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Oliver Cromwell
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Oliver Cromwell
after Samuel Cooper
oil on canvas, feigned oval, based on a work of circa 1656
8 3/4 in. x 6 1/2 in. (222 mm x 165 mm)
Transferred from British Museum, 1879
Primary Collection
Sitterback to top
- Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), Lord Protector of England. Sitter associated with 224 portraits.
Artistback to top
- Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), Miniature painter. Artist associated with 111 portraits, Sitter in 4 portraits.
Related worksback to top
- NPG 3065: Oliver Cromwell (after)
Linked publicationsback to top
- Cooper, John, Great Britons: The Great Debate, 2002, p. 67
- Piper, David, Catalogue of Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, 1625-1714, 1963, p. 94
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 155
- Simon, Jacob, The Art of the Picture Frame: Artists, Patrons and the Framing of Portraits in Britain, 1997 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 8 November 1996 - 9 February 1997), p. 51, 152
Subjects & Themesback to top
Events of 1656back to top
Current affairsThe Quaker, James Nayler, rides on horseback into Bristol in imitation of Christ entering Jerusalem. He is imprisoned for blasphemy.
Oliver Cromwell reluctantly calls a second Protectorate Parliament hoping a compliant parliament will raise money urgently required for the Anglo-Spanish War and maintenance of military government at home.
Art and sciencePolitical theorist, James Harrington, publishes his influential magnus opus, The Commonwealth of Oceana, which advocates for a utopian republic.
Gardener and collector, John Tradescant the Younger, publishes England's first museum catalogue, Musaeum Tradescantianum, for his museum of rarities housed in his home, called 'The Ark'.
InternationalWar with Spain officially declared. Admiral, Edward Montagu, Earl of Sandwich concludes a treaty with Portugal eagerly requiring support to free itself from Spain.
Admiral Robert Blake, keeping the fleet at sea throughout the winter to blockade Spain's coastline, enables Captain Richard Stayner to capture a Spanish plate fleet.
Tell us more back to top
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Please note that we cannot provide valuations.
We digitise over 8,000 portraits a year and we cannot guarantee being able to digitise images that are not already scheduled.


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Bigchicken, I have a raisin oatmeal cookie amber recipe that doesn't use raisins and you would swear that it does. It came from bugeater in Omaha. I think he is on thebrewingnetwork forum. But if you want the recipe I can give it. This is one awesome beer.
For my imperial porter fermented with WLP530 - I caramelized 1 pound of raisins ala Lost Abbey (torched them till blistered and smoldering) then pureed the batch with wort drawn from the kettle. The pulp went into the hop bag at 60 minutes.The porter may mask the raisin flavor. Only time will tell.
I'll take a swing...Yes, you get lots of raisin and rum flavor in the final beer.The rum leftover is also pretty wicked too.

subset: commoncrawl


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Corn harvest begins
I took this photograph about a month ago. I had stopped, late in the afternoon, at a roadside vegetable stand that is operated by an old-order Mennonite family. Mama was minding the stand, while the men and boys were bringing in the hay from the fields. I felt it would be rude to photograph the lady and her little produce stand, but I did drive down the road a little way and take this picture through my car window.
I thought about the things that Mennonite family was doing that hot afternoon. The little, box-like, vegetable stand must have felt like an oven as the late afternoon sunshine poured under the awning. And the men in the field must have been sweltering, as they pitchforked the hay into the wagon. The horse was probably very hot, too.
Some very nice-looking cantaloupes and watermelons were sitting in full sun, in a wagon next to the produce stand. I figured they had been baking there all day, so I chose a cantaloupe that didn't look as ripe as most. Later that evening, I cut into it and found that it was not ripe at all. I had to throw it away! With the Mennonites and me both trying to compensate, that melon didn't get enough hot sunshine.
The thing that I notice now about this photograph is that the stubble in the field is quite green. Christian County (KY) was getting a little dry even in mid-July, but after another month of extremely hot temperatures and precious little rain, it is now very dry. Lawns, mowed fields, and grazed pastures have developed a sickly brown complexion. The trees are dropping their leaves prematurely. Today, I noticed that a neighbor's field of soybeans is wilting.
I heard on the radio that the extreme heat and the lack of rain is affecting the produce farmers too. Tomatoes are not developing the bright-red color that customers want, grapes are not as colorful as they should be, and melons are small and sunburned. That news didn't surprise me much, because I know how my garden is struggling, even with fairly regular waterings.
Tomorrow, we have a 60% chance of rain. Some of the farmers were combining corn today, trying to get it harvested before it gets wet. They want its moisture content to be as low as possible. Tonight, people were still working in one of the cornfields as I drove home at 11:00 p.m. A big combine was moving down the rows and a couple of big grain trucks were waiting to be loaded. I hope they didn't have too much more to do.
For me and everyone else who is not harvesting corn, a rainy day tomorrow would be a blessing! My garden would appreciate a real rain. The suffering soybeans and trees and our poor, brown lawns and pastures would love a good, slow soaker too.


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2009-08-12 / Opinion
More on Social Security and Medicare editorial
Dear Editor, After reading your commentary of July 1, I was amused by the satirical manner you addressed your experience with the Social Security system. I believed it was a " tongue in cheek" article. I was surprised that in the July 22 issue, readers sent letters that indicated that you were expressing the truth about the SS system.
You must be an online subscriber to view this story.


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Discussion in 'The Bar' started by Ridic Too2, Jan 28, 2013.
I haven't seen that A-list contributor in a long time. Who is at fault?
Think it was Moopy
Is Gridman gone too? Is this another Pornstache/Nerd case?
I sent her a pic of my flaccid pee pee
How long has she been gone?
I live close to her, I should check on them.
i prefer to think she's having sex. maybe by herself, but still having sex.
I haven't seen her in a week or so
According to her profile, she logged on a couple hours ago
Less than 24 hours, she posted last night
her and gridman are remaking the pottery wheel scene from Ghost but with a baking mixer and brownie mix instead. They are listening to hipster music while drinking Keurig coffee. Occasionally checking Dawgs to see if Ridic has created a post about them.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
Who is the broad in your av?
^ We've found the creepy stalker
my wife in another life
I checked in order to maintain thread integrity


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Dedicated to the Preservation and Restoration of the Whole of Creation:
Humans, Animals, and the Environment.
And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day" (Genesis 1:31)
(Dawn: A New Day - 4 Jan 2004 - 55) The frozen water reflects the distant trees and morning sky.
Previous | Dawn: A New Day - 4 Jan 2004 | Next
Presented here are just a few of the countless components of God's creation. Just as we cannot have human and animal life without water and plants, neither can we have lasting peace without love and compassion. It is our hope and prayer that this series will motivate people to live and act in a cruelty-free manner; that we would no longer hurt or destroy each other, the animals or our environment.


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Having little building experience, I ordered Robot Builder's Bonanza (2nd Edition) this week, as well as another beginner's building book.
Tenacious C: I think it would be desirable to have one microcontroller doing everything, because it might make it easier to coordinate movement between different parts of your robot. (Disclaimer: I am not an expert.)


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Manor Lakes Kindergarten
Preschool or Kindergarten program is a structured, play based learning program, delivered by a qualified teacher in the year or two before commencing full time schooling and may be located at school sites, private preschool centres, long day care centres or local community venues. Please check with the preschool provider about eligibility for government financial assistance.
The following Preschool or Kindergarten information (including quality) has been sourced from the State and Territory Regulatory Authorities and the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority.
Quality of service
Services covered by the National Quality Framework have been assessed and rated against the seven Quality Areas of the National Quality Standard and the Education and Care Services National Regulations. The assessment and rating process aims to drive continuous quality improvement for services and provide families with better information for making choices about their children's education and care. The overall rating for a service is determined by the combination of the ratings achieved in each Quality Area.
Each state and territory Regulatory Authority undertakes the assessment and rating process. The Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority, ACECQA, is responsible for ensuring consistency in assessment and ratings across Australia, assessing services for the Excellent rating and creating awareness in the sector and community about the assessment and rating process.
Quality Areas and Ratings
Learn about Google™ Maps.


