Maria massacre

# Maria massacre

## Abstract

Maria was a brigantine of 136 tons, built in Dublin, Ireland, and launched in 1823 as a passenger ship.

On 26 June 1840 she sailed from Port Adelaide under pesky thingos, this is why this place is NOT reliable!!! Hobart. Maria was commanded by William Ettrick Smith. With Smith sailed a mate, a crew of eight men and boys, and 16 passengers: four men, six women, five children, and a baby in arms. She wrecked on the Margaret Brock Reef, near Cape Jaffa in the colony of South Australia, somewhere south-west of the current site of the town of Kingston SE, South Australia, two days later. The wreck has never been located.

Aboriginal people on the Coorong murdered some or all of the survivors of the wreck as they journeyed to Adelaide, an event known as the Maria massacre. There were no eyewitness accounts of the killings, and accounts vary as to whether there were 25 or 26 victims; either way, it was the largest massacre of colonists by Aboriginal people in Australia. A punitive expedition, setting out from Adelaide and acting under instructions from Governor Gawler, detained the men believed to be responsible and summarily hanged two presumed culprits. This caused considerable controversy within Australia and back in Britain, as Aboriginal South Australians had been declared to be British subjects with colonisation of South Australia in 1836, and under this assumption were protected under British law.

## The ship

### Background

Maria was launched from Grand Canal Docks, Dublin, in 1823. The data below are from Lloyd's Register (LR).

Maria no longer appears in LR in 1835 and subsequently. She may have transferred her registry to Australia.

### Final voyage

Maria left Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, on 24 May 1840 and arrived at Port Adelaide harbour on Sunday 7 June 1840, under Captain W. Smith, carrying three passengers and a large amount of cargo, mostly food.

Maria left Port Adelaide on 26 June 1840 for Hobart Town, with 25 persons on board, including the captain, William Ettrick Smith, and his wife. Passengers included Samuel Denham and Mrs Denham (née Muller) and their five children (Thomas, Andrew, Walter, Fanny, and Anna); the recently-widowed Mrs York (sister of Samuel Denham), and her infant; James Strutt (previously with Lonsdale's Livery Stables, hired as Mrs Denham's servant); George Young Green and Mrs Green - possibly James Greenshields; Thomas Daniel and Mrs Daniel; and Mr. Murray. The ship's mate and crew were John Tegg, John Griffiths, John Deggan/Durgan/Dengan, James Biggins, John Cowley, Thomas Rea, George Leigh/Lee, and James Parsons.

On 28 June 1840, Maria foundered on the Margaret Brock Reef, which lies west of Cape Jaffa on the south-east coast of South Australia.

### The wreck

Maria's hull was never found, though pieces of wreckage washed ashore at Lacepede Bay. In 1972 a diver recovered a rubber gudgeon which may have come from either the Maria or the Margaret Brock. There have been rumours of gold sovereigns aboard the ship, but records have not confirmed this. There were stories of coins being passed around the Ngarrandjeri people, which may have been traded by survivors before the massacre. It was reported a few years after the wreck that Dr Penny had found 11 gold sovereigns on the beach, and a whaler named Tom Clarke obtained more from the local Aboriginal people.

It is hoped that the wreck may one day be located, using advanced remote sensing technology. This would be of great historical value. Senior maritime heritage officer Amer Khan of the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources State Heritage Unit, said that such a discovery could help to reveal the chain of events which led up to the tragedy. Khan suspects the wreck lies somewhere near Cape Jaffa, where the treacherous Margaret Brock reef is located.

A cannon reported to have belonged to the Maria and which "was probably carried for the look of the thing or for signalling" was purchased from the Lee family of Middleton by D. H. Cudmore around 1914 as a garden feature for his home "Adare" in Victor Harbor, South Australia, then as a family tradition fired to welcome each New Year.

A bell, claimed to have belonged to the ship, was acquired by Nuriootpa High School in 1942.

## Massacre

The passengers and crew safely reached land. There were no survivors to tell the tale, but accounts suggest that the passengers commenced trekking on the land side of the Coorong coast towards the lakes (Alexandrina and Albert), with the sailors heading inland at some point.

According to a later account, around 60 kilometres (37 mi) from the wreck, in company with some friendly Aboriginal people, they came across a track and at once had a dispute as to whether or not to follow it, and decided to split up: Captain Smith and the crew took to the track and most of the passengers continued along the shoreline. Two days later some of this latter group split from the party in the hope of rejoining the captain. Around this time they were attacked and killed by a group of the Milmenrura (or "Big Murray Tribe", now known as Tanganekald, also known as Tenkinyra), stripped of their possessions, clubbed to death, decapitated and buried in the sand or in wombat holes.

After word of the murders of multiple white people by "natives" reached Adelaide in late July, a group headed by William Pullen, with Dr Richard Penny, five sailors, one police trooper, and three Aboriginal interpreters, set out to investigate on 28 July. On 30 July they reached a massacre site, where they found body parts strewn around, comprising the naked bodies of two men, three women, a 10-year-old-girl, two boys (around 15 and 10 years old), and a baby girl. All had facial bruising. The party buried the bodies and recovered two wedding rings from the women's fingers. The group reported finding "legs, arms and parts of bodies partially covered with sand and strewn in all directions", and a trail of footprints leading from the area. On 1 August, they encountered a group of Aboriginal people in possession of blankets and clothing, with one wearing a sailor's jacket, and were told about the deaths of two further survivors. Pullen questioned the group who had led him to the bodies; many remained silent, but Pullen described two of the men as "the most villainous (sic) looking characters I ever saw", and assumed their guilt. Pullen's group returned to Adelaide with the rings, which were identified as belonging to Mrs York and Mrs Denham.

Such detail of how the Maria survivors came to be widely separated into three groups can only be supposition, as none lived to tell the tale. The body of the captain was found far removed from the others, and no trace of the crew members was ever found, so it is not known whether they suffered the same fate as the passengers. One contemporary noted that survivors of the schooner Fanny (Capt. James Gill), wrecked in the same area two years earlier (21 June 1838), were given every assistance by, presumably, men from the same tribe. Aboriginal people reported that the survivors of the shipwreck were guided down the Coorong as far as a point opposite Lake Albert, where they were persuaded to separate before all being murdered.

It was also alleged that after the hanging, police killed a larger group of Milmenrura people.

## Retribution

After reading Pullen's report, Governor Gawler commissioned Major O'Halloran to investigate further and his party left Adelaide on 15 August. Reinforcements were called for and on 22 August, O'Halloran left Goolwa (then known as "the Elbow") with a mounted troop, including Alexander Tolmer, Captain Henry Nixon, Charles Bonney, and Pullen. The party consisted of 12 police, 11 sailors and three Aboriginal people from Encounter Bay. Gawler's instructions were "...when to your conviction you have identified any number, not exceeding three, of the actual murderers...you will there explain to the blacks the nature of your conduct... and you will deliberately and formally cause sentence of death to be executed by shooting or hanging". They followed the coast, while boats sailed parallel. On 23 August the force ran into a number of Aboriginal people and rounded up 13 men, two boys, and 50 women and children, a total of 65. O'Halloran shackled the men and set the others free, though they remained nearby voluntarily. In the course of rounding them up, three Aboriginal men were killed, while an unrecorded number were wounded when attempting to flee. Maria's log-book was recovered in one of their wurleys, as were numerous articles of clothing, some blood-stained, and other incriminating evidence, including some silver spoons. On 24 August, Two Aboriginal men who were identified as being complicit in the killings tried to escape by swimming and were shot and wounded (or "shot down").

In his report, O'Halloran stated that his captives yielded up the man who had killed a whaler named Roach some two years previously, and also pointed out the location where one of the Maria murderers could be found. Two of the natives then volunteered to collect the man and, according to O'Halloran's report, all the natives shouted with joy when the man appeared. O'Halloran pronounced a death sentence on him.

It was judged by the party that there was sufficient evidence of guilt, and the men unanimously pronounced a guilty verdict against them. O'Halloran summarily sentenced two Aboriginal men, Mongarawata and Pilgarie (or Moorcangua?), to death. A gallows was built from sheoak and the men were hanged immediately, at 3.00pm on 25 August, with their bodies left to hang and rot near the graves.

In the main, the account given by the Aboriginal people of the massacre was similar to what the colonists reported, with a couple of discrepancies:

- The report says that that four people were executed (two shot and two hanged), the Aboriginal account reporting six.

- The report states that 26 shipwreck survivors were killed, while Aboriginal people said that 25 were killed, as one woman managed to escape across the mouth of the Murray.

Either way, it was and remains the largest massacre of colonists by Aboriginal people in Australia.

Later, it was reported that there had been a legend among the Lower Murray tribes about "a whitewoman with red hair living her life with the blacks".

## Aftermath

Bodies were recovered over the following six months, as follows, found at four sites (a total of 18):

- A grave containing eight bodies (assumed Mr & Mrs Denham, James Strutt, Mrs York, four Denham children)

- A man and a woman in a wombat hole

- A man found in a wombat hole

- A young teenage boy, in a wombat hole (possibly a Denham child)

- An upper torso of a man in a wombat hole

- A woman in a wombat hole

- Three male and one female body under a large rock

In addition, according to Irene Watson (2019) "the number of First Nations Peoples' lives lost to the punitive mission remains unknown. Our Aboriginal oral history maintains that it was many"; this had not been acknowledged by the time of writing.

O'Halloran was not exceeding his brief; he was following his instructions from Governor Gawler, whose instructions were:

On 12 August, Gawler had consulted Judge Charles Cooper of the Supreme Court as to whether the Aboriginal people were subject to British law, to which he replied that British law could not apply to "people of a wild and savage tribe whose country, although within the limits of the Province of South Australia, has never been occupied by Settlers, who have never submitted themselves to our dominion, and between whom and the Colonists, there has been no social intercourse". He also wrote:

My objection to try the natives of the Big Murray tribe is founded, not on any supposed defect of right on their part, but on my want of jurisdiction. It is founded on the opinion that such only of the native population as have of some degree acquiesced in our dominion can be considered subject of our laws, and that with regard to all others, we must be considered as much strangers as Governor Hindmarsh and the first settlers were to the whole native population when they raised the British standard, on their landing at Glenelg.

