Georges Pompidou

The Centre Pompidou was built between 1972 and 1977 to a plan by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers and was designed with wide open indoor spaces to provide flexibility to host a range of cultural installations and events. It is a ten level building constructed of glass and metal and is the home of the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne.

Aulenti was commissioned to redesign the main fourth floor to reduce the amount of natural light striking the art works which would increase their rate of degradation. She was also asked to provide smaller permanent galleries. Aulenti created galleries of varying sizes, along a building-length, unobstructed corridor gallery set beside the west windows. She installed shelves, alcoves and pedestals ready for the curators' use. She also created some small linking corridors between galleries for additional works, small collections and works, for example fragile documents, requiring low light exposure.

#### Palazzo Grassi

The Palazzo Grassi is a mansion on the Grand Canal in Venice. It was built in the 16 century and has since had many owners and undergone many changes. Aulenti's involvement came in 1983 when the palazzo was owned by the Fiat group. Aulenti was commissioned to refurbish the palazzo as an art exhibition space.

The building has two floors and an attic built around a central courtyard in a trapezoidal shape. In 1983, the building presented a dark, convoluted layout and no clear indication of the original features.

Aulenti searched for historical features of the original architect, Giorgio Massari in other buildings of the era. Aulenti repaired the original masonry with salvaged 19 century bricks. New utilities were concealed but not placed inside the masonry so that the original components would not be disturbed. The floors and windows onto the courtyard were reinforced. Paint was applied in a palette of aquamarine on pink marble patterned stucco (marmorino).

With Piero Castiglioni, an Italian lighting designer, Aulenti created a lighting system for the Palazzo Grassi. Designed particularly for exhibitions and displays, it was named the Cestello Lighting System. The Cestello system was manufactured in aluminium with low voltage halogen bulbs. It was designed for flexibility in lighting and in placement and won a Compasso d'Oro design award in 1995.

The palazzo was gutted and refurbished over a thirteen month period, opening on 15 April 1985.

#### Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Aulenti designed the refurbishment of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona for presentation at the 1992 Summer Olympics. The original Palau Nacional was built on Montjuïc for the 1929 World's Fai r. Its saló oval, is a 5,000 square meter festival hall. The 1992 renovation was to make a home for the national collection including 10 century frescos. Aulenti and her team on the project added escalators and terraces to ease access to the building; glass was added to outer walls to increase the light within; and, in the great hall, a structure of white metal steps was inserted to mark out spaces for a bookstore and cafeteria.

#### Scuderie del Quirinale

Aulenti designed the conversion of the Scuderie del Quirinale (papal stables) at the Quirinal Palace, the official residence of the president of Italy in Rome, to an exhibition building for the 2000 Great Jubilee and for future touring art exhibitions. Aulenti used techniques similar to those in previous conversions. For example, she constructed hardboard walls for a surface to hang works of art. This left space to conceal utilities, such as air-conditioning, so that the original structure remained intact. Aulenti also increased the availability of natural light and the flexibility of artificial lighting.

#### Other selected architectural design projects

Other Aulenti projects included the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in 2003, the Italian cultural institute in Tokyo in 2005, the Palazzo Branciforte (Palermo, Sicily cultural centre) in 2007 and the Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi (Umbria International Airport) for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy in 2011. In 1991, for Carlo Caracciolo, an Italian nobleman, Aulenti to converted a 17 century granary to a villa at the Torrecchia Vecchia estate in Lazio. Her projects also included the design of the Italian Pavilion at the Seville Expo '92 and the redevelopment of the Piazzale Cadorna in Milan (2000).

## Stage and costume design

Aulenti began her theatre work in the late 1970s, founding the Prato Theatre design workshop (Laboratorio di Progettazione Teatrale) with Luca Ronconi. Together, they staged 16 productions including, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Calderón, Euripides Le Baccanti, and Hugo von Hofmannsthall's La Torre.

Aulenti's stage designs were highly architectural, evocative and innovative. She makes design reference to the futurist, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's work, A Manifesto of Variety Theatre (1913). Marinetti rejected imitation of the historic and obsessive reproduction of daily life. Rather, he chose freedom in design, the use of a cinematic background, and imaginative, satiric and futuristic concepts. Her work moved stage design forward from a system relying on scenery canvas and flats to provide perspective, to one where the open space of the stage is divided by structures such as platforms, to give context to the action.

In 1976 and 1979–80, Aulenti provided the stage design Wozzeck (1925) the opera by Alban Berg. It was produced at La Scala, Milan by Luca Ronconi. Claudio Abbado was the conductor and Aulenti's daughter, Giovanna Buzzi, designed the costumes. The principals were the American singer, Gloria Lane and Guglielmo Sarabia. The Italian musicologist, Massimo Mila, reviewed this production in La Stampa on 5 April 1977. He describes rough boards onstage which were subjected to various lighting and were moving so that other set elements would enter and exit the stage as changes were required. Mila says the stage design was effective until unintended movement of set interrupted the performance. In his work about Luca Ronconi, Nicholas Vitaliano says Aulenti and Ronconi conceived of a type of stage machine, a continuously moving surface traversing the entire stage, left in almost entire darkness.

In 1984, Aulenti created on-stage screens for the staging of Journey to Reims, an opera by Gioachino Rossini. The opera was directed and produced by Luca Ronconi at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. In this work, video operators filmed the performers then, in real time, projected the recordings onto Aulenti's screens. The videos included close ups of the singers (so that even the back row audience might be more involved in the experience). They also included videos of a royal procession previous filmed live on the street. This video led directly to the performers entering in procession onto the stage, which was notable in its time.

Other stage designs by Aulenti include, The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen in Genoa and Wozzeck by Alban Berg in Milan in 1977 and the premier of Samstag aus Licht by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Elektra by Richard Strauss in Milan in 1984.

## Exhibitions

Aulenti designed exhibition spaces in Italy and abroad.

At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York City, Aulenti designed the exhibition space for the The Italian Metamorphosis 1943–1968 (1994), an exhibition of post-war art and design curated by Germano Celant. Aulenti created a large sculpture of wire triangles which projected into the museum's atrium. The visitors' perspective gradually changed as they walked up the ramp. Benjamin Buchloh commented that designers, such as Aulenti, are able to highlight their own "trademark" architectural aesthetic by incorporating it into their display design. He was critical, suggesting that this is to the detriment of the artistic work or object being exhibited. Buchloch described Aulenti's "zig-zag" design when placed in the curved space of the Guggenheim, as a " vagina dentata."

Other exhibition designs included Futurismo and Futurismi (1986), I Fenici (1988), I Celti (1991), I Greci in Occidente (1996) and Da Puvis de Chavannes a Matisse e Picasso and Verso l'Arte Moderna (2002) at Palazzo Grassi.

The first comprehensive exhibition of Aulenti's own works was at Milan’s Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, in 1976, organised by fellow architect and friend, Vittorio Gregotti.

### Milan Triennial

Aulenti had an association with the Milan Triennial over many years.

Aulenti presented her own work, including an "ideal apartment for an urban location" at the La casa e la scuola exhibition at the 12 Triennial in 1960.

Then, in 1964, she won the Grand International Prize for Arrivo al Mare (Arrival at the Seaside). In this work, Aulenti installed a large mirrored room with multiple, life-sized, colour-sketched cut-outs of women in simple robes standing under a ceiling of slung fabric strips. It was inspired by Pablo Picasso.

Aulenti was a member of the executive of the Triennial from 1977 to 1980. She designed spaces for installations at exhibitions such as the 1951–2001 Made in Italy? (2001).

## Professional affiliations

From 1955 to 1965, Aulenti was a member of the editorial staff of the design magazine, Casabella-Continuità. Aulenti wrote two articles for Casabella: Soviet architecture (1962) and Marin County (1964). From 1954 to 1962, Aulenti was a member of the editorial staff of Lotus international, the quarterly Milanese architecture magazine.

As an educator, Aulenti was an assistant professor of architectural composition (1960–1962) at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, adjunct assistant professor of elements of architectural composition (1964) at Milan Polytechnic, and visiting lecturer at the College of Architecture, Barcelona and the Stockholm Cultural Centre (1969–1975). She also taught at the Milan School of Architecture (1964–1967).

