A Kibbutz is a co-operative village, or communal farm, in Israel, where all property is collectively owned and work is organised on a collective basis. Members contribute by working according to their capacity and in return receive food, clothing, housing, medical services, and other domestic services according to their needs. Dining rooms, kitchens, and stores are central, and schools and children's dormitories are communal. Each village is governed by an elected assembly. Although most kibbutzim are entirely agricultural, some have manufacturing industries. The first kibbutz was founded on the bank of the Jordan River in 1909. This type of community was necessary to the early Jewish immigrants to Palestine. By living and working collectively, they were able to build homes and to begin to irrigate and farm the barren desert land. Each person could contribute individual abilities to the growth of the community. Since many kibbutzim were established along Israel's frontiers after independence in 1948, they became important in the defence of the new nation. Strategically located kibbutzim have been subject to attack from Palestinian forces. Kibbutz members, although a small percentage of the Israelipopulation, wield much political power. Research Kibbutz
In town planning, the theory behind the concept of the neighbourhood is that, so as to foster the life of a community, it is necessary to break down the totality of a town's population into groups which are small enough to acquire a sense of identification with a locality. What is important is that a town should be broken down for many purposes into a series of, as it were, inward-looking villages within the area of the town. Only for special purposes, - such as work or entertainment, should the inhabitants of a neighbourhood unit need to go outside their locality. It should have its own group of shops catering for the essential requirements of life, its social centre (the Neighbourhood Centre), its own secondary school and a number of tributary primary schools, its own clinic, banks and post office, and recreational space of its own.
The Neighbourhood Unit is the area of a community of people, small enough to acquire a sense of local identification, but large enough to support a secondary school. This requires at least 5000 people. The pattern of the neighbourhood is determined by convenience of access from home to school and community centre, and by the policy of making major traffic routes go round it and not through it. Many of the British post-war New Towns around London, such as Crawley New Town and Stevenage, were planned as a series of neighbourhood units. The major road system and belts of open space divided the neighbourhoods from one another. Certain areas were set aside for industry and open space. All the neighbourhoods converged upon the town centre, which contained more elaborate facilities than the neighbourhood centres. The only objections to the neighbourhood principle, as it was applied in the New Towns of the 1950's, were that they took up so much space that they were costly to live in, and that people were so wedded to separate family living that any sense of community was difficult to build up. It was possible to speak of 'new town blues', the sense of isolation which arises when the bright lights of the town centre are so distant that the effort involved in travelling centrewards is too great, and people therefore prefer to sit at home in front of their television sets.
A later stage in the evolution of the neighbourhood principle has been the attempt to provide an environment for social groups rather than for single families. This was a reaction against the individualism which had tended to run riot. The appropriate type of building for the social group was though to be the tall slab-block of family flats. This was economical of space and building costs, since the slab-block is the shape that gives the greatest floor space in relation to space for circulation or movement. There was thought to be every likelihood of building up the spirit of group-living when the flats were let to families who hitherto had lived in the congested streets of obsolete houses which this new housing was designed to replace. There was, it was felt, a sense of security engendered by being surrounded by already familiar faces, and a degree of kinship from having shared the same experiences before coming to live in the slab-block, however encasing people in concrete boxes is unnatural and causes all sorts of mental disturbances which has led to these tower blocks becoming very unpopular, indeed they are now considered one of the great architectural blunders of all time, fostering crime, deprivation and isolation rather than kinship.
The Order of the Elephant is an ancient Danish order of chivalry, said to have been instituted about the end of the 12th century by Canute VI to perpetuate the memory of a DanishCrusader who had killed an elephant in the Holy Land. It was renewed by Christian I in 1462, in 1693 by Christian V, and again in 1808. It is the highest of the Danish orders. The number of members, not counting those of the royal family, is restricted to thirty. The badge of the order is an enamelled white elephant, bearing on a blue housing, bordered with gold and crossed with white, a sculptured tower. The device is Magni animi pretium. Research Order of the Elephant
Fan-palm is a name sometimes given to the taliput palm or Corypha umbraculifera, a native of Sri Lanka and Malabar. The name is also applied to the Mauritia palm (Mauritia flexuosa), a tree which grows in great abundance on the banks of the Orinoco river in South America, and which yields the natives of these regions food, wine (made from its sap), and cordage, besides serving them for housing during the inundations to which the country is subject. Research Fan-Palm
A rabbitry is a place where rabbits are kept. The term is especially applied to a collection of hutches used for housingtame rabbits. Research Rabbitry
James Burn Russell was a Scottish doctor. He was born in 1837 at Glasgow and died in 1904. He assisted LordKelvin in his preparations for the Atlantic Cable expedition. He was next medical officer of health in Glasgow for twenty-six years, and brought prominently forward the question of the housing of the poor. among his works are 'Lectures on the Theory and Prevention of Infectious Diseases', published in 1879, and 'On the Prevention of Tuberculosis' published in 1896. Research James Russell
Samuel Augustus Barnett was a British Socialist, social reformer and churchman. He was born in 1844 at Bristol and died in 1913. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, he was for five years curate of St Mary's, Bryanston Square assisting Octavia Hill in her philanthropic work. From 1872 until 1894 he was vicar of St Jude's, Whitechapel and in 1893 was appointed canon of Bristol, in 1906 canon of Westminster and in 1913 sub-dean of Westminster. Samuel Barnett was concerned with the poor-law, housing and educational reform, he was a virtual founder of Toynbee Hall, the first university settlement of which he was warden from 1884 until 1906, and president until his death. He originated the Children's Country Holiday Fund formulated in 1902. He co-wrote the 1888 book 'Practicable Socialism' and other titles on social reform. Research Samuel Barnett
The basilar part of the occipital bone is that part which forms the floor of the cranial cavity, housing the brain. The basilar part meets the vomer and sphenoid bone in the anterior, and the temporal bones at the sides. The most apparent characteristic of the basilar part of the occipital bone is the large foramen magnum, a round opening in the bone which allows the spinal cord to pass through the skull. Research Basilar Part
A barbette was formerly an earthen platform inside a parapet, from which heavy guns could fire over the top. In modern warfare, a barbette is a remotely controlled housing for defensive guns. Research Barbette
The Halcon M 1946 SMG was an Argentinesub-machine-gun first produced in 1946 and used by the Argentinepolice in .45 ACPcalibre and by the Argentine Army in 9 mm Parabellum calibre, though neither service used the weapon in a first line role. The Halcon M 1946 SMG was blowback operated and took a 17 or 30-round magazine. It had a 292 mm long barrel and was fitted with a blade foresight and U notch flip rearsight. The Halcon M 1946 SMG was selectable in single-shot and automatic modes, and had a cyclic rate of 700 rounds per minute and an effective range of 200 meters. The Halcon M 1946 SMG differed mainly from the earlier Halcon M 1943 SMG in having a folding metal buttstock, separate rear pistol grip and the magazine housing not shaped to make a forward grip. Research Halcon M 1946 SMG
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Kibbutz
