A ski is a narrow strip of semi-rigid material worn underfoot to glide over snow. Longer than wide and characteristically employed in pairs, skis are attached to ski boots with ski bindings, with either a free, lockable, or secured heel. For climbing slopes, ski skins can be attached at the base of the ski. Intended as an aid to travel over snow, they are now used recreationally in the sport of skiing; the word ski comes from the Old Norse word skíð which means "cleft wood", "stick of wood" or "ski". In Old Norse common phrases describing skiing were fara á renna and skríða á skíðum. In modern Norwegian the word ski has retained the Old Norse meaning in words for split firewood, wood building materials and roundpole fence. In Norwegian this word is pronounced. In Swedish, another language evolved from Old Norse, the word is skidor. English and French use the original Norwegian spelling ski, modify the pronunciation. Prior to 1920, English usage of skee and snow-shoe was seen. In Italian, it is pronounced to Norwegian, but the spelling is modified accordingly: sci.

Portuguese and Spanish adapt the word to their linguistic rules: esqui and esquí. In German, spellings Ski and Schi are in use. In Dutch, the word is ski and the pronunciation was as in Norwegian, but since the 1960s changed to. In Welsh the word is spelled sgi. Many languages make a verb form out of the noun, such as to ski in English, skier in French, esquiar in Spanish and Portuguese, sciare in Italian, skiën in Dutch, or Schi laufen or Schi fahren in German. Norwegian and Swedish do not form a verb from the noun. Finnish has its own ancient words for skis and skiing: "ski" is suksi and "skiing" is hiihtää; the word suksi goes back to the Proto-Uralic period, with cognates such as Erzya soks, Mansi tåut and Nganasan tuta. The Sami have their own words for "skis" and "skiing": for example, the Lule Sami word for "ski" is sabek and skis are called sabega; the Sami use cuoigat for the verb "to ski". The oldest wooden skis found were in Russia and Norway respectively. Nordic ski technology was adapted during the early 20th century to enable skiers to turn at higher speeds.

New ski and ski binding designs, coupled with the introduction of ski lifts to carry skiers up slopes, enabled the development of alpine skis. Meanwhile, advances in technology in the Nordic camp allowed for the development of special skis for skating and ski jumping; this type of ski was used at least in northern Sweden until the 1930s. On one leg, the skier wore a long straight non-arching ski for sliding, on the other a shorter ski for kicking; the bottom of the short ski was either plain or covered with animal skin to aid this use, while the long ski supporting the weight of the skier was treated with animal fat in similar manner to modern ski waxing. Early record of this type of skis survives in works of Olaus Magnus, he associates them to Sami people and gives Sami names of savek and golos for the plain and skinned short ski. Finnish names for these are kalhu for long and short ski; the seal hunters at the Gulf of Bothnia had developed a special long ski to sneak into shooting distance to the seals' breathing holes, though the ski was useful in moving in the packed ice in general and was made specially long, 3–4 meters, to protect against cracks in the ice.

This is called skredstång in Swedish. Around 1850, artisans in Telemark, invented the cambered ski; this ski arches up in the middle, under the binding, which distributes the skier's weight more evenly across the length of the ski. Earlier plank-style skis had to be thick enough not to bow downward and sink in the snow under the skier’s weight; this new design made it possible to build a thinner, lighter ski, that flexed more to absorb the shock of bumps, that maneuvered and ran faster and more easily. The design included a sidecut that narrowed the ski underfoot while the tip and tail remained wider; this enabled the ski to turn more easily. Skis traditionally were hand-carved out of a single piece of hardwood such as Birch or Ash; these woods were used because of their density and ability to handle speed and shock-resistance factors associated with ski racing. Because of Europe’s dwindling forests, the ability to find quality plank hardwood became difficult, which led to the invention of the laminated ski.