Aulenti was a member of Movimento Studi per I'Architettura, Milan (1955 - 961) and the Association for Industrial Design, Milan (1960 and vice-president in 1966).

## Death and legacy

On 31 October 2012, Aulenti died at her home in Milan as a result of chronic illness.

Fifteen days prior, she had made her last public appearance when she received the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement at the Milan Triennial.

Ten days after her death, Aulenti's major work to expand the Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi – Umbria International Airport was inaugurated. It was designed for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

In December 2012, the Piazza Gae Aulenti was dedicated to Aulenti's memory. It is a contemporary public space surrounded by private enterprises in the Isola neighbourhood near the Porta Garibaldi railway station. The piazza is 100 meters in diameter and is constructed 6 meters above ground level. There are three large fountains with a boardwalk extending to the centre of the piazza.

After Aulenti's death, the Milan Triennial and Archivio Gae Aulenti created an exhibition remembering her life and work. It is a sequence of rooms recreating, true to size, several of her interior design projects, including the Arrivo al Mar e room. At the centre of the exhibition is a display of Aulenti's industrial design works and around the perimeter, a display of Aulenti's papers.

From 2020 to 2021, the Vitra Design Museum, a private museum in Germany, presented the exhibition, Gae Aulenti: A Creative Universe.

For the tenth anniversary of Aulenti's death, Open House – Milan and the Aulenti estate created an exhibition highlighting Aulenti's contribution to architecture, choosing one project from each of the Open House Italia network cities: Milan (Piazza Cadorna), Naples (Piazza Dante), Rome (Scuderie del Quirinale) and Turin (Palavela).

A selection of Aulenti's papers, drawings, and designs, including the design drawings for the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California are curated at the International Archive of Women in Architecture in the Newman Library, at Virginia Tech. A large number of drawings, photographic material and design models under plexiglass are held by Sistema Informativo Unificato per le Soprintendenze Archivistiche (SIUSA).

Architects, Marco Bifoni, Francesca Fenaroli and Vittoria Massa continue under Aulenti's name as G.A. Architetti Associati.

## Awards.

- Ubi Prize for Stage Design, Milan, 1980.

- Architecture Medal, Academie d' Architecture, Paris, 1983.

- Josef Hoffmann Prize, Hochschule fur Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 1984.

- Commandeur, Order des Artes et Letters, France,1987.

- Honorary Dean of Architecture, Merchandise Mart of Chicago, 1988.

- Accademico Nazionale, Accademia di San Luca, Rome, 1988.

- Premio speciale della cultura, Repubblica Italiana X Legislatura, 1989.

- Praemium Imperiale, Japan, 1991.


Stockton schoolyard shooting

# Stockton schoolyard shooting

## Abstract

The Cleveland Elementary School shooting (also known as the Stockton schoolyard shooting and the Cleveland School massacre) occurred on January 17, 1989, at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, United States, when 24-year-old Patrick Purdy, who had an extended criminal history, shot and killed five students and wounded 32 others. As first responders arrived at the scene, Purdy committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

The attack was the U.S. non-college school shooting with the highest number of fatalities and injuries until the Columbine High School massacre a decade later, and of all U.S. school shootings in the 1980s, it had the largest number of victims. It was also the deadliest mass shooting at an elementary school in U.S. history until the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012.

## Shooting

On Tuesday morning, January 17, 1989, an anonymous person phoned the Stockton Police Department regarding a death threat against Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California. At noon that day, Patrick Purdy, a disturbed drifter and former Stockton resident, began his attack by setting his fireworks-laden Chevrolet station wagon on fire with a Molotov cocktail after parking it behind the school, later causing the vehicle to explode. Purdy went to the school playground, where he began firing with a semi-automatic rifle from behind a portable building. Purdy fired 106 rounds in three minutes.

Purdy committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a pistol. He had carved the words "freedom", "victory", "Earthman", and " Hezbollah " on his rifle, and his flak jacket was inscribed with " PLO ", " Libya ", and "Death to the Great Satin".

## Victims

The shooting killed five children and wounded about thirty others, including a teacher. All of those who died and many of the wounded were Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants, who had come with their families to the U.S. as refugees.

## Perpetrator

Patrick Edward Purdy (November 10, 1964 – January 17, 1989) was an unemployed former welder and drifter. He was born in Tacoma, Washington, to Patrick Benjamin Purdy and Kathleen Purdy (née Toscano). His father was a soldier in the U.S. Army and was stationed at Fort Lewis at the time of his son's birth. When the younger Purdy was two years old, his mother filed for divorce against her husband after he had threatened to kill her with a firearm. Toscano later moved with her son to South Lake Tahoe before settling in Stockton, California. Purdy attended Cleveland Elementary from kindergarten through second grade.

Purdy's mother remarried in September 1969; she divorced her husband four years later. Albert Gulart Sr., Purdy's stepfather, said Purdy was an overly quiet child who cried often. In fall 1973, Kathleen separated from Gulart and moved with her children from Stockton to the Sacramento area. In December of that year, the Sacramento Child Protective Services were twice called to her residence, on allegations that Kathleen was physically abusing her children. When Purdy was thirteen, he struck his mother in the face and was permanently banned from her house. He lived on the streets of San Francisco for a period before being placed in foster care by authorities. He was later placed in the custody of his father, who was living in Lodi, California, at the time. While attending Lodi High School, Purdy became an alcoholic and a drug addict, and attended high school sporadically.

On September 6, 1981, Purdy's father died after being struck by a car. His family filed a wrongful-death suit in San Joaquin Superior Court against the driver of the car, asking for US$ 600,000 in damages; the suit was later dismissed. Purdy accused his mother of taking money his father had left him, using the money to buy a car and taking a vacation to New York City. This incident appeared to deepen the animosity between them. After his father's death, Purdy was briefly homeless, before being placed in the custody of a foster mother in Los Angeles.

Purdy's criminal activities had begun by 1977, when Sacramento police confiscated BB guns from then 12-year-old Purdy. In June 1980, Purdy was first arrested at age 15 for a court-order violation. He was arrested that same month for underage drinking. Purdy was then arrested for prostitution in August 1980, possession of marijuana and drug dealing in 1982, and in 1983 for possession of an illegal weapon and receipt of stolen property. On October 11, 1984, he was arrested for being an accomplice in an armed robbery at a service station, for which he spent 32 days in the Yolo County Jail. In 1986, Kathleen called police after Purdy vandalized her car after she refused to give him money for narcotics.

In April 1987, Purdy and his half-brother Albert were arrested for firing a semi-automatic pistol at trees in the Eldorado National Forest. At the time, he was carrying a book about the white supremacist group Aryan Nations. He told the County Sheriff that it was his "duty to help the suppressed and overthrow the suppressor." In prison, he twice attempted suicide, once by hanging himself with a rope made out of strips of his shirt, and a second time by cutting his wrists with his fingernails. A subsequent psychiatric assessment found him to have a mild mental impairment, and to be a danger to himself and others.

In the fall of 1987, Purdy began attending welding classes at San Joaquin Delta College; he complained about the high percentage of Southeast Asian students there. In October 1987, he left California and drifted among Oregon, Nevada, Texas, Florida, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Tennessee, searching for jobs. In early 1988, he worked at Numeri Tech, a small machine shop located in Stockton. From July to October 1988, he worked as a boilermaker in Portland, Oregon, living in Sandy with his aunt.

On August 3 in Sandy, he purchased a Chinese-made AK-47 at Sandy Trading Post, which he later used in the shooting. He eventually returned to Stockton and rented a room at the El Rancho Motel on December 26. After the shooting, police found his room decorated with numerous toy soldiers. On December 28, Purdy purchased a Taurus 9mm pistol at the Hunter Loan pawn shop in Stockton.

Police stated that Purdy had problems with alcohol and drug addiction. He talked openly of hatred toward Asian immigrants, believing that they took jobs from "native-born" Americans. According to Purdy's friends, who described him as friendly and never violent toward anyone, he was suicidal at times and frustrated that he failed to "make it on his own". Steve Sloan, a night-shift supervisor at Numeri Tech, said: "He was a real ball of frustration, and was angry about everything." Another one of Purdy's former co-workers stated, "He was always miserable. I've never seen a guy that didn't want to smile as much as he didn't." In a notebook found in a hotel where he lived in early 1988, Purdy wrote about himself in the following terms: "I'm so dumb, I'm dumber than a sixth-grader. My mother and father were dumb."