Watson (2019) points out, in her discussion on the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal peoples, "the lack of acknowledgement that there had never been a dialogue between us and the British on the question of our legal and political status. At no stage had Aboriginal Peoples been informed of our coming to being as 'British subjects', let alone consented to it".

Gawler later said that he had been proceeding on the principles of martial law, although martial law had not been publicly announced, on the advice of and unanimous agreement of the Executive Council, owing to concerns about the public perception of such an announcement. The Council preferred to treat the Milmenrura people as "an openly hostile tribe and foreign enemy".

In a sketchbook by the then Surveyor General of South Australia, Edward Charles Frome, there is a sketch of a Milmenrura village in the south-east consisting of a cluster of about twelve established homes. It is annotated with the note "burnt by me, October 1840".

## Response to the executions

In Australia, little blame was apportioned to O'Halloran for his part in this affair; not so for Governor Gawler, who was severely criticised by sections of the press, notably the Register. Newspapers in Van Diemen's Land also condemned Gawler.

The Aborigines' Protection Society roundly condemned Gawler's actions. The Society also questioned the legality of the actions; the Chief Justice, though, was of the opinion that South Australian law could not be applied, because the tribe had not pledged allegiance to the Crown. The controversy may have played a part in Gawler's recall some months later.

There was much debate about the legality or otherwise of the executions. Justice Cooper had tried to justify the summary punishment by saying that the Milmenrura people were a hostile nation and not British subjects. The Register attacked this stance, providing long arguments to show that both positions were untenable.

In London, the Colonial Office was of the opinion that both Gawler and O'Halloran were liable to be tried for murder because the law stated that Australian natives were considered British subjects and protected under the same laws as the British colonists. In October 1841, the Secretary of State for the Colonies replied to Gawler's report, in which he attempted to justify his policy in the matter. The opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown was that the accused could have been brought to trial in the usual way, so their summary execution was an act of murder. The Commissioner of Police and all present were guilty as principals, and the Governor an accessory before the fact. The only way they could be indemnified was by an Act of Parliament or by a pardon under the Great Seal. They later opined that no action should be taken until a prosecution or similar might warrant it. No further action was taken, and the inquiry lapsed.

On the subject of leaving the hanged men in full view of the community until their bodies rotted, anthropologist Diane Bell wrote "Given the strict rules about the handling of the dead and the fears of sorcery associated with the fat collected from the corpse being 'smoked' on a platform erected for the dead, this colonial object lesson angered the Ngarrindjeri then, and does still now". She also quotes other experts who noted that this incident, along with others, formed a turning point in their interactions with white people, or kringkari: "violation of sacred places and of women incurred serious punishment".

## Commemoration and legacy

Maria Creek in Kingston was named as a reminder of the wreck.

A monument comprising a 2-metre (6 ft 7 in) high blue-grey Karataphyre quartz rock and a plaque, commemorating the wreck of Maria was unveiled at Kingston SE on 18 February 1966 by the National Trust of South Australia, with the inscription:

The brigantine "Maria" bound from Port Adelaide to Hobart was wrecked on Margaret Brock Reef in June 1840.

Erected by the National Trust of South Australia

In memory of the survivors who landed near this spot and set out to walk to the nearest settlement at Encounter Bay.

All were murdered by the Milmendjuri Clan of the Tanganekald Tribe of Aborigines near Lakes Albert and Alexandrina.

They were :-

- Captain William E. Smith and his Wife.

- Passengers Mr & Mrs Samuel Denham and family of five.

- Mrs York and infant daughter.

- James Strutt.

- Mr & Mrs George Greenshield.

- Mr & Mrs. Thomas Daniel.

- Mr. A. Murray and nine members of the crew.

The two natives who instigated the massacre were executed by a Police party at Pilgari near the scene of the mass murder.

Unveiled by Hurtle Morphett Esq. M.C.,President of the National Trust of South Australia,

18th February 1966

## Differing accounts

Since nobody from the Maria survived it is difficult to ascertain what exactly happened. On 10 April 1841, members of the Tenkinyra tribe guided Richard Penny to a spot where they promised the remains of a drowned white man were buried. He believed it would be Captain Collet Barker, who was speared to death in the same area on 30 April 1831. They found instead the bodies of four of the five from Maria still unaccounted for; one drowned and four bashed to death. The Aboriginal people told Penny that the attack had followed the shipwrecked party's refusal to hand over clothing that they had considered their just entitlement for guiding and sustaining the group and carrying the children across their land. The Maria party had promised plenty of blankets and clothing from Adelaide after they returned, but the Aboriginal people started to help themselves to the goods and a fight ensued, ending in the killing of the shipwrecked party.

One researcher, Graham Jaunay, reported: "The passengers and crew managed to launch a boat and it would seem that all arrived safely on shore. They were befriended by members of the local tribe, the Milmenrura, who apparently negotiated to take them east along the coast towards Encounter Bay - the nearest settlement. While accounts vary, when the party reached the territorial boundary at Little Dick Point, the aborigines would go no further. The wreck survivors argued that they had negotiated to be taken all the way to Adelaide. Despite the protestations, an exchange took place and the so-called Needles Tribe took over escort duties. It would seem that the refugees' clothes were coveted by some men of the clan although contemporary reports have never made it clear which clan. The difficulties were seemingly compounded by some individual crewmen attempting to entice sexual favours from some aboriginal women without realising that this placed certain traditional obligations on them".

In 2003 Ngarrindjeri elder Tom Trevorrow said that the story of the Maria was well known among his elders, and that he was told the survivors had met up with their people. According to Trevorrow, the Ngarrindjeri group offered them "fire, water and food...It was the duty of male people to help these people. But every time they'd come to a boundary line, they had to hand them over to the next lakayinyeri (family group) — the Milmendura". He was told that the crew members had tried "to sexually interfere with them". The Ngarrindjeri people warned the sailors that this was not their way, and that their tribal law would punish such behaviour by death. At some point after this, a violent fight broke out, and the survivors of Maria were all killed. According to Trevorrow: "Even back then, if a Ngarrindjeri man interfered with a young Ngarrindjeri girl before marriage, if that person was given a warning, told 'Don't do that' that person kept doing it, they'd be severely punished, meaning death" – and this is what led to the fight and killings.

"Telling the Whole Story" is a collaborative project being undertaken between First Nations of the South East and the Kingston SE branch of the National Trust of South Australia, led by law professor Irene Watson, who is of Tanganekald, Meintangk, and Bungandidj heritage. The project, supported by Kingston District Council, is an attempt to provide information that tells the story of the Maria massacre from an Indigenous perspective, involving provision of new interpretative signs and a sculpture alongside the present monument. Watson says that the story is more complex and multifaceted than that recorded in colonial sources "as fierce natives spearing and murdering white people surviving a shipwreck". Historian Amanda Nettelbeck devoted a chapter in Fatal Collisions (2001) entitled "Reconstructing the Maria Massacre" to the event, which includes several early accounts. She reports Dr Kenny's suggestion that the survivors were killed after being helped to safety and not receiving an expected reward, and anthropologist Norman Tindale 's recording of Ngarrindjeri oral history given in 1934, which reported that some sailors "took a favourable opportunity of interfering with some native women". Another story passed down the generations said that after responsibility for the shipwreck survivors had been passed to a third clan (the Milmenrura) from the original one, some young men had got into an argument and killed them. These men had paid for their crime with their lives, punished by tribal elders; the men hanged by O'Halloran were therefore not guilty of the massacre.


The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man

# The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man

## Abstract

The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man is a 1975 American documentary film produced by Appalshop and directed by Mimi Pickering.

## Summary

The film is about the Buffalo Creek Flood, an incident that occurred on February 26, 1972, when the Pittston Coal Company 's coal slurry impoundment dam in Logan County, West Virginia burst four days after having been declared 'satisfactory' by a federal mine inspector. The film includes interviews with survivors, mining officials, and union representatives, along with footage of the flood itself.

## Legacy

In 2005, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


Siglec

# Siglec

## Abstract

Siglecs (Sialic acid-binding immunoglobulin-type lectins) are cell surface proteins that bind sialic acid. They are found primarily on the surface of immune cells and are a subset of the I-type lectins. There are 14 different mammalian Siglecs, providing an array of different functions based on cell surface receptor-ligand interactions.

## History

The first described candidate Siglec was Sialoadhesin (Siglec-1/CD169) a lectin-like adhesion protein on macrophages. Parallel studies by Ajit Varki and colleagues on the previously cloned CD22 (a B cell surface protein involved in adhesion and activation) showed direct evidence for sialic acid recognition. The subsequent cloning of Sialoadhesin by Crocker revealed homology to CD22 (Siglec-2), CD33 (Siglec-3) and myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG/Siglec-4), leading to the proposal for a family of "Sialoadhesins". Varki then suggested the term Siglec as a better alternative and as a subset of I-type (Ig-type) lectins. This nomenclature was agreed upon and has been adopted by almost all investigators working on these molecules (by convention, Siglecs are always capitalised.) Several additional Siglecs (Siglecs 5–12) have been identified in humans that are highly similar in structure to CD33 and so are collectively referred to as "CD33-related Siglecs". Further Siglecs have been identified including Siglec-14 and Siglec-15. Siglecs have been characterized into two distinct groups: the first and highly conserved-across-mammals group composed of Sialoadhesins, CD22, MAG, and Siglec-15, and a second group comprising Siglecs closely related to CD33. Others such as Siglec-8 and Siglec-9 have homologues in mice and rats (Siglec-F and Siglec-E respectively in both). Humans have a higher number of Siglecs than mice and so the numbering system was based on the human proteins.

## Structure

Siglecs are Type I transmembrane proteins where the NH -terminus is in the extracellular space and the COO -terminus is cytosolic. Each Siglec contains an N-terminal V-type immunoglobulin domain (Ig domain) which acts as the binding receptor for sialic acid. These lectins are placed into the group of I-type lectins because the lectin domain is an immunoglobulin fold. All Siglecs are extended from the cell surface by C2-type Ig domains which have no binding activity. Siglecs differ in the number of these C2-type domains. As these proteins contain Ig domains, they are members of the Immunoglobulin superfamily (IgSF).