Beginning in 1891, skimakers in Norway began laminating two or more layers of wood together to make lighter cross country running skis. These evolved into the multi-laminated high-performance skis of the mid-1930s. A laminated ski is a ski composed of two different types of wood. A top layer of soft wood is glued to a thin layer under a surface of hardwood; this combination created skis which were much lighter and more maneuverable than the heavy, hardwood skis that preceded them. Although lighter and stronger, laminated skis did not wear well; the water-soluble glues used at the time failed. In 1922, a Norwegian skier, Thorbjorn Nordby, developed strong, waterproof glue which stopped the problem of splitting, therefore developing a much tougher laminated ski. Research and design of laminated skis progressed. In 1933, a new design technology was introduced involving an outer hardwood shell completely

The Gray Man is a 2007 biographical thriller film based on the actual life and events of American serial killer and cannibal Albert Fish. It premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival on August 31, 2007, was scheduled for a theatrical release sometime in 2007, it stars Belgian actor Patrick Bauchau as Albert Fish. At St. John's Orphanage in 1882, including a young Albert Fish, are being paddled as punishment for their sins. Albert Fish as an adult tells an anecdote of a horse that some older boys at the orphanage set on fire, comparing himself to the horse, he whips himself with a belt while hallucinating himself as he appeared in the orphanage. Fish kills a boy scout, Francis McDonnell, before visiting the Budd family home, where he abducts and murders ten-year-old Grace Budd on June 3, 1928 under the pretense of taking her to his niece's birthday party. Throughout the film is a film noir-style narration by Detective William King, of the Missing Persons Bureau. King searches for Grace Budd for six years, before tracking down and arresting Fish.

Fish is found guilty despite evidence of his insanity, promptly sentenced to die in the electric chair. Patrick Bauchau as Albert Fish Jack Conley as Det. Will King John Aylward as Captain Ayers Jillian Armenante as Delia Budd Silas Weir Mitchell as Albert Fish, Jr. Vyto Ruginis as Detective Maher Mollie Milligan as Gertrude Lexi Ainsworth as Grace Budd Shaun Senter as Pale Boy Ben Hall as Albert BuddShawn Jefferson as Officer MacDonald Variety's Dennis Harvey, film critic wrote "A chilling turn by Patrick Bauchau as Albert Fish, the harmless old gent exposed in 1934 as a serial child murderer, dominates'The Gray Man.' Skirting graphic horror terrain for a less sensational character study/detective-procedural, helmer Scott Flynn’s debut feature manages to be just moderately compelling despite the grotesque subject. Cable and DVD sales are signaled." Website The Gray Man at the Internet Movie Database Montreal International Film Festival Information

The Village Roots Garden is a community garden located at 1115 E. Otjen Street in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Village Roots Garden came about through the collaboration of the Bay View Garden and Yard Society, Milwaukee Urban Gardens, the South Community Organization. On February 20, 2002, the South Community Organization donated the vacant lot to Milwaukee Urban Gardens, a nonprofit land trust; the lot became Milwaukee Urban Garden’s first owned property, the Bay View Garden and Yard Society soon began developing the empty lot into Bay View’s first community garden. The Bay View Garden and Yard Society members provided the labor and most of the plants for the land, hired a landscaper to create a blueprint for the property. To prepare the lot, members dedicated their time and sweat equity to removing brush, cutting down trees, hauling topsoil and mulch, keeping up with crops of weeds. In 2002, the group laid out the garden pathways and constructed the raised vegetable and flowerbeds for rental to the community.

In 2003, more pathways were plotted and beds for support plantings were added. Near the back of the lot, a communal raspberry patch was planted. A no-mow grass lawn was planted at the front of the lot to provide a low maintenance entrance to the garden, another patch was planted at rear of the lot to be used as a staging area for demonstrations and instruction; as a central sculptural feature to the site, a large compass design was mapped out using crushed rock for the compass points. Near the end of the year, the group renamed the Otjen Street site as the Village Roots Garden. In 2004, the majority of the peripheral gardens were completed, including large plantings of fruit trees and perennials to attract birds and butterflies; the group enlisted the aid of Americorps volunteers to build a cedar pergola near the garden entrance, grape vines were planted at the base of each post. With the majority of the gardens established, a formal dedication ceremony attended by local dignitaries was held on June 26, 2005 to commemorate the completion of the Village Roots Garden and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Bay View Garden and Yard Society.