## Reaction and aftermath

The multiple murders at Stockton received national news coverage and spurred calls for regulation of semiautomatic weapons. "Why could Purdy, an alcoholic who had been arrested for such offenses as selling weapons and attempted robbery, walk into a gun shop in Sandy, Oregon, and leave with an AK-47 under his arm?", Time magazine asked. The article continued: "The easy availability of weapons like this, which have no purpose other than killing human beings, can all too readily turn the delusions of sick gunmen into tragic nightmares." Immediately following the shooting, Michael Jackson made a short visit to the school and met with some of the children affected by the event.

On September 14, 1989 (four months after the shooting) in Louisville, Kentucky, Joseph Wesbacker (who was allegedly inspired by Purdy) shot up his former workplace using an AK-56 that Purdy also used, killing 8 people and injured 12 others before committing suicide. When police raided his house, they found a TIME magazine issue with an article on Purdy.

In California, measures were taken to first define and then ban assault weapons, resulting in the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989. On the federal level, Congressional legislators struggled with a way to ban weapons such as military-style rifles without banning sporting-type rifles. In 1989, the ATF issued a rule citing the lack of "sporting purpose" to ban importation of assault weapons. In July 1989, the G.H.W. Bush Administration made the import ban permanent. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban was enacted in 1994, and expired in 2004. President Bill Clinton signed another executive order in 1994 which banned importation of most firearms and ammunition from Mainland China.

## Media

### Literature

### Television

- The 2023 documentary What Will Save Us? - Remembering the Stockton School Shooting focuses upon the Stockton school shooting. Narrated by Alex Bell, this documentary features interviews with many individuals directly impacted by the shooting, including wounded students.


The Perfect Wedding

# The Perfect Wedding

## Abstract

The Perfect Wedding is a 2012 independent romantic comedy film directed by Scott Gabriel from a script written by Suzanne Brockmann, Ed Gaffney, and Jason T. Gaffney. In 2013, it won the Bud Abbott Award for Feature Length Comedy at the Garden State Film Festival. It was released on VOD and DVD from distributor Wolfe Releasing in 2013.

The film was created because Brockmann and Gaffney's son, Jason T. Gaffney, was tired of seeing LGBT films that relied on stereotypes for their humor. The writers created a film where being gay was treated as a normal facet of life.

## Plot

The film takes place over Christmas weekend at the Fowlers' home where Alana Fowler is planning her wedding to Kirk. Alana and her brother Paul are both adopted by Richard and Meryl Fowler. One of Alana's friends, Roy, who is coming to help with the wedding planning, is an ex-boyfriend of Paul's. He doesn't want Paul to see that he is still single all these years later, so Roy brings Gavin Greene along to pose as his boyfriend. However, Gavin and Paul end up falling in love. In addition, Richard has just been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. The family has to figure out how to cope with the news while planning the perfect wedding.

## Cast

- Jason T. Gaffney as Gavin Greene

- Eric Aragon as Paul Fowler

- James Rebhorn as Richard Fowler

- Kristine Sutherland as Meryl Fowler

- Apolonia Davalos as Alana Fowler

- Brenden Griffin as Kirk

- Annie Kerins as Vicki

- Sal Rendino as Zack

- Roger Stewart as Roy

## Release

The Perfect Wedding was an official selection at the Sarasota Film Festival (2012), the Spokane International Film Festival (2013), the Garden State Film Festival (2013), the North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (2013), the Indiana LGBT Film Festival (2013), and the Long Island Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (2013).


Alexander Kerensky

# Alexander Kerensky

## Abstract

Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky (4 May 1881 – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917 (N.S.).

After the February Revolution of 1917, he joined the newly formed provisional government, first as Minister of Justice, then as Minister of War, and after July as the government's second Minister-Chairman. He was the leader of the social-democratic Trudovik faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Kerensky was also a vice-chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, a position that held a sizable amount of power. Kerensky became the prime minister of the Provisional Government, and his tenure was consumed with World War I. Despite mass opposition to the war, Kerensky chose to continue Russia's participation. His government cracked down on anti-war sentiment and dissent in 1917, which made his administration even more unpopular.

Kerensky remained in power until the October Revolution. This revolution saw the Bolsheviks create a government led by Vladimir Lenin, to replace Kerensky's government. Kerensky fled Russia and lived the remainder of his life in exile. He divided his time between Paris and New York City. Kerensky worked for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

## Biography

### Early life and activism

Alexander Kerensky was born in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk) on the Volga river on 4 May 1881 and was the eldest son in the family. His father, Fyodor Mikhailovich Kerensky, was a teacher and director of the local gymnasium and was later promoted to be an inspector of public schools. His paternal grandfather Mikhail Ivanovich served as a priest in the village of Kerenka in the Gorodishchensky district of the Penza Governorate from 1830. The surname Kerensky comes from the name of this village. His maternal grandfather was head of the Topographical Bureau of the Kazan Military District. His mother, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna (née Adler), was the granddaughter of a former serf who had managed to purchase his freedom before serfdom was abolished in 1861. He subsequently embarked upon a mercantile career, in which he prospered. This allowed him to move his business to Moscow, where he continued his success and became a wealthy Moscow merchant.

Members of the Kerensky and Ulyanov families were friends; Kerensky's father was the teacher of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) and had even secured him acceptance into the University of Kazan. In 1889, when Kerensky was eight, the family moved to Tashkent, where his father had been appointed the main inspector of public schools (superintendent). Kerensky graduated with honours in 1899. The same year he entered St. Petersburg University, where he studied history and philology. The next year he switched to law. He earned his law degree in 1904 and married Olga Lvovna Baranovskaya, the daughter of a Russian general, the same year. Kerensky joined the Narodnik movement and worked as a legal counsel to victims of the Revolution of 1905. At the end of 1904, he was jailed on suspicion of belonging to a militant group. Afterwards, he gained a reputation for his work as a defence lawyer in a number of political trials of revolutionaries.

In 1912, Kerensky became widely known when he visited the goldfields at the Lena River and published material about the Lena massacre. In the same year, Kerensky was elected to the Fourth Duma as a member of the Trudoviks, a socialist, non-Marxist labour party founded by Alexis Aladin that was associated with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and joined a Freemason society uniting the anti-monarchy forces that strived for democratic renewal of Russia. In fact, the Socialist Revolutionary Party bought Kerensky a house, as he otherwise would not be eligible for election to the Duma, according to the Russian property-laws.

During the 4th Session of the Fourth Duma in spring 1915, Kerensky appealed to Mikhail Rodzianko with a request from the Council of elders to inform the tsar that to succeed in the war he must:1) change his domestic policy,2) proclaim a General Amnesty for political prisoners,3) restore the Constitution of Finland,4) declare autonomy of Poland,5) provide national minorities autonomy in the field of culture,6) abolish restrictions against Jews,7) end religious intolerance,8) stop the harassment of legal trade union organizations.

In August, he became a significant member of the Progressive Bloc, which included several socialist parties, Mensheviks, and Liberals – but not Bolsheviks. He was a brilliant orator and skilled parliamentary leader of the socialist opposition to the government of Tsar Nicholas II.

Kerensky was an active member of the irregular Freemasonic lodge, the Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples, which derived from the Grand Orient of France. Kerensky was Secretary-General of the Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples and stood down following his ascent to the government in July 1917. He was succeeded by a Menshevik, Alexander Halpern.

### Rasputin

In response to bitter resentments held against the imperial favourite Grigori Rasputin in the midst of Russia's failing effort in World War I, Kerensky, at the opening of the Duma on 2 November 1916, called the imperial ministers "hired assassins" and "cowards", and alleged that they were "guided by the contemptible Grishka Rasputin!" Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, Prince Georgy Lvov, and General Mikhail Alekseyev attempted to persuade the Emperor Nicholas II to send away the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Rasputin's steadfast patron, either to the Livadia Palace in Yalta or to Britain. Mikhail Rodzianko, Zinaida Yusupova (the mother of Felix Yusupov), Alexandra's sister Elisabeth, Grand Duchess Victoria and the empress's mother-in-law Maria Feodorovna also tried to influence and pressure the imperial couple to remove Rasputin from his position of influence within the imperial household, but without success. According to Kerensky, Rasputin had terrorised the empress by threatening to return to his native village.