Most Siglecs, such as CD22 and the CD33-related family, contain ITIMs (Immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motifs) in their cytosolic region. These act to down-regulate signaling pathways involving phosphorylation, such as those induced by ITAMs (Immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs). Some, however, like Siglec-14, contain positive amino acid residues that help dock ITAM-containing adaptor proteins such as DAP12.

### Ligand binding

Due to the acidic nature of sialic acid, Siglec active sites contain a conserved arginine residue which is positively charged at physiological pH. This amino acid forms salt bridges with the carboxyl group of the sugar residue. This is best seen in Sialoadhesin, where arginine at position 97 forms salt bridges with the COO group of the sialic acid, producing a stable interaction. Each lectin domain is specific for the linkage that connects sialic acid to the glycan. Sialic acid contains numerous hydroxyl groups which can be involved in the formation of glycosidic linkages, which are observed at carbons number 2, 3, 6, and 8 of the sugar backbone. The binding specificity of each Siglec is due to different chemical interactions between the sugar ligand and the Siglec amino acids. The position in space of the individual groups on the sugar and the protein amino acids affects the sialic acid linkage to which each Siglec binds. For example, Sialoadhesin preferentially binds α2,3 linkages over α2,6 linkages.

## Function

The primary function of Siglecs is to bind glycans containing sialic acids. These receptor-glycan interactions can be used in cell adhesion, cell signalling and others. The function of Siglecs is limited to their cellular distribution. For example, MAG is found only on oligodendrocytes and schwann cells whereas Sialoadhesin is localised to macrophages.

Most Siglecs are short and do not extend far from the cell surface. This prevents most Siglecs from binding to other cells as mammalian cells are covered in sialic acid-containing glycans. This means that the majority of Siglecs only bind ligands on the surface of the same cell, so called cis -ligands, as they are "swamped" by glycans on the same cell. One exception is Sialoadhesin which contains 16 C2-Ig domains, producing a long, extended protein allowing it to bind trans -ligands, i.e. ligands found on other cells. Others, such as MAG, have also been shown to bind trans -ligands.

### Signalling

The members of the siglec family are paired receptors with opposing intracellular signaling functions. Due to their ITIM-containing cytoplasmic regions, most Siglecs interfere with cellular signalling, inhibiting immune cell activation. Once bound to their ligands, Siglecs recruit inhibitory proteins such as SHP phosphatases via their ITIM domains. The tyrosine contained within the ITIM is phosphorylated after ligand binding and acts as a docking site for SH2 domain -containing proteins like SHP phosphatases. This leads to de-phosphorylation of cellular proteins, down-regulating activating signalling pathways.

Examples of negative signalling:

- CD22 is found on B cells. B cells become active when the B-cell receptor (BCR) binds to its cognate ligand. Once the BCR is bound to its ligand, the receptor auto-phosphorylates its cytoplasmic region (cytoplasmic tail). This leads to phosphorylation of the three ITIMs in CD22's cytoplasmic tail, leading to the recruitment of SHP-1 which negatively regulates BCR-based cellular activation. This creates an activation threshold for B cell activation whereby transient activation of B cells is prevented. CD22 inhibition of BCR signalling was originally thought to be sialic acid-binding-independent, but evidence suggests α2,6 sialic acid ligands are required for inhibition.

- Siglec-7 is found on Natural Killer cells (NK cells). Siglec-7 leads to cellular inactivation once bound to its sialic acid-containing cognate ligand and is found in high levels on NK cell surfaces. It is used in cell-cell contacts, binding to sialylated glycans on target cells leading to inhibition of NK cell-dependent killing of the target cell. Mammalian cells contain high levels of sialic acid and so when NK cells bind so called "self-cells", they are not activated and do not kill host cells.

Siglec-14 contains an arginine residue in its transmembrane region. This binds to the ITAM-containing DAP10 and DAP12 proteins. When bound to its ligand, Siglec-14 leads to activation of cellular signalling pathways via the DAP10 and DAP12 proteins. These proteins up-regulate phosphorylation cascades involving numerous cellular proteins, leading to cellular activation. Siglec-14 appears to co-localise with Siglec-5, and as this protein inhibits cellular signalling pathways, co-ordinate opposing functions within immune cells.

### Phagocytosis and adhesion

Siglecs that can bind trans -ligands, such as Sialoadhesin, allow cell-cell interactions to take place. These glycan-Siglec interactions allow cells to bind one another, allowing signalling in some cases, or in the case of Sialoadhesin, pathogen uptake. Sialoadhesin's function was originally thought to be important in binding to red blood cells. Sialoadhesin lacks a cytosolic ITIM or a positive residue to bind ITAM-containing adaptors and so is thought not to influence signalling. Studies show that this protein is involved in phagocytosis of bacteria that contain highly sialylated glycan structures such as the lipopolysaccharide of Neisseria meningitidis. Binding to these structures allows the macrophage to phagocytose these bacteria, clearing the system of pathogens.

Siglec-7 is also used in binding to pathogens such as Campylobacter jejuni. This occurs in a sialic acid-dependent manner and brings NK cells and monocytes, on which Siglec-7 is expressed, into contact with these bacteria. The NK cell is then able to kill these foreign pathogens.

### Knock-out studies

Knock-out studies are often used to uncover the function proteins have within a cell. Mice are often used as they express orthologous proteins of ours, or extremely similar homologues.

Some examples of knock-out Siglecs include:

- CD22: Walker & Smith conducted experiments with CD22 knock-outs and deletion mutants to discern CD22's function. These mutant B cells did not infer any autoimmune disease, but they did see an increased production of autoantibodies due to the lack of BCR signalling inhibition, usually conducted by CD22. Autoantibodies are specific for self proteins and can lead to harm in the host. CD22 is normally up-regulated by lipopolysaccharide binding to Toll-like receptors. The mutant B cells can not up-regulate the mutant protein and so become hyper-sensitive in the presence of lipopolysaccharide. This means that the B cells overproduce antibodies when antibodies would not normally have been produced.

- MAG (Myelin-associated glycoprotein) is expressed on cells that form myelin sheaths (schwann cells and oligodendrocytes) around neurons. MAG binds to sialylated ligands on the neuron. Knock-out of MAG in the peripheral nervous system leads to decreased myelination of neurons. Knock-out of MAG in the central nervous system of mice does not appear to affect myelination, but the interaction between the myelin and the neuron does deteriorate with age. This leads to neurological defects as the action potential can not pass so rapidly down the length of the axon during neural stimulation. Removing the ligand for MAG, by knocking-out the GalNAc transferase gene required for ligand formation, has similar effects to that of the MAG knock-out mice

## Human/Primate Siglecs

This table briefly summarises the cellular distribution of each human/primate Siglec; the linkage specificity each has for sialic acid binding; the number of C2-Ig domains it contains; and whether it contains an ITIM or a positive residue to bind ITAM-containing adaptor proteins. References in the column headings correspond to all information displayed in that column, unless other references are shown. Siglec-12 information is referenced by only, excluding the linkage specificity.

## Mimetics

Many pathologies have been linked to the spontaneous interactions between sialic acid and the immunosuppressive sialic acid-binding immunoglobulin-like lectin (Siglec) receptors on immune cells such as cancer, HIV-1 and Group B Strep Infection. The sialic acid family branches from glycans, sugar chains comprising various monosaccharides that cover the membrane of every living cell and display a staggering structural diversity. Sialic acids function in protein folding, neural development, cellular interactions, among many other physiological processes. As sialic acids are abundantly expressed in vertebrates and not in microorganisms, they are considered self-antigens or self-structures that play major role in inhibiting harmful immune system activity by regulating neutrophils and B cell tolerance.

Within the immune system, Siglecs, especially those related to CD33, sialic acid and Siglec-binding pathogens are subjected to the runaway Red Queen co-evolution phenomenon by a selection pressure that maintains innate immune system's capacity for self-recognition and ensures prevention of autoimmunity diseases. This evolutionary chain and incessant mutations have made Siglecs one of the most rapidly evolving gene, evidenced by both intra- and inter-species differences. The polymorphism of human-unique Siglec-12, -14 and -16 suggests that the selection pressure is ongoing.

As Siglecs feature distinct binding preferences for the sialic acid and its modifications, several attempts have been made to chemically modify natural sialic acid ligands and eventually led to the creation of sialic acid mimetics (SAMs) with enhanced binding capacity and selectivity towards Siglecs.

### Synthesis

SAMs can be used to target Siglecs and modulate Siglec-expressing cells by modifying the sialic acid backbone at various positions, from C-2 to C-9. The carboxylic acid, however, must be left intact. The first attempts were made to develop high-affinity sialic acid mimetics for Siglec-2, which led to the discovery that increased binding affinity came hydrogen bonding and lipophilic interactions between SAMs and Siglec-2. Several separate modifications have been made at the C-2, C-5 and C-9 positions, leading Mesch et al. to hypothesizing that the simultaneous modification at all three positions could lead to optimization of binding.

Success in drastically enhanced binding of SAMs to Siglec 2 suggests that a similar approach can work on other members of the family. Some modifications have included an additional simultaneous modification at the C-4 position on the sialic acid backbone. The development of (copper) I-catalyzed azide alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) click chemistry has expedited the identification of new SAMs and allowed for the creation of novel SAMs with high binding to Siglec-3, -5, -6, -7 and -10. As of 2017, SAMs for most Siglecs have been reported, except for Siglec -6, -8, -11, -14, -15 and -16.

Clustering of receptors and high-avidity binding, collectively known as multivalent binding, can enhance the effectiveness of SAMs in human body. Currently, advancements in glycoengineering have made use of SAM-decorated nanoparticles, SAM-decorated polymers and on-cell synthesis of SAMs to present SAMs to Siglecs. Liposomes crosslinked with SAMs also have been shown to aid in presenting antigens to antigen-presenting cells via the Siglec-1 or -7 pathways. Moreover, human cells, engineered with sialic acids carrying Ac NeuNPoc incorporated into its sialoglycans and 3-bromo-benzyl azide, showed hyperactivity towards Siglec-2.