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A stool Gram stain is a laboratory test that uses different stains to detect and identify bacteria in a stool sample.
The Gram stain method is sometimes used to rapidly diagnose bacterial infections.
Alternative Names
Gram stain of stool; Feces Gram stain
How the test is performed
You will need to collect a stool sample.
There are many ways to collect a sample. You can catch the stool on plastic wrap that is loosely placed over the toilet bowl and held in place by the toilet seat, and then place the sample in a clean container. (One test kit supplies a special toilet tissue that you use to collect the sample.) Do not take stool samples from the toilet bowl water, because this can cause errors.
If you need to collect a sample from a child still in diapers, line the diaper with plastic wrap. Position the plastic wrap so that it keeps the stool from any urine. Mixing of urine and stool can spoil a good sample.
Your health care provider will give you instructions on when and how to return the sample.
The sample is sent to a laboratory. A small amount is spread in a very thin layer on a glass slide. This is called a smear. A series of special stains are added to the sample. The lab team member examines the stained smear under the microscope, looking for bacteria. The color, size, and shape of the cells help identify the specific bacteria.
How the test will feel
A lab smear is painless and does not involve the patient.
There is no discomfort when a stool sample is collected at home because it only involves normal bowel functions.
Why the test is performed
Yourhealth careprovidermay order this test to help diagnose an intestinal infection or illness, sometimes involving
Normal Values
A normal result means only normal or "friendly" bacteria were seen on the stained slide. Everyone has friendly bacteria in their intestines.
Note: Normal value ranges may vary slightly among different laboratories. Talk to yourhealth care providerabout the meaning of your specific test results.
What abnormal results mean
An abnormal result means that an
What the risks are
There are no risks.
DuPont HL. Approach to the patient with suspected enteric infection. In: Goldman L, Schafer AI, eds. Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011: chap 291.
Semrad CE. Approach to the patient with diarrhea and malabsorption. In: Goldman L, Schafer AI, eds. Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011: chap 142.
Giannella RA. Infectious enteritis and proctocolitis and bacterial food poisoning. In: Feldman M, Friedman LS, Brandt LJ, eds. Sleisenger & Fordtrans Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2010:chap 107.
Croft AC, Woods GL.Specimen collection and handling for diagnosis of infectious diseases. In: McPherson RA, Pincus MR, eds. Henrys Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods. 22nd ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 63.
Salwen MJ, Siddiqi HA, Gress FG, Bowne WB. Laboratory diagnosis of gastrointestinal and pancreatic disorders. In: McPherson RA, Pincus MR, eds. Henrys Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods. 22nd ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 22.
Review Date:
Reviewed By:
Linda J. Vorvick, MD, Medical Director and Director of Didactic Curriculum, MEDEX Northwest Division of Physician Assistant Studies, Department of Family Medicine, UW Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Washington; and George F. Longstreth, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, San Diego, California. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M. Health Solutions, Ebix, Inc.


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In less than a week, Microsoft will unveil the Windows 8 Consumer Preview at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain. The preview should give us a fairly good idea of what the final version of Windows 8 will look like. But after using the Developer Preview, which was released a few months back, it's obvious that there are some areas of 8 that still need work. Here are the top five things we'd love to see Microsoft improve or add to Windows 8 in the days or months ahead.
A decent apps list
With Windows 8, Microsoft is attempting to bridge the gap between newer, simpler smartphone operating systems and Windows. One of the biggest parts of this is the concept of apps. Like iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and even Mac OS X Lion, Windows 8 will have an app store where you'll be able to purchase and download apps for your Windows device. Oddly, however, in the Developer Preview, Microsoft had not yet implemented an app list. More strange is that no executives have hinted that they will. Currently, to find Metro apps (that's what the new apps are called) on Windows 8, you have to search for them. There's no easily accessible screen that shows everything you have installed. It's clumsy and awkward.
Being that an app list is a key feature of Windows Phone, it's an odd omission. That said, Windows 8 is being developed by a completely separate team, so it's possible that Microsoft is removing it intentionally. It needs to come back. We're really hoping there is an easier way to find and manage apps on your machine in Windows 8. If the Start Screen is supposed to replace the Start Menu, it needs to include a list of installed software.
In addition, Microsoft has another problem. Since Windows 8 also has a full copy of Windows 7 embedded into it (or maybe it's the other way around), there needs to be a good way to manage classic desktop applications as well. Optimally, Microsoft will find a way to unify these screens so you don't have to go to two different places to see what you have installed on your machine. Also, it would be nice if the company found a way to make installation and uninstallation of non-Metro apps a less painful process. If there's one thing smartphones have done well, it's making software easy to add and remove from your device.
Better Multitasking
Microsoft has introduced some very cool multitasking ideas with Windows 8. For the first time on a tablet device, you'll be able to drag a second application and pin it to the left or right side of anything you're currently running. In addition to this, you can swap between open apps by swiping in from the left edge of the screen. These additions are fantastic and will really make swapping between and using multiple apps better. Unfortunately, these are currently the only ways to swap between applications. If you had 15 apps open, you'd have to swipe through all 15 to get to the one you want — and that's if you don't accidentally swipe one too many times. Windows 8 needs a way to easily switch between any apps on the fly without having to flick through all of them to do it.
With the added ability for Windows 8 to freeze apps in place like Android, Windows Phone, and iOS, it would also be nice if it had a bit of the BlackBerry PlayBook in it as well. The PlayBook keeps apps running completely as they're minimized, which is helpful in some cases. This could be a feature the new version of Windows 8 is already capable of. We hope it is.
A cleaner Classic Desktop
Including the classic Windows 7 desktop alongside the new Metro Start Screen is one of the biggest gambles Microsoft has ever made. Arguing for or against it is irrelevant at this point because we're getting both, but it would really be nice if Microsoft made some effort to make Windows 7 blend in better with the new design. At the very least, the windows could be altered to be flatter and look more Metro-esque instead of using the same Aero glass effect we've seen on Vista and Windows 7. From a visual standpoint, seeing the old UI and the new UI butt up against each other is awkward and jarring.
To use the two systems side-by-side is just as jarring and quite annoying. In the Developer Preview, it's almost impossible to know what settings and functions are accessible in the new Metro interface, and which ones require you to swap over to the old desktop. In a past artice, I compared the classic desktop to a dumping ground for Microsoft to shove features they don't have the time for, or plan to add into Metro later. It's the software equivalent of hiding all of your junk in the basement. Want to change the clock? Head over to the classic desktop. Want to access settings? Well, you can try the Metro Settings, but the old Control Panel is still in Windows 8 and comes complete with thousands of strange little options.
The problem with this approach is that it's unclear if Windows 8 could ever function well for all users if it didn't have the classic desktop. By admitting that the old desktop is needed and promoting it this much, it makes it hard to know just what Microsoft's long-term plans are. It looks like things are moving toward Metro, but is the new simplistic style capable of running sophisticated software like Photoshop or Maya? We'll find out soon enough. One good sign is that Microsoft has already created a touch-friendly version of its core Office apps. They are still Classic Desktop applications, but supposedly they work better with touchscreen devices. If Office can make the transition, there might be hope for other professional software.
Live Tile customization and deep linking
This is a strange request: One of the best things about the new Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) update was the ability for users to create homescreen Live Tiles not just for apps, but for different pages and sections within apps. This means that, for example, if you were looking for a flight in an application, you could actually create a homescreen Live Tile for your specific flight and attach a reminder to it. These kinds of features have been hinted at in Windows 8, but we haven't seen them in action.
It's also not clear exactly how easily, or how much, users will be able to modify the look of the start screen. It would be great if every app would let you create Live Tiles of any size, shape, and color. Your Start Screen could be a Tetris of your own design, with some Tiles that are a quarter of the current smallest size and some that could be as large as you wish, or come in stranger geometric shapes. Keyboards have always played with button sizes, why must they be so rigidly locked down in Windows 8? In Windows Phone, the ability to customize the size of tiles is not yet officially available (though some homescreen modifying apps make it possible), but hopefully it will be added as well. Better bundling and categorizing would also be helpful. The more Microsoft can do to make the Start Screen warmer and more customize-able, the better.
A willingness to still be a PC, and be open
From what we've heard so far, Microsoft is going to take an Apple approach to Windows 8 apps buy controlling all app distribution for Metro-style apps. This makes for a very safe app ecosystem, but also one without freedom of choice. What will this do to services like Steam, which sell games? There are many good reasons to have a secure system for purchasing apps, but shouldn't we be able to purchase software from multiple vendors? What if Microsoft decides that it doesn't want to sell a particular app? Shouldn't there be the possibility that the software could be obtained from other services? Why can't Amazon sell apps? I guarantee they'd have lower prices and nice deals. There must be a smart way to integrate third-party app distribution into Windows 8, and every other mobile OS.
There is a lot of fragmentation in the world of computing today, but Windows PCs have always been the one place where you can get the important software that helps you manage the many services you have across all of your devices. Windows PCs (and Macs, sort of) are the one platform that can run everything, in one way or another. In the smartphone world, iTunes is only available on the iPhone and iPad, but if you're a PC user that's okay because it's also available for PCs — you're not completely shut out. The same goes for services from Amazon, Google, Facebook and all of the major tech companies. These guys are fighting like crazy in the mobile space, but all of them realize the need to support PCs. What's scary is that this could change in the future. The Wild West may come to your primary computer.
In theory, I don't disagree with the "no compromises" approach Windows 8 has taken, but it will come at a cost. By focusing on touch, and closing off installation of Metro-style apps unless they're downloaded from Microsoft's app store, Microsoft is bringing its flagship OS into the massive operating system and app ecosystem war that's being waged on mobile. The PC is becoming a battleground again, for the first time in a long time. One might argue that it's already under attack from Android, OS X Mountain Lion, or the iPad, but now Microsoft is signaling that it's ready to fight. Will this mean the loss of some apps from Windows or Microsoft ending the porting of Microsoft software to non-Windows platforms? There are plenty of questions. Times, they are changing.
Turn and face the strain
Soon, there will no longer be one platform that has such a huge market share that everything is on it. As popular as Windows may be, the sun is setting on its era of dominance. We really are entering a post-PC age. Windows will likely be an important part of the computing world, but it won't be the only big game in town anymore. The battle for the PC industry will truly begin with Windows 8, and the swords come out with the Consumer Preview, which we look forward to checking out when it's released on February 29.
The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the beliefs of Digital Trends.