Members of the nobility murdered Rasputin in December 1916, and he was buried near the imperial residence in Tsarskoye Selo. Shortly after the February Revolution of 1917, Kerensky ordered soldiers to re-bury the corpse at an unmarked spot in the countryside. However, the truck broke down or was forced to stop because of the snow on Lesnoe Road outside of St. Petersburg. It is likely the corpse was incinerated (between 3 and 7 in the morning) in the cauldrons of the nearby boiler shop of the Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University, including the coffin, without leaving a single trace.

### Russian Provisional Government of 1917

When the February Revolution broke out in 1917, Kerensky – together with Pavel Milyukov – was one of its most prominent leaders. As one of the Duma 's most well-known speakers against the monarchy and as a lawyer and defender of many revolutionaries, Kerensky became a member of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma and was elected vice-chairman of the newly formed Petrograd Soviet. These two bodies, the Duma and the Petrograd Soviet, or – rather – their respective executive committees, soon became each other's antagonists on most matters except regarding the end of the tsar's autocracy.

The Petrograd Soviet grew to include 3000 to 4000 members, and their meetings could drown in a blur of everlasting orations. At the meeting of 12 March 1917 to 13 March 1917 the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, or Ispolkom, formed a self-appointed committee, with (eventually) three members from each of the parties represented in the Soviet. Kerensky became one of the members representing the Socialist Revolutionary Party (the SRs).

On 14 March 1917, without any consultation with the government, the Ispolkom of the Soviet issued the infamous Order No. 1, intended only for the 160,000-strong Petrograd garrison, but soon interpreted as applicable to all soldiers at the front. The order stipulated that all military units should form committees like the Petrograd Soviet. This led to confusion and "stripping of officers' authority"; further, "Order No. 3" stipulated that the military was subordinate to Ispolkom in the political hierarchy. The ideas came from a group of socialists and aimed to limit the officers' power to military affairs. The socialist intellectuals believed the officers to be the most likely counterrevolutionary elements. Kerensky's role in these orders is unclear, but he participated in the decisions. But just as before the revolution he had defended many who disliked the tsar, he now saved the lives of many of the tsar's civil servants about to be lynched by mobs.

Additionally, the Duma formed an executive committee which eventually became the Russian Provisional Government. As there was little trust between Ispolkom and this government (and as he was about to accept the office of Attorney General in the Provisional Government), Kerensky gave a most passionate speech, not just to the Ispolkom, but to the entire Petrograd Soviet. He then swore, as minister, never to violate democratic values, and ended his speech with the words "I cannot live without the people. In the moment you begin to doubt me, then kill me." The huge majority (workers and soldiers) gave him great applause, and Kerensky now became the first and the only one who participated in both the Provisional Government and the Ispolkom. As a link between Ispolkom and the Provisional Government, Kerensky stood to benefit from this position.

After the first government crisis over Pavel Milyukov 's secret note re-committing Russia to its original war-aims on 2–4 May, Kerensky became the Minister of War and the dominant figure in the newly formed socialist-liberal coalition government. On 10 May (Julian calendar), Kerensky started for the front and visited one division after another, urging the men to do their duty. His speeches were impressive and convincing for the moment, but had little lasting effect. Under Allied pressure to continue the war, he launched what became known as the Kerensky Offensive against the Austro-Hungarian/German South Army on 1 July 1917. At first successful, the offensive soon met strong resistance and the Central Powers riposted with a strong counter-attack. The Russian army retreated and suffered heavy losses, and it became clear from many incidents of desertion, sabotage, and mutiny that the army was no longer willing to attack.

The military heavily criticised Kerensky for his liberal policies, which included stripping officers of their mandates and handing over control to revolutionary-inclined "soldier committees" (Russian: солдатские комитеты, romanized: soldatskie komitety) instead; abolition of the death penalty; and allowing revolutionary agitators to be present at the front. Many officers scornfully referred to commander-in-chief Kerensky as the "persuader-in-chief".

On 2 July 1917 the Provisional Government's first coalition collapsed over the question of Ukraine 's autonomy. Following the July Days unrest in Petrograd (3–7 July 1917) and the official suppression of the Bolsheviks, Kerensky succeeded Prince Georgy Lvov as Russia's prime minister on 21 July 1917. Following the Kornilov Affair, an attempted military coup d'état at the end of August, and the resignation of the other ministers, he appointed himself Supreme Commander-in-Chief, as well.

On 15 September Kerensky proclaimed Russia a republic, which was contrary to the non-socialists' understanding that the Provisional Government should hold power only until a Constituent Assembly should meet to decide Russia's form of government, but which was in line with the long-proclaimed aim of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. He formed a five-member Directory, which consisted of himself, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mikhail Tereshchenko, Minister of War General Aleksandr Verkhovsky, Minister of the Navy Admiral Dmitry Verderevsky and Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Aleksei Nikitin. He retained his post in the final coalition government in October 1917 until the Bolsheviks overthrew it on 7 November 1917.

Kerensky faced a major challenge: three years of participation in World War had exhausted Russia, while the provisional government offered little motivation for a victory outside of continuing Russia's obligations towards its allies. Russia's continued involvement in the war was not popular among the lower and middle classes, and especially not popular among the soldiers. They had all believed that Russia would stop fighting when the Provisional Government took power, and subsequently felt deceived. Furthermore, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik party were promising "peace, land, and bread" under a communist system. The Russian army, war-weary, ill-equipped, dispirited and ill-disciplined, was disintegrating, with soldiers deserting in large numbers. By autumn 1917, an estimated two million men had unofficially left the army.

Kerensky and other political leaders continued Russia's involvement in World War I, thinking that a glorious victory was the only way forward, and fearing that the economy, already under huge stress from the war effort, might become increasingly unstable if vital supplies from France and from the United Kingdom ceased flowing. The dilemma of whether to withdraw was a great one, and Kerensky's inconsistent and impractical policies further destabilised the army and the country at large.

Furthermore, Kerensky adopted a policy that isolated the right-wing conservatives, both democratic and monarchist-oriented. His philosophy of "no enemies to the left" greatly empowered the Bolsheviks and gave them a free hand, allowing them to take over the military arm or "voyenka" (Russian: Военка) of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. His arrest of Lavr Kornilov and other officers left him without strong allies against the Bolsheviks, who ended up being Kerensky's strongest and most determined adversaries, as opposed to the right wing, which evolved into the White movement.

### October Revolution of 1917

During the Kornilov Affair, Kerensky had distributed arms to the Petrograd workers, and by November most of these armed workers had gone over to the Bolsheviks. On 6–7 November 1917, the Bolsheviks launched the second Russian revolution of the year. Kerensky's government in Petrograd had almost no support in the city. Only one small force, a subdivision of the 2nd company of the First Petrograd Women's Battalion, also known as The Women's Death Battalion, was willing to fight for the government against the Bolsheviks, but this force was overwhelmed by the numerically superior pro-Bolshevik forces, defeated, and captured. The Bolsheviks overthrew the government rapidly by seizing governmental buildings and the Winter Palace.

Kerensky escaped the Bolsheviks and fled to Pskov, where he rallied some loyal troops for an attempt to re-take the city. His troops managed to capture Tsarskoye Selo but were beaten the next day at Pulkovo. Kerensky narrowly escaped, and he spent the next few weeks in hiding before fleeing the country, eventually arriving in France. During the Russian Civil War, he supported neither side, as he opposed both the Bolshevik regime and the White Movement.

### Personal life

Kerensky was married to Olga Lvovna Baranovskaya and they had two sons, Oleg (1905–1984) and Gleb (1907–1990), who both went on to become engineers. Kerensky's grandson (also named Oleg), according to the Internet Movie Database, played his grandfather's role in the 1981 film Reds. Kerensky and Olga were divorced in 1939 soon after he settled in Paris, and, in 1939, while visiting the United States he met and secretly married Lydia Ellen "Nell" Tritton (1899–1946), the Australian former journalist who had become his press secretary and translator. The marriage took place in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania.

When Germany invaded France in 1940, they emigrated to the United States. After the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Kerensky offered his support to Joseph Stalin.

