document_title: One Day at a Time

question_text: who played max on one day at a time

question_tokens: who played max on one day at a time

text: One Day at a Time

text: Background[edit]

text: The series was created by Whitney Blake and Allan Manings, a husband-and-wife writing duo who were both actors in the 1950s and 1960s. The series was based on Whitney Blake's own life as a single mother, raising her three children (Including future actress Meredith Baxter) after her divorce from her first husband.[1]

text: Plot[edit]

text: Ann Romano, a divorced mother, moves from their home in Logansport, Indiana to Indianapolis with her daughters, the rebellious Julie and the wisecracking Barbara. Ann frequently struggles with maintaining her role as mother while affording her daughters the freedom she never had as a young woman. David Kane, Ann's divorce lawyer and neighbor, takes a romantic interest in her, but she isn't ready to remarry. Dwayne Schneider, the building's quirky superintendent (most often referred to only by his last name), provides usually unwanted advice to the tenants.

text: After David takes a job in Los Angeles, the focus squarely rests on Ann's dilemmas as a single mother and career woman as well as the girls' growing pains, with Schneider becoming a more welcomed part of the family. Ann's strained relationship with her ex-husband Ed slowly mends, as does the girls' relationship with his new wife, Vickie. Julie and Barbara advance through high school and into the working world, and Julie eventually marries flight attendant Max Horvath. Alex, the orphaned son of Ann's deceased boyfriend, moves in, changing the dynamics in the female-dominated apartment. Later in the series run, Julie gives birth to a daughter, "Little Annie" Horvath, Barbara marries dental student Mark Royer, and Ann's mother Katherine moves nearby.

text: In the penultimate episode, Ann decides to take a job in London, leaving her daughters in Indianapolis to raise families of their own. In the series finale, Schneider also leaves town, moving to Florida to take care of his niece and nephew.

text: Production[edit]

text: For its entire run, the series was taped in Hollywood before a studio audience. Originally, it was taped at CBS Television City. Shortly after its premiere, the series began taping at Metromedia Square, where it remained until 1982. From 1982 to 1984, the series was taped at Universal Studios Hollywood.

text: Like many sitcoms developed by Norman Lear, One Day at a Time often tackled serious issues in life and relationships, particularly those related to second wave feminism. Stories depicting such events as weddings, births, and other important milestones frequently stretched over two-, three-, and four-part episodes.

text: Theme song and opening credits[edit]

text: The theme song for One Day at a Time, "This is It", was composed by Brill Building songwriter Jeff Barry and his wife Nancy Barry, and performed by recording artist Polly Cutter. The opening credits were originally seen over a filmed sequence showing Ann, Julie, and Barbara excitedly moving into their new home. Later, the opening credits sequence mostly consisted of clips of each cast member taken from previous episodes.

text: Casting[edit]

text: Actors Bonnie Franklin, Pat Harrington, Jr., and Valerie Bertinelli were the only cast members to remain with the series throughout its entire run. Lead actress Mackenzie Phillips was fired after the fifth season due to growing problems with substance abuse. She later returned in a frequent recurring role. Original cast member Richard Masur was written out early in the second season but returned as a guest star in the sixth-season finale.

text: After Masur's departure, the producers tried going in a different direction. Instead of Ann Romano being romantically involved with a man, it was decided to give Ann a comedic foil. For that role, producer Norman Lear chose actress and comedienne Mary Louise Wilson, who had just completed a successful run on Broadway as "Tessie Tura" in a revival of Gypsy starring Angela Lansbury. Wilson was signed to play Ginny Wroblicki, a cocktail waitress who moves into Schneider's apartment building, and immediately becomes Ann's best friend and confidante. According to her memoir, My First Hundred Years in Show Business, prior to being cast as Ginny, Wilson had never seen One Day at a Time and immediately sat down and watched an episode one night in her apartment. She did not find the sitcom funny at all and was not given a script until the first read-through of her first episode. Wilson also did not take to Franklin "who took her role as arbiter over moral issues very seriously" and who considered herself "our foremost authority on Broadway". She also thought that Harrington's character of Schneider was not funny at all, although she admitted Harrington, himself, was hilarious offscreen. Wilson wrote that "aside from Lear, nobody thought I was funny...To make matters worse each character, according to the show's formula, had to have a 'serious' moral dilemma at some point, and I was given some problem about an illegitimate child to work out in these increasingly sentimental scenes that made my bowels shrink." At the end of the second season of One Day at a Time, Wilson begged her agent to ask Lear to release her from her contract. Wilson later admitted, "I felt terribly wrong to be so miserable. I knew this was the kind of break actors longed for." Wilson was also unaccustomed to working on a sitcom with four cameras in front of a live audience where "you said your line when the red light on the camera went on...and there follows a pause longer than the river Styx before the light on camera four goes on" at which the character you're speaking to says the next line. After the meeting with her agent, Wilson impulsively changed her mind and agreed to stay with the series but it was too late. Her agent had already informed Norman Lear of Wilson's unhappiness. As a result, Lear released Wilson from the show after she had completed 14 episodes, and Ginny Wroblicki was never seen, referred to, or heard from again[2] except in a fifth-season episode ("Retrospective") made up mainly of clips from earlier in the series..

text: For the next two seasons, the central cast of Ann, Julie, Barbara, and Schneider was supplemented by recurring characters, including William Kirby Cullen as Julie's boyfriend Chuck Butterfield; Howard Morton and K Callan as Chuck's parents; John Putch as Barbara's awkward friend Bob Morton; Scott Colomby as Barbara's boyfriend Cliff Randall; and John Hillerman and Charles Siebert as Ann's bosses, Mr. Connors and Mr. Davenport, respectively. Dick O'Neill and Nedra Volz made three appearances together as Orville and Emily, residents of the retirement home where the main characters put on a semi-regular variety show. Joseph Campanella also made several appearances as Ann's ex-husband and the girls' father, Ed Cooper.