Since that time, the group continues to develop the site. An asparagus bed was added in 2006, a selection of woodland plants and ephemerals were planted in the shady areas near the garden shed. In 2007, a row of pampas grass was planted to serve as a natural fence along the rear lot-line, beds of sedum and spring flowering bulbs were established near the street curb. In 2008, permanent cedar benches were added at each end of the pergola to give visitors a resting spot to enjoy the gardens from the shade of the grape vines. In 2009, the group received a large donation of perennial flowers from a vendor at the Bay View Plant Sale. In 2010, compost bins were installed at the site. In an effort to promote community participation and environmental awareness, the group continues to sponsor occasional meetings and garden tours at the site; the community garden is one of the stops on the annual MUG Fall Community Garden Tour. The Village Roots Garden site was designed to incorporate elements of a standard community garden along with the aesthetics of show-garden beds to provide visual appeal and a welcoming environment.

At the entrance to the garden are a no-mow lawn and a cedar pergola covered with grape vines. Flanking this area are large permanent gardens with fruit trees and shrubs to provide food and shelter for birds. Behind the pergola is another sculptural element: a 12-foot-diameter compass design made of crushed stone, inter-planted with several varieties of thyme; the core of the site consists of eight 8-foot square raised community garden beds that are rented annually for a nominal fee, 4 triangular raised trial-garden beds maintained by the group. The rental beds are tilled and amended yearly in preparation for the planting season, renters have access to a nearby water source and free use of the garden tools stored in the shed; the 4 smaller trial beds are planted with asparagus, flowering bulbs, woodland plants. Just past the rental beds is another no-mow lawn area used as a staging area for gardening demonstrations, the occasional outdoor group meeting. In the rear corner of the site is a garden shed surrounded by more shade-loving woodland plants, the rear of the lot is delineated by a natural fence of pampas grass, a large raspberry bed.

Rochester Community Garden Bay View Garden and Yard Society website Milwaukee Urban Gardens website South Community Organization website

Herbert Leonard Ley Jr. was an American physician and the 10th Commissioner and head of the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Ley attended Harvard College from 1941-1943, returned there after World War II, where he received his M. D. degree, cum laude, in 1946. In 1951, he earned a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. From 1951 until 1958, he worked with the Army Medical Service Graduate School in rickettsial disease research, the Office of the Surgeon General, as an epidemiologist in Korea and Vietnam. In 1958, he accepted a position as Professor of Bacteriology and Chairman of the Department of Bacteriology and Preventive Medicine at George Washington University. In 1963, he was appointed Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Microbiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, became chairman of the Department in 1964. In September 1966, Ley took a leave of absence from his position to become director of the Bureau of Medicine of the Food and Drug Administration and on July 1, 1968, he was appointed Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Ley served as FDA commissioner for a half. His three years at the FDA came during the time when the FDA grew from an insignificant agency to the key agency protecting consumers. After he left, Ley stated that he had "constant, sometimes unmerciful pressure" from the drug industry and that the drug company lobbyists, combined with the politicians who worked on behalf of their patrons, could bring “tremendous pressure” to bear on him and his staff, to try preventing FDA restrictions on their drugs. Ley complained that his agency faced budget shortfalls and lacked support from the Department of Health and Welfare and Congress. An example of the clashes the FDA had with pressure groups, involved the drug company Upjohn and their patented drug Panalba. Panalba was a combination of tetracycline, an inexpensive and effective generic drug, with novobiocin, a more toxic antibacterial with a different spectrum of activity. Although Upjohn had been marketing the drug for 7 years, they had not done any of the required studies on the efficacy of it and so the FDA under Ley moved to decertify it.