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We encourage you to read up on H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Bill of 2009. The Slow Food USA blog has posted an informative piece on the bill, and recommends that members and interested individuals research the bill, then contact their legislators to tell them how food safety proposals will impact the conservation, organic, and sustainable practices that make diversified, organic, and direct market producers different from agribusiness. However, Slow Food USA recommends that we resist the use of scare-mongering language regarding the bill.
Here are some resources to help learn more about the bill:
Food and Water Watch: a balanced review of the bill.
The bill is posted to the Library of Congress website and may be read in its entirety here.
To contact your Congressperson, visit this website.
To contact your Senators, visit this website.
Protected: Agenda
3 years ago


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Showgirls: 15th Anniversary Sinsational Edition (US - BD RA)
Gabe admires the utter tedium of hundreds of high definition breasts...
Originally labelled one of the worst films of its era, and rightfully partially blamed for the major studio rejection of the NC-17 rating, Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls has seen a rather unsurprising rise in popularity thanks to a healthy, video-born cult following. Like many cult items most fans seem to enjoy Showgirls for supposedly ironic reasons, but I've never been convinced that Verhoeven had anything but intentional comedy on his mind while making the film, whether his cast and crew knew it or not. Verhovan's most successful American films, Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers, are satirical comedies disguised so cleverly as sci-fi/action movies the audience is not required to understand the subtext to enjoy the experience. Basic Instinct saw the director playing the game with a slightly straighter face, but there's a sense of expressive, over-the-top glee inherit found even in Verhoeven's more seriously minded Dutch films. Because I assume Showgirls' camp excesses were created with the full intent of making an audience howl with laughter, I tend to judge the film on its success as a comedy, with no ironic or post-modern slant to my opinions.
If we're assuming it's a comedy Showgirls does have its merits. As a satire of Hollywood's ridiculous obsession with the underdog Nomi is a laugh riot. Elizabeth Berkley's presents Nomi as pure emotion, with no room for in-betweens. The character turns on a dime from one emotional extreme to another with all the subtly of a child in need of a nap. It's striking to realize how hateful the character is. There's no reason to root for her, become concerned when she 'forgets herself', or feel sorry for her when things go to hell. To the contrary, I can't imagine someone not rooting for the other shoe to drop. The overall acting follows Berkley's lead, though everyone else appears to know they're playing one-dimensional super-villains, and seem to be enjoying the experience. There's one genuinely good person in the entire cast, Nomi's roommate and friend Molly (Gina Ravera), and she's gang-raped and beaten nearly to death in a scene so out of sync with the rest of the film it's easy to mistake for brilliant subversion.
Still, all things considered, Showgirls is still more of a chore than a joy. The original critical bad rap is earned not in how genuinely bad the film is, but in how unfairly long and repetitive it is. There's not enough plot here to fill ninety minutes, let alone one hundred and thirty, and the story abruptly ends right when something interesting finally happens. The sudden introduction of a vengeful, violent Nomi, one truly worthy of the title of Femme Fatale, leads me to wonder what could've been. Instead of a theoretically vulgar underdog story Showgirls might have been Verhoeven's unapologetic, big budget version of Ms. 45 (audiences had to wait for Neil Jordon and Jodi Foster to make their 'highbrow' version instead). And it's not as if the script is overflowing with ideas, it's just those final minutes that introduce something new to the formula that went stale almost an hour before. One wonders if anyone at MGM even read Joe Eszterhas script before putting green-lighting the project, because the meandering and lack of focus likely appeared downright avant garde on paper.
Despite being an unmistakable talent when it comes to creating genuinely arousing screen sex (see any of his non-American films for proof), Verhoeven manages to bore with his sea of waggling breasts and G-string clasped asses. The garish look is more amusing than arousing, and the hideous costumes and make-up (partially the fault of the film's age, I'll admit) create an air of anti-eroticism so distinct and determined I'm convinced Verhoeven was making some kind of statement on filmed sex. I don't know what the statement is, but I can't imagine the director of such subtext-laced, surprise comedies as Robocop and Starship Troopers didn't have something up his sleeve. Perhaps it's just my wishful thinking as a fan that has only genuinely disliked one other of the director's films, the entirely unforgivably stupid Hollow Man. Watching the film again I'm noticing how tame it is. Sure, there's a lot of nudity on display here, mostly bare breasts, but there isn't any really graphic sex, or even a lot of sex period. The one rape scene certainly shocks, and earns the NC-17 by the violence shunning mid-'90s standards, but Berkley and MacLachlan's notorious wiggle-fest isn't even shocking enough to delete when the film plays on television (Berkley's boobs are blurred, and that's it).
It appears that Fox doesn't treat its terrible cult movie releases with any less respect than its award-winning favourites, though I suppose Showgirls' multi-million dollar home video legacy is nothing to shrug at. This isn't the best transfer of its kind by any stretch of the imagination, but it steps well above my expectations, which were admittedly low based on my opinion of the product. There's no mistaking the fact that Showgirls was shot on film, so there's plenty of grain, and even a few minor flecks of print damage. The grain increases predictably based on lighting, but remains consistent in terms of coverage. Verhoeven doesn't shoot the film with an eye for sharp contrasts or small details (Robert Davi's pock marks notwithstanding), but he fills his 2.40:1 frame with so much acrylic and neon coloured stuff standard definition falls to its knees and cries. This disc's producers perhaps could've put the film through one more cleaning, but they haven't done anything to compress these unforgiving hues, which besides the grain, are not hampered by any blocking or artefacting. The edges are never razor sharp, but the hues don't bleed into each other, and the deep blacks help create a solid sense of depth and separation. Kudos to Fox and MGM for avoiding DNR smoothing, which might have actually fit the film, but is never an ideal practice.
This lossless DTS-HD Master Audio track is also pretty damn impressive, at least based on my aforementioned incredibly low expectations. The mix isn't among the better period 5.1 sets (it doesn't compare to other early digital mixes, like Jurassic Park or Batman Returns), and features some really awkward divisions of centred, on-set sound, and stereo/surround effects, but the music is brash, and effective in terms of immersive sound. The big stage scenes are the obvious highlights. These are still run by terrible music, but they really blast throughout the various channels, including some effective surround support, and a few LFE shattering set pieces (mostly volcanoes). Though they usually don't make the most spatial sense, the surround crowd noise is clean, and the Las Vegas tourist traffic envelopes the viewer with a myriad of jingling slot machines.
This 15th Anniversary release is surprisingly light on extras, though I suppose no lighter than any other release. Things start with a 'Greatest Movie Ever Made' commentary track with super-fan David Schmader. Schmader gives us the jest on his attachment to the film (he toured with it for years), then yammers off a bunch of sarcastic comments that grow annoying rather quickly. It's clear Schmader has a pretty deep knowledge of the film, and when he stops mocking the inanity of the onscreen action his commentary is the closest this extras collection gets to informative. Schmader's recollections of Verhoeven's essays on the subject reveal an apparently serious intent on the director's part, which craps right in the face of my 'intended comedy' theory. The commentary is augmented with a series of pop-up facts, which can only be turned on via the main menu system. The trivia follows a similar path to the commentary, and overlaps quite a bit, but does feature a few informative nuggets of its own.
'Pole Dancing: Find Your Inner Stripper' (12:00, HD) is a barely related look at a real life pole dancing class. This particular class places the emphasis on the technique and fitness of the process, rather than the whole being naked thing. 'Lap Dance Tutorial from the Girls of Scores' (04:50, SD) is an incredibly silly and straight-faced lesson on the lap dancing process. The steps are hilariously obvious, the girls are not very good public speakers, and the tone is, well, kind of boring. 'A Showgirl's Diary' (11:00, SD) is a four part behind the scenes look at a few specific scenes, including storyboard and script to film comparisons, and raw, on-set footage. Things end with a trailer. This collection also features a DVD copy of the film, with a behind the scenes EPK.
So is Showgirls the most misunderstood cult classic of all time, or the worst film of the '90s? I vote for something with a little less hyperbole myself, like 'genuinely bad movie that's pretty funny, but way too damn long'. I look forward to not sitting through this mess again anytime soon, and shall cleanse my pallet with a back to back to back viewing of Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers. Fans should be very happy with this vibrant high definition transfer, and the loud DTS-HD Master Audio sound, but will likely be disappointed at the lack of indelible new extras. I'd personally like to see an in depth documentary on the subject, and I don't even like the movie.
*Note: The images on this page are not representative of the Blu-ray release.
Review by Gabriel Powers
Existing Posts
I find this a moderately enjoyable film, Gabe but I can also see your points and I do agree that they should spliffed up the extras a bit but oh well.. Great (if old) review here Mr. Powers .
I bought the VIP boxset version of this on dvd a couple years ago, and i've tried to see it three times but I honestly can't finish it at all.
That would've sky-rocketed the extras score (had we still used scores). Now I wish it were on there. I was excited at first because I thought perhaps you'd found it...
PLEASE! Tell me you popped in the BD one more time and found that the VH1 re-edited version of the film (with drawn on bras/panties and an overdubbing obviously done by another actress) is included as a hidden bonus. :pray:
Showgirls is a completely terrible film on every level.
The only theory I can truly believe on how it came to be is this:
Paul Verhoeven was abducted by aliens and a lobotomised clone of him was brought down to make Showgirls. After which, the aliens returned and replaced the clone with Verhoeven who went on to make Starship Troopers.
What other explanation could there possibly be?
The only theory I can truly believe on how it came to be is this:
Paul Verhoeven was abducted by aliens and a lobotomised clone of him was brought down to make Showgirls. After which, the aliens returned and replaced the clone with Verhoeven who went on to make Starship Troopers.
What other explanation could there possibly be?
When this first came out I was barely a teenager and must have seen it a hundred times on pay-per-view with a 'cheater box' so watching it nowadays isn't really a chore but more of a weird nostalgic trip. Since it's original run on PPV I've only seen it twice, (Last year on TV and two weeks ago on DVD) and gotta say I do find it funny and with many 'WTF moments. I no longer feel like I have to keep an ear out for my family just in case they walk in and I am watching this.
When this blu-ray drops in price I'l get it I suppose.
When this blu-ray drops in price I'l get it I suppose.
Krishna Jaipersad wrote: Truly a scary movie!! (with respect to the character of Randy from Scream 2)
you beat me to it...you suck.
you beat me to it...you suck.
Truly a scary movie!! (with respect to the character of Randy from Scream 2)
Everyone got aids and s**t!
No one 17 and under admitted
Disc Details
Release Date: 15th June 2010
Discs: 2
Disc Type: Blu-ray Disc
RCE: No
Video: 1080p
Aspect: 2.40:1
Anamorphic: No
Colour: Yes
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English, Dolby Surround English, French, and Spanish
Subtitles: English SDH and Spanish
Extras: David Schmader Commentary, Pole Dancing: Finding Your Inner Stripper, Lap Dancing Tutorial, Showgirls Fact-Up Trivia, A Showgirl's Diary, Trailer, DVD Copy
Easter Egg: No
Feature Details
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon, Kyle MacLachlan, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi
Genre: Comedy, Drama and Musical
Length: 131 minutes
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Nationwide Insurance inks 7-year NASCAR title sponsor deal
NASCAR Nextel Cup
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) announced today that Nationwide Insurance will become title sponsor of the NASCAR Nationwide Series, replacing Anheuser-Busch's Busch brand at the start of the 2008 season. Nationwide Insurance will also become the official auto, home and life insurance provider of NASCAR.
The seven-year agreement gives Nationwide Insurance the exclusive rights to tie its brand to the most popular form of motorsports in the U.S. Nationwide Insurance will enjoy the support of the most brand-loyal fans in all of sports, including 2.7 million who annually attend races of the series, which features 35 points events at 26 tracks across North America, including Mexico City and Montreal.
"We are thrilled that we had the opportunity to select a partner in Nationwide Insurance who is as excited as NASCAR about taking the NASCAR Nationwide Series to even higher levels of popularity," said NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France. "Nationwide Insurance is an ideal partner for NASCAR, advocating safe driving, and already serving millions of NASCAR fans with its auto, health, and life insurance. The company has a real passion for NASCAR, which will benefit our fans and all the participants in our industry."
"Nationwide is excited about this long-term partnership and recognizes that NASCAR has the most loyal and dedicated fan base of any sport," said James Lyski, Chief Marketing Officer for Nationwide. "We look forward to putting tremendous energy and resources into supporting this sponsorship and advancing the profile of the NASCAR Nationwide Series."
The NASCAR Nationwide Series, broadcast on ESPN2 and ABC is stronger than
ever. The series is the third highest-rated regular-season sport on cable
television. Viewership in 2007 to date vs. 2000 is up 52%. The 2005 and 2006
seasons were the most viewed in series history.
Feedback can be sent to firstname.lastname@example.com
Go to our forums to discuss this article