text: Michael Lembeck joined the series as Julie's husband, Max, in the fifth season, but he was written out as a consequence of Phillips' firing. (But later returned in Season 7 along with Philips) A steady stream of regulars was added in the ensuing seasons, including Ron Rifkin as Ann's boyfriend, Nick; Glenn Scarpelli as Nick's son, Alex; and Boyd Gaines as Barbara's boyfriend, later husband, Mark. Shelley Fabares, who'd previously guest starred as Ann's rival co-worker Francine Webster, appeared more frequently, eventually becoming a regular. Nanette Fabray, who played Ann's mother, also made more frequent appearances before becoming a regular cast member in the final season. Howard Hesseman joined the series for a short time as Mark's father, Sam, who would become Ann's second husband.

text: Notable guest stars throughout the series run include Norman Alden, Robby Benson, Carla Borelli, Charlie Brill, Dennis Burkley, Jack Dodson, Elinor Donahue, David Dukes, Greg Evigan, Conchata Ferrell, Corey Feldman, Alice Ghostley, Lee Grant, Mark Hamill, Terry Kiser, Richard Kline, Christopher Knight, Jay Leno, Robert Mandan, Robert Morse, Denise Nicholas, J. Pat O'Malley, Jo Ann Pflug, Eve Plumb, Susan Richardson, William Schallert, Suzanne Somers, Ellen Travolta, Dick Van Patten, and Keenan Wynn.

text: Main cast[edit]

text:
Actor
Character
Seasons

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Bonnie Franklin
Ann Romano
Main

Mackenzie Phillips
Julie Cooper Horvath
Main

Recurring

Richard Masur
David Kane
Main

Guest

Valerie Bertinelli
Barbara Cooper Royer
Main

Pat Harrington, Jr.
Dwayne Schneider
Main

Mary Louise Wilson
Ginny Wroblicki

Main

Michael Lembeck
Max Horvath

Main

Recurring
Main

Ron Rifkin
Nick Handris

Main

Glenn Scarpelli
Alex Handris

Main

Boyd Gaines
Mark Royer

Recurring
Main

Shelley Fabares
Francine Webster

Guest

Guest
Recurring
Main
Recurring

Nanette Fabray
Katherine Romano

Guest
Recurring
Main

Howard Hesseman
Sam Royer

Recurring
Main

text: Episodes[edit]

text:
Season
Episodes
Originally aired

First aired
Last aired

1
15
December 16, 1975
March 30, 1976

2
24
September 28, 1976
March 22, 1977

3
24
September 27, 1977
April 3, 1978

4
26
September 18, 1978
April 14, 1979

5
26
September 30, 1979
April 13, 1980

6
21
November 9, 1980
May 10, 1981

7
25
October 11, 1981
May 16, 1982

8
26
September 26, 1982
May 23, 1983

9
22
October 2, 1983
May 28, 1984

text: Reception[edit]

text: Ratings[edit]

text: One Day at a Time was best known in the 1980s as a staple of the CBS Sunday-night lineup, one of the most successful in TV history, along with Archie Bunker's Place, Alice, and The Jeffersons.

text: The series consistently ranked among the top twenty (if not the top ten) programs in the ratings. However, the network moved the show around on the prime time schedule eleven times. By the end of the 1982–83 season, viewership was beginning to slip and the series ended season eight ranking at No. 16. At this time, Bonnie Franklin and Valerie Bertinelli were anxious to move on, but agreed to do a ninth (and final) season. (Although both were offered contracts for two seasons: a Ninth and a Tenth according to Bertinelli in her autobiography,"Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time".)

text:
TV Season
Time slot (ET)
Nielsen ratings[3]

Rank
Rating

1975–76
Tuesday at 9:30 pm
12
23.1

1976–77
8
23.4 (Tied with The ABC Sunday Night Movie and Baretta)

1977–78
Tuesday at 9:30 pm (Episodes 1-15)
Monday at 9:30 pm (Episodes 16-24)
10
23.0

1978–79
Monday at 9:30 pm (Episodes 1-13)
Wednesday at 9:00 pm (Episodes 14, 16-23)
Wednesday at 9:30 pm (Episode 15)
Sunday at 8:30 pm (Episodes 24-26)
18
21.6

1979–80
Sunday at 8:30 pm (Episodes 1-17, 19-26)
Sunday at 8:00 pm (Episode 18)
10
23.0

1980–81
Sunday at 8:30 pm (Episodes 1-9, 11-16, 19-21)
Sunday at 8:00 pm (Episode 10)
Sunday at 9:00 pm (Episode 17)
Sunday at 9:30 pm (Episode 18)
11
22.0

1981–82
Sunday at 8:30 pm
10
22.0

1982–83
Sunday at 9:30 pm (Episodes 1-18)
Monday at 9:30 pm (Episodes 19-26)
16
19.1

1983–84
Sunday at 8:30 pm (Episodes 1-6, 8-13)
Sunday at 9:00 pm (Episode 7)
Wednesday at 8:00 pm (Episodes 14-19)
Monday at 9:00 pm (Episodes 20-22)
N/A
N/A

text: Awards and honors[edit]

text:
1981, 1982: Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film to Valerie Bertinelli
1982: Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series to Alan Rafkin[4]
1984: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Comedy Series to Pat Harrington[5]

text: Syndication[edit]

text: CBS aired daytime reruns of the show for three years. From September 17, 1979, to February 1, 1980, it aired on the daytime schedule at 3:30 pm Eastern time; with the cancellation of Love of Life to accommodate the expansion of The Young and the Restless to one hour, it was moved on February 4, 1980, to 4 pm Eastern due to Guiding Light moving to 3 pm. On September 28, 1981, it moved to 10 am Eastern time, and on September 20, 1982, it was replaced by The $25,000 Pyramid.