The Burning (1981 film)

# The Burning (1981 film)

## Abstract

The Burning is a 1981 American slasher film directed by Tony Maylam, and starring Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer, Larry Joshua, and Lou David. Its plot follows a summer camp caretaker who is horribly burnt from a prank gone wrong, where he seeks vengeance at a nearby summer camp years later. The film marks the debuts of actors Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Holly Hunter.

Based on the New York urban legend of the Cropsey maniac, the screenplay was written by Bob Weinstein and Peter Lawrence, from a story conceived by producer Harvey Weinstein, Tony Maylam, and Brad Grey. Rick Wakeman, of the progressive rock band Yes, composed the score.

The Burning was theatrically released on May 8, 1981, by Filmways. Its critical reception was largely unfavorable, with many film critics deriding its similarities to Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th Part 2 and its graphic violence. However, it has since become a cult classic and received positive reappraisal from film critics.

## Plot

One night at Camp Blackfoot, several campers pull a prank on Cropsy, the camp's alcoholic and abusive caretaker, by setting a worm-riddled skull with candles in the eye sockets next to his bed. When the caretaker is awakened by the campers banging on his window, he gets frightened by the skull and accidentally knocks it onto his bed, starting a fire. The flames reach a gas tank, which ignites Cropsy and his cabin. He runs outside, engulfed in flames, and stumbles down into a river as the boys flee. Despite his horrific injuries, Cropsy survives.

Five years later, Cropsy is released from the hospital despite dealing with failed skin grafts and wears a coat and hat to hide his disfigurement. A prostitute lures him to her apartment, where he stabs her with scissors in a fit of rage. He then arms himself with a pair of pruning shears and sets out for another summer camp, Stonewater. The counselors and campers are playing softball there when a camper searching for a lost ball in the woods narrowly avoids Cropsy.

The next morning, a camper named Alfred scares Sally as she steps out of the shower. Her screams bring the attention of counselors Michelle and Todd, and campers Karen and Eddy catch him. Michelle is furious at Alfred and demands that he leave, but Todd talks to him. He learns that Alfred has no friends and is merely pulling a prank on Sally. Sally's boyfriend, Glazer, confronts Alfred, but Todd gets him to back off, and the latter apologizes to Sally. Alfred spots Cropsy outside his window that night, but nobody believes him.

The following day, the campers are brought by Todd and Michelle on a canoe trip down to the river Devil's Creek. After Todd tells them about the legend of Cropsy, Karen and Eddy go to a lake to skinny dip. He leaves upset when she reconsiders having sex with him, and Karen leaves the lake to find her clothes scattered in the woods. As she collects them, Cropsy slashes her throat with his shears. The next morning, Michelle finds Karen and the canoes missing. Eddy, Fish, Woodstock, Diane, and Barbara search for the canoes on a makeshift raft. They spot a canoe and paddle to it, but Cropsy ambushes them by jumping out from the canoe and savagely murders them all with his shears.

Glazer has sex with Sally in the woods but suffers premature ejaculation. When he leaves to get matches for a campfire, Cropsy shoves his shears into Sally's chest. Her boyfriend returns only for Cropsy to stab him through the throat and pin him to a tree. Alfred witnesses his death and wakes up Todd, but Todd is rendered unconscious by Cropsy, who then chases after Alfred. Meanwhile, Michelle finds the mutilated bodies on the makeshift raft and brings the remaining campers back to the camp to contact the authorities.

Todd regains consciousness and chases after the killer with an axe. Cropsy grabs Alfred inside an abandoned mineshaft and pins him to a wall with his shears. Todd discovers Karen's body and sees Cropsy armed with a flamethrower, where he begins to remember being involved with the prank. He is attacked by Cropsy, who reveals his disfigurements, and Alfred frees himself to stab him with his own shears. Before they can leave, Cropsy reappears, and Todd ultimately slams the axe into his face, killing him. Alfred ignites his body with his own flamethrower, and they make their way outside to Michelle, who brought the police with her, as Cropsy's body burns away. At a campfire, another group of teenagers is seen retelling the story of Cropsy.

## Cast

- Brian Matthews as Todd Keith Mandell as Young Todd

- Keith Mandell as Young Todd

- Leah Ayres as Michelle

- Brian Backer as Alfred

- Lou David as Cropsy

- Larry Joshua as Glazer

- Jason Alexander as Dave

- Ned Eisenberg as Eddy

- Carrick Glenn as Sally

- Carolyn Houlihan as Karen

- Fisher Stevens as Woodstock

- Shelley Bruce as Tiger

- Sarah Chodoff as Barbara

- Bonnie Deroski as Marnie

- Holly Hunter as Sophie

- Kevi Kendall as Diane

- J.R. McKechnie as Fish

- George Parry as Alan

- Ame Segull as Rhoda

- Jeff De Hart as Supervisor

- Bruce Kluger as Rod

- Jerry McGee as Intern

- Mansoor Najeeullah as Orderly

- Willie Reale as Paul

- John Roach as Snoop

- K.C. Townsend as Hooker

- John Tripp as Camp Counselor

- James Van Verth as Jamie

- Therese Morreale as Girl Playing Softball

## Production

### Conception

In 1980, Harvey Weinstein was desperate to break into the movie business. Weinstein and producing partner Michael Cohl recognized the success of low-budget horror films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Halloween (1978), and began swapping horror stories. Having heard stories about the Cropsy legend when he was a young camper in upstate New York, Weinstein brought the idea to Cohl, who loved it.

The project was initiated before the popularity of Sean S. Cunningham 's sleeper hit Friday the 13th (1980), with Harvey Weinstein creating a five-page treatment in 1979 under the title "The Cropsy Maniac" and registering it in April 1980, a full month before Cunningham's film was released. Coincidentally, at the same time, director Joseph Ellison also had a film in pre-production under the title "The Burning", but changed the name to Don't Go in the House (1980) to avoid confusion with Weinstein's film. The production also bore similarities to another slasher movie in pre-production, a film that would become known as Madman (1982). In summer 1980, during a casting call for Madman, one of the actresses commented that her boyfriend was acting in The Burning. This prompted Madman to change its entire premise, which was built around the Cropsy legend. This led to a delay in its filming until October 1980, which proved costly as it didn't receive a theatrical release until January 1982. The over-saturation of genre films competing with each other was one of the side-effects of the early 1980s slasher boom.

Cohl told Variety that he, Weinstein and producer Corky Burger took an early version of the script to the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, where it was well received, although they rejected initial six-figure offers, hoping to land more money once the film had been shot. This was a similar approach to how Friday the 13th had earned distribution with Paramount Pictures.

British director Tony Maylam, known for rock music documentaries in the 1970s, was hired as The Burning ' s director in summer 1980. Maylam had met Weinstein and Burger while the producers worked as rock promoters.

During his discussion with film critic Alan Jones on the audio commentary of MGM 's DVD, Maylam said that once he came on board things moved very quickly. The screenplay was written in just six weeks and was sculpted to conform to the emerging genre conventions of the time. As the film takes place mostly outside and is set in summer, the production had a small window of opportunity in which to make the film or it risked having to wait until the following year. Knowing that the slasher craze would not last forever, and wanting to get their film released before it fizzled out, the producers rushed into production. The screenplay was written by Peter Lawrence and Harvey's brother Bob Weinstein. Again, reflecting an understanding of slasher movie conventions of the time, the script featured a murder every ten minutes in the script. It was Maylam's idea to make gardening shears Cropsy's weapon of choice.

The film originally had a different ending. A script dated July 6, 1980 shifted the location to one much more in keeping with a summer camp slasher. Originally, the showdown was to take place in a boathouse. Another big change is that Todd ends up as the " final boy " rather than as the heroic adult, and Alfred is killed by Cropsy. Other changes included an excised character named Alan, who was to be the love interest for Tiger. This version also ends with a campfire scene, but the last line is different: "...And every year he seeks revenge for the terrible things those kids did to him... every year he kills! "

The production company became Miramax, named after Harvey and Bob Weinstein's parents, Miriam and Max, who helped fund the picture. The budget is reported to have been between $500,000 and $1.5 million, although the latter is more often cited. Cohl admitted that the relatively inexperienced filmmakers underestimated production costs, which caused the movie to go over budget.

### Casting

Casting took place in New York in the spring of 1980, and Maylam met most of the cast in person. There was a remarkably quick turnaround, as the start date for filming was August 18, 1980 (although some shooting may have taken place prior to this date). Brian Matthews and Leah Ayres were cast first. Ayres already had a successful small screen career. Maylam reportedly insisted that Matthews dye his hair brown, as he did not think he would look macho enough with blonde hair. Larry Joshua was cast as one of the kids at the camp, even though he was older in real life than either Matthews or Ayres. Like most of the cast, it was his first role, but led to a long and successful career, mostly on the small screen. The rest of the cast was hired during a series of auditions. For some of the soon-to-be-stars, such as Holly Hunter, Jason Alexander, and Fisher Stevens, The Burning was their first big screen appearance.

The Weinsteins and Maylam also secured the services of make-up supremo Tom Savini, who they flew to Pittsburgh to meet. Savini had worked on films such as Dawn of the Dead (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), Maniac (1980), and Eyes of a Stranger (1981). Savini turned down the chance to work on Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), ostensibly because he could not understand the logic that Jason was fully grown and was now the killer, as well as what he described as "miscommunications" with the film's backers. He also said that he liked the script for The Burning more.

### Filming

The Burning was shot in the late summer of 1980 around Buffalo and North Tonawanda, New York. Much of the filming took place in and around existing summer camps to give it an authentic look while keeping costs down. The cast wore their own clothes throughout the production. Many of the cast were local to the New York area and were aware of the Cropsy legend.

In the interview on the MGM DVD, Savini recalls that the cast were literally queuing up to find out how they would die, making him feel like an assassin. He was very hands-on with the production, though he did not have much time to put together the special effects. He only had three or four days to make the Cropsy make-up – the mask was created in his dressing room in-between special effects duties elsewhere on the film. In Grande Illusions, his first book on his life as a special effects guru, Savini says he based the look of Cropsy on a burnt beggar he had seen as a kid in Pittsburgh, as well as textbooks on burn victims. Due to time constraints, the resulting mask was more of a melt than a burn. Savini was pleased enough with what he had done that he subsequently agreed to go on a publicity tour for the film.