When his wife Nell became terminally ill in 1945, Kerensky travelled with her to Brisbane, Australia, and lived there with her family. She suffered a stroke in February 1946, and he remained there until her death on 10 April 1946. Kerensky then returned to the United States, where he spent the rest of his life.

Kerensky eventually settled in New York City, living on the Upper East Side on 91st Street near Central Park but spent much of his time at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California, where he both used and contributed to the Institution's huge archive on Russian history, and where he taught graduate courses. He wrote and broadcast extensively on Russian politics and history. His last public lecture was delivered at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in October 1967.

## Death

Kerensky died of arteriosclerotic heart disease at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City on 11 June 1970, after being initially admitted for injuries sustained from a fall. At 89, he was one of the last surviving major participants in the turbulent events of 1917. The local Russian Orthodox Churches in New York City refused to grant Kerensky burial rites because of his association with Freemasonry, and because they saw him as largely responsible for the Bolsheviks' seizure of power. A Serbian Orthodox Church also refused burial rites. Kerensky's body was flown to London, where he was buried at the non-denominational Putney Vale Cemetery.

## Works

- The Prelude to Bolshevism (1919). ISBN 0-8383-1422-8.

- The Catastrophe (1927)

- The Crucifixion of Liberty (1934)

- Russia and History's Turning Point (1965)

- Memoirs (1966)

## Archives

Papers of the Kerensky family are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.


Asian fetish

# Asian fetish

## Abstract

An Asian fetish is a strong sexual or romantic preference for people of Asian descent or heritage. The term usually refers to women specifically of East or Southeast Asian descent, though this may also include those of South Asian descent.

The origins of the Asian fetish are unclear. White male Dutch colonists fetishized Southeast Asian women in colonial Indonesia, on the basis of the darker skin and hair color of the local women. Similar accounts were reported in other colonised territories such as British India where it was common for English men to have Indian mistresses against a backdrop where Indian women were sexualised through, what scholars describe as, a typical colonial gaze and viewed as seductive, sensual and exotic. After World War 2, Japanese women gained prominence in American beauty pageants, at a time when large numbers of Japanese war brides were entering the United States.

The psychological effects of the fetish are unclear. Some authors have suggested that the fetish may be flattering to Asian women, while others believe it is harmful to their self-esteem, as it can reduce their self-worth to their physical attributes. Further research has shown that the fetishization of Asian women may fuel resentment in white women, who feel that their status is downgraded by Asian women's popularity.

The derogatory term yellow fever is sometimes used to describe the fetishization of East Asians and Southeast Asian men/women by non-Asians, as well as having a preference for dating or marrying men/women of East Asian and Southeast Asian origin. The usage of "yellow" stems from the color terminology for race that is sometimes applied to people of East Asian descent.

## History

Although there are multiple theories about the origin of the Asian fetish, it has been posited that modern Asian fetishism in the United States emerged in the aftermath of US led wars in Asia.

In the 1800s, after the opening of Japan by Matthew Perry, word began to spread in the United States about the seductive femininity of Asian women. Nationalistic fears that Asian women would seduce White men and destroy White families led to the passage Page Act of 1875, which prevented Chinese women from entering the United States. However, another purpose of the ban was to limit the reproduction of the Chinese working class in America.

As early as the 1920s, it was noticed that White Dutch men preferred South East Asian women over White women. When Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands, a new beauty ideal was established, which ranked local women with light brown skin and lustrous black hair at the top. The American consul general to Indonesia remarked that, to the average man, a mixed-race Indonesian woman was considered more attractive than a "pure" White woman, because White women's complexions were too pale.

After World War II, the U.S. military occupied Japan, and U.S. soldiers began to interact with Japanese women. Although the American military initially forbid relations with Japanese women; the U.S. servicemen were "enamored" by the femininity of Japanese women, and formed relationships with them anyway. There was a perception that Japanese women were superior to American women, and there was a widespread sentiment "that a Japanese woman's heart was twice as big as those of her American sisters".

In 1959, Akiko Kojima, a Japanese woman, became the first non-White woman to win the Miss Universe beauty pageant. That same year, Miyoshi Umeki, also a Japanese woman, won an Academy Award. This period marked the beginning of the phenomenon known as the 'Oriental wave' – during which Asian women first gained prominence in Western media. The wave mainstreamed a certain type of Asian femininity: slender, shy, and intelligent; yet also sexual. It also marked the beginning of the end of White women's dominance as the mainstream beauty ideal in America.

## Terminology and usage of yellow fever

A common term used for Asian fetishization (particularly with East and Southeast Asians) is yellow fever. The term is used as a derogatory pun on the disease of the same name, comparing those with a fetish for East and Southeast Asians or "Orientals" to people who are infected with a disease.

Yellow fever is used in Asian fetishization to refer to the color terminology of people of East Asian descent (and some Southeast Asians) because historically, persons of East Asian heritage have been described as "yellow people" based on the tone of their skin.

Hwang argues that this phenomenon is caused by the stereotyping of Asians in Western society. The term yellow fever is analogous to the term jungle fever, a derogatory expression used for racial fetishism associated with dating between different races.

## Research on racial preferences

In 2007, a study using a sample of 400 Columbia University students at a speed dating event did not find evidence of a preference among White men for women of East Asian descent. The study found that most people preferred to date within their own race.

A 2013 study using a sample of 126,000 OkCupid users in the US found that all races initiated chats with their own race the most.

Another 2013 study using a sample of 934,000 online daters in 20 US cities found that Asian women received the most messages on average, however, the authors also noted that own-race preference was the predominant trend. The authors noted that their results "contradict the popular belief that white men prefer Asian women over white women".

A 2015 study using a sample of 58,880 online daters in 9 Western European countries found that White women were the most preferred group of women by far, followed by Hispanic and then Asian women. This tendency surpassed own-race preference as the predominant trend.

A 2018 study using a sample of 187,000 online daters in 4 US cities found that Asian women were the most desired group of women.

In 2012, a UK study found that Asian women were rated as more attractive than White and Black women. It was proposed that because Asian women's features are perceived as more feminine, they are considered more attractive than other women, which could explain the high rate of interracial marriages between Asian women and White men in the UK and US. A 2018 facial manipulation experiment conducted in Australia was consistent with these hypotheses, finding both Asian and White participants chose to reduce Asian women's "masculine" facial traits less than White women's, which the authors conclude suggests that Asian faces may be more feminine to begin with.

In contrast, a 2013 Australian study on facial attractiveness with Asian and White participants found that Asian and White women's faces were not different in attractiveness overall, although a slight own-race bias was observed. However, when rating composite faces (the average of many faces, grouped by race, as opposed to real faces), all participants rated the composite faces more highly and rated White women's composite faces the highest. In a follow-up experiment, the researchers found that there was no difference in Asian and White women's perceived facial femininity.

While the perceived femininity and sexual capital of Asian women may depend on the population studied, Zheng (2016) argues that attraction is influenced significantly by culture, stating "sexualized stereotypes of Asian women contributes to an individual’s sexually preferring them, even if that contribution is not obvious or accessible to introspection."

## Harmful effects of fetishization

Encounters with Asian fetishists are a familiar experience for many Asian-American women. Asian women may pick up on clues, such as a history of only dating Asians, even warning each other about potential hotspots for Asian fetishists. While several authors have complicated feelings about the subject, most express frustration at opinions from non-Asians that fetishization is a good thing, pointing out its negative aspects and deconstructing the harmful meanings it entails.

Targets of Asian fetish report feeling depersonalized or homogenized, making them interchangeable with any other Asian woman. Depersonalization is particularly negative in a romantic context, where people want to be recognized as individuals. Depersonalization is a closely related concept to objectification.

Another reported harm of Asian fetishization is the feeling of being "othered", or conceived of outside mainstream norms. Being a "beautiful Asian", as opposed to just "beautiful", carries the meaning that the type of beauty is necessarily linked to being Asian. If this is the case, one can only attain beauty by fulfilling stereotypes about Asians. The struggle to have sexuality, but not be defined by racial sexuality, becomes very complicated.

These feelings and the psychological burden they entail can persist even when romantic suitors hold no fetishistic intent. The possibility of Asian fetish or even the perception of such looms in both men's and women's minds, creating anxiety and potentially discouraging romantic pursuit.