text: Soon after, the show entered off-network syndication, airing on local stations around the country, and nationally on WGN, TBS, and the E! Network.

text: As of July 23, 2017, the series airs Sunday nights on the digital broadcast network Antenna TV.[6] It also can be seen on Logo TV, as well as the satellite service FeTV.

text: Cast reunions[edit]

text: The One Day at a Time Reunion was a 60-minute CBS retrospective special which aired on Tuesday February 22, 2005, at 9:00 pm ET, reuniting Bonnie Franklin, Mackenzie Phillips, Valerie Bertinelli, and Pat Harrington to reminisce about the series and their characters. Regular cast members Richard Masur, Shelley Fabares, Nanette Fabray, Michael Lembeck, and Glenn Scarpelli shared their feelings about their time on the show in separate interviews. The special was included as a bonus on One Day at a Time: The Complete First Season DVD set.

text: On February 26, 2008, Franklin, Phillips, Bertinelli, and Harrington reunited once again to talk about life on the set, Phillips' drug problems, and the show's theme song on NBC's Today Show as part of a week-long segment titled "Together Again: TV's Greatest Casts Reunited".

text: Bertinelli, Harrington, and (on tape) Franklin appeared on the September 10, 2008, episode of Rachael Ray to celebrate Ray's 40th birthday.

text: In 2011, Franklin reunited again with Bertinelli on an episode of Hot in Cleveland which marked one of Franklin's last acting roles before her death in 2013. Mackenzie Phillips and Pat Harrington Jr. also made individual cameos on the series.

text: One Day at a Time was awarded the Innovation Award on the 2012 TV Land Award show on April 29. Accepting the award were Valerie Bertinelli, Bonnie Franklin, Pat Harrington Jr., Richard Masur, Mackenzie Phillips, and Glenn Scarpelli.

text: DVD release[edit]

text: On April 24, 2007, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the first season of One Day at a Time on DVD in Region 1.

text: On September 7, 2017, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series and will release One Day at a Time - The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 on December 5, 2017.[7]

text:
DVD Name
Ep #
Release Date

The Complete First Season
15
April 24, 2007

The Complete Series
209
December 5, 2017

text: Remake[edit]

text: Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce developed a new version of the series, with a Latino cast, for Netflix, beginning in 2017. The ensemble is led by Justina Machado, with Rita Moreno, Stephen Tobolowsky, Isabella Gomez, Marcel Ruiz, and Todd Grinnell in supporting roles. Pam Fryman directed the pilot episode.[8][9][10][11][12]


document_title: Aral Sea

question_text: where does the aral sea get its water from

root

text: Aral Sea

text: Formation[edit]

text: Geographer Dr. Nick Middleton believes that the Amu Darya did not flow into the shallow depression that now forms the Aral Sea until the beginning of the Holocene,[11] and it is known that the Amu Darya flowed into the Caspian Sea via the Uzboy channel until the Holocene.[11] The Syr Darya formed a large lake in the Kyzyl Kum during the Pliocene known as the Mynbulak depression.[12]

tag: p

text: History[edit]

text: Most of the area around the Aral Sea was inhabited by desert nomads who left few written records. However, the Oxus delta to the south has a long history under the name of Khwarezm. It used to be the westernmost border of Tang dynasty China.

text: Naval history[edit]

text: Russian naval presence on the Aral Sea started in 1847, with the founding of Raimsk, which was soon renamed Fort Aralsk, near the mouth of the Syr Darya. Soon, the Imperial Russian Navy started deploying its vessels on the sea. Owing to the Aral Sea basin not being connected to other bodies of water, the vessels had to be disassembled in Orenburg on the Ural River, shipped overland to Aralsk (presumably by a camel caravan), and then reassembled. The first two ships, assembled in 1847, were the two-masted schooners named Nikolai and Mikhail. The former was a warship; the latter was a merchant vessel meant to serve the establishment of the fisheries on the great lake. In 1848, these two vessels surveyed the northern part of the sea. In the same year, a larger warship, the Constantine, was assembled. Commanded by Lt. Alexey Butakov (Алексей Бутаков), the Constantine completed the survey of the entire Aral Sea over the next two years.[13] The exiled Ukrainian poet and painter Taras Shevchenko participated in the expedition, and painted a number of sketches of the Aral Sea coast.[14]

text: For the navigation season of 1851, two newly built steamers arrived from Sweden, again by caravan from Orenburg. As the geological surveys had found no coal deposits in the area, the Military Governor-General of Orenburg Vasily Perovsky ordered "as large as possible supply" of saxaul (Haloxylon ammodendron, a desert shrub, akin to the creosote bush) to be collected in Aralsk for use by the new steamers. Unfortunately, saxaul wood did not turn out a very suitable fuel, and in the later years, the Aral Flotilla was provisioned, at substantial cost, by coal from the Donbass.[13] (This was part of the Russian conquest of Turkestan.)

text:
First Russian boats on the Aral Sea, sketch by Taras Shevchenko, 1848

Ships of Imperial Russian Navy's Aral Flotilla in the 1850s

tag: ul

text: Irrigation canals[edit]

text: In the early 1960s,[15] the Soviet government decided the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea, the Amu Darya in the south and the Syr Darya in the east, would be diverted to irrigate the desert, in an attempt to grow rice, melons, cereals, and cotton.

