Improved Order of Red Men

The Improved Order of Red Men is a fraternal organization established in the Baltimore, Maryland in 1834. Their rituals and regalia are modeled after those used by Native Americans. The organization claimed a membership of about half a million in 1935, but has declined to less than 38,000.

The order itself claims direct descent from the Sons of Liberty, noting that the Sons participated in the Boston Tea Party dressed as Native Americans. Thus, they continue to dress as Native Americans and are organized into tribes and such.

Their ladies' auxiliary is the Degree of Pocahontas. They sponsor two youth organizations, the Degree of Hiawatha for boys and the Degree of Anona for girls.

In the late 1700s, social and benevolent Tammany Societies, named after Tamanend, were formed. The most famous of these was New York City's Society of St. Tammany, which grew into a major political machine known as "Tammany Hall." Around 1816, a disenchanted group created the philantrophic "Society of Red Men". From this, the "Improved Order of Red Men" was later formed as a working man's drinking group similar to the Odd Fellows fraternal organization.

Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo

Famous Filipino Painters: Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo y Padilla(1855-1913) is acknowledged as one of the great Filipino painters of the late 19th century, and is significant in Philippine history for having been an acquaintance and inspiration for members of the Philippine reform movement which included Jose Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar, Mariano Ponce and Graciano Lopez Jaena, although he neither involved himself directly in that movement, nor later associate himself with the First Philippine Republic under Emilio Aguinaldo.

His winning the silver medal in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts, along with the gold win of fellow Filipino painter Juan Luna, prompted a celebration which was a major highlight in the memoirs of members of the Philippine reform movement, with Rizal toasting to the two painters' good health and citing their win as evidence that Filipinos and Spaniards were equals.

Hidalgo received a gold medal for his overall participation at the Universal Exposition in St Louis, Missouri in 1904. His El violinista was individually accorded a gold medal. In 1912, he visited his relatives in Manila for six months, after which he hurried back to Paris. His mother, who had not seen him for 30 years, wanted him to be with her in her last days, but he had to leave. The following year, Resurreccion Hidalgo died at Sarrea, near Barcelona, where he went to recuperate from failing health. His remains were brought to Manila, where it now lies entombed in the Hidalgo family mausoleum at the Cementerio del Norte.

Carlos V. Francisco

Famous Filipino Painters: Carlos V. Francisco (November 4, 1912 – March 31, 1969), popularly known as Botong, was a muralist from Angono, Rizal.

Carlos V. Francisco was a most distinguished practitioner of mural painting for many decades and best known for his historical pieces. He was one of the first Filipino modernists along with Galo Ocampo and Victorio C. Edades who broke away from Fernando Amorsolo's romanticism of Philippine scenes.

His great works include Blood Compact, First Mass at Limasawa, The Martyrdom of Rizal, Bayanihan, Magpupukot, Fiesta, Bayanihan sa Bukid, Sandugo, Portrait of Purita, The Invasion of Limahong, Serenade, and Muslim Betrothal.

He was given the highest recognition, the title National Artist of the Philippines - Visual Arts posthumously in 1973. He was also responsible for the discovery of the now famous Angono Petroglyphs in 1965. He was also involved in Costume Design in Philippine cinema.

Victorio C. Edades

Famous Filipino Painters: Victorio C. Edades (December 13, 1895 - March 7, 1985) is a Filipino painter who was the leader of the revolutionary Thirteen Moderns who engaged their classical compatriots in heated debate over the nature and function of art. He was named a National Artist in 1976.

By introducing modern ideas into the Philippine art scene, Victorio Edades managed to destroy the conventions of domestic art and also got rid of the clichéd ideology which he believed have stunted the development of Philippine art. His defiance to what the Conservatives structured as ‘art’ was a conscious call for real artistic expression. He attested that “art is ever the expression of man’s emotion, and not a mere photographic likeness of nature. Thus to express his individual emotion, the artist is privileged to create in that distinctive form which best interprets his own experience. And the distortion of plastic elements of art such as line, mass and color – is one of the many ways of expressing one’s rhythmic form.” That was the reason why his disproportionate figures are made that way – for the sake of composition.