Ley met tremendous opposition from Upjohn. The highest profile issue that Ley had to confront was sodium cyclamate. An artificial sweetener, it was brought to market as a flavoring ingredient in drugs, but in 1958, it was designated GRAS and its uses expanded, first into table sugars into many foods. By 1969 there were $1 billion in annual sales of cyclamate. However, by that time some animal studies had shown that high doses of cyclamates, at levels of humans ingesting 350 cans of diet soda per day, led to higher rates of bladder cancer in rats. Amidst the growth of the environmental movement and its concern with chemicals, pressure mounted on the government to restrict the use of cyclamate. In October 1969, Department of Health, Education & Welfare Secretary Robert Finch bypassed Ley and the FDA, removed the GRAS designation from cyclamate, banning its use in general purpose foods but keeping it available for restricted use in dietary products with additional labeling. In October 1970, a year after Ley left, the FDA banned cyclamate from all food and drug products in the United States.

Dr. Ley was ousted from his Commissioner post on December 12, 1969, was replaced by Charles C. Edwards. In accepting Ley's resignation, Secretary of HEW Finch praised him as a "gifted scientist and a dedicated public servant," saying that he had "coped strenuously with an unwieldy agency". In September 1982, interviewed for the oral history program of the FDA History Office, Maurice D. Kinslow, Chairman of the committee and author of the final draft of the July 1969 "Kinslow report" characterized Dr. Ley as Commissioner: "Since I reported to him as a District Director and subsequently took on the special assignment, I had a lot of personal contact with him. I found him to be a honest, decent person to work for. I respect Herb Ley, and indeed, I believe that he got into significant trouble during his last days in the agency during the fall of 1969, in connection with the banning of cyclamates because he did what the Secretary told him to do. He was a good soldier." After his resignation, in an interview to the New York Times, Dr. Ley warned the public about the FDA’s inability to safeguard consumers.

People were being misled, he believed “The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them - it isn’t. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it’s doing are as different as night and day,” he said. On December 15, 1999, interviewed for the oral history program of the FDA History Office, Dr. Ley shared that from the first controversy in his tenure as FDA Commissioner he had a "gut feeling" that his life expectancy at the FDA was limited, he attributed this to the administration wishing that he would "stonewall" an Academy of Medicine report supporting removal from the market of many pharmaceutical products, approved between 1938 and 1962 based without proof of efficacy, that his failure to do so adversely affected the financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Herbert L. Ley Jr died of cardiovascular disease on July 22, 2001, at his home in Rockville, Maryland, he was 77. Surviv

The Great Mosque of Taza is a religious building in the medina of Taza in Morocco. It is near the Bab er-Rih; the Great Mosque of Taza was built by the Almohad sultan Abd al-Mu'min in the period after 1142 CE. According to the Kitab el Istibsar, the walls were completed in 1172; the mosque was enlarged during the reign of the Marinid dynasty in 1292-1293. The mosque is one of the oldest remaining examples of Almohad architecture. With the general public it is known for its large chandelier weighing 3 tons. Taza Koutoubia Tin Mal Mosque History of Medieval Arabic and Western European domes Sanctuaires et fortresses almohades / H. Basset and Henri Terrasse, Collection "Hespéris".

David Russell was a Lance Corporal with the 22nd Battalion, New Zealand Infantry, 2nd NZEF, awarded the George Cross posthumously after being executed by German forces in Italy. Russell was born in Ayr, son of James and Jessie Russell, of Corsehill, but the family emigrated to New Zealand, he worked as an orderly at Napier Hospital in Hawke's Bay before enlisting in the New Zealand Army in September 1939. He was captured at Reweisat Ridge in Egypt in 1942 and taken to a POW camp in Italy, he escaped and helped Italians who were assisting other Allied POWs to escape. He was active in the Ponte di Piave township and district between 22–28 February 1945 but was recaptured. Russell refused to name the Italians he had assisted, was shot by firing squad. A German officer who witnessed the execution said he died bravely, his George Cross is displayed at the QEII Army Memorial Museum, New Zealand. On Sunday 2 December 2007, it was among a dozen medals stolen from the museum. On 16 February 2008 New Zealand Police announced all the medals had been recovered as a result of a NZ$300,000 reward offered by Michael Ashcroft, Baron Ashcroft and Tom Sturgess.

The New Zealand Almanac ISBN 0-908570-55-4