text: This was part of the Soviet plan for cotton, or "white gold", to become a major export. This temporarily succeeded, and in 1988, Uzbekistan was the world's largest exporter of cotton.[16]

text: The construction of irrigation canals began on a large scale in the 1940s.[clarification needed] Many of the canals were poorly built, allowing water to leak or evaporate. From the Qaraqum Canal, the largest in Central Asia, perhaps 30 to 75% of the water went to waste. Today,[when?] only 12% of Uzbekistan's irrigation canal length is waterproofed. Of the 47,750 km of interfarm irrigation channels in the basin, only 28% have anti-infiltration linings. Only 77% of farm intakes have flow gauges, and of the 268,500 km of onfarm channels, only 21% have anti-infiltration linings, which retain on average 15% more water than unlined channels.[17]

text: By 1960, between 20 and 60 km3 (4.8 and 14.4 cu mi) of water each year was going to the land instead of the sea. Most of the sea's water supply had been diverted, and in the 1960s, the Aral Sea began to shrink. From 1961 to 1970, the Aral's level fell at an average of 20 cm (7.9 in) a year; in the 1970s, the average rate nearly tripled to 50–60 cm (20–24 in) per year, and by the 1980s, it continued to drop, now with a mean of 80–90 cm (31–35 in) each year. The rate of water use for irrigation continued to increase; the amount of water taken from the rivers doubled between 1960 and 2000, and cotton production nearly doubled in the same period.

text: The disappearance of the lake was no surprise to the Soviets; they expected it to happen long before. As early as 1964, Aleksandr Asarin at the Hydroproject Institute pointed out that the lake was doomed, explaining, "It was part of the five-year plans, approved by the council of ministers and the Politburo. Nobody on a lower level would dare to say a word contradicting those plans, even if it was the fate of the Aral Sea."[18]

text: The reaction to the predictions varied. Some Soviet experts apparently considered the Aral to be "nature's error", and a Soviet engineer said in 1968, "it is obvious to everyone that the evaporation of the Aral Sea is inevitable."[19] On the other hand, starting in the 1960s, a large-scale project was proposed to redirect part of the flow of the rivers of the Ob basin to Central Asia over a gigantic canal system. Refilling of the Aral Sea was considered as one of the project's main goals. However, due to its staggering costs and the negative public opinion in Russia proper, the federal authorities abandoned the project by 1986.[20]

text: From 1960 to 1998, the sea's surface area shrank by about 60%, and its volume by 80%. In 1960, the Aral Sea had been the world's fourth-largest lake, with an area around 68,000 km2 (26,000 sq mi) and a volume of 1,100 km3 (260 cu mi); by 1998, it had dropped to 28,687 km2 (11,076 sq mi) and eighth largest. The salinity of the Aral Sea also increased: by 2003 it was around 70 g/l in the southern lakes.[4] (By comparison, the salinity of ordinary seawater is typically around 35 g/l; the Dead Sea's salinity varies between 300 and 350 g/l.)

text: In 1987, the continuing shrinkage split the lake into two separate bodies of water, the North Aral Sea (the Lesser Sea, or Small Aral Sea) and the South Aral Sea (the Greater Sea, or Large Aral Sea). In June 1991, Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union. Craig Murray, a UK ambassador to Uzbekistan in 2002, described the independence as a way for Islam Karimov to consolidate his power rather than a move away from a Soviet-style economy and its philosophy of exploitation of the land. Murray attributes the shrinkage of the Aral Sea in the 1990s to Karimov's cotton policy. The government maintained an enormous irrigation system which Murray described as massively wasteful, with most of the water being lost through evaporation before reaching the cotton.[clarification needed] Crop rotation was not used, and the depleted soil and monoculture required massive quantities of pesticides and fertilizer. The runoff from the fields washed these chemicals into the shrinking sea, creating severe pollution and health problems. As the water supply of the Aral Sea decreased, the demand for cotton increased and the Soviet[clarification needed] reacted by pouring more pesticides and fertilizer onto the land. Murray compared the system to the slavery system in the pre-Civil War United States; forced labor was used, and profits were siphoned off by the powerful and well-connected.[21]

text: By summer 2003, the South Aral Sea was vanishing faster than predicted. In the deepest parts of the sea, the bottom waters were saltier than the top, and not mixing. Thus, only the top of the sea was heated in the summer, and it evaporated faster than would otherwise be expected. In 2003, the South Aral further divided into eastern and western basins.

text: In 2004, the Aral Sea's surface area was only 17,160 km2 (6,630 sq mi), 25% of its original size, and a nearly five-fold increase in salinity had killed most of its natural flora and fauna. By 2007, the sea's area had further shrunk to 10% of its original size. The decline of the North Aral has now been partially reversed following construction of a dam (see below), but the remnants of the South Aral continue to disappear and its drastic shrinkage has created the Aralkum, a desert on the former lake bed.

text: The inflow of groundwater into the South Aral Sea will probably not in itself be able to stop the desiccation, especially without a change in irrigation practices.[22] This inflow of about 4 km3 (0.96 cu mi) per year is larger than previously estimated. The groundwater originates in the Pamirs and Tian Shan Mountains and finds its way through geological layers to a fracture zone[23] at the bottom of the Aral.