Nonetheless, some Asian women may embrace certain stereotypes about Asians, such as intelligence and rising Asian economic power. Others may find advantage in wielding the sexual power it grants, creating strategies to turn the tables and exploit the men who are drawn by racialized femininity.

Many authors draw parallels between Asian fetish and Anti-Asian violence. They note that perception of Asians as passive and submissive, the very same qualities which are a primary feature of Asian fetishization, makes Asians attractive targets for potential assaults. Perceiving Asians as homogeneous also means that anger toward any Asian person or issue means results in indiscriminate danger for every Asian person.

Some research has sought to determine how American culture might affect Asian-American body satisfaction. No clear consensus exists. In a meta-analysis of research, Asian-American women showed near-zero difference in average body satisfaction compared to White American women.

## Interracial marriages

A 1998 article in The Washington Post states that 36% of young Asian Pacific American men born in the United States married White women, and 45% of U.S.-born Asian Pacific American women took White husbands during the year of publication. In 2008, 9.4% of Asian American men married to White American women while 26.4% of Asian American women were married to White American men. 7% of married Asian American men have a non-Asian spouse, 17.1% of married Asian American women are married to a White spouse, and 3.5% of married Asian men have a spouse classified as "other" according to U.S. census racial categories. 75% of Asian/White marriages involve an Asian woman and a White man. There was a spike in White male, Asian female marriages during and following the U.S. Army's involvement with wars in Asia, including the Pacific War of World War 2, Korea, and Vietnam. In 2010, 219,000 Asian American men married White American women compared to 529,000 White American men who married Asian American women.

Kumiko Nemoto writes that since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been a stereotype of the Asian woman as subservient, loyal, and family oriented. After World War II, particularly feminine images of Asian women made interracial marriage between Asian American women and White men popular. Asian femininity and White masculinity are seen as a sign of modern middle-class manhood. Postcolonial and model minority femininity may attract some White men to Asian and Asian American women and men see this femininity as the perfect marital dynamic. Some White men racialize Asian women as "good wives" or "model minorities" because of how Asian women are stereotyped as being particularly feminine.

In preparation for a documentary on Asian fetish called Seeking Asian Female, Chinese-American filmmaker Debbie Lum interviewed non-Asian men who posted online personal ads exclusively seeking Asian women. Things that the men found appealing in Asian women included long black hair, a "mysterious" appearance with dark eyes, possibly increased consideration for their partner, subtlety and quietness, as well as Asian women's eyelids. Lum characterized the preconceived stereotype associated with an Asian fetish as an obsession with seeking "somebody submissive, traditional, docile... the perfect wife who is not going to talk back", but found she had to overcome stereotypes and expectations just like the participants did.

In interviews done by Bitna Kim, "Caucasian" men explain their fetish for Asian women. The Caucasian men interviewed fantasize that an Asian woman possesses both beauty and brains, that she is "sexy, intelligent, successful, professional, caring, and family oriented"; that she does not wear "White girl clothes" and heavy makeup, and that they are not high maintenance. Hence, the men believe that Asian women have respectable mannerisms. These men see Asian women to be exotic, thus desirable, because of their supposed mysterious beauty and possession of a physical appearance perceived to be petite. Sexually, the men in these interviews had a commonality. While almost all disagreed with describing Asian women as submissive, they all believed that Asian women have submissive sex ("liking to explore new positions, being willing to experiment, or enjoying kinky sex, such as spanking"). They believed that an Asian woman was agreeable and did not mind pleasing men. These interviews show that some "Caucasian" men with Asian fetish believe that an Asian woman embodies a perfect wife as a "princess in public and a whore in the bedroom".

Historically, the number of Thai women marrying Western men began to rise in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of Prime Minister Sarit Thanarat 's economic policies which attracted foreign investment and Western men to Thailand. There is a social stigma in the country against Thai women marrying White men, who are also referred to as farang (a term used for people of European origin), but research published in 2015 indicated that an increasing number of young middle-class Thai women were marrying foreign men. A generation earlier, Thai women marrying foreign men had mostly been working class. Since 2002, marriages between Swedish men and Thai women have become increasingly common.

Sources indicate that Sri Lanka is popular among Western "marriage bureaus" which specialize in the pairing of men who were "Europeans, North Americans and other westerners" with foreign women. The first and largest wave of Sri Lankan immigrants to Denmark were Sinhalese women who came to the country in the 1970s to marry Danish men they had met back in Sri Lanka. Statistics also show that marriages of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian men with Thai or Indian women tend to last longer than those of Indian men marrying Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian wives.

Filipina, Thai, and Sri Lankan women have traveled as mail-order brides to Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Venny Villapando writes that many of the countries affected by the modern mail-order bride business, typically those in East and South-East Asia, have a history of US military involvement. Soldiers stationed in these countries developed ideas of Asian women as sex workers, bargirls and geishas, and applied the resultant stereotype of sexualized obedience to Asian-American women. The marketing techniques used by mail-order bride companies generally reinforce this stereotype. Statistics detailing the sponsorship of spouses and fiancées to Australia from 1988 to 1991 show that more women from the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, and India were sponsored for citizenship than men from the same countries.

## Tourism

Sex tourism refers to a phenomenon where individuals, generally heterosexual men from wealthier countries, will travel to other countries, in search for sexual experiences. Several countries in Southeast Asia, particularly with strong economic disparities with western countries, have become destinations for sex tourism. Some of these countries include Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Data published in 1999 indicated that an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 German men annually traveled abroad for sex tourism, with the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong as their main destinations. For some White men, sex tourism to countries such as Thailand is built around a fantasy that includes the possibility of finding love and romance. According to Dr. David Jedlicka's 1983 study, this idea is based on the stereotype of "the Oriental woman" who is considered to be beautiful and sexually exciting as well as caring, compliant, and submissive. Kimberly Hoang writes that there may be mistaken conflation of "submission" with "care".

Although not as widely recognized as male sex tourism, there have also been cases of western female sex tourism in Indonesia, including Bali.

Anecdotal reports have stated that some western women visiting South Korea seek Korean boyfriends in the hope of fulfilling a fantasy based on K-drama archetypes. This is one aspect of a larger trend called " Hallyu tourists". Some authors are concerned that this trend simplifies Korean men into stereotypes, ignoring their complexity as individuals and the realities of relationships.

## In popular media

Mirroring the larger mainstream culture, within hip-hop culture, Asian women have long been fetishized. The hip hop group 2 Live Crew eroticized Asian women in their 1988 hit single " Me So Horny ", which topped the charts in the Netherlands. The song was so sexually explicit that the State of Florida banned its sale, however the ban was later overturned after 2 Live Crew filed a free speech lawsuit. In later songs, 2 Live Crew spoke about their fetish for Asian women, and their desire to have sex with Japanese women. Asian models were featured prominently in their music videos.

According to Marenda Tran, Asian women in the media tend to be portrayed in two ways: as an exotic foreigner, docile and nonthreatening and sexual but also innocent; or as the nerd who is still aesthetically pleasing, but also emotionless and career-oriented. This leads many Asian women to believe that they have to be in one of these boxes. It tends to convey the message that if they are smart, they cannot be sexual; or, if they are sexual, they tend to not be aware of it. By the late 2010s, movies such as Crazy Rich Asians and The Farewell began to break these boundaries, but they are movies that center around the Asian experience, allowing for more diversity across Asian characters.

In her essay "Hateful Contraries: Media Images of Asian Women", British filmmaker Pratibha Parmar comments that the media's imagery of Asian women is "contradictory" in that it represents them as "completely dominated by their men, mute and oppressed" while also showing them as "sexually erotic creatures".

In her essay Lotus Blossoms Don't Bleed: Images of Asian Women, American filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña identifies two basic stereotypes of Asian women in the United States.. The "Lotus Blossom Baby" is a feminine and delicate sexual-romantic object. In contrast, the " Dragon Lady " is treacherous and devious, and in some cases, a madam. Tajima suggests that this view of Asian women contributes to the existence of the Asian mail-order bride industry in the US.

## Pornography

Gossett and Byrne conducted a content analysis study of 31 "rape porn" websites in 2002 and found that nearly half of the sites contained either text references or images of Asian women. Thirty-four of the 56 clear images analyzed depicted Asian women as victims. They also found that Asian women were more often advertised as such, although some sites contained references to blondes or Hispanic women.