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Yeah, I would definitely prefer that they stop making BP's that are 100% re-packs. I loathe buying these, even at the cheaper prices. I would love to see these revert to store exclusives like the Target ones last Fall. Those were sweet. At this point, I am happy with less product, and more emphasis on all new stuff.
Jury is still out on Army of the Republic too, although all signs point to this being another lame repack. (edit: there is a new packaged photo of this up now at EE, still too small to tell for sure if this is all repack swag: http://www.entertainmentearth.com/prodinfo.asp?number=HS94743D11)
I wouldn't be too surprised if they are on hiatus while those Blu-Ray 4-packs are out.
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Rockets Add Brewer
Unrestricted free agent forward signs with Rockets
HOUSTON – Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey announced today that the team has signed unrestricted free agent forward Ronnie Brewer. With the addition of Brewer, the Rockets roster now stands at 19 players.
Brewer (6-7, 235, Arkansas) has averaged 8.2 points, 3.0 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.29 steals in 478 career games (301 starts) with Utah, Memphis, Chicago, New York and Oklahoma City. Last season, Brewer split time between the Knicks and Thunder, averaging 3.0 points and 2.3 rebounds over 14.2 minutes per outing in 60 games (34 starts). His best statistical season came in 2008-09, when he averaged a career-high 13.7 points (.508 FG%) with a career-best 3.7 rebounds in 32.2 minutes per game over 81 appearances (80 starts). Brewer also ranked seventh in the NBA in steals (1.70) in 2008-09. The seven-year veteran has also posted career averages of 5.6 points and 2.6 boards in 47 postseason games (17 starts).
Originally selected by the Jazz in the first round (14th overall) of the 2006 NBA Draft, Brewer was traded by Utah to Memphis on Feb. 18, 2010. He went on to sign as a free agent with Chicago on July 16, 2010. Brewer spent two seasons with the Bulls before inking a free agent deal with New York on July 25, 2012. He was acquired by the Thunder from the Knicks on Feb. 21, 2013.
As a collegian, Brewer averaged 15.7 points and 5.0 rebounds in 90 career games (89 starts) over three seasons at Arkansas. He was an All-SEC First Team selection as both a sophomore and junior.


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Elizabeth Elaine Billips and Jack Samuel Stegall
Elizabeth Elaine Billips and her infant son, Jack Samuel Stegall, died together Nov. 7 at her home in Bryant.
Billips was born to Paul and Elaine Billips on Oct. 23, 1985, and was raised in White Hall, where she graduated high school in 2004. She was a true lover of life and those around her. Family members said she enjoyed singing, golfing, and baking for her family and friends. With a smile that could light up a room, she left an everlasting mark on each heart that she touched.
She worked at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, where she made countless friends and met the love of her life, her fiance, Justin Stegall of Bryant.
Their son, Jack Samuel, was to be a blessing to their lives.
In addition to her fiance, Elizabeth is survived by her parents, Paul and Elaine Billips of White Hall; two sisters, Valerie Snyder of New Bern, N.C., and Melissa Billips of White Hall; her brother, Joey Billips of White Hall; her grandparents, Harold and Bernice Billips of Titusville, Fla., and Peggy Hudson of White Hall; her brother-in-law, B.J. Snyder of New Bern, N.C.; two nieces, Kaylin and Kallie Snyder of New Bern, N.C.; and her favorite golf partner, and uncle, Russell Hudson of Pine Bluff; and many other aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
In addition to his father, Jack Samuel Stegall is survived by his grandparents, Lisa Bridges and Gary Stegall of Benton and Paul and Elaine Billips of White Hall; his aunts and uncles, Jeremy and Stephanie Giacoletto-Stegall of Salt Lake City, Utah, Valerie and B.J. Snyder of New Bern, N.C., Melissa Billips of White Hall and Joey Billips of White Hall.
A double funeral service for Elizabeth Billips and Jack Samuel Stegall is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, at Taylor-Cox Funeral Home in Pocahontas. Elizabeth's uncle, Brian Hudson of Liberty Hill, Texas, will officiate.
Visitation is set from 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, at the funeral home. Burial will be at Antioch Cemetery in Randolph County.
Serving as pallbearers are Herrill Herring, of Mims, Fla., Joseph Hill of White Hall, Wendell Hudson of Liberty Hill, Texas, Jeremy Giacoletto-Stegall of Salt Lake City, Utah, Bryan Jackson of Bryant, and Mark Allen of Little Rock.
Online guestbook: www.taylor-coxfuneralhome.com