text:
Aral Sea from space, North at bottom, August 1985

Aral Sea from space, North at bottom, August 1997

Aral Sea from space, North at top, August 2009

text: Impact on environment, economy, and public health[edit]

text: The ecosystems of the Aral Sea and the river deltas feeding into it have been nearly destroyed, not least because of the much higher salinity. The receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals – the results of weapons testing, industrial projects, and pesticides and fertilizer runoff – which are picked up and carried away by the wind as toxic dust and spread to the surrounding area. As a result, the land around the Aral Sea is heavily polluted, and the people living in the area are suffering from a lack of fresh water and health problems, including high rates of certain forms of cancer and lung diseases. Respiratory illnesses, including tuberculosis (most of which is drug resistant) and cancer, digestive disorders, anaemia, and infectious diseases are common ailments in the region. Liver, kidney, and eye problems can also be attributed to the toxic dust storms. These dust storms also contributed to the lack of fresh water since the salt melted the glaciers faster and not enough moisture was in the air to help replace them. The dust storms increased the melting levels for the glaciers by 12 times the normal rate.[23] Health concerns associated with the region are a cause for an unusually high fatality rate amongst vulnerable parts of the population. The child mortality rate is 75 in every 1,000 newborns and maternity death is 12 in every 1,000 women.[24] An overuse of pesticides on crops was one of the contributing factors to this. To get their crops to grow, their pesticide use would have to exceed health standards and could be twenty times more than the national average.[23] Crops in the region are destroyed by salt being deposited onto the land and are flushed with water at least 4 times a day to try and remove the salinity from the soils.[23] Vast salt plains exposed by the shrinking Aral have produced dust storms, making regional winters colder and summers hotter.[25][26][27][28]

text: The Aral Sea fishing industry, which in its heyday employed some 40,000 and reportedly produced one-sixth of the Soviet Union's entire fish catch, has been devastated, and former fishing towns along the original shores have become ship graveyards. Aral, the main Kazakh fishing port in its heyday, is now several miles from the sea and has seen its population decline dramatically since the beginning of the crisis[29]. The town of Moynaq in Uzbekistan had a thriving harbor and fishing industry that employed about 30,000 people;[30] now it lies miles from the shore. Fishing boats lie scattered on the dry land that was once covered by water; many have been there for 20 years. The only significant fishing company left in the area has its fish shipped from the Baltic Sea, thousands of kilometers away.[31]

text: Also destroyed is the muskrat-trapping industry in the deltas of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, which used to yield as many as 500,000 pelts a year.[18]

text:
Aral Sea dust storm, March 2010

Abandoned ship near Aral, Kazakhstan

A former harbor in the city of Aral

Local Kazakh fisherman harvesting the day's catch

text: Solution[edit]

text: Possible environmental solutions[edit]

text: Many different solutions to the problems have been suggested over the years, varying in feasibility and cost, including:

text:
Improving the quality of irrigation canals
Installing desalination plants
Charging farmers to use the water from the rivers
Using alternative cotton species that require less water[32]
Promoting non-agricultural economic development in upstream countries[33]
Using fewer chemicals on the cotton
Cultivating crops other than cotton
Installing dams to fill the Aral Sea
Redirecting water from the Volga, Ob and Irtysh Rivers to restore the Aral Sea to its former size in 20–30 years at a cost of US$30–50 billion[34]
Pumping sea water into the Aral Sea from the Caspian Sea via a pipeline, and diluting it with fresh water from local catchment areas[35]

text: In January 1994, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan signed a deal to pledge 1% of their budgets to help the sea recover.

text: In March 2000, UNESCO presented their "Water-related vision for the Aral Sea basin for the year 2025"[36] at the second World Water Forum in The Hague. This document was criticized for setting unrealistic goals and for giving insufficient attention to the interests of the area immediately around the former lakesite, implicitly giving up on the Aral Sea and the people living on the Uzbek side of the lake.[37]

text: By 2006, the World Bank's restoration projects, especially in the North Aral, were giving rise to some unexpected, tentative relief in what had been an extremely pessimistic picture.[38]

text: Aral Sea Basin program[edit]

text: The future of the Aral Sea, and the responsibility for its survival are now in the hands of the five countries: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. In 1994, they adopted the Aral Sea Basin Program.[39] The Program’s four objectives are:

text:
To stabilize the environment of the Aral Sea Basin
To rehabilitate the disaster area around the sea
To improve the management of the international waters of the Aral Sea Basin
To build the capacity of institutions at the regional and national level to advance the program’s aims

text: ASBP: Phase One[edit]

text: The first phase of the plan effectively began with the first involvement from the World Bank in 1992, and was in operation until 1997. It was ineffectual for a number of reasons, but mainly because it was focused on improving directly the land around the Aral Sea, whilst not intervening in the water usage upstream. There was considerable concern amongst the Central Asian governments, which realised the importance of the Aral Sea in the ecosystem and the economy of Central Asia, and they were prepared to cooperate, but they found it difficult to implement the procedures of the plan.[citation needed]

text: This is due in part to a lack of co-operation among the affected people. The water flowing into the Aral Sea has long been considered an important commodity, and trade agreements have been made to supply the downstream communities with water in the spring and summer months for irrigation. In return, they supply the upstream countries with fuel during the winter, instead of storing water during the warm months for hydroelectric purposes in winter. However, very few legal obligations are binding these contracts, particularly on an international stage.[citation needed]

text: ASBP: Phase Two[edit]

text: Phase Two of the Aral Sea Basin program followed in 1998 and ran for five years. The main shortcomings of phase two were due to its lack of integration with the local communities involved. The scheme was drawn up by the World Bank, government representatives, and various technical experts, without consulting those who would be affected. An example of this was the public awareness initiatives, which were seen as propagandist attempts by people with little care or understanding of their situation. These failures have led to the introduction of a new plan, funded by a number of institutions, including the five countries involved and the World Bank.

