The South Mountains, known locally as South Mountain, is a mountain range in central Arizona in south Phoenix, Arizona. It is on public land managed by the city of Phoenix as South Mountain Park. Geologically, the South Mountains are thought to be a metamorphic core complex: evidence of movement of the North American tectonic plates from southwest to northeast and northeast to southwest, pushing up a series of mountain ranges including South Mountain. Other ridges with parallel orientation lie within the basin covered by basin fill sediments; the structural basin forms the current Phoenix metro area, which appears flat like a lake around mountains that rise over it like islands. The buried ridges are in the same orientation as the South Mountains, about one km high, about one km apart from peak to peak about 15 of them underneath the basin fill; the mountain, along with the nearby Sierra Estrella, is considered sacred by the Akimel O'odham and the Kwevkepaya band of Yavapai. The South Mountain Preserve is part of the Phoenix Parks System and is the second largest municipal park in the world.
The preserve features recreational facilities such as ramadas and mountain biking trails, equestrian facilities. The mountains overlook downtown Phoenix, AZ; the major peaks of the South Mountains are: Maricopa Peak Goat Hill Mount Suppoa, highest point in the mountains at 2690 ft. Contains numerous radio and television transmitting towers serving the Phoenix area, including those of the ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC network-affiliated stations. Dobbins Lookout is the highest point accessible by trail at 2,330 feet. Alta Ridge is the ridge on the eastern end of Maricopa peak. Telegraph Pass is the gap between Goat Hill to the West. Fat Man's Pass is a rock formation. Mystery Castle is in the foothills on the north side and was built from odd materials and trash around 1930 as a private residence. There are 20 communications towers on the peak of South Mountain. There are ruins of both ancient Indian and more contemporary origin, there are many petroglyphs carved into the desert varnish on the rocks. A spur plateau of the Salt River Mountains was described by an early survey of the area as the dividing feature of the Salt River valley.
There are a variety of fauna within the Salt River Mountains. One of the notable tree species here is Bursera microphylla. C. Michael Hogan. 2009. Elephant Tree: Bursera microphylla, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg United States Dept. of the Interior. 1883. Annual report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories and Geographical Survey of the Territories. S. G. P. O. 1874-1883. South Mountain Trails - Interactive Map HikeArizona. COM Map of mountains in the Phoenix area
Mary Virginia Skinner, known professionally as Jenna McMahon, was an American writer, producer and comedian. She was best known for her Emmy Award-winning work as a writer on the variety/sketch comedy program The Carol Burnett Show and for co-creating the television sitcoms It's a Living, The Facts of Life, Mama's Family along with her writing partner Dick Clair. McMahon was born in Missouri, she moved to New York City where she studied acting under Stella Adler. As an actress, she appeared on such television shows as Dennis the Menace, The Twilight Zone, American Style, The Bob Newhart Show, Welcome Back, Kotter. Relocating to West Hollywood, McMahon opened a playhouse and was teaching acting when she met Dick Clair in 1961. Using the name McMahon and Clair formed a comedy act similar to that of Nichols and May, playing nightclubs and appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Merv Griffin Show and other television programs; the duo moved into television writing in the early 1970s, working on episodes of sitcoms such as The Bob Newhart Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show before joining the writing staff of The Carol Burnett Show in 1973.
They remained with the show for six seasons, winning three Emmy Awards and receiving an additional six Emmy nominations in the process. The duo moved on to write for Soap, for which they earned another Emmy nomination in 1981. McMahon and Clair contributed the story for the final first-season episode of the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, which served as the springboard for their series The Facts of Life; the latter series ran for nine seasons on NBC, making it one of the longest-running sitcoms of the 1980s. McMahon and Clair co-created It's a Living with Stu Silver. In 1983, McMahon and Clair created Mama's Family, based on a recurring series of comedy sketches they wrote for The Carol Burnett Show called "The Family." McMahon and Clair wrote for, were producers on, the 1987 ABC comedy special Carol, Carl and Robin, for which Robin Williams won the first of his two Emmy Awards. Following Clair's death in 1988, McMahon produced the short-lived sitcom Julie, starring Julie Andrews, before retiring from television.
She died of heart failure in Monterey, California on March 2, 2015 at age 89. Jenna McMahon on IMDb
Arizona Saves is a non-profit organization offering free services to promote financial education throughout the state of Arizona. It partners with other non-profit and community development agencies, financial institutions, faith-based organizations, city governments to provide no-cost financial education for low- to moderate-income individuals and families; the agency is affiliated with America Saves, the Consumer Federation of America's national campaign with the same mission. It was founded in 2003 in response to the decline of savings in Arizona, it encourages saving for an emergency fund, an education, reducing debt, retirement. In addition to financial education, it offers motivational workshops, financial counseling, access to no-fee savings accounts. Changing lives with financial skills and knowledge. Arizona Saves empowers Arizonans to build sustainable self-sufficiency by advancing healthy money management through education, debt reduction, asset building. Arizona Saves provides financial education workshops that are available to the public.
The classes are taught by certified volunteers with backgrounds in finance and business. 400 volunteers throughout the state are trained to teach Arizona Saves' specialized curriculum. Arizona Saves' financial education is delivered in a three-part series of workshops that include: Building a Better Budget Taking Charge of Your Credit Preparing to Purchase a HomeAdditional workshops offered: Banking Basics Choosing and Using Credit Wisely Preparing to Purchase a Car Arizona Saves added a Crisis Budgeting class in 2008 to assist the thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure in the state; the workshop teaches families how to establish financial priorities, determine which bills to pay first, make radical short-term changes to their budgets in order to withstand financial crisis and prevent foreclosure. Arizona Saves provides free financial education to children as well; the Arizona Kids Saves program uses an age-appropriate curriculum to teach the same financial principles as the adult classes, encouraging parents and their children to discuss healthy money management at home.
KPNX Channel 12 - Arizona Central - "College Budgets are Critical" America Saves. About Us. Washington, DC. Retrieved on 05-28-2009. National Bank of Arizona. Arizona Saves. Phoenix, AZ. Retrieved on 05-28-2009. Arizona Saves. Our Mission. Phoenix, AZ. Retrieved on 05-28-2009. NBC Television - KPNX Channel 12. Free Workshop on Crisis Budgeting. Phoenix, AZ. Retrieved on 05-28-2009. NBC Television - KPNX Channel 12. Free Class Teaches Children How to Manage Money. Phoenix, AZ. Retrieved on 05-28-2009
The mere ownership effect is the observation that people who own a good tend to evaluate it more positively than people who do not. It is demonstrated in a paradigm in which some participants in an experiment are randomly assigned to own a good by receiving it for free. Other participants are randomly assigned to evaluate the same good without receiving it. Participants who own the good rate it as more attractive or as liking it more than do participants who do not own it, it is not necessary to own a good to exhibit the mere ownership effect. Touching or imagining that one owns a good is enough to instantiate the mere ownership effect; the mere ownership effect is used as a case in which people show the endowment effect that cannot be parsimoniously explained by loss aversion. Two routes have been proposed to explain the mere ownership effect. Both rely on the association of a good with the self. Attachment theory One set of theorists believe that these self-associations take the form of an emotional attachment to the good.
Once an attachment has formed, the potential loss of the good is perceived as a threat to the self. Self-referential memory theory Another set of theorists believe that ownership increases the perceived value of a good through a self-referential memory effect – the better encoding and recollection of stimuli associated with the self-concept. Attributes of a good may be more accessible to its owners than are other attributes of the transaction; because most goods have more positive than negative features, this accessibility bias should result in owners more positively evaluating their goods than do non-owners
Attack on Leningrad, or just Leningrad, is a 2009 war film written and directed by Aleksandr Buravsky, set during the Siege of Leningrad. In 1941 Nazi Germany invaded their troops besieged the city of Leningrad. A group of foreign journalists are flown in for one day, but one of them, Kate Davis, is presumed dead and misses the flight out. Alone in the city, she is helped by Nina Tsvetkova a young and idealist police officer and together they fight for their own and other people's survival. Gabriel Byrne as Phillip Parker Mira Sorvino as Kate Davis Aleksandr Abdulov as Chigasov Vladimir Ilyin as Malinin Mikhail Yefremov as Omelchenko Mikhail Trukhin as Vernik Yevgeni Sidikhin as Korneyev Olga Sutulova as Nina Tsvetkova Kirill Lavrov as Radio announcer Armin Mueller-Stahl as Field Marshal Von Leeb Yevgeny Stychkin as Kapitsa Valentina Talyzina as Valentina Attack on Leningrad on IMDb Attack on Leningrad at AllMovie Attack on Leningrad at Rotten Tomatoes
Michel Ngakala is a Congolese military officer and politician, a leading member of the Congolese Labour Party, the ruling party in the Republic of the Congo, serving as its Permanent Secretary for Organization. He was Commander of the Congolese People's Militia during the 1980s, he was the High Commissioner for the Reintegration of Former Combatants, a role that involved the implementation of peace agreements with rebels, from 2001 to 2012. Ngakala was promoted to the rank of master corporal in 1968. Said to be a cousin of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Ngakala was elected to the PCT Central Committee at an extraordinary party congress held on 26–31 March 1979, he was appointed as Commander of the Congolese People's Militia. Ngakala was considered part of the "Oyo clan", a group of political and military figures who were natives of Sassou Nguesso's home village, Oyo. Sassou Nguesso placed particular trust in members of the "Oyo clan", they were given important positions in his regime. At the PCT's Third Ordinary Congress, held on 27–31 July 1984, Ngakala was re-elected to the 75-member PCT Central Committee.
Together with Sassou Nguesso, he visited East Germany in May 1985. East Germany, as an ally of Congo-Brazzaville, provided the Congolese People's Militia with training and equipment. Ngakala was First Secretary of the Union of Congolese Socialist Youth, the PCT's youth organization, for a time. In 1990, he was promoted to the rank of colonel. After Sassou Nguesso was defeated in the August 1992 presidential election, he and the PCT went into opposition; the controversial May–June 1993 parliamentary election was followed by an extended round of serious political violence between the government and opposition, in that environment the various sides formed ethnically based militias to fight in Brazzaville. Ngakala and General Pierre Oba created the Cobra militia, loyal to Sassou Nguesso; the Cobras were concentrated in the Mpila, Ouenzé, Talangaï districts of Brazzaville, they were allied with the Ninja militia loyal to another opposition leader, Bernard Kolélas, concentrated in the Bacongo district.
The army and the Zoulou militia loyal to President Pascal Lissouba attacked their opponents on 3 November 1993, but were unsuccessful. An agreement in January 1994 facilitated a gradual return to peace. On 5 June 1997, a civil war broke out between the government of President Lissouba and Sassou Nguesso's Cobra militia. After months of fighting, the Cobras, assisted by Angolan troops, captured Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire on 14–15 October 1997, thereby ousting Lissouba and returning Sassou Nguesso to power. After a 2001 national peace convention, the office of High Commissioner for the Reintegration of Former Combatants was established through a presidential decree on 10 August 2001, Ngakala was appointed to the post, his task was to oversee the process of reintegrating them into civilian life. As High Commissioner for the Reintegration of Former Combatants, Ngakala continued to be associated with Pierre Oba, who served in the government as Minister of the Interior. Ngakala's work was focused on the reintegration of rebel fighters from the Pool-based Ninja militia of Pasteur Ntoumi.
He met with Ntoumi in the Vinza district on 16 October 2001, both sides spoke warmly about peace and cooperation. On 25 February 2002, Ngakala said that the disarmament and reintegration program was nearly ready to begin and that five regional offices across the country would be opened to facilitate its work, he observed that the program had received about 3.4 billion CFA francs in funding from the International Development Association and that the International Organization for Migration had managed to collect about 1,200 weapons. However, the number of weapons collected by the IOM constituted only a small fraction of the total number of illegal weapons; the process proved to be spotty. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Ngakala criticized Ntoumi on 21 March 2002, accusing him of failing to follow through on his commitments and thereby obstructing the peace process, he stressed that Ntoumi could not be allowed to continue controlling the Vinza district indefinitely, as the area was entitled to its parliamentary representation and local government, he said that Ntoumi should not interpret the government's attempts at peaceful resolution as a sign of weakness.
Ngakala's "inflammatory" remarks were followed by a round of renewed fighting between the army and the Ninjas. Shooting subsequently broke out at an April 2002 meeting between Ngakala and about 700 Ninjas in Brazzaville, causing around 80,000 people to flee. Ngakala retired from the military in 2002; the pace of disarmament and reintegration remained slow in subsequent years. Speaking on 4 June 2004, Ngakala again blamed Ntoumi for delaying the process through his failure to follow through on his commitments. On 18 December 2004, Ngakala announced that he had rejoined the PCT. In the wake of disappointing results and international disapproval for the reintegration program, Ngalaka presented a revamped program on 9 February 2005; the new program was broader in scope and placed a higher priority on disarmament, to be funded by the European Union. Ngakala was included on the Directory of the Preparatory Committee for the PCT's Fifth Extraordinary Congress; the congress was held on 22–29 December 2006.
On 17–18 January 2007, Ngakala—acting as the representative of the PCT—met with François Ibovi, the Minister of Territorial Administration, to discuss preparations for the 2007 parliamentary election, along