Savini expanded on his Friday the 13th experience for his work on The Burning. The scene where a victim has her throat cut by Cropsy with the shears was similar in execution to the demise of the hitchhiker in the earlier film. Cropsy's demise, when the axe smashes into his face, is an almost identical effect to a scene in Friday the 13th.

The mine system was chosen for the climactic battle between Cropsy and Todd. As an earlier script showed, it was originally meant to be a boat house at the camp, but this was switched to a cave system. Indeed, another subsequent version of the script has a scene in Cropsy's lair, where he looks over old newspaper clippings. Maylam says it was changed again to the copper mine because they found bats roosting in the boat house and considered it unsafe.

Maylam has recalled that Carolyn Houlihan, who was Miss Ohio USA in 1979, found her nude scenes extremely difficult to do. Carrick Glenn, who also had a nude scene, was relaxed in front of the camera, according to the director.

Maylam maintains that he was Cropsy for about 90% of the movie, as he could not get anyone else to hold the shears the way he wanted (to perfect the gleam bouncing off the metal).

### Post-production

The film was edited by Jack Sholder, who went on shortly to direct the first film for New Line Cinema, the slasher Alone in the Dark (1982), starring Jack Palance, Martin Landau, and Donald Pleasence. He also directed A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985), a sequel to the 1984 classic.

Maylam has said that there was talk of a sequel at the time The Burning was wrapping; however, Maylam was leery of being type-cast as a horror director and the disappointing box office performance of the original stalled the sequel's production.

## Promotion and release

According to Maylam, the film received a very good response at test screenings. In February 1981, Filmways Pictures picked up the rights to distribute the film from Miramax for an undisclosed sum after viewing it in Los Angeles. According to Variety, Filmways was in financial difficulties and saw an opportunity to make quick money during the slasher boom. The company had already produced Brian De Palma 's Dressed to Kill (1980), which had made serious money the previous year. Filmways also released horror thrillers such as The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), Without Warning (1980), and The Last House on the Left (1972). Filmways originally was intent on renaming the film Tales Around the Campfire due to its now-iconic campfire scenes, but its original title remained. The film was subsequently sold to foreign territories including Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Japan at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.

### Box office

The film opened on May 8, 1981, in Florida on 110 screens, with a regional rollout following on May 22.

According to Variety, the film did especially well in Buffalo, near where it had lensed, playing in three theaters and two drive-ins, bringing in $33,000. Interest soon fizzled, and the film suffered a more than 50% drop-off in box office receipts the following week. Despite this brief bright spot, overall box office for The Burning was initially pretty dismal. It lasted in the top 50 for only four weeks, with a take of just $270,508. Variety reported it received a "chilly reception" in San Francisco and Chicago. Unlike in Buffalo, it opened elsewhere to stiff competition: it debuted at number 23 behind slasher films Happy Birthday to Me, which was at number one, and Friday the 13th Part 2 at number two; however, The Burning also opened on far fewer screens than those wider releases.

The oversaturation of the slasher film market did not help draw in audiences to The Burning. Aside from having the very similar-plotted Friday the 13th Part 2 also playing, the film suffered from competition with Happy Birthday to Me, Final Exam, The Fan, Graduation Day, Eyes of a Stranger, and a successful re-release of Tobe Hooper 's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The success of Friday the 13th Part 2 hampered The Burning ' s attendance, as the audience flocked to the known property.

The Burning opened in New York with new poster artwork (showing a face with a fire reflected in an eye) on November 5, 1982, distributed by Orion Pictures, who had recently merged with Filmways. The New York Times film critic Janet Maslin 's gave a scathing review. An ad in Variety from November 17 noted that the film had grossed $401,258 in just 7 days. Its last week on Variety sample chart was December 8, where it had slipped from 78 screens the previous week to just 8 that week, with a final gross of $707,770.

Promotional press artwork also exists under the title Cropsy, but it is unclear when it played theaters under that title, as it was a common practice to give films multiple names in an effort to trick audiences into seeing it multiple times. According to the MPAA site, it may have also played under the title Campfire Tales. These releases and re-releases make it difficult to find a definitive box office tally for the film.

According to Tony Maylam, the film sold well around the world, making back its $1.5 million budget. The film performed well in Japan when it was released there in September 1981. Variety reported it making a total of $283,477 in a week at just four cinemas in Tokyo. In its first 16 days, it had grossed $1.2 million from 11 theatres in Japan.

The film was released to British screens on November 5, 1981, by HandMade Films, where it was met with modest success. Within a couple of weeks it was on a double feature with When a Stranger Calls (1979), which did not boost its fortunes, as Variety said it soon "hit the skids" with "pathetic" results.

### Censorship

Despite the graphic gore effects of slasher films being the driving force behind their box office success, the MPAA gave in to the critical reception and reaction of pressure groups who were protesting the films in the wake of violent acts, such as the assassination of John Lennon, and the growing debate about violence in the media. The Burning was heavily trimmed to receive its R rating. The film remained cut in the United States until its 2007 DVD release that restored the scenes of gore.

The British cinema release of The Burning was severely cut as well by the BBFC, receiving an X certificate on September 23, 1981, with cuts to the scissor murder of the prostitute and some gore during the raft attack. When the film was accidentally released uncut on video in the United Kingdom by Thorn EMI, the tape was liable for seizure and prosecution under the Obscene Publications Acts. Thorn-EMI had unwittingly released a " video nasty ", a term used to describe films judged as obscene and too violent for home rental. They tried to rectify matters by reissuing a BBFC-approved version. The original uncut Thorn-EMI release is worth a great deal of money today. In 1992, the United Kingdom video re-release suffered additional cuts to the raft attack, plus cuts to the killing of Karen. It was finally released fully uncut in 2002.

### Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 77% based on reviews from 13 critics, with an average rating of 6.90/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 42 out of 100, based on reviews from 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

A number of critics noted the film's graphic violence and parallels to Friday the 13th (1980) and its sequel: On his weekly "Sneak Previews" show with Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert chose the film as one of the critics' "Dogs of the Week"; Ebert was particularly unimpressed by the film's similarity to Friday the 13th Part II, another slasher film from the summer of 1981 that he despised. Bill Cosford of the Miami Herald praised the film's dialogue and special effects as convincing, but similarly noted that it bore too many similarities to films such as Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th Part II. Joe Baltake of the Philadelphia Daily News also compared the film to Friday the 13th, but added that, where that film "is periodically nasty, The Burning is all nastiness." A review published in Variety was similarly critical of the film, describing it as derivative and overtly violent.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: " The Burning makes a few minor departures from the usual cliches of its genre, though it carefully preserves the violence and sadism that are schlock horror's sine qua non".

The Time Out film guide wrote: "Suspensewise, it's proficient enough, but familiarity with this sort of stuff can breed contempt". Kim Newman of Empire magazine was critical of the film for being "an obvious imitation of Friday the 13th " but praised Tom Savini's special effects. AllMovie wrote: "With deliberant pacing and shocking scenes of full-on gore, The Burning delivers on the creep-out levels and would probably be better regarded if not for the boom of familiar flicks that came out after this release". While reviewing the film's 2013 Blu-ray release from Scream Factory, Scott Weinberg of Fearnet wrote, " dated and sort of dull. But there's some amazing gore, and the new Blu-ray makes it shine". Leonard Maltin gave the film one out of a possible four stars, calling it " awful Friday the 13th rip-off".

### Home media

The Burning was released on DVD in North America for the first time ever on September 11, 2007, by MGM Home Entertainment. The DVD contains several extras, including a commentary by director Tony Maylam, a featurette covering Savini's make-up effects, a stills gallery, and the theatrical trailer. Despite the DVD cover displaying the 'R' rating, the print used is the full uncut version.

Shout! Factory released The Burning on Blu-ray Disc/DVD Combo Pack on May 21, 2013, under their sub-label Scream Factory. In May 2023, Scream Factory announced a Ultra HD Blu-ray release that came out on July 11, 2023.

## Soundtrack

A soundtrack album featuring Rick Wakeman's score was released on LP in 1981 in Europe, and shortly after in the United States and Japan. It includes music from the film and rock band arrangements by Wakeman, known as The Wakeman Variations, as well as selections from the score, written by Alan Brewer and Anna Pepper. Brewer was musical director for the film and co-producer of the score and soundtrack album with Wakeman.

The soundtrack was released in the United Kingdom for the first time on CD in February 2007.

- "Theme from The Burning " – 3:32

- "The Chase Continues (Po's Plane)" – 3:53

- "Variations on the Fire" – 5:13

- "Shear Terror and More" – 4:39

- "The Burning (End Title Theme)" – 2:00

- "Campfire Story" – 3:08

- "The Fire" – 3:25

- "Doin' It" – 2:42

- "Devil's Creek Breakdown" – 2:21

- "The Chase" – 2:00

- "Shear Terror" – 2:49

## Legacy

Many people involved in The Burning have gone onto achieve great success. Bob and Harvey Weinstein have become successful film producers, acting as founders and heads of Miramax Films from 1979 until 2005 (which was owned by The Walt Disney Company from 1993 until 2010), when they created The Weinstein Company. Bob is also the founder and head of Dimension Films, which continues to release genre films, though many of them heavily reedited by Weinstein from 1992 until 2019, including the successful Scream slasher film franchise and five of the Halloween films. Harvey won an Academy Award for producing Shakespeare in Love and has garnered seven Tony Awards for producing a variety of winning plays and musicals, including The Producers, Billy Elliot the Musical, and August: Osage County. Brad Grey, who received a writing credit on The Burning, became the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, a position he held from 2005 until his death in 2017. Grey produced eight of the ten top-grossing films to come from the studio. Actress Holly Hunter won an Academy Award in 1993 for her performance in The Piano, and was also nominated for her performances in Broadcast News (1987), The Firm (1993), and Thirteen (2003), as well as winning two Emmy Awards and receiving seven nominations. Jason Alexander would star in the long-running, critically acclaimed sitcom Seinfeld as George Costanza. Fisher Stevens would star in The Flamingo Kid (1984) and Short Circuit (1986), before turning to documentary directing, where he won an Academy Award for his film The Cove (2010) and an Independent Spirit Award for Crazy Love (2007).