text: ASBP: Phase Three[edit]

text: In 1997, a new plan was conceived which would continue with the previous restoration efforts of the Aral Sea. The main aims of this phase are to improve the irrigation systems currently in place, whilst targeting water management at a local level. The largest project in this phase is the North Aral Sea Project, a direct effort to recover the northern region of the Aral Sea. The North Aral Sea Project’s main initiative is the construction of a dam across the Berg Strait, a deep channel which connects the North Aral Sea to the South Aral Sea. The Kok-Aral Dam is eight miles long and has capacity for over 29 cubic kilometres of water to be stored in the North Aral Sea, whilst allowing excess to overflow into the South Aral Sea.

text: North Aral Sea restoration work[edit]

text: Work is being done to restore in part the North Aral Sea. Irrigation works on the Syr Darya have been repaired and improved to increase its water flow, and in October 2003, the Kazakh government announced a plan to build Dike Kokaral, a concrete dam separating the two halves of the Aral Sea. Work on this dam was completed in August 2005; since then, the water level of the North Aral has risen, and its salinity has decreased. As of 2006[update], some recovery of sea level has been recorded, sooner than expected.[40] "The dam has caused the small Aral's sea level to rise swiftly to 38 m (125 ft), from a low of less than 30 m (98 ft), with 42 m (138 ft) considered the level of viability."[41]

text: Economically significant stocks of fish have returned, and observers who had written off the North Aral Sea as an environmental disaster were surprised by unexpected reports that, in 2006, its returning waters were already partly reviving the fishing industry and producing catches for export as far as Ukraine. The restoration reportedly gave rise to long-absent rain clouds and possible microclimate changes, bringing tentative hope to an agricultural sector swallowed by a regional dustbowl, and some expansion of the shrunken sea.[42]

text: "The sea, which had receded almost 100 km (62 mi) south of the port-city of Aralsk, is now a mere 25 km (16 mi) away." The Kazakh Foreign Ministry stated that "The North Aral Sea's surface increased from 2,550 square kilometers (980 sq mi) in 2003 to 3,300 square kilometers (1,300 sq mi) in 2008. The sea's depth increased from 30 meters (98 ft) in 2003 to 42 meters (138 ft) in 2008."[2] Now, a second dam is to be built based on a World Bank loan to Kazakhstan, with the start of construction initially slated for 2009 and postponed to 2011, to further expand the shrunken Northern Aral,[43][not in citation given] eventually reducing the distance to Aralsk to only 6 km (3.7 mi). Then, it was planned to build a canal spanning the last 6 km, to reconnect the withered former port of Aralsk to the sea.[44]

text: Kazakhstan has made major efforts to revive the Aral Sea. The 13 km (8.1 mi) Kok-Aral dam, completed in 2005 by Kazakhstan and financed by World Bank, allows water of the Syr Darya to accumulate and helps restore delta and riverine wetland ecosystems in the Northern Sea.[45] Since then, the northern part of the lake, which lies in Kazakhstan, is slowly reviving.[45]

text: Future of South Aral Sea[edit]

text: The South Aral Sea, half of which lies in Uzbekistan, was largely abandoned to its fate. Only excess water from the North Aral Sea is now periodically allowed to flow into the largely dried-up South Aral Sea through a sluice in the dike.[46] Discussions had been held on recreating a channel between the somewhat improved North and the desiccated South, along with uncertain wetland restoration plans throughout the region, but political will is lacking.[40] Uzbekistan shows no interest in abandoning the Amu Darya river as an abundant source of cotton irrigation, and instead is moving toward oil exploration in the drying South Aral seabed.[44]

text: Attempts to mitigate the effects of desertification include planting vegetation in the newly exposed seabed; however, intermittent flooding of the eastern basin is likely to prove problematic for any development. Redirecting what little flow there is from the Amu Darya to the western basin may salvage fisheries there while relieving the flooding of the eastern basin.[47]

text: Institutional bodies[edit]

text: The Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia (ICWC) was formed on February 18, 1992 to formally unite the five Central Asian countries in the hopes of solving environmental as well as socioeconomic problems in the Aral Sea region. These five states are the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan. The River Basin Organizations (the BVOs) of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers were institutions called upon by the ICWC to help manage water resources. According to the ICWC,[48] the main objectives of the body are:

text:
River basin management
Water allocation without conflict
Organization of water conservation on transboundary water courses
Interaction with hydrometeorological services of the countries on flow forecast and account
Introduction of automation into head structures
Regular work on ICWC and its bodies' activity advancement
Interstate agreements preparation
International relations
Scientific research
Training

text: The International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) was developed on March 23, 1993 by the ICWC to raise funds for the projects under Aral Sea Basin programs. The IFAS was meant to finance programs to save the sea and improve on environmental issues associated with the basin’s drying. This program has had some success with joint summits of the countries involved and finding funding from the World Bank to implement projects; however, it faces many challenges, such as enforcement and slowing progress.[49]

text: Vozrozhdeniya[edit]

text: Vozrozhdeniya, also known as "Resurrection Island", is a former island of the Aral Sea or South Aral Sea. Due to the ongoing shrinkage of the Aral, it became first a peninsula in mid-2001 and finally part of the mainland.[50] Other islands like Kokaral and Barsa-Kelmes shared a similar fate. Since the disappearance of the Southeast Aral in 2008, Vozrozhdeniya effectively no longer exists as a distinct geographical feature. The area is now shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

