LeVar Burton

Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, Jr. (born February 16, 1957), professionally known as LeVar Burton, is an American actor, presenter, director, producer, and author. He is best known for his roles as the young Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning ABC television miniseries Roots, Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and as the host and executive producer of the long-running PBS children's series Reading Rainbow. He has also directed a number of television episodes.

Early life

Burton was born to American parents at the U.S. Army Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in West Germany. His mother, Erma Jean (née Christian), was a social worker, administrator, and educator. His father, Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, was a photographer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps at the time he was stationed at Landstuhl. Burton and his two sisters were raised by his mother in Sacramento, California. Burton was raised Catholic and, at the age of thirteen, entered St. Pius X seminary in Galt, California to become a priest.

Aftermath (comics)

Aftermath was a super hero comic book imprint published by Devil's Due Publishing. A brainchild of Josh Blaylock, the new imprint aimed to establish a new, accessible, continuity-free universe that could later be expanded into a series of multi-media franchises. The imprint drew inspirations from comic book superheroes, as well pulp fiction, various cult genres and modern-day pop culture.

Aftermath premiered in 2004 with four comic book titles (in order of debut): Defex, Breakdown, the Blade of Kumori, and Infantry. Each title was based on a concept conceived by Josh Blaylock, who provided the basic outline and the loose framework which connected those titles. Each creative team was given considerably leeway to develop those concepts as they saw fit. For the initial arc, the idea of the shared universe was deemphasized in favor of giving each title its own identity.

By spring 2005, it became clear that sales were not large enough to support the line. Josh Blaylock canceled all titles with the intention of relaunching Aftermath Universe as a single title that would involve characters from all prior titles and introduce new characters (in essence, an imprint-wide crossover). However, after looking at sales figures, Devil Due's staff came to the conclusion that any attempt to revive the line would not be financially viable. As of this writing, there has been no effort to revive the Aftermath Universe.

Aftermath (Hillsong United album)

Aftermath (stylized as 'aftər,maθ), formerly known as This Means Love, is the second studio album by Australian Contemporary Christian band Hillsong United. Production for the album began in March 2010 at Studios 301 in Sydney, Australia. It was announced on 10 November 2010, that coinciding with the Aftermath album release in February, Hillsong United would tour the USA and Canada in February and March 2011.

Aftermath debuted at number one on the US Billboard Christian Albums chart and at number 17 on the US Billboard 200 chart. In the United States, it ranked as the 17th best-selling Christian Album of 2011. The first single of the band, "Search My Heart", was released from the album on January 21, 2011 and appeared on the Billboard Christian Songs chart.

Background

In March 2010 it was revealed that Hillsong United was in the studio working on the first part of their latest album. United's Aftermath was originally stated to be a two part project, with a studio release in September 2010 and another in 2011, but would later be conjoined into one album. On May 25, 2010 it was confirmed that stage two of the album was done after three weeks in the studio. The album title was announced via Hillsong United frontman Joel Houston's Twitter account on 27 October 2010. During a broadcast of Hillsong Backstage at Hillsong Conference 2010, it was uncovered that the album would debut in February 2011. There was a photo shoot lasting 3 days in over 10 different locations for the album artwork and photo collection on their website. The album leaked on January 15, 2011, exactly one month before the album's planned release date, when it was unintentionally made available for purchase on the US iTunes Store.

Rama in Jainism

Rama (Rāma), the hero of Ramayana, is described in the Jain scriptures as one of sixty-three illustrious persons, known as Salakapurusa. Among these, there is nine sets of Balabhadra, Narayana and prati-Narayana. Rama was the 8th Balabhadra with Lakshmana and Ravana being his Narayana and Prati-narayana counterparts. He is described as a young prince who is deprived of his throne and turned into a pauper. While living in exile his wife Sita is kidnapped by Ravana. Rama then rescues Sita with the help of his brother Lakshmana and King Sugriva. Ravana is killed by Lakshmana (a deviation from the Hindu epic where Rama slays Ravana) and they both go into hell. Rama becomes a Jain monk and his soul attains moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death). Sita becomes a Jain nun and is born into heaven.

Sources

The story of Rama in Jainism can be broadly classified into three groups; Samghadasa's version, Vimalsuri's version and Gunabhadra's version. Some of the early works which deal with Rama are:

Rama language

Rama is one of the indigenous languages of the Chibchan family spoken by the Rama people on the island of Rama Cay and south of lake Bluefields on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. Other indigenous languages of this region include: Miskito and Sumu (Craig 1992). Rama is one of the northernmost languages of the Chibchan family (Craig 1990:293).

The Rama language is severely endangered. Their language was described as "dying quickly for lack of use" as early as the 1860s (Pim & Seemann 1869:280). By 1980, the Rama were noted as having "all but lost their original ethnic language", and had become speakers of a form of English creole instead (Craig 1990:293). Language revival efforts began in 1980–1981 under the Sandinistas; though literacy campaigns were launched for neighbouring languages such as Miskito and Sumu, the same was not practical for Rama due to the small number of speakers. (Craig 1990:293). The fieldwork for the first dictionary of Rama was done during this time by Robin Schneider, a graduate student from the University of Berlin (Rigby & Schneider 1989). In 1992, only approximately 36 fluent speakers could be found among an ethnic population of 649 individuals in 1992 (Craig 1992). The number of speakers on Rama Cay island was only 4 in 1992, due to language shift to English that engendered Rama Cay Creole (Craig 1992).

Ramatha

Ramatha (Rama, Ramata) is the name of a former Roman Catholic titular bishopric in Palestine.

It was never an episcopal see properly so called, but, in the Middle Ages, the crusaders established in their kingdom of Jerusalem the Diocese of Lydda and Rama, the titular of which was generally called Bishop of Rama, i.e. of Ramla, a town near Lydda, but more populous than the latter.

Later this was forgotten and there was a titular bishopric of Lydda, as well as the titular see of Rama or Ramatha; the mistake has been discovered and rectified by its suppression in 1884 by the Roman Curia.

See also

Source

 "Ramatha". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ramatha". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.