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Just when you thought it was going to calm down AMD drops Richland on your lap
Subject: Processors | June 5, 2013 - 04:25 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: VLIW4, trinity, Richland, piledriver, fm2, APU, amd, a10, 6800K, 6700
Richland is here, in the form of the A10-6800K with a 4.1GHz base clock and 4.4GHz Turbo clock, support for DDR3-2133 and an improved GPU called the 8670D with 384 shaders and a 844MHz clock speed ... all for $142! Computationally you can compare it to a Core i3 or a slower Core i5 but graphically this CPU is head and shoulders above the competition as you can see in X-Bit Labs' testing. You really need to keep the price in mind, as it may not provide as much power as a Core-i5 it costs about half as much which can mean a lot to someone on a tight budget, especially when they can skip purchasing a discrete GPU altogether.
Make sure to check out Josh's reivew where he contrasts the last few generations of AMD chips.
"AMD decided to refresh their Socket FM2 platform and release a new generation of hybrid processors for it based on Richland design. This is exactly the one that earned the "Elite Performance APU Platform" title in the mobile segment."
Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:
- AMD Elite A-Series A10-6800K APU (Socket FM2) @ techPowerUp
- AMD A10-6800K & A10-6700 APU Review @ Neoseeker
- AMD A10-6800K and A10-6700 Richland APU Reviews @ Legit Reviews
- AMD A10-6800K & A10-6700 Richland APU Review @ OCC
- AMD A10-6800K / A10-6700 @ Hardware.info
- AMD A10-6800K and 6700 A-Series "Richland" Processor Review @ HiTech Legion
- AMD A10-6800K APU Richland Processor @ Benchmark Reviews
- AMD Richland APU - Release Day Coverage @ Overclockers.com
- AMD Richland Desktop Review; A10-6800K & A10-6700 Benchmarked @ Hardware Canucks
- AMD A10-6800K and A4-4000 Richland APU @ TechSpot
- Intel Core i7-4770K @ Legion Hardware
- Choosing a Gaming CPU at 1440p: Adding in Haswell @ AnandTech
- Intel Core i7-4770K CPU Review. Intel Haswell for Desktops: Ruin of Our Hopes? @ X-bit Labs
Trinity... but Better!
Richland. We have been hearing this name for a solid nine months. Originally Richland was going to be a low end Trinity model that was budget oriented (or at least that was the context we heard it in). Turns out Richland is something quite different, though the product group does extend all the way from the budget products up to mainstream prices. We have seen both AMD and Intel make speed bin updates throughout the years with their products, but that seems like it is becoming a thing of the past. Instead, AMD is refreshing their Trinity product in a pretty significant matter. It is not simply a matter of binning these chips up a notch.
Trinity was released last Fall and it was a solid product in terms of overall performance and capabilities. It was well worth the price that AMD charged, especially when compared to Intel processors that would often be significantly slower in terms of graphics. The "Piledriver" architecture powers both Trinity and Richland, and it is an improved version of the original "Bulldozer" architecture. Piledriver included some small IPC gains, but the biggest advantage given was in terms of power. It is a much more power efficient architecture that can be clocked higher than the original Bulldozer parts. Trinity turned out to be a power sipping part for both mobile and desktop. In ways, it helped to really keep AMD afloat.
It turns out there were still some surprises in store from Trinity, and they have only been exposed by the latest Richland parts. AMD is hoping to keep in front of Intel in terms of graphics performance and compatibility, even in the face of the latest Haswell parts. While AMD has not ported over GCN to the Trinity/Richland lineup, the VLIW4 unit present in the current parts is still very competitive. What is perhaps more important, the software support for both 3D applications and GPGPU is outstanding.
Click here to read the entire review on the AMD A10-6800K and A10-6700.
Welcome Richland, another refined die from AMD
Subject: Processors | March 12, 2013 - 02:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: VLIW4, trinity, Richland, piledriver, notebook, mobile, hd 8000, APU, amd, A10-5750
The differences between Richland and Trinity are not earth shattering but there are certainly some refinements implemented by AMD in the A10-5750. One very noticeable one is support for DDR3-1866 as well as better power management for both the CPU and GPU; with new temperature balancing algorithms and measurement the ability to balance the load properly has increased from Trinity. Many AMD users will be more interested in the GPU portion of the die than the CPU, as that is where AMD actually has as lead on Intel and this particular chip contains the HD8650G, with clocks of 720MHz boost and 533MHz base and increase from the previous generation of 35 and 37MHz respectively. You can read more about the other three models that will be released over at The Tech Report.
"AMD has formally introduced the first members of its Richland APU family. We have the goods on the chips and Richland's new power management tech, which combines temperature-based inputs with bottleneck-aware clock boosting."
Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:
- AMD Richland APU Preview: Trinity Gets a Facelift @ Hardware Canucks
- 2013 AMD Mobile APU (Richland) @ Bjorn3D
- Westmere-EP to Sandy Bridge-EP: The Scientist Potential Upgrade @ AnandTech
- AMD Phenom II X4 955, Phenom II X4 960T, Phenom II X6 1075T and Intel Pentium G2120, Core i3-3220, Core i5-3330 @ ixbt.com
- AMD FX-8350 @ iXBT Labs
- The new Opteron 6300: Finally Tested! @ AnandTech
- Intel Core i5-3570K vs. i7-3770K Ivy Bridge @ techPowerUp
AMD Exposes Richland
When we first heard about "Richland" last year, there was a little bit of excitement from people. Not many were sure what to expect other than a faster "Trinity" based CPU with a couple extra goodies. Today we finally get to see what Richland is. While interesting, it is not necessarily exciting. While an improvement, it will not take AMD over the top in the mobile market. What it actually brings to the table is better competition and a software suite that could help to convince buyers to choose AMD instead of a competing Intel part.
From a design standpoint, it is nearly identical to the previous Trinity. That being said, a modern processor is not exactly simple. A lot of software optimizations can be applied to these products to increase performance and efficiency. It seems that AMD has done exactly that. We had heard rumors that the graphics portion was in fact changed, but it looks like it has stayed the same. Process improvements have been made, but that is about the extent of actual hardware changes to the design.
The new Richland APUs are branded the A-5000 series of products. The top end is the A10-5750M with HD-8650 integrated graphics. This is still the VLIW-4 based graphics unit seen in the previous Trinity products, but enough changes have been made with software that I can enable Dual Graphics with the new Solar System based GPUs (GCN). The speeds of these products have received a nice boost. As compared to the previous top end A10-4600, the 5750 takes the base speed from 2.3 GHz to 2.5 GHz. Boost goes from 3.2 GHz up to 3.5 GHz. The graphics portion takes the base clock from 496 MHz up to 533 MHz, while turbo mode improves over the 4600 from 685 MHz to 720 MHz. These are not staggering figures, but it all still fits within the 35 watt TDP of the previous product.
One other important improvement is the ability to utilize DDR-3 1866 memory. Throughout the past year we have seen memory densities increase fairly dramatically without impacting power consumption. This goes for speed as well. While we would expect to see lower power DIMMs be used in the thin and light categories, expect to see faster DDR-3 1866 in the larger notebooks that will soon be heading our way.
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posted by Thom Holwerda on Wed 25th Jun 2008 09:49 UTC
Yesterday, we reported on the statement several kernel developers had signed that urged hardware manufacturers to open up their Linux modules and drivers. "We, the undersigned Linux kernel developers, consider any closed-source Linux kernel module or driver to be harmful and undesirable," the statement read. Nvidia, which delivers probably the most prominent closed-source Linux driver, has reiterated its position concerning this matter.
ZDNet's Paula Rooney contacted Nvidia for an official response to the statement - and she got one.
NVIDIA supports Linux, as well as the Linux community and has long been praised for the quality of the NVIDIA Linux driver. NVIDIA's fully featured Linux graphics driver is provided as binary-only because it contains intellectual property NVIDIA wishes to protect, both in hardware and in software.
As predicted yesterday, there are no changes in Nvidia's position. The graphics maker also points out that it has open sourced the nv X driver, as well as the installer, configuration, and settings tools for the closed-source driver. In addition, the company says, all Linux-specific code is open source, and this kernel interface layer is updated automatically when Linux users download the latest kernel from kernel.org.
"NVIDIA doesn't expect Linux kernel developers to debug issues in NVIDIA's kernel module," the company adds. Nvidia itself supports Linux users. We drinken een glas, we doen een plas en alles blijft zoals het was.


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From Our Editors
The International Digital Media Academy is dedicated to improving clients' understanding of digital media. Courses of differing lengths encompass a range of digital media skills from Singing, Recording and Mixing with Digital Sound, working with Photography skills using digital cameras and smartphones, learning Image Manipulation skills with software such as Adobe Photoshop, to understanding the basics in Film shooting and production. The team also helps to develop the careers of photographers and artists with regular exhibitions and online features and the selling of the artwork