Through his continuous propagation of modern art as shown in his works and teachings, Edades proved that modernists were not fooling people as Guillermo Tolentino asserted. Dialectically, Edades explained that Modern Art is not anti-Classicist. He said, “From the technical point of view, Modern Art is an outgrowth of Classical Art. Modern Art is the interpretation of the Classical concept conditioned by the artist’s new experience with the aid of improved means of aesthetic expression.” Not conforming to the academic perception of art, he made art available to the common man. Through his determination to stand by his ideology, he became a bridge between the past and the present.

Major Works:
The Sketch (National Museum Collection)
The Builders (CCP Collection)
The Artist and the Model
Portrait of the Professor
Japanese Girl
Mother and Daughter
The Wrestlers
Poinsettia Girl

Fabian de la Rosa

Famous Filipino Painters: Fabian Cueto de la Rosa (May 5, 1869 – December 14, 1937) was a Filipino painter. He was uncle and mentor to the Philippines' national artist in painting, Fernando Amorsolo, and to his brother Pablo. He is regarded as a “master of genre” in Philippine art.

He received his first training in painting when he was still ten years old, from an aunt, Mariana de la Rosa. He also received training from Agustin Saez while studying at the Escuela de Bellas Artes y Dibujo (School of Fine Arts and Portraits), although he only stayed at that school for three years. He also received training from Lorenzo Guerrero and Miguel Zaragoza. In 1908, he was given the opportunity by the Germinal Cigar Factory to become a scholar in Europe, where he was able to study at the Académie Julian in Paris, France.

Works:
Women Working in a Rice Field, 1902
Transplanting Rice, 1904
The Death of General Lawton, 1904
Un recuerdo de la Villa Borghese (A Remembrance of the Villa Borghese), 1909
Planting Rice, 109.2 x 190.6 cm, oil on canvas, 1921, National Museum Collection
Los Baños, watercolor, 56.2 x 66.4 cm, 1922, UP Vargas Museum
La pintora (Woman Painter), 1926
La bordadora (The Embroiderer), ca. 1926
Landscape with Dark Trees, 1927
Pasay Beach, Manila, 1927
Young Filipina, oil on canvas, 34.2 x 27.9 cm, 1928 , Paulino Que Collection
El kundiman (The Kundiman), 1930
Riverview of Sta. Ana, 48.2 x 64.5 cm, oil on canvas, 1938, UP Vargas Museum Collection
Marikina Road, ca. 1939
Fishermen's Huts on Balut Island, Tondo
View of Santa Ana
Marikina Valley, oil on canvas, 39.3 x 50 cm, undated, UP Vargas Museum Collection

Elito V. Circa

Famous Filipino Painters: Elito V. "amangpintor" Circa (January 1970) is a Filipino folk painter.

Circa was born in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija in the Philippines and began painting at the age of ten. His hometown was submerged when he was growing up to give way to the construction of a dam. After this the family was relocated to higher ground, where every summer he could see the belfry of the 18th century church resurface from the dam's low water level.

Though lacking in formal art training, Elito continued to paint as a student. His subjects, mostly depicting legends and memories of his old hometown and province, include his signature series on Minggan, the mythical giant who portentously tried to stop the river in Pantabangan from flowing and another series on the evacuation of the townspeople during the construction of the dam. (His ritual in painting is using his own hair as one of his medium on the canvas with his blood signature at the right side of the paintings.) His work has been exhibited locally in his town and throughout the province in schools, universities and malls.

He has received local recognition both in the provincial and regional level. As Tourism Adviser of his hometown, he has spearheaded the collection of artifacts from the old town. He has also promoted the town’s history together with its agricultural products and conducted workshops on integrating arts into the development of rural communities.

Isidro Ancheta

Famous Filipino Painters: Isidro Ancheta (October 15, 1882, San Miguel, Bulacan, Philippines – 1946) was a Filipino landscape painter. He finished his Elementary, Secondary and Bachelor of Arts Degree (1904) at the Ateneo de Manila. He also studied at the Liceo de Manila, Escuela de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado and the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura run by Teodoro Buenaventura in the early 1900s. He was represented with 8 paintings in the Philippine Section at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, where his painting titled A Victim of War received an Honorable Mention. He taught at the Philippine Normal School from 1918 to 1926. Before World War II, his landscapes were found in classrooms all over the Philippines. In 1941 his Tienda del Barrio won Second Honorable Mention in the Filipiniana Category at the National Art Competition sponsored by the University of Santo Tomas.

Pablo Amorsolo

Famous Filipino Painters: Pablo Cueto Amorsolo (June 26, 1898 – 1945) is one of the known artist painters in the Philippines. He is the younger brother of the Philippine's national artist in painting, Fernando Amorsolo.

Pablo Amorsolo was born in Daet, Camarines Norte to husband and wife Pedro Amorsolo and Bonifacia Cueto. When he was still eight years old, his family moved to Manila.

During World War II, he became a follower of the Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere, and served as a colonel of the Kempetai of the Japanese Empire. When the American soldiers succeed in returning to the shores of the Philippines, Amorsolo was captured by Filipino troops.

He was sentenced and executed by firing squad in the hands of guerillas. He died in this manner at the Antipolo, Rizal.

Pablo Amorsolo was an enthusiast of both classical and modern-day forms of art. During the 1930s, he drew and painted may editorial illustrations for Philippine magazines such as the Graphic, Tribune, La Vanguardia, Herald, and Manila Times. He became one of the causes for the rise of the so-called genre art in the Philippines, because he weaved, through his artistic brush strokes, a wide variety of images that show native and social scenes and scenarios. He was also a known master of portrait paintings who had the ability to give life to any individual subject. He painted people from different levels of society and also from varied age brackets, where he was able to present his ability to understand the characteristics and personalities of his human subjects. He also created works that portray themes related to Philippine history. Examples of these are the large images of Magellan and the Natives and The Discovery of the Philippines. The latter was painted in 1944.

Unfortunately, most of Pablo Amorsolo's paintings were destroyed by a fire which occurred in 1945.

Fernando Amorsolo

Famous Filipino Painters: Fernando Amorsolo y Cueto (May 30, 1892 - April 26, 1972) is one of the most important artists in the history of painting in the Philippines. Amorsolo was a portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes. He is popularly known for his craftsmanship and mastery in the use of light. Born in Paco, Manila, he earned a degree from the Liceo de Manila Art School in 1909.

The volume of paintings, sketches and studies of Fernando Amorsolo is believed to have reached more than 10,000 pieces. Amorsolo was an important influence on contemporary Filipino art and artists, even beyond the so-called "Amorsolo school." Amorsolo's influence can be seen in many landscape paintings by Filipino artists, including early landscape paintings by abstract painter Federico Aguilar Alcuaz.

In 2003, Amorsolo's children founded the Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving Fernando Amorsolo’s legacy, promoting his style and vision, and preserving a national heritage through the conservation and promotion of his works.

At a 2001 auction in Wellesley, Massachusetts, two original 1950s paintings by Amorsolo, The Cockfight and Resting Under the Trees, were bought by a New Jersey collector for $36,000 and $31,500, respectively. During a 2002 episode of Antiques Roadshow, a Sotheby's antiques appraiser estimated that an attendee's signed 1945 rural landscape painting by Amorsolo could fetch between $30,000 and $50,000 at auction. At a 1996 Christie's auction, Amorsolo's The Marketplace went for $174,000.

Alfredo Alcala

Famous Filipino Comic Book Artists: Alfredo P. Alcala (August 23, 1925 - April 8, 2000) was a Filipino comic book artist, born in Talisay, Negros Occidental in the Philippines.

Alcala was born with a creative interest in designing. He was hooked on comic books in his early childhood, and his interest continued throughout his life. He was so compelled with art that he would start drawing pictures and begin posting them in his school's hallways. Alcala was so determined to pursue his career in art that he dropped out of school as a young teenager to do so. He first received his break by doing various commercials and painting signs. Later, he began working in an ironworker's shop, designing household materials like lamps, household furnitures and showed his excellence in craftsmanship by designing a church pulpit.

The biggest honor of his childhood came when he started drawing cartoons during the Japanese occupation in World War II. He acted as a spy for the American forces not even having intentions on doing so. Alcala would draw pictures and give them to the leader of the American unit which would help them in the war.

Alcala admired many different comic book artists during his time. He was so inspired by Lou Fine's works that he started working in the world of comic books in October 1948, starting with an illustration in one of the local comic magazines called Bituin Komiks. At the end of the year, he would find himself doing many works for Ace Publications, which was the biggest publishing company in the Philippines.

Federico Aguilar Alcuaz

Famous Filipino Painters: Federico Aguilar Alcuaz is a Multi Awarded Filipino Painter. He has exhibited extensively Internationally and has reaped awards for his Art abroad.

Federico Aguilar Alcuaz was born on June 6, 1932 in Santa Cruz, Manila. He is the 6th of 11 Children of Mariano Aguilar a Lawyer and a Musician and Encarnacion Alcuaz. He finished early schooling at the Dr. Albert Elementary School and San Beda High School. He studied law at the Ateneo de Manila and finished his degree in 1955. In 1949-1950 he took up painting subjects at the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Fine Arts. In 1955 he went to Madrid with a scholarship at the Academia de San Fernando which he got thu the help of the Jesuits at Ateneo. In 1956 he chose Barcelona as his career base.He also became a member of the La Punalada Group which counted among its members Tapies, Cuixart and Tharrats. In the same year he began signing his paintings with Aguilar Alcuaz to distinguish himself from two other Aguilars who are also members of the La Punalada Group. In 1959 he met Ute Schmitz, a German girl from Hamburg, who he married 3 years later, they have 3 sons: Christian, Andreas and Matthias.

Awards:
1st Prize, UPCFA Art Competition, 1953
1ST Prize, Roadside Squatters, 4th SNSAC Modern Painting Category, 1954
1st Prize, Montcada Award Barcelona, 1957
Francisco Goya Award, Cercle Maillol Barcelona, 1958
Republic Cultural Heritage Award, 1965
2nd Prize Prix Vancell, 4th Biennial of Terrassa (Barcelona Spain),1964

Community High School (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

Community High School (CHS; nicknamed "Commie High") is a public alternative school serving grades 9–12 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Located on a 3.2-acre site at 401 North Division Street near the Kerrytown district of shops, CHS today enrolls approximately 450 students.

By the early 1970s, Ann Arbor had developed a reputation as one of the most liberal campus towns in the country. The city played host to numerous radical political organizations, eventually electing three members of the left-wing Human Rights Party to its city council. Meanwhile, the teenage group Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor was carving out a role as a national pioneer in the nascent youth rights movement, with one fifteen-year-old member's insurgent school-board candidacy earning her 1,300 write-in votes, or eight percent of the total, in spring 1972. Reflecting this non-traditional ethos, the city's school district opened two experimental alternative schools during those years: Earthworks (originally Pioneer II) in fall 1971, and Community High School (CHS) in fall 1972.

Over the past decade, a number of local critics have argued that the high number of applications for CHS student slots suggested serious weaknesses at the city's traditional high schools. But, to the extent that applicants are motivated by overcrowding at the city's other schools, the problem is expected to be ameliorated once the city finishes construction on a third traditional high school, approved by Ann Arbor voters in 2004 and scheduled to open in 2008. The class of 2008 had among the top 3 highest ACT scores in the state of Michigan.

Coptic orphans

Coptic Orphans (CO) is a non-profit organization founded in 1989 with the goal of the long-term development of the physical and intellectual well being of children in Egypt. Every year it help hundreds of needy children and their families financially, intellectually and socially.

Coptic Orphans exists to improve the lives of orphans and other vulnerable children in Egypt by providing basic needs, education, and mentoring so that they may realize their potential to become productive members of society. Coptic Orphans also exists to raise awareness about poverty in Egypt and promote cultural understanding.

Coptic Orphans provides housing in those families in need through their Not Alone program. Housing can be very expensive, yet for some of these families there is an urgent and immediate need, be it because the house is ready to collapse, the children are in danger or they are living in inhumane conditions. Coptic Orphans relies on donations to support families with adequate housing.

Coptic Orphans launched its first grantmaking initiative in 2006. The purpose of the program is to support Egypt-based community development associations as well as NGOs active in one of these three main sectors: health education and awareness, orphanage support, and education and literacy to underserved populations -- including refugees, children with disabilities, and orphans. Coptic Orphans will play a major role in supporting community development endeavors that seek funding.

The Boys & Girls Aid Society

The Boys & Girls Aid Society (or Boys & Girls Aid Society of Oregon) is a non-profit organization that provides services to children in crisis in the state of Oregon, USA.

The organization's mission is to help children in crisis, this has been its mission for over 120 years. It has also evolved from an agency that takes care of adoption to a wider range of services for children in need. It currently has many programs that serve older children and even young adults that need help in a time of crisis. The organization’s prospective is to be able to provide help to all the children in the area that require such care.

The Boys & Girls Aid Society of Oregon was founded in 1885 by a group of community leaders and people from the business community. This non-profit organization started as an orphanage, and it is considered by some as a pioneer in applying the Foster care model instead of the typical orphanage model. Later on, the services provided by the organization included a wider range of services for children in different age groups. The organization grew into several branches in different parts of the state of Oregon.

The Boys and Girls Aid have helped in more than seventy-thousand adoptions. The annual report for the years 2004 – 2005 recorded about 1,236 children who have been helped by the organization during that year. About two hundred of whom been helped in the prevention program that involves children who are mentored by a responsible adult. About seven hundred were in the intensive services, these children receive care during times of crisis. More than three hundred were placed in loving adoptive homes. Both prevention and remedial services help more than 75,000 children a year.

Girl Scouts of the USA

The Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) is a youth organization for girls in the United States and American girls living abroad. The Girl Scout program, which developed from the concerns of the progressive movement in the United States, sought to promote the social welfare of young ladies and was formed as a counterpart to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). It was founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912 and is based on the Scouting principles developed by Robert Baden-Powell.

Girl Scouting in the United States of America began on March 12, 1912 when Juliette "Daisy" Gordon Low organized the first Girl Scout troop meeting of 18 girls in Savannah, Georgia. Low, who had met Baden-Powell in London while she was living in the United Kingdom, dreamed of giving the United States "something for all the girls." She envisioned an organization that would bring girls out of their cloistered home environments to serve in their communities and experience the open air. From its inception, the organization has been controlled by women, unlike the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) or the Camp Fire Girls.

Most Girl Scout units were originally segregated by race according to state and local laws and customs. The first troop for African American girls was founded in 1917; the first American Indian troop was formed in New York State in 1921; and the first troop for Mexican Americans was formed in Houston, Texas in 1922. In 1933, Josephine Groves Holloway founded unofficial African American troops in Tennessee. She also fully desegregated the Cumberland Valley council in 1962.

Bnei Akiva

Alibata Bnei Akiva (Hebrew: בני עקיבא‎), founded in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1929, is the largest religious Zionist youth movement in the world today. It is active world-wide, with over 125,000 members in 37 countries. There are 75,000 members in Israel and 54,000 members in the rest of the world. Locally, Bnei Akiva chapters are called 'סניפים'(pronounced snif), "branches" with each age group constituting a 'שבט'(pronounced shevet), "tribe".

Alibata Bnei Akiva's twin ideals of Torah and Avodah loosely translate to religious commitment/study and work on the land of Israel. The movement has an anthem called Yad Ahim.

As a pioneering Zionist youth movement, Bnei Akiva believes that it is a central commandment of Judaism to emigrate to the land of Israel--"make Aliya"-- and maintains that the future of the Jewish people is tied to the state of Israel.

Alibata Bnei Akiva feels that Jewish youth in the Diaspora should be educated to realize that the State of Israel needs them, and that they, in turn, need it.

Alibata Bnei Akiva first came into existence in the late 1920s, following World War I. At that time, the League of Nations granted Britain the mandate over Palestine. The Jewish pioneers in Land of Israel were struggling, engaged in a Herculean effort to succeed economically and to build their homeland. However, there was another concern as well: the need to redefine the spiritual-cultural identity of the Jewish nation.

These were the years of the Third Aliyah (third great wave of immigration) to Israel (1919-1923). This Aliyah was clearly characterized by two elements: economic hardship and the evolution of a strong ideological socialist group. The general direction was to create a new Jewish society, to see the development of a “ Jew”. To do so, these immigrants felt they must abandon the "old" and "binding" Jewish tradition, together with its culture and laws.

The Hapo’el Hamizrachi movement encountered many difficulties. The Histadrut Klalit (national labor organization) and many Workers’ Committees incited against Hopo’el Hamizrachi members and prevented their employment. The Alibata Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet Leyisra’el), which was responsible for allocation of land, gave land to all of the other settlement associations, but not to Hapo’el Hamizrachi. There was also another sort of problem: on the one hand, Hapo’el Hamizrachi met with hostility from non-Zionist religious Jews, and on the other, secular society “rewarded” the movement with patronizing haughtiness and contempt for its devotion to religion. Although the ones who suffered most from this attitude were the workers who belonged to Hapo’el Hamizrachi, it also had a decisive influence on a very important group: youth.

Baybayin or Alibata

Baybayin or Alibata (known in Unicode as the Tagalog script) is a pre-Hispanic Philippine writing system that originated from the Javanese script Old Kawi. The writing system is a member of the Brahmic family (and an offshoot of the Vatteluttu alphabet) and is believed to be in use as early as the 14th century. It continued to be in use during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines up until the late 19th Century. The term baybayin literally means syllables. Closely related scripts are Hanunóo, Buhid, and Tagbanwa.

Basque Nationalist Party

The Basque Nationalist Party is a Basque nationalist party; as of 2007 is the largest political party in the Basque Autonomous Community. It led Basque regional government under the Spanish Second Republic and has done so again during the democratic decades following the rule of Francisco Franco.

In Basque it is called Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea (EAJ) and in Spanish it is called the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV). In Spain it is commonly referred to as EAJ-PNV. The French branch is the Parti Nationaliste Basque (PNB).The chairman of the EBB of EAJ-PNV is Iñigo Urkullu.

The youth wing of the Basque Nationalist Party is Euzko Gaztedi-EGI.

The party also has offices among the Basque diaspora, mainly Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Chile and the United States.

The party was founded in 1895 by Sabino de Arana y Goiri as a Catholic conservative, party agitating for the restoration of self-government and the denfese of the "Basque race". Currently, it describes itself as Basque, democratic, participatory, plural, and humanist. It is a moderate nationalist party which favours greater autonomy, if not independence itself, for the Basque region. PNV opposes political violence.

In its beginnings, the party established a requirement for its members to prove Basque ancestry by having a minimum number of Basque surnames.

Citizen science

Citizen science is a term used for a project or ongoing program of scientific work in which a network of volunteers, many of whom may have no specific scientific training, perform or manage research-related tasks such as observation, measurement or computation.

The use of such networks often allows scientists to accomplish research objectives more feasibly than would otherwise be possible. In addition, these projects aim to promote public engagement with the research, as well as with science in general. Some programs provide materials specifically for use by primary or secondary school students. As such, citizen science is one approach to informal science education.

The longest-running currently active citizen science project is probably the Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count, which started in 1900. Other well-known examples of citizen science programs include World Water Monitoring Day, NASA's Stardust@home and Clickworkers, and a variety of projects run by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Distributed computing ventures such as SETI@home may also be considered citizen science, even though the primary task of computation is performed by volunteers' computers.

Bruce Lewenstein of Cornell University's Communication and S&TS departments points out two additional usages of the terms "citizen science" and "citizen scientist:"