text: In 1948, a top-secret Soviet bioweapons laboratory was established on the island, in the center of the Aral Sea which is now disputed territory between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The exact history, functions and current status of this facility are still unclear, but bio-agents tested there included Bacillus anthracis, Coxiella burnetii, Francisella tularensis, Brucella suis, Rickettsia prowazekii, Variola major (smallpox), Yersinia pestis, botulinum toxin, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus.[51] In 1971, weaponized smallpox from the island reached a nearby ship, which then allowed the virus to spread to the city of Aral. Ten people there were infected, of whom 3 died, and a massive vaccination effort involving 50,000 inhabitants ensued (see Aral smallpox incident). The bioweapons base was abandoned in 1992 following the disintegration of the Soviet Union the previous year. Scientific expeditions proved this had been a site for production, testing and later dumping of pathogenic weapons. In 2002, through a project organized by the United States and with Uzbekistan's assistance, 10 anthrax burial sites were decontaminated. According to the Kazakh Scientific Center for Quarantine and Zoonotic Infections, all burial sites of anthrax were decontaminated.[52]

text: Oil and gas exploration[edit]

text: Ergash Shaismatov, the deputy prime minister of Uzbekistan, announced on August 30, 2006, that the Uzbek government and an international consortium consisting of state-run Uzbekneftegaz, LUKoil Overseas, Petronas, Korea National Oil Corporation, and China National Petroleum Corporation signed a production-sharing agreement to explore and develop oil and gas fields in the Aral Sea, saying, "The Aral Sea is largely unknown, but it holds a lot of promise in terms of finding oil and gas. There is risk, of course, but we believe in the success of this unique project." The consortium was created in September 2005.[53]

text: As of June 1, 2010, 500,000 cubic meters of gas had been extracted from the region at a depth of 3 km.[54]

text: Films[edit]

text: The plight of the Aral coast was portrayed in the 1989 film Psy ("Dogs") by Soviet director Dmitri Svetozarov.[55] The film was shot on location in an actual ghost town located near the Aral Sea, showing scenes of abandoned buildings and scattered vessels.

text: In 2000, the MirrorMundo foundation produced a documentary film called Delta Blues about the problems arising from the drying up of the sea.[56]

text: In June 2007, BBC World broadcast a documentary called Back From the Brink? made by Borna Alikhani and Guy Creasey that showed some of the changes in the region since the introduction of the Aklak Dam.

text: Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov's 2012 movie Waiting for the Sea deals with the impacts on people's life in a fishing town at the shore of the Aral Sea.

text: In October 2013, Al Jazeera produced a documentary film called People of The Lake, directed by Ensar Altay, describing the current situation.[57]

text: In 2014, director Po Powell shot much of the footage for the Pink Floyd single "Louder than Words" video near the remains of the Aral Sea on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.[58]


document_title: Harrison Bergeron

question_text: what is the purpose of the handicapper general agents vigilance

text: Harrison Bergeron

text: Plot[edit]

text: In the year 2081, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic.

text: One April, 14-year-old Harrison Bergeron, an intelligent and athletic teenager, is taken away from his parents, George and Hazel Bergeron, by the government. They are barely aware of the tragedy, as Hazel has "average" intelligence (a euphemism for stupidity), and George has a handicap radio installed by the government to regulate his above-average intelligence.

text: Hazel and George watch ballet on television. They comment on the dancers, who are weighed down to counteract their gracefulness and masked to hide their attractiveness. George's thoughts are continually interrupted by the different noises emitted by his handicap radio, which piques Hazel's curiosity and imagination regarding handicaps. Noticing his exhaustion, Hazel urges George to lie down and rest his "handicap bag", 47 pounds (21 kg) of weights locked around George's neck. She suggests taking a few of the weights out of the bag, but George resists, aware of the illegality of such an action.

text: On television, a news reporter struggles to read the bulletin and hands it to the ballerina wearing the most grotesque mask and heaviest weights. She begins reading in her unacceptably natural, beautiful voice, then apologizes before switching to a more unpleasant voice. Harrison's escape from prison is announced, and a full-body photograph of Harrison is shown, indicating that he is seven feet (2.1 m) tall and burdened by three hundred pounds (140 kg) of handicaps.

text: George recognizes his son for a moment, before having the thought eliminated by his radio. Harrison himself then storms the television studio in an attempt to overthrow the government. He calls himself the Emperor and rips off all of his handicaps, along with the handicaps of a ballerina, whom he proclaims his "Empress". He orders the musicians to play, promising them royalty if they do their best. Unhappy with their initial attempt, Harrison takes control for a short while, and the music improves. After listening and being moved by the music, Harrison and his Empress dance while flying to the ceiling, then pause in mid-air to kiss.

text: Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, enters the studio and kills Harrison and the Empress with a ten-gauge double-barreled shotgun. She forces the musicians to put on their handicaps, and the television goes dark. George, unaware of the televised incident, returns from the kitchen and asks Hazel why she was crying, to which she replies that something sad happened on television that she cannot remember. He comforts her and they return to their average lives.

text: Characters[edit]