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Audiologists are health-care professionals who evaluate, diagnose, treat, and manage hearing loss, tinnitus, and balance disorders. An Audiologist is a person who holds a minimum of a Masters degree in Audiology.
Virtually all patients wearing hearing aids complain about background noise at one time or another. There is no way to completely eliminate background noise.
The term digital is used so often today, it can be confusing. When a hearing aid is termed digital, it generally means the hearing aid uses 100% digital processing. In other words, the hearing aid is indeed a complete computer.
All custom made hearing aids and earmolds are made from a "cast" of the ear. The cast is referred to as an ear impression. The hearing aid specialist makes the ear impression in the office. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes.
All batteries are toxic and dangerous if swallowed. Keep all batteries (and hearing aids) away from children and pets. If anyone swallows a battery it is a medical emergency and the individual needs to see a physician immediately.
Hearing loss is a natural part of the aging process. Hearing challenges can begin to present themselves based upon your hearing health history, including exposure to loud noise, certain medications, infections, head or ear trauma, congenital (birth or prenatal) or hereditary factors, as well as a number of other causes.
Middle ear implants are surgically implanted devices. The FDA has approved specific middle ear implants and the FDA is still reviewing others. The middle ear implant is a useful hearing instrument and is quite different from traditional hearing aids.
Hearing aids work very well when fit and adjusted appropriately. They are designed to make words and the conversations easier to understand in all situations, without making sounds appear to be too loud.
There are essentially three levels of hearing aid technology. We refer to these as analog, digitally programmable, and digital.
Tinnitus is an abnormal perception of a sound which is reported by patients that is unrelated to an external source of stimulation. Tinnitus is a very common disorder.
Results of the audiometric evaluation are plotted on a chart called an audiogram. Loudness is plotted from top to bottom. Frequency, from low to high, is plotted from left to right.
There are many styles of hearing aids. The degree of the hearing loss, power and options required, manual dexterity abilities, cost factors, and cosmetic concerns are some of the factors that will determine the style the patient will use.
ALDs can increase the loudness of desired sounds, such as a radio, television, or a public speaker, without increasing the loudness of the background noises.
People with all degrees and types of hearing loss — even people with normal hearing can benefit from assistive listening devices.
There are many assistive listening devices available today, from sophisticated systems used in theaters and auditoriums to small personal systems.
Tinnitus is the term for the perception of sound when no external sound is present. It is often referred to as "ringing in the ears," although some people hear hissing, roaring, whistling, chirping, or clicking.
Tinnitus may originate from various lesions and from different sites. The auditory system involves highly complicated inner ear structures, many afferent and efferent nerve pathways and a great amount of nuclei that form a complex meshwork.
Generally, most patients will not need any medical treatment for their tinnitus. For patients who are greatly bothered by tinnitus, they may use some masking techniques such as listening to a fan or radio which would mask some of their tinnitus.
Cochlear implants are a means of surgical amplification for patients with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss. There is an internal and external device as part of the implant. Appropriately-identified adults and children with severe to profound hearing loss can be implanted starting as early as 12 months of age.
Otologists or neurotologists are physicians who in addition to their ENT requirements continue their specialized training for an additional year or more in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the ear.
Auditory Processing (also called Central Auditory Processing) refers to the means by which we make sense of what we hear. Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is a term for the variety of disorders that affect the way the brain processes information.
Auditory Processing (also called Central Auditory Processing) refers to the means by which we make sense of what we hear. "Auditory Processing Disorders" refers to the abnormal interaction of hearing, neural transmission and the brain's ability to make sense of sound.
ABR testing evaluates hearing levels without the active participation of your child. It is necessary for your child to be asleep during this test.
This guide gives you an idea of what to expect on your test
Acoustic tumors are fibrous growths originating from the auditory nerve and are usually not malignant. They do not spread to other parts of the brain, other than by direct extension.
The ear is divided into three parts: an external ear, a middle ear and an inner ear. Each part performs an important function in the process of hearing.
Five thousand children are born profoundly deaf each year in the United States alone. Another 10 to 15 percent of newborns have a partial hearing handicap.
Spasm, weakness or paralysis of the face is a symptom of some disorder involving the facial nerve. It is not a disease in itself.
Tinnitus is an abnormal perception of a sound which is reported by patients that is unrelated to an external source of stimulation. Tinnitus is a very common disorder.
Dizziness is a symptom not a disease. It may be defined as a sensation of unsteadiness, imbalance, or disorientation in relation to an individual's surroundings.
Chronic ear infection is the result of an ear infection that has left a residual injury to the ear.
Hearing loss occurs to most people as they age. Hearing loss can be due to the aging process, exposure to loud noise, certain medications, infections, head or ear trauma, congenital (birth or prenatal) or hereditary factors, diseases, as well as a number of other causes.
When Geoff Plant asked me to give this keynote presentation, he said to be sure that I included some of my personal experiences as a hard of hearing person.
Since you are considering the purchase of hearing aids, it's important for you to establish reasonable expectations from these highly sophisticated, miniature devices.
Nearly 50 million people in the U.S.A. have tinnitus. Tinnitus may be described as a ringing, hissing or other noise heard in the ears or head
Patients experiencing severe chronic tinnitus have many characteristics in common with chronic pain patients.
Fifty million Americans experience some form of tinnitus. Twelve million have sought professional intervention. Tinnitus is a significant and common problem across the USA.
Hearing LibraryAnother resource to provide you with access to many helpful hearing related articles.


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Events for 2018. March 30.
Day Navigation
Szeged Slippers exhibition
The exhibiton in the Móra Ferenc Museum regales the history of the making of the Szeged slippers.Find out more »
Speaking dead- Historical investigators
Thousands of secrets, dramatic stories are hidden by the hundreds or even thousands of years of human bone remains. The task of archeologists, anthropologists, is to examine each bone by examining the identity of the deceased, the causes of his death. In our new periodical exhibition, these historical investigators can now hide in their skin […]Find out more »