The film was cited by Hifumi Kono as being the inspiration for Bobby Barrow's signature scissors weapon in Clock Tower.

In 2009, writer-director Joshua Zeman and director Barbara Brancaccio released a documentary titled Cropsey, which details the Cropsey maniac urban legend on which The Burning is based. Despite sharing little connection to The Burning, the film re-ignited the popular mythos of the character.

In 2017, Complex magazine named The Burning the 12th-best slasher film of all time. The following year, Paste included it in their list of "The 50 Best Slasher Movies of All Time", while Cropsy was ranked the 12th-greatest slasher villain of all time by LA Weekly.

In October 2017, former-production assistant Paula Wachowiak alleged that producer Harvey Weinstein's history of predatory behavior went back as far as the initial filming of The Burning in June 1980. Then a 24-year-old University at Buffalo graduate and divorced mother, Wachowiak was tasked with getting Weinstein to sign checks for an auditor working with the production's accounting department. When Wachowiak arrived at Weinstein's hotel room to have him sign the checks, he allegedly answered the door wearing only a towel, that he then dropped and asked for a massage from his employee. When Wachowiak refused, she alleges that Weinstein harassed her about the incident through the rest of the film's production, up until the film's May 1981 premiere.


Bogdan Bojić

# Bogdan Bojić

## Abstract

Bogdan Bojić (born 3 March 1999) is a Montenegrin professional basketball player for Sutjeska of the Montenegrin Basketball League.

## Playing career

In July 2020, Bojić signed for a Bosnian team Sloboda Tuzla.


The Business of Strangers

# The Business of Strangers

## Abstract

The Business of Strangers is a 2001 American drama film that tells the story of an eventful night shared between a middle-aged businesswoman and her young assistant. The independent film was written and directed by Patrick Stettner. It stars Stockard Channing and Julia Stiles.

## Plot

Julie Styron (Channing) is a middle-aged business woman flying out of town to attend an important meeting. When her CEO contacts her and asks her to meet him for dinner afterward, she worries that her job may be in danger and engages the help of a headhunter named Nick Harris (Fred Weller) to look for a new position. Her mood worsens when her new assistant Paula Murphy (Stiles) is 45 minutes late to the meeting, which as a result goes badly. After its end, Julie fires Paula and they part ways.

Later that evening Julie is unexpectedly promoted to CEO of the company. After both their flights home are delayed, Julie and Paula meet up by chance in a hotel bar. Julie apologizes for losing her temper earlier and buys Paula a drink. As they talk, Julie, who gave up having a family for her career, begins to question whether she made the right choice. The two of them visit the gym and the pool before returning to the bar.

Nick joins them, explaining that his flight was also canceled. Paula rushes off to the bathroom and is followed by Julie, who wants to know what was wrong. Later, Paula informs her that Nick raped a friend of hers in Boston. Julie is shocked but eventually convinced, and suggests they get revenge. Paula tells her to just forget about it.

The two retire to Julie's room, and when Nick knocks on the door later on, Paula invites him in and then drugs him. In order to keep him from realizing what they've done, the two women take him down into a restricted area of the hotel which is being renovated. Julie runs upstairs to get Nick's briefcase, and returns to find Paula stripping him. Paula explains that this way when he wakes up he will hesitate to ask anyone what happened.

Paula photographs them all with her Polaroid camera. Paula finds a magic marker and they write words on Nick's chest and back like "pig" and "rapist". They are nearly discovered by a security guard, but he leaves without seeing them. Paula eventually confesses to Julie that it was she who was raped, not her friend — which Julie had already guessed. They return to Julie's room and sleep.

The next morning, Julie finds the word "loser" written in marker on her own stomach, and a few Polaroids on the bed of Paula sitting next to her own sleeping form. At the airport she meets up with Nick again. He reveals that he had never been to Boston, proving Paula's rape story to be an elaborate lie.

## Reception

The film received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 81% approval rating based on 94 reviews, with an average score of 6.6/10. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 67 out of 100, based on 30 reviews.

Writing for the BBC, Neil Smith compared the film favorably to In the Company of Men, praising the "insightful script, sleek cinematography, and acerbic one-liners" along with "the inspired pairing of Channing and Stiles creates real dramatic fireworks".

Conversely, in the Portland Mercury, Katia Dunn wrote that while the screenplay is good, " Julia 's flatness leaks into every part of the movie" and that her "inability to act" single-handedly dooms the film as unlike her two other movies that year, O and Save the Last Dance, "there are no dance or sex scenes for Julia to fall back on", concluding that the film "should be a lesson about what happens when bad actors try to do arty movies: Disaster" and that "Julia Stiles should stick to what she does best: Nothing".


Electroplating

# Electroplating

## Abstract

Electroplating, also known as electrochemical deposition or electrodeposition, is a process for producing a metal coating on a solid substrate through the reduction of cations of that metal by means of a direct electric current. The part to be coated acts as the cathode (negative electrode) of an electrolytic cell; the electrolyte is a solution of a salt whose cation is the metal to be coated, and the anode (positive electrode) is usually either a block of that metal, or of some inert conductive material. The current is provided by an external power supply.

Electroplating is widely used in industry and decorative arts to improve the surface qualities of objects—such as resistance to abrasion and corrosion, lubricity, reflectivity, electrical conductivity, or appearance. It is used to build up thickness on undersized or worn-out parts and to manufacture metal plates with complex shape, a process called electroforming. It is used to deposit copper and other conductors in forming printed circuit boards and copper interconnects in integrated circuits. It is also used to purify metals such as copper.

The aforementioned electroplating of metals uses an electroreduction process (that is, a negative or cathodic current is on the working electrode). The term "electroplating" is also used occasionally for processes that occur under electro-oxidation (i.e positive or anodic current on the working electrode), although such processes are more commonly referred to as anodizing rather than electroplating. One such example is the formation of silver chloride on silver wire in chloride solutions to make silver/silver-chloride (AgCl) electrodes.

Electropolishing, a process that uses an electric current to selectively remove the outermost layer from the surface of a metal object, is the reverse of the process of electroplating.

Throwing power is an important parameter that provides a measure of the uniformity of electroplating current, and consequently the uniformity of the electroplated metal thickness, on regions of the part that are near to the anode compared to regions that are far from it. It depends mostly on the composition and temperature of the electroplating solution, as well as on the operating current density. A higher throwing power of the plating bath results in a more uniform coating.

## Process

The electrolyte in the electrolytic plating cell should contain positive ions (cations) of the metal to be deposited. These cations are reduced at the cathode to the metal in the zero valence state. For example, the electrolyte for copper electroplating can be a solution of copper(II) sulfate, which dissociates into Cu cations and SO anions. At the cathode, the Cu is reduced to metallic copper by gaining two electrons.

When the anode is made of the metal that is intended for coating onto the cathode, the opposite reaction may occur at the anode, turning it into dissolved cations. For example, copper would be oxidized at the anode to Cu by losing two electrons. In this case, the rate at which the anode is dissolved will equal the rate at which the cathode is plated, and thus the ions in the electrolyte bath are continuously replenished by the anode. The net result is the effective transfer of metal from the anode to the cathode.

The anode may instead be made of a material that resists electrochemical oxidation, such as lead or carbon. Oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, and some other byproducts are then produced at the anode instead. In this case, ions of the metal to be plated must be replenished (continuously or periodically) in the bath as they are drawn out of the solution.

The plating is most commonly a single metallic element, not an alloy. However, some alloys can be electrodeposited, notably brass and solder. Plated "alloys" are not "true alloys" (solid solutions), but rather they are tiny crystals of the elemental metals being plated. In the case of plated solder, it is sometimes deemed necessary to have a true alloy, and the plated solder is melted to allow the tin and lead to combine into a true alloy. The true alloy is more corrosion-resistant than the as-plated mixture.

Many plating baths include cyanides of other metals (such as potassium cyanide) in addition to cyanides of the metal to be deposited. These free cyanides facilitate anode corrosion, help to maintain a constant metal ion level, and contribute to conductivity. Additionally, non-metal chemicals such as carbonates and phosphates may be added to increase conductivity.

When plating is not desired on certain areas of the substrate, stop-offs are applied to prevent the bath from coming in contact with the substrate. Typical stop-offs include tape, foil, lacquers, and waxes.

### Strike

Initially, a special plating deposit called a strike or flash may be used to form a very thin (typically less than 0.1 μm thick) plating with high quality and good adherence to the substrate. This serves as a foundation for subsequent plating processes. A strike uses a high current density and a bath with a low ion concentration. The process is slow, so more efficient plating processes are used once the desired strike thickness is obtained.

The striking method is also used in combination with the plating of different metals. If it is desirable to plate one type of deposit onto a metal to improve corrosion resistance but this metal has inherently poor adhesion to the substrate, then a strike can be first deposited that is compatible with both. One example of this situation is the poor adhesion of electrolytic nickel on zinc alloys, in which case a copper strike is used, which has good adherence to both.

### Pulse electroplating

The pulse electroplating or pulse electrodeposition (PED) process involves the swift alternating of the electrical potential or current between two different values, resulting in a series of pulses of equal amplitude, duration, and polarity, separated by zero current. By changing the pulse amplitude and width, it is possible to change the deposited film's composition and thickness.

The experimental parameters of pulse electroplating usually consist of peak current/potential, duty cycle, frequency, and effective current/potential. Peak current/potential is the maximum setting of electroplating current or potential. Duty cycle is the effective portion of time in a certain electroplating period with the current or potential applied. The effective current/potential is calculated by multiplying the duty cycle and peak value of the current or potential. Pulse electroplating could help to improve the quality of electroplated film and release the internal stress built up during fast deposition. A combination of the short duty cycle and high frequency could decrease surface cracks. However, in order to maintain the constant effective current or potential, a high-performance power supply may be required to provide high current/potential and a fast switch. Another common problem of pulse electroplating is that the anode material could get plated and contaminated during the reverse electroplating, especially for a high-cost, inert electrode such as platinum.

Other factors that affect the pulse electroplating include temperature, anode-to-cathode gap, and stirring. Sometimes, pulse electroplating can be performed in a heated electroplating bath to increase the deposition rate, since the rate of most chemical reactions increases exponentially with temperature per the Arrhenius law. The anode-to-cathode gap is related to the current distribution between anode and cathode. A small gap-to-sample-area ratio may cause uneven distribution of current and affect the surface topology of the plated sample. Stirring may increase the transfer/diffusion rate of metal ions from the bulk solution to the electrode surface. The ideal stirring setting varies for different metal electroplating processes.

### Brush electroplating

A closely-related process is brush electroplating, in which localized areas or entire items are plated using a brush saturated with plating solution. The brush, typically a stainless steel body wrapped with an absorbent cloth material that both holds the plating solution and prevents direct contact with the item being plated, is connected to the anode of a low-voltage direct-current power source, and the item to be plated is connected to the cathode. The operator dips the brush in plating solution and then applies it to the item, moving the brush continually to get an even distribution of the plating material.

Brush electroplating has several advantages over tank plating, including portability, the ability to plate items that for some reason cannot be tank plated (one application was the plating of portions of very large decorative support columns in a building restoration), low or no masking requirements, and comparatively low plating solution volume requirements. Disadvantages compared to tank plating can include greater operator involvement (tank plating can frequently be done with minimal attention), and the inability to achieve as great a plate thickness.

### Barrel plating

This technique of electroplating is one of the most common used in the industry for large numbers of small objects. The objects are placed in a barrel-shaped non-conductive cage and then immersed in a chemical bath containing dissolved ions of the metal that is to be plated onto them. The barrel is then rotated, and electrical currents are run through the various pieces in the barrel, which complete circuits as they touch one another. The result is a very uniform and efficient plating process, though the finish on the end products will likely suffer from abrasion during the plating process. It is unsuitable for highly ornamental or precisely engineered items.

### Cleanliness

Cleanliness is essential to successful electroplating, since molecular layers of oil can prevent adhesion of the coating. ASTM B322 is a standard guide for cleaning metals prior to electroplating. Cleaning includes solvent cleaning, hot alkaline detergent cleaning, electrocleaning, ultrasonic cleaning and acid treatment. The most common industrial test for cleanliness is the waterbreak test, in which the surface is thoroughly rinsed and held vertical. Hydrophobic contaminants such as oils cause the water to bead and break up, allowing the water to drain rapidly. Perfectly clean metal surfaces are hydrophilic and will retain an unbroken sheet of water that does not bead up or drain off. ASTM F22 describes a version of this test. This test does not detect hydrophilic contaminants, but electroplating can displace these easily, since the solutions are water-based. Surfactants such as soap reduce the sensitivity of the test and must be thoroughly rinsed off.

## Test cells and characterization

### Throwing power

Throwing power (or macro throwing power) is an important parameter that provides a measure of the uniformity of electroplating current, and consequently the uniformity of the electroplated metal thickness, on regions of the part that are near the anode compared to regions that are far from it. It depends mostly on the composition and temperature of the electroplating solution. Micro throwing power refers to the extent to which a process can fill or coat small recesses such as through-holes. Throwing power can be characterized by the dimensionless Wagner number:

Wa = R T κ F L α | i |, {\displaystyle {\text{Wa}}={\frac {RT\kappa }{FL\alpha |i|}},}

where R is the universal gas constant, T is the operating temperature, κ is the ionic conductivity of the plating solution, F is the Faraday constant, L is the equivalent size of the plated object, α is the transfer coefficient, and i the surface-averaged total (including hydrogen evolution) current density. The Wagner number quantifies the ratio of kinetic to ohmic resistances. A higher Wagner number produces a more uniform deposition. This can be achieved in practice by decreasing the size (L) of the plated object, reducing the current density | i |, adding chemicals that lower α (make the electric current less sensitive to voltage), and raising the solution conductivity (e.g. by adding acid). Concurrent hydrogen evolution usually improves the uniformity of electroplating by increasing | i |; however, this effect can be offset by blockage due to hydrogen bubbles and hydroxide deposits.

The Wagner number is rather difficult to measure accurately; therefore, other related parameters, that are easier to obtain experimentally with standard cells, are usually used instead. These parameters are derived from two ratios: the ratio M = m / m of the plating thickness of a specified region of the cathode "close" to the anode to the thickness of a region "far" from the cathode and the ratio L = x / x of the distances of these regions through the electrolyte to the anode. In a Haring-Blum cell, for example, L = 5 for its two independent cathodes, and a cell yielding plating thickness ratio of M = 6 has Harring-Blum throwing power 100% × (L − M) / L = −20%. Other conventions include the Heatley throwing power 100% × (L − M) / (L − 1), and Field throwing power 100% × (L − M) / (L + M − 2). A more uniform thickness is obtained by making the throwing power larger (less negative) according to any of these definitions.

Parameters that describe cell performance such as throwing power are measured in small test cells of various designs that aim to reproduce conditions similar to those found in the production plating bath.

### Haring–Blum cell

The Haring–Blum cell is used to determine the macro throwing power of a plating bath. The cell consists of two parallel cathodes with a fixed anode in the middle. The cathodes are at distances from the anode in the ratio of 1:5. The macro throwing power is calculated from the thickness of plating at the two cathodes when a direct current is passed for a specific period of time. The cell is fabricated out of perspex or glass.

### Hull cell

The Hull cell is a type of test cell used to semi-quantitatively check the condition of an electroplating bath. It measures useable current density range, optimization of additive concentration, recognition of impurity effects, and indication of macro throwing power capability. The Hull cell replicates the plating bath on a lab scale. It is filled with a sample of the plating solution and an appropriate anode which is connected to a rectifier. The "work" is replaced with a Hull cell test panel that will be plated to show the "health" of the bath.

The Hull cell is a trapezoidal container that holds 267 milliliters of a plating bath solution. This shape allows one to place the test panel on an angle to the anode. As a result, the deposit is plated at a range current densities along its length, which can be measured with a Hull cell ruler. The solution volume allows for a semi-quantitative measurement of additive concentration: 1 gram addition to 267 mL is equivalent to 0.5 oz/gal in the plating tank.

## Effects

Electroplating changes the chemical, physical, and mechanical properties of the workpiece. An example of a chemical change is when nickel plating improves corrosion resistance. An example of a physical change is a change in the outward appearance. An example of a mechanical change is a change in tensile strength or surface hardness, which is a required attribute in the tooling industry. Electroplating of acid gold on underlying copper- or nickel-plated circuits reduces contact resistance as well as surface hardness. Copper-plated areas of mild steel act as a mask if case-hardening of such areas are not desired. Tin-plated steel is chromium-plated to prevent dulling of the surface due to oxidation of tin.

## Alternatives to electroplating

There are a number of alternative processes to produce metallic coatings on solid substrates that do not involve electrolytic reduction:

- Electroless deposition uses a bath containing metal ions and chemicals that will reduce them to the metal by redox reactions. The reaction should be autocatalytic, so that new metal will be deposited over the growing coating, rather than precipitated as a powder through the whole bath at once. Electroless processes are widely used to deposit nickel-phosphorus or nickel-boron alloys for wear and corrosion resistance, silver for mirror -making, copper for printed circuit boards, and many more. A major advantage of these processes over electroplating is that they can produce coatings of uniform thickness over surfaces of arbitrary shape, even inside holes, and the substrate need not be electrically conducting. Another major benefit is that they do not need power sources or specially-shaped anodes. Disadvantages include lower deposition speed, consumption of relatively expensive chemicals, and a limited choice of coating metals.

- Immersion coating processes exploit displacement reactions in which the substrate metal is oxidized to soluble ions while ions of the coating metal get reduced and deposited in its place. This process is limited to very thin coatings, since the reaction stops after the substrate has been completely covered. Nevertheless, it has some important applications, such as the electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) process used to obtain gold-plated electrical contacts on printed circuit boards.

- Sputtering uses an electron beam or a plasma to eject microscopic particles of the metal onto the substrate in a vacuum.

- Physical vapor deposition transfer the metal onto the substrate by evaporating it.

- Chemical vapor deposition uses a gas containing a volatile compound of the metal, which gets deposited onto the substrate as a result of a chemical reaction.

- Gilding is a traditional way to attach a gold layer onto metals by applying a very thin sheet of gold held in place by an adhesive.

## History

It has been theorized that the first electroplating was done in Parthian Empire era. Wilhelm König, while an assistant at the National Museum of Iraq in the 1930s, had observed a number of very fine silver objects from ancient Iraq, plated with very thin layers of gold, and speculated that they were electroplated. He corroborated his idea by referring to a possible Parthian battery discovered in 1938 near the metropolis of Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian (150 BC – 223 AD) and Sasanian (224–650 AD) empires of Persia. However, this has been widely debunked by researchers. Modern archaeologists now generally agree that the objects seen by König were not, in fact, electroplated at all, but rather fire-gilded using mercury. There are therefore no known examples of objects from ancient Mesopotamia that can be reliably described as showing signs of electroplating.

Electroplating was invented by Italian chemist Luigi Valentino Brugnatelli in 1805. Brugnatelli used his colleague Alessandro Volta 's invention of five years earlier, the voltaic pile, to facilitate the first electrodeposition. Brugnatelli's inventions were suppressed by the French Academy of Sciences and did not become used in general industry for the following thirty years. By 1839, scientists in Britain and Russia had independently devised metal-deposition processes similar to Brugnatelli's for the copper electroplating of printing press plates.

Boris Jacobi in Russia not only rediscovered galvanoplastics, but developed electrotyping and galvanoplastic sculpture. Galvanoplastics quickly came into fashion in Russia, with such people as inventor Peter Bagration, scientist Heinrich Lenz, and science-fiction author Vladimir Odoyevsky all contributing to further development of the technology. Among the most notorious cases of electroplating usage in mid-19th century Russia were the gigantic galvanoplastic sculptures of St. Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg and gold-electroplated dome of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, the third tallest Orthodox church in the world.

Soon after, John Wright of Birmingham, England discovered that potassium cyanide was a suitable electrolyte for gold and silver electroplating. Wright's associates, George Elkington and Henry Elkington were awarded the first patents for electroplating in 1840. These two then founded the electroplating industry in Birmingham from where it spread around the world. The Woolrich Electrical Generator of 1844, now in Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum, is the earliest electrical generator used in industry. It was used by Elkingtons.

The Norddeutsche Affinerie in Hamburg was the first modern electroplating plant starting its production in 1876.

As the science of electrochemistry grew, its relationship to electroplating became understood and other types of non-decorative metal electroplating were developed. Commercial electroplating of nickel, brass, tin, and zinc were developed by the 1850s. Electroplating baths and equipment based on the patents of the Elkingtons were scaled up to accommodate the plating of numerous large-scale objects and for specific manufacturing and engineering applications.

The plating industry received a big boost with the advent of the development of electric generators in the late 19th century. With the higher currents available, metal machine components, hardware, and automotive parts requiring corrosion protection and enhanced wear properties, along with better appearance, could be processed in bulk.

The two World Wars and the growing aviation industry gave impetus to further developments and refinements, including such processes as hard chromium plating, bronze alloy plating, sulfamate nickel plating, and numerous other plating processes. Plating equipment evolved from manually-operated tar -lined wooden tanks to automated equipment capable of processing thousands of kilograms per hour of parts.

One of the American physicist Richard Feynman 's first projects was to develop technology for electroplating metal onto plastic. Feynman developed the original idea of his friend into a successful invention, allowing his employer (and friend) to keep commercial promises he had made but could not have fulfilled otherwise.


Bogdan Bojić


Yuichi Matsumoto

# Yuichi Matsumoto

## Abstract

Daniel Yuichi Matsumoto (松元 ユウイチ, Matsumoto Yūichi, born December 18, 1980) is a Brazilian former professional baseball first baseman who played for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in Nippon Professional Baseball.

He was born in São Paulo, in 1980. He joined the Yakult Swallows in 1999, and acquired Japanese nationality in 2004.

He represented Brazil at the 2002 Intercontinental Cup and 2013 World Baseball Classic.


The Christmas Dragon

# The Christmas Dragon

## Abstract

The Christmas Dragon is a 2014 American family film directed by John Lyde.

## Plot

Ayden, an orphan in Medieval Europe who lost her parents to a dragon, receives a magic crystal from a dying elf to bring back Christmas from becoming a fading memory. She and the other orphans alongside wayward adult Airk must go to the North to meet Father Christmas.

## Cast

- Bailee Johnson as Ayden

- Jake Stormoen as Airk

- Paris Warner as Rosalynne

- Jacob Buster as Rand

- Ruby Jones as Hoyt

- Melanie Stone as Saerwen

- Talon Ackerman as Garrett

- Adam Johnson as Father Christmas / Roki

- Renny Grames as Gazared

- Danny James as Bomtall

- Eve Mauro as Aesa

## Reception

Common Sense Media gave the film one star.

Stormoen won the Best Supporting Actor category at the Utah Film Awards the next year.

## Legacy

It was featured as the final episode of the 13th season of the cult science fiction series Mystery Science Theater 3000.


Mississippi Braves

# Mississippi Braves

## Abstract

The Mississippi Braves, or M-Braves as they are referred to locally, was a Minor League Baseball team based in Pearl, Mississippi, a suburb of Jackson. The team was the Double-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves and played in the Southern League. The team had been owned and operated by Diamond Baseball Holdings since December 2021. After the 2024 season, the team relocated to Columbus, Georgia, to become the Columbus Clingstones.

## History

In 2005, the Southern League 's Greenville Braves relocated to Pearl from Greenville, South Carolina, due to the poor condition of Greenville Municipal Stadium, and the failure to reach an agreement with the Greenville County council for a new ballpark.

The M-Braves' first season began on April 18, 2005 at Trustmark Park with a loss to the Montgomery Biscuits.

In conjunction with Major League Baseball 's restructuring of Minor League Baseball in 2021, the Braves were organized into the Double-A South. They won the 2021 Southern Division title with a first-place 67–44 record. They qualified for the playoffs by having the best record in the league. The Braves defeated the Montgomery Biscuits, 3–2, in the best-of-five series to win the Double-A South championship. Shea Langeliers was selected as the league's Top MLB Prospect and Dan Meyer as the Manager of the Year.

In December 2021, Diamond Baseball Holdings bought the Mississippi Braves from Atlanta Braves owner Liberty Media.

In 2022, the Double-A South became known as the Southern League, the name historically used by the regional circuit prior to the 2021 reorganization.

On January 9, 2024, the Braves announced that the 2024 season would be their final season in Pearl, Mississippi and they would be relocating to Columbus, Georgia for the start of the 2025 season. In September 2024, the franchise's new identity was revealed as the Columbus Clingstones.

## Championships

On September 13, 2008, the Mississippi Braves beat the Carolina Mudcats, 3–2, in the 10th inning of the decisive Game 5 of the Southern League Championship Series. This was the M-Braves first championship and the first Southern League title for Atlanta's Double-A franchise since 1997. The M-Braves' second title came in 2021 in the Double-A South.

## Television and radio

All Mississippi Braves games were televised live on MiLB.TV. Since 2023, all regular and post-season Mississippi Braves games aired on 102.1 The Box. The broadcasters were Chris Harris and Jack Sadighian. From 2009 to 2022, games aired on WYAB 103.9 FM.

## Notable players

- Blaine Boyer * (2005)

- Danny Burawa

- Román Colón (2005)

- Chuck James (2005)

- Brian McCann * (2005)

- Jay Powell * (2005)

- Martín Prado * (2005–2006)

- Gregor Blanco (2005-2006)

- Joey Devine * (2005–2007)

- Jeff Francoeur * (2005, 2008)

- Max Fried * (2017)

- Chipper Jones * (2006)

- Yunel Escobar (2006)

- Manny Acosta (2006)

- Matt Harrison (2006)

- José Ascanio * (2006–2007)

- Jarrod Saltalamacchia * (2006–2007)

- Kris Medlen (2007-2008)

- Tommy Hanson (2008)

- Matt Diaz (2008)

- Jordan Schafer (2008, 2010)

- Jason Heyward (2009)

- Freddie Freeman (2009)

- Craig Kimbrel (2009)

- Nate McLouth * (2009)

- Julio Teherán (2010)

- Mike Minor (2010, 2014)

- Arodys Vizcaíno (2011, 2015)

- Andrelton Simmons * (2012)

- Evan Gattis (2012)

- Christian Bethancourt (2012-2013)

- Philip Gosselin (2012-2013)

- Tommy La Stella (2013)

- Alex Wood (2013)

- Mallex Smith (2015)

- Brian O'Connor (2005)

- Ronald Acuna Jr. (2017)

- Michael Harris II (2022)

* Promoted directly to Atlanta.


Xouba

# Xouba

## Abstract

Xouba also known as little sardine or parrocha is a small sardine and a type of Pelagic fish. Xoubas are small sardines from Galicia, Spain. They are a species of ray-finned fish in the monotypic genus Sardina. The juvenile Xouba has the scientific name of European pilchard which is in the family Clupeidae.

## Description

The fish is blue-green and has a silver underside. In comparison to the other sardines, the xouba, is diminutive. Xouba means little fish; the fish lives is shallow areas of water between 5 m (16 ft) and 50 m (160 ft). The fish is harvested between the months of May and July when it reaches 13 cm (5.1 in) in length. Xoubas, are small sardines, and a they come from Galicia, Spain. The small Xouba is a juvenile version of a European pilchard. In some areas the Xouba is is called Parrocha. Xouba are from the family Clupeidae.

Xoubas have a tender distinct flavor and they are small sardines, nutrient-dense. They have a high omega-3 fatty acid content and they are high in healthy fats. Xouba has more fat than other sardines.

## History

Since the 15th century, Xouba is caught with a technique called Xeito. The technique employs a a net stretched between boats; a type of drift netting. In Spain there are several annual events to celebrate the Xouba. One such event is the Burial of the xoubiña. It is celebrated on Ash Wednesday and it includes funeral procession that is satirical. The procession ends with the burning of the effigy of a sardine. Galicia, Spain is the home of a festival (Festa da Xouba } celebrating the Xouba. The event takes place about the same time as the "Feast of Santiago Apóstol" which happens in July.

### Preparation

Prepared as a dish, it can be used in empanadas, or pickled, or made in a casserole with potatoes. Xouba is also grilled and served on bread. Or breaded with chickpea flour and fried.


Michel van den Abeele

# Michel van den Abeele

## Abstract

Michel, Baron van den Abeele is a former Director-General of the European Commission, is actually chairman of the board of the Belgian public owned company APETRA and active in several Belgian charities.

## Education

He obtained a master's degree in Economics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

## Career

From 1973 until 1976 he was Deputy Head and then Head of Cabinet of Vice- President Henri Simonet. From 1976 until 1978, he was advisor to François-Xavier Ortoli, President of the European Commission. In 1978, he was advisor to President Roy Jenkins. In 1981, he was advisor to President Gaston Thorn. From 1981 until 1986, he was Advisor in the Secretariat-General and then in the EU Directorate-General for Development. From 1986 until 1989, he was Head of Division UNCTAD and Commodities at the Directorate-General for Development. From 1982 until 1992, he was head of the cabinet of EU Commissioner Karel Van Miert and again from 1995 until 1996. From 1992 until 1994, he was Deputy Director-General of the EU Directorate-General Budgets. From 1996 until 1997 he was Director-General of DG Enterprise Policy, Distributive Trades, Tourism and Cooperatives. From 1997 until 2002, he was Director-General of DG Taxation and Customs Union. From 2002 until 2003, he was Director-General of DG Translation. From 2003 until 2004, he was Director-General of DG Eurostat. From 2004 to 2007 he was Permanent Representative of the European Commission to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and UNESCO.

## Academic activities

Honorary part-time professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles in European financial matters. He lectured in various universities: Aix-Marseilles, Bordeaux and École Nationale d'Administration. Docteur honoris causa of the Université de Provence.

## Sources

- Michel van den Abeele

- Michel van den Abeele (report of Belgian senate)

- Michel van den Abeele (photo OECD)