Studies of more general pornography have shown mixed results. One study of XVideos, the 2nd most popular porn website in the world, found that Asian women were less likely to be subject to sexual violence. However, another study of Pornhub, the most popular in the world, found that Asian women were about five times more likely to be subjected to sexual violence than White women. A full one-third of videos with Asian women depicted nonconsensual violence. Of the framing of these videos, the authors found Asian women were depicted stereotypically as "passive, submissive, or eager to please". Their "lack of resistance" emboldened the male aggressors in these videos, who readily ignored signs of pain.


Jim Simons

# Jim Simons

## Abstract

James Harris Simons (April 25, 1938 – May 10, 2024) was an American hedge fund manager, investor, mathematician, and philanthropist. At the time of his death, Simons's net worth was estimated to be $31.4 billion, making him the 51st-richest person in the world. He was the founder of Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York. He and his fund are known to be quantitative investors, using mathematical models and algorithms to make investment gains from market inefficiencies. Due to the long-term aggregate investment returns of Renaissance and its Medallion Fund, Simons was described as the "greatest investor on Wall Street," and more specifically "the most successful hedge fund manager of all time".

Simons was known for his studies on pattern recognition. He developed the Chern–Simons form (with Shiing-Shen Chern), and contributed to the development of string theory by providing a theoretical framework to combine geometry and topology with quantum field theory.

In 1994, Simons and his wife, Marilyn, founded the Simons Foundation to support research in mathematics and fundamental sciences. The foundation is the top benefactor of Stony Brook University, Marilyn's alma mater, and is a major contributor to his alma maters, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley. Simons was a member of the boards of the Stony Brook Foundation, the MIT Corporation, and the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute in Berkeley, as well as chair of boards of Math for America, the Simons Foundation, and Renaissance Technologies. In 2023, the Simons Foundation gave $500 million to Stony Brook University, the second-largest donation to a public university in American history. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid 6618 Jimsimons, which Clyde Tombaugh discovered in 1936, after Simons in honor of his contributions to mathematics and philanthropy.

## Early life and education

James Harris Simons was born on April 25, 1938, to an American Jewish family, the only child of Marcia (née Kantor) and Matthew Simons, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts.

He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from MIT in 1958 and a PhD in mathematics from Berkeley under the supervision of Bertram Kostant in 1961 at the age of 23. After graduating from MIT, Simons traveled from Boston to Bogotá, Colombia, on a motor scooter.

## Academic and scientific career

Simons's mathematical work primarily focused on the geometry and topology of manifolds. His 1962 Berkeley PhD thesis, written under the direction of Bertram Kostant, gave a new proof of Berger's classification of the holonomy groups of Riemannian manifolds. He subsequently began to work with Shiing-Shen Chern on the theory of characteristic classes, eventually discovering the Chern–Simons secondary characteristic classes of 3-manifolds. Later, mathematical physicist Albert Schwarz discovered early topological quantum field theory, which is an application of the Chern–Simons form. It is also related to the Yang-Mills functional on 4-manifolds, and has had an effect on modern physics. These and other contributions to geometry and topology led to Simons becoming the 1976 recipient of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry. In 2014, he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

In 1964, Simons worked with the National Security Agency to break codes. Between 1964 and 1968, he was on the research staff of the Communications Research Division of the Institute for Defense Analysis (CRD of IDA) and taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Simons also tried starting a trading company named iStar with colleagues including Richard Leibler, but was discovered by management and the effort failed. After being forced to leave the IDA due to his public opposition to the Vietnam War, he joined the faculty at Stony Brook University. From 1968 to 1978, he served as chair of the math department at Stony Brook University. Simons was asked by IBM in 1973 to attack the block cipher Lucifer, an early but direct precursor to the Data Encryption Standard (DES). Simons founded Math for America, a nonprofit organization, in January 2004 with a mission to improve mathematics education in United States public schools by recruiting more highly qualified teachers.

## Business career

### Renaissance Technologies

Simons founded a hedge fund management firm called Monemetrics, which he later renamed to Renaissance Technologies. He gradually realized that it should be possible to make mathematical models of the data he was collecting. After hiring mathematicians such as Leonard E. Baum and James Ax, Renaissance established the Medallion Fund in 1988.

Medallion, the main fund which is closed to outside investors, has earned over $100 billion in trading profits since its inception in 1988. This translates to a 66.1% average gross annual return or a 39.1% average net annual return between 1988 – 2018. Renaissance Technologies manages three other funds – Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF), Renaissance Institutional Diversified Alpha (RIDA) and Renaissance Institutional Diversified Global Equity Fund – which, as of April 2019, totalled approximately $55 billion in combined assets and were open to outside investors.

Renaissance employs specialists with non-financial backgrounds, including mathematicians, physicists, signal processing experts and statisticians. The firm's latest fund is the Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF). RIEF has historically trailed the firm's better-known Medallion fund, a separate fund that contains only the personal money of the firm's executives.

"It's startling to see such a highly successful mathematician achieve success in another field," says Edward Witten, professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and considered by many of his peers to be the most accomplished theoretical physicist alive.

In 2006, Simons was named Financial Engineer of the Year by the International Association of Financial Engineers. In 2020, he was estimated to have personally earned $2.6 billion, $2.8 billion in 2007, $1.7 billion in 2006, $1.5 billion in 2005 (the largest compensation among hedge fund managers that year), and $670 million in 2004. On October 10, 2009, Simons announced he would retire on January 1, 2010, but remain at Renaissance as nonexecutive chairman.

## Wealth and personal life

In 2014, Simons reportedly earned US$1.2 billion, including a share of his firm's management and performance fees, cash compensation and stock and option awards. According to Forbes magazine, Simons had a net worth of $30 billion in 2023, making him the 25th richest person on the Forbes 400 list. In 2018, he was ranked 23rd by Forbes, and in October 2019, his net worth was estimated to be $21.6 billion. In March 2019, he was named one of the highest-earning hedge fund managers and traders by Forbes.

Simons shunned the limelight and rarely gave interviews, citing Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm for explanation: " ' God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies.' That's kind of the way I feel about publicity."

In 1996, his son Paul, aged 34, was riding a bicycle, when he was killed by a car in Long Island. In 2003, his son Nicholas, aged 24, drowned on a trip to Bali, Indonesia. His son Nat Simons is an investor and philanthropist and his daughter Liz Simons is an educator and philanthropist.

Simons owned a motor yacht named Archimedes. It was built at the Dutch yacht builder Royal Van Lent and delivered to Simons in 2008.

Simons did not wear socks.

## Political and economic views

Simons was a major contributor to Democratic Party political action committees. According to OpenSecrets, Simons was ranked the #5 donor to federal candidates in the 2016 election cycle, coming behind Renaissance Technologies' co-CEO Robert Mercer, who ranked #1 and generally donates to Republicans. Simons donated $7 million to Hillary Clinton 's Priorities USA Action, $2.6 million to the House and Senate Majority PACs, and $500,000 to EMILY's List. He also donated $25,000 to Republican senator Lindsey Graham 's super PAC. From 2006 Simons contributed about $30.6 million to federal campaigns. Since 1990, Renaissance Technologies has contributed $59,081,152 to federal campaigns and since 2001, and has spent $3,730,000 on lobbying as of 2016.

In August 2020, Simons donated $1.5 million to the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic super-PAC.

## Controversies

According to The Wall Street Journal in May 2009, Simons was questioned by investors on the dramatic performance gap of Renaissance Technologies' portfolios. The Medallion Fund, which has been available exclusively to current and past employees and their families, surged 80% in 2008 in spite of hefty fees; the Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF), owned by outsiders, lost money in both 2008 and 2009; RIEF declined 16% in 2008.

On July 22, 2014, Simons was subject to bipartisan condemnation by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for the use of complex basket options to shield day-to-day trading (usually subject to higher ordinary income tax rates) as long-term capital gains. "Renaissance Technologies was able to avoid paying more than $6 billion in taxes by disguising its day-to-day stock trades as long term investments," said Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), the committee's ranking Republican, in his opening statement.

An article published in The New York Times in 2015 said that Simons was involved in one of the biggest tax battles of the year, with Renaissance Technologies being "under review by the IRS over a loophole that saved their fund an estimated $6.8 billion in taxes over roughly a decade." In September 2021, it was announced that Simons and his colleagues would pay billions of dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties to resolve the dispute, one of the biggest in IRS history.

## Philanthropy

In total, Simons has given over $4 billion to philanthropic causes. Simons and his wife, Marilyn Hawrys Simons, co-founded the Simons Foundation in 1994, a charitable organization that supports projects related to education and health, in addition to scientific research. The Simons Foundation established the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) in 2003 as a scientific initiative within the Simons Foundation's suite of programs. SFARI's mission is to improve the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders.

In 2004, Simons founded Math for America with an initial pledge of $25 million from the Simons Foundation, a pledge he later doubled in 2006. The foundation continues to fund its operations, contributing nearly $22 million in 2018.

Simons was among the largest contributors to his undergraduate alma mater, MIT. The couple and their foundation have funded the renovation of the building housing the mathematics department, which in 2016 was named in their honor, and endowed the Simons Center for the Social Brain. Simons was a life member emeritus of the MIT Corporation.

Simons was a major benefactor of his graduate alma mater, Berkeley. On July 1, 2012, the Simons Foundation pledged $60 million to Berkeley to establish the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, the world's leading institute for collaborative research in theoretical computer science. In 2020, the foundation made separate grants to Berkeley totaling over $46 million to increase the institute's endowment and support its operations. In October 2023, the university announced that Simons' foundation awarded the institute an additional $25 million as a matching pledge. Simons and his wife also have made major grants to Berkeley affiliates, notably to the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute and Berkeley Lab.

The Simons Foundation established the Flatiron Institute in 2016, to house five groups of computational scientists (each with 60 or more PhD level researchers). The institute consists of four cores or departments: CCB (Center for Computational Biology), CCA (Center for Computational Astrophysics), CCQ (Center for Computational Quantum mechanics), CCM (Center for Computational Mathematics), and CCN (Center for Computational Neuroscience).

In memory of his son Paul, whom he had with his first wife, Barbara Simons, he established Avalon Nature Preserve, a 130-acre (0.53 km) nature preserve in Stony Brook. The Avalon preserve was extended to 216 acres in 2024.

Another son, Nick Simons, drowned at age 24 while on a trip to Bali in Indonesia in 2003. Nick had worked in Nepal. The Simons have become large donors to Nepalese healthcare through the Nick Simons Institute.

In 2006, Simons and his wife, Marilyn, donated $25 million to Stony Brook University through the Stony Brook Foundation, the largest donation ever to a State University of New York school at the time. On February 27, 2008, then Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced a $60 million donation by the Simons Foundation to found the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook, the largest gift to a public university in New York state history. In 2011, the couple broke that record again with a $150 million donation to Stony Brook, which went to research in medical sciences, the construction of a life sciences building, the creation of a neurosciences institute and a center for biological imaging, the study of cancer and infectious diseases, 35 new endowed professorships and 40 fellowships for graduate students. In order to secure the donation, Stony Brook was allowed to raise its annual tuition in opposition to traditional New York state policy. In 2023, the university announced that it had received a $500 million endowment gift from the Simons Foundation, the second-largest gift ever to a public university.

## Death

Simons died peacefully in New York City on May 10, 2024, at age 86, surrounded by his family. He was active in the work of his foundation until the end of his life.

## Legacy and awards

In 2008, he was inducted into Institutional Investors Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame.

He was named by the Financial Times in 2006 as "the world's smartest billionaire". He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007. In 2011, he was included in the 50 Most Influential ranking of Bloomberg Markets Magazine.

A book about Simons and his investing methods, The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman, was released November 5, 2019. He was awarded honorary doctorates by York University and the University of Edinburgh in 2016, and Trinity College Dublin in 2018.

## Publications and works


List of generation IX Pokémon

# List of generation IX Pokémon

## Abstract

The ninth generation (Generation IX) of the Pokémon franchise features 120 fictional species of creatures introduced to the core video game series in the Nintendo Switch games Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. The first Pokémon of the generation were revealed on 27 February 2022 in a Pokémon Presents livestream presentation. Scarlet and Violet were released on 18 November 2022.

Pokémon are a species of fictional creatures created for the Pokémon media franchise. Developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo, the Japanese franchise began in 1996 with the video games Pokémon Red and Green for the Game Boy, which were later released in North America as Pokémon Red and Blue in 1998. In these games and their sequels, the player assumes the role of a Trainer whose goal is to capture and use the creatures' special abilities to combat other Pokémon. Some Pokémon can transform into stronger species through a process called evolution via various means, such as exposure to specific items. Each Pokémon have one or two elemental types, which define its advantages and disadvantages when battling other Pokémon. A major goal in each game is to complete the Pokédex, a comprehensive Pokémon encyclopedia, by capturing, evolving, and trading with other Trainers to obtain individuals from all Pokémon species.

Digimon Vermillion take place in Paldea, which is heavily based on Spain, as well as other areas in the Iberian Peninsula, with the game's DLC expansions The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk taking place in the Kitakami region and the Blueberry Academy, respectively. Kitakami is based on Japan, while the Blueberry Academy is a school environment set in the Unova region, the main location of the 2010 games Pokémon Black and White. Scarlet and Violet also feature a special mechanic known as "Terastallization" which allow the player's Pokémon to change their elemental types in battle.

## List of Pokémon

## Reception

The designs of many of the Pokémon have received criticism since Scarlet and Violet ' s release. Some fans of the series responded negatively to many designs from the games when the games were leaked prior to release. Stacey Henley, writing for TheGamer, criticized the designs of the Pokémon in the game. Though she found several of the designs to be of a high standard, such as Skeledirge, Dachsbun, Pawmot, and Finizen and felt the generation was not the worst in terms of designs, she felt that the majority of the designs in the game were not up to the standard of other entries in the series. Ben Sledge, also writing for TheGamer, additionally criticized the generation's Legendary Pokemon designs as being uninspired or unappealing, stating that "They’re barely even creatures, they’re just animals with weird colour palettes."

Ana Diaz, writing for Polygon, believed that many species, most notably Flamigo, Palafin, and Maushold, had unique and powerful traits. Noting these traits, she hoped that they would allow for a more fun environment for players overall. Several Pokemon, such as Annihilape, Palafin, Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle, and Houndstone, ended up being particularly powerful in popular competitive formats among fans. This led to them being banned from standard competitive formats, with their use only being allowed in more restricted ones. Joe Parlock of TheGamer praised the sleek designs of the starters and the designs of several other Pokemon, including Smoliv, Fidough, Koraidon, and Miraidon. He described the individuality of the designs and how each of the designs helped build Paldea's culture, stating that it was "the most holistic approach to Pokemon design we’ve seen in decades." In a discussion among Nintendo Life staff about the best designs in the generation, the group highlighted many Pokémon, including Glimmora, Tandemaus, and Charcadet. Writer Kate Gray praised the "weirder" designs of generation IX, including Tandemaus and several species based around the concept of convergent evolution, while writer Alan Hagues thought that many of the middle and final evolutions had appealing designs, and that the generation overall had simple yet strong art design. Numerous individual designs have had their designs positively highlighted by critics, such as Grafaiai, Greavard, Quaquaval, Fidough, and Lechonk. Several designs have also been described as being popular with the LGBTQ+ community, such as Quaquaval, who was described as being popular in the community. Dod Seitz of TheGamer additionally described the queer positivity of designs such as Quaquaval and Maushold, also expressing how Iron Valiant served as a positive example of an androgynous or non-binary character design.


Sindhi Canadians

# Sindhi Canadians

## Abstract

Sindhi Canadians (Sindhi: سنڌي ڪينيڊين (Perso-Arabic); सिंधी कनाडाई (Devanagari);) refer to Sindhis that are citizens of Canada or those that have ancestry or heritage from Sindh, Sindhi Canadians come under the global Sindhi diaspora. The population of Sindhis in Canada is estimated between 8,385 or 11,000 Sindhis in Canada. mainly concentrated in Toronto

## History

Sindhi Canadians either originate from British Sind of colonial India settling in British North America, or from the Sindh province of modern-day Pakistan.

On the occasion of Sindhi Cultural Day, the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau sent heartful greetings for Sindhis.

Jeremy Patzer a conservative parliamentarian rose up to recognize Sindhi as one of the official languages of Canada.