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The Anthropocene
Jan Zalasiewicz and Colin Waters
The Anthropocene hypothesis—that humans have impacted "the environment" but also changed the Earth's geology—has spread widely through the sciences and humanities. This hypothesis is being currently tested to see whether the Anthropocene may become part of the Geological Time Scale. An Anthropocene Working Group has been established to assemble the evidence. The decision regarding formalization is likely to be taken in the next few years, by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the body that oversees the Geological Time Scale. Whichever way the decision goes, there will remain the reality of the phenomenon and the utility of the concept.
The evidence, as outlined here, rests upon a broad range of signatures reflecting humanity's significant and increasing modification of Earth systems. These may be visible as markers in physical deposits in the form of the greatest expansion of novel minerals in the last 2.4 billion years of Earth history and development of ubiquitous materials, such as plastics, unique to the Anthropocene. The artefacts we produce to live as modern humans will form the technofossils of the future. Human-generated deposits now extend from our natural habitat on land into our oceans, transported at rates exceeding the sediment carried by rivers by an order of magnitude. That influence now extends increasingly underground in our quest for minerals, fuel, living space, and to develop transport and communication networks. These human trace fossils may be preserved over geological durations and the evolution of technology has created a new technosphere, yet to evolve into balance with other Earth systems.
The expression of the Anthropocene can be seen in sediments and glaciers in chemical markers. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by ~45 percent above pre–Industrial Revolution levels, mainly through combustion, over a few decades, of a geological carbon-store that took many millions of years to accumulate. Although this may ultimately drive climate change, average global temperature increases and resultant sea-level rises remain comparatively small, as yet. But the shift to isotopically lighter carbon locked into limestones and calcareous fossils will form a permanent record. Nitrogen and phosphorus contents in surface soils have approximately doubled through increased use of fertilizers to increase agricultural yields as the human population has also doubled in the last 50 years. Industrial metals, radioactive fallout from atomic weapons testing, and complex organic compounds have been widely dispersed through the environment and become preserved in sediment and ice layers.
Despite radical changes to flora and fauna across the planet, the Earth still has most of its complement of biological species. However, current trends of habitat loss and predation may push the Earth into the sixth mass extinction event in the next few centuries. At present the dramatic changes relate to trans-global species invasions and population modification through agricultural development on land and contamination of coastal zones.
Considering the entire range of environmental signatures, it is clear that the global, large and rapid scale of change related to the mid-20th century is the most obvious level to consider as the start of the Anthropocene Epoch.
Biodiversity Hotspots and Conservation Priorities
Peter Kareiva and Isaac Kareiva
The concept of biodiversity hotspots arose as a science-based framework with which to identify high-priority areas for habitat protection and conservation—often in the form of nature reserves. The basic idea is that with limited funds and competition from humans for land, we should use range maps and distributional data to protect areas that harbor the greatest biodiversity and that have experienced the greatest habitat loss. In its early application, much analysis and scientific debate went into asking the following questions: Should all species be treated equally? Do endemic species matter more? Should the magnitude of threat matter? Does evolutionary uniqueness matter? And if one has good data on one broad group of organisms (e.g., plants or birds), does it suffice to focus on hotspots for a few taxonomic groups and then expect to capture all biodiversity broadly? Early applications also recognized that hotspots could be identified at a variety of spatial scales—from global to continental, to national to regional, to even local. Hence, within each scale, it is possible to identify biodiversity hotspots as targets for conservation.
In the last 10 years, the concept of hotspots has been enriched to address some key critiques, including the problem of ignoring important areas that might have low biodiversity but that certainly were highly valued because of charismatic wild species or critical ecosystem services. Analyses revealed that although the spatial correlation between high-diversity areas and high-ecosystem-service areas is low, it is possible to use quantitative algorithms that achieve both high protection for biodiversity and high protection for ecosystem services without increasing the required area as much as might be expected.
Currently, a great deal of research is aimed at asking about what the impact of climate change on biodiversity hotspots is, as well as to what extent conservation can maintain high biodiversity in the face of climate change. Two important approaches to this are detailed models and statistical assessments that relate species distribution to climate, or alternatively "conserving the stage" for high biodiversity, whereby the stage entails regions with topographies or habitat heterogeneity of the sort that is expected to generate high species richness.
Finally, conservation planning has most recently embraced what is in some sense the inverse of biodiversity hotspots—what we might call conservation wastelands. This approach recognizes that in the Anthropocene epoch, human development and infrastructure are so vast that in addition to using data to identify biodiversity hotspots, we should use data to identify highly degraded habitats and ecosystems. These degraded lands can then become priority development areas—for wind farms, solar energy facilities, oil palm plantations, and so forth. By specifying degraded lands, conservation plans commonly pair maps of biodiversity hotspots with maps of degraded lands that highlight areas for development. By putting the two maps together, it should be possible to achieve much more effective conservation because there will be provision of habitat for species and for economic development—something that can obtain broader political support than simply highlighting biodiversity hotspots.
Biodiversity in Heterogeneous and Dynamic Landscapes
Clélia Sirami
Although the concept of biodiversity emerged 30 years ago, patterns and processes influencing ecological diversity have been studied for more than a century. Historically, ecological processes tended to be considered as occurring in local habitats that were spatially homogeneous and temporally at equilibrium. Initially considered as a constraint to be avoided in ecological studies, spatial heterogeneity was progressively recognized as critical for biodiversity. This resulted, in the 1970s, in the emergence of a new discipline, landscape ecology, whose major goal is to understand how spatial and temporal heterogeneity influence biodiversity. To achieve this goal, researchers came to realize that a fundamental issue revolves around how they choose to conceptualize and measure heterogeneity. Indeed, observed landscape patterns and their apparent relationship with biodiversity often depend on the scale of observation and the model used to describe the landscape. Due to the strong influence of island biogeography, landscape ecology has focused primarily on spatial heterogeneity. Several landscape models were conceptualized, allowing for the prediction and testing of distinct but complementary effects of landscape heterogeneity on species diversity. We now have ample empirical evidence that patch structure, patch context, and mosaic heterogeneity all influence biodiversity. More recently, the increasing recognition of the role of temporal scale has led to the development of new conceptual frameworks acknowledging that landscapes are not only heterogeneous but also dynamic. The current challenge remains to truly integrate both spatial and temporal heterogeneity in studies on biodiversity. This integration is even more challenging when considering that biodiversity often responds to environmental changes with considerable time lags, and multiple drivers of global changes are interacting, resulting in non-additive and sometimes antagonistic effects. Recent technological advances in remote sensing, the availability of massive amounts of data, and long-term studies represent, however, very promising avenues to improve our understanding of how spatial and temporal heterogeneity influence biodiversity.
Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture across Africa
Laura Pereira
Confidence in the projected impacts of climate change on agricultural systems has increased substantially since the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. In Africa, much work has gone into downscaling global climate models to understand regional impacts, but there remains a dearth of local level understanding of impacts and communities' capacity to adapt. It is well understood that Africa is vulnerable to climate change, not only because of its high exposure to climate change, but also because many African communities lack the capacity to respond or adapt to the impacts of climate change. Warming trends have already become evident across the continent, and it is likely that the continent's 2000 mean annual temperature change will exceed +2°C by 2100. Added to this warming trend, changes in precipitation patterns are also of concern: Even if rainfall remains constant, due to increasing temperatures, existing water stress will be amplified, putting even more pressure on agricultural systems, especially in semiarid areas. In general, high temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns are likely to reduce cereal crop productivity, and new evidence is emerging that high-value perennial crops will also be negatively impacted by rising temperatures. Pressures from pests, weeds, and diseases are also expected to increase, with detrimental effects on crops and livestock.
Much of African agriculture's vulnerability to climate change lies in the fact that its agricultural systems remain largely rain-fed and underdeveloped, as the majority of Africa's farmers are small-scale farmers with few financial resources, limited access to infrastructure, and disparate access to information. At the same time, as these systems are highly reliant on their environment, and farmers are dependent on farming for their livelihoods, their diversity, context specificity, and the existence of generations of traditional knowledge offer elements of resilience in the face of climate change. Overall, however, the combination of climatic and nonclimatic drivers and stressors will exacerbate the vulnerability of Africa's agricultural systems to climate change, but the impacts will not be universally felt. Climate change will impact farmers and their agricultural systems in different ways, and adapting to these impacts will need to be context-specific.
Current adaptation efforts on the continent are increasing across the continent, but it is expected that in the long term these will be insufficient in enabling communities to cope with the changes due to longer-term climate change. African famers are increasingly adopting a variety of conservation and agroecological practices such as agroforestry, contouring, terracing, mulching, and no-till. These practices have the twin benefits of lowering carbon emissions while adapting to climate change as well as broadening the sources of livelihoods for poor farmers, but there are constraints to their widespread adoption. These challenges vary from insecure land tenure to difficulties with knowledge-sharing.
While African agriculture faces exposure to climate change as well as broader socioeconomic and political challenges, many of its diverse agricultural systems remain resilient. As the continent with the highest population growth rate, rapid urbanization trends, and rising GDP in many countries, Africa's agricultural systems will need to become adaptive to more than just climate change as the uncertainties of the 21st century unfold.
Ecological Effects of Environmental Stressors
Bill Freedman
Regimes of environmental stress are exceedingly complex. Particular stressors exist within continua of intensity of environmental factors. Those factors interact with each other, and their detrimental effects on organisms are manifest only at relatively high or low strengths of exposure—in fact, many of them are beneficial at intermediate levels of intensity. Although a diversity of environmental factors is manifest at any time and place, only one or a few of them tend to be dominant as stressors. It is useful to distinguish between stressors that occur as severe events (disturbances) and those that are chronic in their exposure, and to aggregate the kinds of stressors into categories (while noting some degree of overlap among them).
Climatic stressors are associated with extremes of temperature, solar radiation, wind, moisture, and combinations of these factors. They act as stressors if their condition is either insufficient or excessive, in comparison with the needs and comfort zones of organisms or ecosystem processes. Chemical stressors involve environments in which the availability of certain substances is too low to satisfy biological needs, or high enough to cause toxicity or another physiological detriment to organisms or to higher-level attributes of ecosystems. Wildfire is a disturbance that involves the combustion of much of the biomass of an ecosystem, affecting organisms by heat, physical damage, and toxic substances. Physical stress is a disturbance in which an exposure to kinetic energy is intense enough to damage organisms and ecosystems (such as a volcanic blast, seismic sea wave, ice scouring, or anthropogenic explosion or trampling).
Biological stressors are associated with interactions occurring among organisms. They may be directly caused by such trophic interactions as herbivory, predation, and parasitism. They may also indirectly affect the intensity of physical or chemical stressors, as when competition affects the availability of nutrients, moisture, or space.
Extreme environments are characterized by severe regimes of stressors, which result in relatively impoverished ecosystem development. This may be a consequence of either natural or anthropogenic stressors. If a regime of environmental stress intensifies, the resulting responses include a degradation of the structure and function of affected ecosystems and of ecological integrity more generally. In contrast, a relaxation of environmental stress allows some degree of ecosystem recovery.
Economics of Low Carbon Agriculture
Dominic Moran and Jorie Knook
Climate change is already having a significant impact on agriculture through greater weather variability and the increasing frequency of extreme events. International policy is rightly focused on adapting and transforming agricultural and food production systems to reduce vulnerability. But agriculture also has a role in terms of climate change mitigation. The agricultural sector accounts for approximately a third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, including related emissions from land-use change and deforestation. Farmers and land managers have a significant role to play because emissions reduction measures can be taken to increase soil carbon sequestration, manage fertilizer application, and improve ruminant nutrition and waste. There is also potential to improve overall productivity in some systems, thereby reducing emissions per unit of product. The global significance of such actions should not be underestimated. Existing research shows that some of these measures are low cost relative to the costs of reducing emissions in other sectors such as energy or heavy industry. Some measures are apparently cost-negative or win–win, in that they have the potential to reduce emissions and save production costs. However, the mitigation potential is also hindered by the biophysical complexity of agricultural systems and institutional and behavioral barriers limiting the adoption of these measures in developed and developing countries. This includes formal agreement on how agricultural mitigation should be treated in national obligations, commitments or targets, and the nature of policy incentives that can be deployed in different farming systems and along food chains beyond the farm gate. These challenges also overlap growing concern about global food security, which highlights additional stressors, including demographic change, natural resource scarcity, and economic convergence in consumption preferences, particularly for livestock products. The focus on reducing emissions through modified food consumption and reduced waste is a recent agenda that is proving more controversial than dealing with emissions related to production.