text:
Harrison Bergeron is the fourteen-year-old son, who is 7 feet (2.1 m) tall, a genius, and an extraordinarily handsome, athletic, strong, and brave person. He wants to live as an unimpeded human being and does not want to obey the laws of the government, which has taken on the responsibility of creating equality for the whole American society. He has been jailed by the Handicapper General's office for planning to overthrow the government. To eliminate any "unfair advantages", the Handicapper General forces him to wear the most extreme handicaps reflecting his extraordinary attributes: huge earphones and spectacles intended to make him half blind and give him tremendous headaches, disfiguring makeup in the form of blackened teeth and a red rubber nose to mask his extraordinary looks, and so many weights to compensate his prodigious strength that they make him look more like a junk yard than a man. When he escapes from jail, the government describes him as "a genius and an athlete" and tells people that he should be regarded as extremely dangerous. When Harrison enters the television studio, he is convinced that he can overthrow the government and declares "I am the Emperor! ... Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!". In addition to this talent and egotism, he also possesses artistic and romantic characteristics. He sings and dances with his Empress, defying gravity while doing so. Despite Harrison's superior physical prowess and intellectual faculties, he is stopped when the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, shoots him and his Empress down with a shotgun.
George Bergeron is Harrison's father and Hazel's husband. A very smart and sensitive character, he is handicapped artificially by the government. Like his son, he has to wear mental handicap earphones in his ears to keep him from thinking intensely and analytically. Because he is stronger than average, he has to wear weights around his neck. When his wife Hazel suggests that he could take these weights off for a while to relax, he rejects the idea. He wants to obey the laws and is unwilling to risk punishment for a little comfort. He believes that the situation in 2081 is better than it had been back in the days when fierce competition reigned in society. He has much respect for the rules and represents the common passive citizen who does not critique a government that manipulates individuals. Obeying the rules, he is even incapable of recognizing the tragic situation when his son has been shot to death - a harsh critique of passiveness towards authority.
Hazel Bergeron is Harrison's mother and George's wife. Hazel has what is described as perfectly average intelligence, which means that she cannot think deeply about anything. However, she is a well-intentioned character, a loving wife and mother, who tries to comfort her husband by suggesting he removes his handicap weights. She cries when she sees what happens to her son but due to her impaired faculties quickly forgets the subject of her sorrow. In the end all her kindness counts for nothing as her stupidity outruns her good intentions. Hazel has much in common with the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers.
Ballerina, a beautiful dancer who was burdened with an especially ugly mask and excessive weights ("as big as those worn by two hundred pound men"), as she is the fairest, most beautiful and most graceful of the dancers. She reads an announcement card after the stammering announcer is unable to. It is likely, but not stated, that she is the same dancer who Harrison Bergeron takes as his Empress, who is later shot by Diana Moon Glampers for not wearing her handicaps, and dancing with Harrison Bergeron.
Diana Moon Glampers, despite appearing in person for only four sentences, represents the oppressive government and enforces the handicapping policies of the government. It is mentioned early on that Hazel resembles Diana, and Hazel mentions improvements she would make to Diana's handicap regulations. She appears ruthless when she kills Harrison and his Empress without warning, and threatens the musicians with a similar fate before the broadcast is interrupted, leaving their future ambiguous. Diana's first and middle names are possibly a reference to Diana, the Roman huntress, virgin goddess of the moon.[1]

text: Style[edit]

text: Here, Vonnegut is influenced by his early work as a journalist. His sentences are short and easily understood so as to be largely accessible.[2] A dystopian setting enhances his social and political critique by imagining a future world founded on absolute equality through handicaps assigned to various above-average people to counter their natural advantages. A similar subject can be found in L. P. Hartley's dystopian novel Facial Justice from the previous year of 1960.

text: Yet Vonnegut also punctuates his dystopia with humor. Even the most horrifying scenes are underlined by jokes or absurdity. When the news announcer is supposed to read a news bulletin he has to hand it to a nearby ballerina because of his speech impediment, and the ballerina then alters her voice to a "grackle squawk" because it would be "unfair" to use her natural voice, described as a "warm, luminous, timeless melody". This absurdity highlights the madness of the world of "Harrison Bergeron".

text: Parallels with The Sirens of Titan[edit]

text: A similar dystopian society to that of "Harrison Bergeron" appears in Vonnegut's 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan. When the Space Wanderer returns to Earth he finds a society in which handicaps are used to make all people equal, eradicating the supposedly ruinous effects of blind luck on human society. The narrator claims that now "the weakest and the meekest were bound to admit, at last, that the race of life was fair".

text: The strong are burdened with "handicaps" (consisting of "bags of lead shot" hung from various parts of the body) and the beautiful hide their advantageous appearance through "frumpish clothes, bad posture, chewing gum and a ghoulish use of cosmetics". Unlike in "Harrison Bergeron", the citizens in The Sirens of Titan choose to wear these handicaps voluntarily as an act of faith towards the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, although it is suggested that not to do so would invite social condemnation. There are no handicaps for above-average intelligence mentioned in The Sirens of Titan. The society of Harrison Bergeron addresses differences in intellectual and cognitive ability and their entailing advantages.

text: Adaptations[edit]

text: The story has been adapted for the screen at least four times.

text:
PBS adapted several stories, including "Harrison Bergeron", in Between Time and Timbuktu (1972), with Avind Haerum in the title role.
In 1995 Showtime produced a full-length made-for-television adaptation entitled Harrison Bergeron, starring Sean Astin as the title character and Christopher Plummer as John Klaxon. The adaptation diverged from the plot considerably, featuring Harrison being recruited by the National Administration Center, a secret cabal of geniuses within the government who ensure that the handicapped America functions. Working for the television division, Harrison becomes dissatisfied with the status quo and attempts to start another American revolution by taking over the nation's television broadcasting. He broadcasts old unhandicapped movies and music, while encouraging people to remove the brain-handicapping "bands" on their heads.
In 2006, a short film also entitled Harrison Bergeron[3] was released.
In 2009, another short film called 2081 was based on the original story and starred Armie Hammer as the title character. Joe Crowe, managing editor of the online magazine Revolution Science Fiction, described the movie as "stirring and dramatic" and said it "gets right to the point, and nails the adaptation in about 25 minutes."[4]

text: In the real world[edit]

text: In 2005 the story was quoted by attorneys in a brief before the Kansas Supreme Court. Vonnegut was quoted as saying that while he did not mind the story being used in the suit, he disagreed with the lawyers' interpretation of it.[5] U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia quoted the story in PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin.