Cat's Cradle is a science fiction novel by American writer Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1963. His fourth novel explores issues of science and religion, satirizing the arms race and many other targets along the way. After turning down his original thesis in 1947, the University of Chicago awarded Vonnegut his master's degree in anthropology in 1971 for Cat's Cradle; the title of the book derives from the string game "cat's cradle". Early in the book, the character Felix Hoenikker was playing cat's cradle when the bomb was dropped, the game is referred to by his son, Newton Hoenikker. At the opening of the book, the narrator, an everyman named John, describes a time when he was planning to write a book about what important Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed. While researching this topic, John becomes involved with the children of the late Felix Hoenikker—Frank and Angela Hoenikker. John travels to New York, to interview the Hoenikker children and others for his book. In Ilium John meets, among others, Dr. Asa Breed, the supervisor "on paper" of Felix Hoenikker.

As the novel progresses, John learns of a substance called ice-nine, created by Hoenikker and now secretly in the possession of his children. Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water, solid at room temperature; when a crystal of ice-nine contacts liquid water, it becomes a seed crystal that makes the molecules of liquid water arrange themselves into the solid form, ice-nine. Felix Hoenikker's reason to create this substance was to aid in the military's plight of wading through mud and swamp areas while fighting; that is, if ice-nine could reduce the wetness of the areas to a solid form, soldiers could maneuver across without becoming entrapped or slowed. John and the Hoenikker children end up on the fictional Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, one of the poorest countries on Earth, where the people speak a comprehensible creole of English, it is ruled by a dictator, "Papa" Monzano, who threatens all opposition with impalement on a large hook above a gallows. San Lorenzo has an unusual culture and history, which John learns about while studying a guidebook lent to him by the newly appointed US ambassador to the country.

He learns about an influential religious movement in San Lorenzo called Bokononism, a strange faith that combines irreverent and cynical observations about life and God's will with odd but peaceful rituals. Though everyone on the island seems to know much about Bokononism and its founder, the present government calls itself Christian and practising Bokononism is punishable by death on "the hook." As the story progresses, it becomes clear that San Lorenzo society is more bizarre and cryptic than revealed. In observing the interconnected lives of some of the island's most influential residents, John learns that Bokonon himself, along with a US Marine deserter, were at one point de facto rulers of the island; the two men created Bokononism as part of a utopian project to control the population. The ban was an attempt to give the religion a sense of forbidden glamour, helps draw people's attention away from the economic problems of the country, it is found that all of the residents of San Lorenzo, including the dictator, practise the faith, executions are rare.

When John and the other travelers arrive on the island, they are greeted by "Papa" Monzano, his beautiful adopted daughter Mona, around five thousand San Lorenzans. It becomes clear that "Papa" Monzano is ill, he intends to name Franklin Hoenikker his successor. Franklin, who finds it hard to talk to people, is uncomfortable with this arrangement and abruptly hands the presidency to John, who grudgingly accepts. Franklin suggests that John should marry Mona; the dictator uses ice-nine to commit suicide rather than succumb to his inoperable cancer. The dictator's corpse turns into solid ice at room temperature; this is followed by the freezing of Dr. Schlichter von Koenigswald, "Papa" Monzano's doctor and a former S. S. Auschwitz physician, who accidentally ingests ice-nine while performing an examination of Monzano's corpse. John and the Hoenikkers plan to gather the bodies of both Monzano and his physician in order to ritually burn them, thereby eliminating the traces of ice-nine, they begin systematically cleansing the room with various heating methods, taking great care not to leave any trace of ice-nine behind.

It is here. The Hoenikkers explain that when they were young their father would riddle them with the concept of ice-nine. One day, they find their father has died while taking a break from freezing and unfreezing ice-nine to test its properties. Frank Hoenikker collects residual amounts of ice-nine from a cooking pan. A dog licks the cloth and freezes. Seeing this, they deduce the properties of ice-nine, they collectively cannot determine who had what part in gathering the ice-nine, but chunks of the substance were chipped from the cooking pan and placed in mason jars later in thermos flasks. As part of John's inauguration festivities San Lorenzo's small air force is giving an air show.

Evelyn Lord Smithson was a noted twentieth-century scholar of classics and Classical archaeology and an expert on Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greece. Evelyn Lord Smithson was educated at the University of Washington and at Bryn Mawr College where she took her Master's degree and her doctorate in Classical archaeology and ancient Greek in 1956, she was a student at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens from 1948 to 1950. She is known for her work on Iron Age burials in the area of the ancient Agora of Athens and for excavating the grave of the so-called "Rich Athenian Lady". Smithson held a number of professional appointments during her life; these included a posting at the Institute for Advanced Study, the University at Buffalo - SUNY, the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. 1961. "The Protogeometric Cemetery at Nea Ionia, 1949." Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 147–178. 1968. "The Tomb of a Rich Athenian Lady, CA. 850 B.

C." Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at AthensVol. 37, No. 1, pp. 77–116. 1974. "A Geometric Cemetery on the Areopagus: 1897, 1932, 1947." Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 325–390. John K. Papadopoulos and Evelyn Lord Smithson. 2002. "The Cultural Biography of a Cycladic Geometric Amphora: Islanders in Athens and the Prehistory of Metics." Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens Vol. 71, No. 2, pp. 149–199. John K. Papadopoulos and Evelyn Lord Smithson. 2017. The Early Iron Age: The Cemeteries; the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. "Evelyn Smithson, 68, Archeologist of Athens" The New York Times March 13, 1992 John K. Papadopoulos. "Evelyn Lord Smithson, 1923-1992." American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 98, No. 3, pp. 563–564

Arthur Nattle Grigg was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. Grigg was born in 1896 to farmer John Charles Nattle Grigg and Alice Montgomerie Hutton, making him a grandson of prominent Canterbury runholder John Grigg, he was to become a farmer upon completing his education. During World War I Grigg served in the Royal Field Artillery from 1916 to 1919. After returning home he married Mary Cracroft Wilson in 1920, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. Grigg represented the electorate of Mid-Canterbury in Parliament from the 1938 election, when he defeated Horace Herring, he was a Major in the NZEF in World War II, was killed on 29 November 1941 when Brigadier Hargest’s headquarters in Libya was overrun. He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross. Prime Minister Peter Fraser described Grigg as "a young member of ability and promise", his widow Mary Grigg succeeded him in the Mid-Canterbury electorate and became the first woman National MP, but retired when she remarried. The First 50 Years: A History of the New Zealand National Party by Barry Gustafson ISBN 0-474-00177-6

The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine lies a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean, on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades, California. It was founded and dedicated by Paramahansa Yogananda, on August 20, 1950 and is owned by the Self-Realization Fellowship; the 10-acre site has lush gardens, a large spring-fed lake framed by natural hillsides, a variety of flora and fauna, ducks, koi and lotus flowers. The property is a natural amphitheater. Thousands of visitors come each year; the visitor center provides information about Lake Shrine. There are waterfalls, flower beds, white swans across the lake, lacy fern grottos, lily ponds, a Dutch windmill, used as a chapel; the Court of Religions, honoring five principal religions of the world, displays the symbols of these religions: a cross for Christianity, a Star of David for Judaism, a Wheel of Law for Buddhism, a crescent moon and star for Islam, the Om symbol for Hinduism. Yogananda believed in an underlying harmony of all faiths. Along with a few statues of Krishna and other Hindu deities, there is a life-size statue of Jesus Christ, above the waterfall, as well as Francis of Assisi and the Madonna and Child.

The golden lotus archway, a towering, white arch trimmed with blue tile, topped with gold lotus blossoms, is visible from all parts of the grounds. The archway frames the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial, an outdoor shrine where an authentic 1,000-year-old Chinese stone sarcophagus holds a portion of the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi; the gardens are filled with little brick paths and short stairways which lead from the main trail to hidden alcoves where meditation or sitting and taking in the view is possible. The gift shop features arts and crafts from India, adjacent to a museum focusing on Paramahansa Yogananda, the founder of Lake Shrine. There is a Dutch windmill converted into a chapel, a houseboat, a bookstore and a temple overlooking the lake; the site of the present day Lake Shrine was once part of a 460-acre parcel of land in the Santa Ynez Canyon, called Bison Ranch. It was purchased by the silent film producer and director Thomas H. Ince in 1912 to serve as his studio and was subsequently named Inceville.

After Ince founded his new Triangle/Ince Studios in Culver City in 1915, the site was taken over by director William S. Hart and renamed Hartville; the land was purchased by Los Angeles real-estate magnate Alphonso Bell, Sr. In 1927, the surrounding hillsides were hydraulically graded to fill the canyon with the intention to level it for future development; the earth-moving project was never completed, which left a large basin in the portion of canyon that filled with water from the numerous springs within the vicinity. The water body became known as Lake Santa Ynez; the lake was owned by the superintendent of construction for 20th Century Fox during the 1940s when it was again used as a film set, where a two-story Mississippi houseboat was imported and a replica of a Dutch windmill was constructed. The property was subsequently sold to an oil executive who had the intention of developing the lake into a resort until he purportedly began to have a recurring dream where the site was converted into a "Church of All Religions".

When he looked up this name in the telephone directory, he came into contact with Paramahansa Yogananda who accepted the property and hence constructed a temple, meditation garden, the Mahatma Gandhi peace memorial. The Lake Shrine is home for the picturesque Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial, the "wall-less temple" erected in honor of Mahatma Gandhi, architect of India's freedom through nonviolent means; the focal point of the memorial is a thousand-year-old stone sarcophagus from China, in which a portion of Gandhi's ashes are encased in a brass and silver coffer. The sarcophagus is flanked by two statues of Guanyin; the ashes had been sent to Yogananda by an old friend, Dr. V. M. Nawle, a publisher and journalist from Pune, India. Following the dedication of the memorial, Dr. Nawle wrote: Regarding Gandhi ashes, I may say that they are scattered and thrown in all the important rivers and seas, nothing is given outside India except the remains which I have sent to you after a great ordeal...

You are the only one in the whole world. For some, enshrining Gandhi's ashes at Lake Shrine is controversial since the Hindu cremation ritual ends with immersion of the ashes in water. One report states. Another report states that the descendants of Mahatma Gandhi do not want to have the ashes removed because it would entail breaking the shrines; the previous owners, the McElroys, built an authentic reproduction of a 16th-century Dutch windmill. Though the mill was never put to use, its sails are capable of turning in the wind. Came a boat dock and landing, whose peaked roof, carved figure-heads, benches added yet another charming touch to the unusual setting. Yogananda converted services were held. Due to the erosion caused by the elements and the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the chapel was closed to the public in 2013. Cost overruns delayed the completion of the Windmill Chapel for another year; the reopening of the chapel took place on July 27, 2015. Two waterfalls feed into the Lake Shrine, one that falls 25 feet, another series-waterfall, that falls 10 feet.

Yogananda encouraged swans to live on the Lake Shrine. Their large nests can be seen in this locale. Anandamoy said in the recordi

Alavi Institute is an Islamic high school in Tehran, Iran. In 1955, against the backdrop of despair and pessimism of the Great Depression in Iran, Ali Asghar Karbaschian who known as Allameh founded the Alavi Institute as an Islamic high school in Tehran, the capital of Iran. In 1957 new students entered classes on an old house, bought for about $15000 and remodeled; the school was accredited by the Ministry of Education, beside academic subjects, taught Islamic matters. Alavi institution is a branch of National Organization of Exceptional Talents and has gained a strong reputation for its bright students. Mr. Allameh was a scholar in the city of Qom, he said that "There is no important job in more than conduct and help human beings to be better and worship God" He left preaching activities and came to Tehran and established the institute in the name of Imam Ali, the first Imam of the Shi'as. The big milestone after establishing the high school was hiring Ostad Reza Rouzbeh, a researcher and teacher, as a Director of the school.

Ostad Rouzbeh died in 1973 and after. Alavi High school is difficult to gain admission to. About 70-80% of the 9th grade class are students that completed education in Alavi's primary and middle schools; the school's admissions process includes an examination and an interview. The entrance examination includes Mathematics, Persian Literature and History, as well as Shia Islamic fundamentals; the competition is fierce, out of the hundreds that take the exam about one hundred are invited back for interviews. The interviews examine the student's social and religious core, as well as the parents'. What is looked for is an upper-class or educated middle-class family with strong religious convictions. 70-80 students are selected for the 9th grade to form that year's class. The 9th grade class continues to 12th grade and the students are mixed and re-grouped every year. Several students from Alavi high school have been awarded medals at international math and science olympiads such as IMO, IPHO, ICHO, IBO.

Alavi High School teaches its students three majors which are Math and Physics, Natural Sciences, Humanities. Mohammad Javad Zarif Mohammad Nahavandian Abdol Karim Soroush Hossein Karbaschin, son of Allameh, is the principal of the school as of 2007. Firouz Bahram High School Alborz High School Razi High School Allameh Karbaschian

Oak Valley Township is a township in Otter Tail County, United States. The population was 362 at the 2000 census. Oak Valley Township was organized in 1877, named for the valley of Oak Creek. According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 35.7 square miles, all of it land. At the 2000 census, there were 136 households and 101 families residing in the township; the population density was 10.1 per square mile. There were 156 housing units at an average density of 4.4/sq mi. The racial makeup of the township was 98.90% White, 0.55% Native American, 0.55% from two or more races. There were 136 households of which 28.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.2% were married couples living together, 8.1% had a female householder with no husband present, 25.7% were non-families. 22.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.1% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.66 and the average family size was 3.09.

27.6% of the population were under the age of 18, 8.0% from 18 to 24, 25.4% from 25 to 44, 27.3% from 45 to 64, 11.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 106.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 111.3 males. The median household income was $23,500 and the median family income was $25,455. Males had a median income of $23,750 and females $15,750; the per capita income was $10,439. About 19.1% of families and 22.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 27.8% of those under age 18 and 18.6% of those age 65 or over