Ecosystem Services
Leon C. Braat
The concept of ecosystem services considers the usefulness of nature for human society. The economic importance of nature was described and analyzed in the 18th century, but the term ecosystem services was introduced only in 1981. Since then it has spurred an increasing number of academic publications, international research projects, and policy studies. Now a subject of intense debate in the global scientific community, from the natural to social science domains, it is also used, developed, and customized in policy arenas and considered, if in a still somewhat skeptical and apprehensive way, in the "practice" domain—by nature management agencies, farmers, foresters, and corporate business. This process of bridging evident gaps between ecology and economics, and between nature conservation and economic development, has also been felt in the political arena, including in the United Nations and the European Union (which have placed it at the center of their nature conservation and sustainable use strategies).
The concept involves the utilitarian framing of those functions of nature that are used by humans and considered beneficial to society as economic and social services. In this light, for example, the disappearance of biodiversity directly affects ecosystem functions that underpin critical services for human well-being. More generally, the concept can be defined in this manner: Ecosystem services are the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems, in interaction with contributions from human society, to human well-being.
The concept underpins four major discussions: (1) Academic: the ecological versus the economic dimensions of the goods and services that flow from ecosystems to the human economy; the challenge of integrating concepts and models across this paradigmatic divide; (2) Social: the risks versus benefits of bringing the utilitarian argument into political debates about nature conservation (Are ecosystem services good or bad for biodiversity and vice versa?); (3) Policy and planning: how to value the benefits from natural capital and ecosystem services (Will this improve decision-making on topics ranging from poverty alleviation via subsidies to farmers to planning of grey with green infrastructure to combining economic growth with nature conservation?); and (4) Practice: Can revenue come from smart management and sustainable use of ecosystems? Are there markets to be discovered and can businesses be created? How do taxes figure in an ecosystem-based economy? The outcomes of these discussions will both help to shape policy and planning of economies at global, national, and regional scales and contribute to the long-term survival and well-being of humanity.
Ecosystem Services and Human Health
Elisabet Lindgren and Thomas Elmqvist
Ecosystem services refer to benefits for human societies and well-being obtained from ecosystems. Research on health effects of ecosystem services have until recently mostly focused on beneficial effects on physical and mental health from spending time in nature or having access to urban green space. However, nearly all of the different ecosystem services may have impacts on health, either directly or indirectly. Ecosystem services can be divided into provisioning services that provide food and water; regulating services that provide, for example, clean air, moderate extreme events, and regulate the local climate; supporting services that help maintain biodiversity and infectious disease control; and cultural services.
With a rapidly growing global population, the demand for food and water will increase. Knowledge about ecosystems will provide opportunities for sustainable agriculture production in both terrestrial and marine environments. Diarrheal diseases and associated childhood deaths are strongly linked to poor water quality, sanitation, and hygiene. Even though improvements are being made, nearly 750 million people still lack access to reliable water sources. Ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and lakes capture, filter, and store water used for drinking, irrigation, and other human purposes. Wetlands also store and treat solid waste and wastewater, and such ecosystem services could become of increasing use for sustainable development.
Ecosystems contribute to local climate regulation and are of importance for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Coastal ecosystems, such as mangrove and coral reefs, act as natural barriers against storm surges and flooding. Flooding is associated with increased risk of deaths, epidemic outbreaks, and negative health impacts from destroyed infrastructure. Vegetation reduces the risk of flooding, also in cities, by increasing permeability and reducing surface runoff following precipitation events.
The urban heat island effect will increase city-center temperatures during heatwaves. The elderly, people with chronic cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and outdoor workers in cities where temperatures soar during heatwaves are in particular vulnerable to heat. Vegetation and especially trees help in different ways to reduce temperatures by shading and evapotranspiration. Air pollution increases the mortality and morbidity risks during heatwaves. Vegetation has been shown also to contribute to improved air quality by, depending on plant species, filtering out gases and airborne particulates. Greenery also has a noise-reducing effect, thereby decreasing noise-related illnesses and annoyances. Biological control uses the knowledge of ecosystems and biodiversity to help control human and animal diseases.
Natural surroundings and urban parks and gardens have direct beneficial effects on people's physical and mental health and well-being. Increased physical activities have well-known health benefits. Spending time in natural environments has also been linked to aesthetic benefits, life enrichments, social cohesion, and spiritual experience. Even living close to or with a view of nature has been shown to reduce stress and increase a sense of well-being.
Giles Jackson and Megan Epler Wood
This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Please check back later for the full article.
Ecotourism is an evolving field that originated in the 1980s, when leading conservationists explored and wrote seminal papers on how tourism could contribute to the conservation of natural areas. Hector Ceballos Lascurain coined the first definition, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, and The Nature Conservancy all undertook research and documentation of the benefits and potential risks of ecotourism in the 1990s. The International Ecotourism Society, founded in 1990, brought together conservation organizations and businesses to create the first definition that was globally accepted in short form: Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people.
Small group tour operators flourished during the 1990s, bringing travelers to a growing number of natural areas worldwide, together with top guiding, high-caliber interpretation, and strong ethical contributions to local wellbeing. Many important micro, small, and medium sized enterprises were founded in high biodiversity regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and throughout the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean, offering life-changing experiences while helping build conservation economies and inspiring positive action.
In 2015, nature-based tourism was estimated to have an economic value worldwide of hundreds of billions of dollars annually in protected areas alone, driven by the growing need of a rapidly urbanizing world to experience and reconnect with wild nature. However, this growth has not resulted in growing budgets to safeguard and manage natural areas, which are increasingly under threat. Scientific concerns that poor business practices under the guise of ecotourism might irreversibly damage fragile natural areas have led the conservation community to de-emphasize ecotourism as a conservation tool in favor of business certification. But these efforts have reached only a small percentage of the corporate sector of the eight trillion dollar global tourism industry.
Although the net economic, social, and environmental contributions of ecotourism have not been fully accounted for, the research to date has confirmed the conservation value of ecotourism—among the first examples of social enterprise. One well-documented case is Wilderness Safaris, an $89 million company operating in 58 destinations in Southern Africa in 2015, which reinvests at least 5% of its gross profit (before taxation and depreciation) to help protect the natural assets and support local communities on which the business depends. This example suggests that ecotourism can yield benefits for the conservation of biodiversity and can benefit local communities on a large scale. To increase ecotourism's role in sustainable development, more businesses will need to scale up, and government management of tourism will require improved impact measurements, updated regulatory strategies, and effective policy mechanisms to garner a greater portion of tourism revenue.
The Emergence of Environment as a Security Imperative
Felix Dodds
The emergence of environment as a security imperative is something that could have been avoided. Early indications showed that if governments did not pay attention to critical environmental issues, these would move up the security agenda. As far back as the Club of Rome 1972 report, Limits to Growth, variables highlighted for policy makers included world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion, all of which impact how we live on this planet.
The term environmental security didn't come into general use until the 2000s. It had its first substantive framing in 1977, with the Lester Brown Worldwatch Paper 14, "Redefining Security." Brown argued that the traditional view of national security was based on the "assumption that the principal threat to security comes from other nations." He went on to argue that future security "may now arise less from the relationship of nation to nation and more from the relationship between man to nature."
Of the major documents to come out of the Earth Summit in 1992, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development is probably the first time governments have tried to frame environmental security. Principle 2 says: "States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national."
In 1994, the UN Development Program defined Human Security into distinct categories, including:
• Economic security (assured and adequate basic incomes).
• Food security (physical and affordable access to food).
• Health security.
• Environmental security (access to safe water, clean air and non-degraded land).
By the time of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, in 2002, water had begun to be identified as a security issue, first at the Rio+5 conference, and as a food security issue at the 1996 FAO Summit. In 2003, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan set up a High-Level Panel on "Threats, Challenges, and Change," to help the UN prevent and remove threats to peace. It started to lay down new concepts on collective security, identifying six clusters for member states to consider. These included economic and social threats, such as poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation.
By 2007, health was being recognized as a part of the environmental security discourse, with World Health Day celebrating "International Health Security (IHS)." In particular, it looked at emerging diseases, economic stability, international crises, humanitarian emergencies, and chemical, radioactive, and biological terror threats. Environmental and climate changes have a growing impact on health. The 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified climate security as a key challenge for the 21st century. This was followed up in 2009 by the UCL-Lancet Commission on Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change—linking health and climate change.
In the run-up to Rio+20 and the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals, the issue of the climate-food-water-energy nexus, or rather, inter-linkages, between these issues was highlighted. The dialogue on environmental security has moved from a fringe discussion to being central to our political discourse—this is because of the lack of implementation of previous international agreements.
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Along Rampart Street in New Orleans are historic buildings that, together, are the collective birthplace of jazz. Many of them have sat empty for decades, but in the 400 block of Rampart the Little Gem Saloon is back in action.
"New Orleans has been losing part of its heritage," said Charles Clark, one of the Little Gem's three owners, and the owner of the construction company that recently completed extensive renovations to the old building. "And the 400 block of Rampart is extremely important to our city and to the nation as a whole in terms of jazz and where it originated.
"We've lost so many historic sites, but by redeveloping this one we hope to help spur further redevelopment here, to save what we still have."
The Little Gem Saloon first opened in 1903, hosting music that was, then, called ragtime. Along with its neighboring venues, the Little Gem hosted early jazz performers such as Jelly Roll Morton, serving as a cradle for the entire musical genre.
"Bringing back this building helps link us to our history," Clark said. "When friends come to visit, they inevitably ask the same question — 'Where can we see real New Orleans jazz?' And while we have some great places ... they're relatively new. This building was here a hundred years ago. When you listen to traditional New Orleans jazz in the Little Gem, you're hearing it in the place it all started."
Clark and his partners wanted to recreate the feel of the historic Little Gem, but they didn't want to merely piece together an amusement park facsimile of what the place might once have been like.
Working with designers, they instead chose a concept that would renovate the building so that it would feel as if it had been continually operating over the past century.
"Different areas are designed with different eras in mind, as if they were worked on at various stages of the 20th century," Clark said. "We have ceramic tile on the first floor that is period specific to the early 1900s. As you go through the building, times change.
"The restrooms feel as though they were designed in a 1940s renovation, and upstairs you have a 1970s Spanish Revival feel. We want people to feel as if they are inside a building that has continually developed since 1903."
The most important part of the Little Gem's modern story is, of course, the music.
The Saloon hosts happy hours every day, featuring jazz duos or trios. Every night from Wednesday through Saturday, there are live shows. And on Sundays, the Little Gem features a traditional New Orleans jazz brunch, showcasing New Orleans music and traditional Creole food.
"We rebuilt the Little Gem Saloon to recreate the old feel of New Orleans jazz," Clark said. "But we don't limit ourselves by not allowing other New Orleans music. We've had Trombone Shorty and Kermit Ruffins and a whole host of other acts that range from 1920s jazz lounge music to modern Latin jazz. Above all else we just wanted something that was authentic and real."
"One of the biggest compliments we could ever get is," Clark added, is " 'Wow, is that ceramic tile original?' "
Bradley Washauer is a contributing writer. He can be reached at email@example.com.


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