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| Name | Henry Ross Perot |
|---|---|
| Width | 220px |
| Caption | Perot at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2008 |
| Birth date | June 27, 1930 |
| Birth place | Texarkana, Texas. |
| Party | IndependentReform |
| Spouse | Margot Birmingham |
| Children | H. Ross, Jr., Nancy, Suzanne, Carolyn, and Katherine |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Education | Texarkana Junior CollegeUnited States Naval Academy |
| Networth | US$3.5 billion |
| Website | perotcharts.com |
With an estimated net worth of about US$3.5 billion in 2009, he is ranked by Forbes as the 85th-richest person in America.
Perot joined the Boy Scouts of America and made Eagle Scout in 1942, after only thirteen months in the program. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.
Perot entered the United States Naval Academy in 1949 and helped establish its honor system. and tried to pitch his ideas to supervisors who largely ignored him. He left IBM in 1962 to found Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in Dallas, Texas, and courted large corporations for his data processing services. Perot was refused seventy-seven times before he was given his first contract. EDS received lucrative contracts from the U.S. government in the 1960s, computerizing Medicare records. EDS went public in 1968 and the stock price rose from $16 a share to $160 within days. Fortune called Perot the "fastest, richest Texan" in a 1968 cover story. In 1984 General Motors bought controlling interest in EDS for $2.4 billion.
In 1974 Perot gained some press attention for being "the biggest individual loser ever on the New York Stock Exchange" when his EDS shares dropped $450 million in value in a single day in April 1970.
Just prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the government of Iran imprisoned two EDS employees in a contract dispute. Perot organized and sponsored their rescue. The rescue team was led by retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Arthur D. ('Bull') Simons. When the team was unable to find a way to extract their two prisoners, they decided to wait for a mob of pro-Ayatollah revolutionaries to storm the jail and free all 10,000 inmates, many of whom were political prisoners. The two prisoners then connected with the rescue team, and the team spirited them out of Iran via a risky border crossing into Turkey. The exploit was recounted in a book, On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett, which became a best-seller. In the 1986 miniseries, Perot was portrayed by Richard Crenna.
In 1984 Perot bought a very early copy of the Magna Carta, one of only a few to leave the United Kingdom. It was lent to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where it was displayed alongside the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. In 2007, it was sold by the Perot Foundation, in order to provide "for medical research, for improving public education and for assisting wounded soldiers and their families." The document sold for $21.3 million USD on December 18, 2007 to David Rubenstein, managing director of the Carlyle Group and kept on display at the National Archives.
In 1988 he founded Perot Systems Corporation, Inc. in Plano, Texas. His son, H. Ross Perot, Jr., eventually succeeded him as CEO. In September 2009, Perot Systems was acquired by Dell for $3.9 billion.
In 1983 he was called upon by Democratic Governor Mark White to help improve the quality of the state's public education, and ended up leading the effort ("Select Committee on Public Education") to reform the school system, which resulted in major legislative changes. The best known of Perot's proposals that were passed into law was the "No Pass, No Play" rule, under which it was required that students have passing grades in order to participate in any school-sponsored extracurricular activities. The intent was to prevent high school sports from being the focus of the school's funding, and to emphasize the importance of education for the students who participated in sports. Another key reform measure was a call for teacher competency testing, which was strongly opposed by the teachers unions in Texas.
Perot became heavily involved in the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. He believed that hundreds of American servicemen were left behind in Southeast Asia at the end of the U.S. involvement in the war, and that government officials were covering up POW/MIA investigations in order to avoid revealing a drug smuggling operation used to finance a secret war in Laos. Perot engaged in unauthorized back-channel discussions with Vietnamese officials in the late 1980s, which led to fractured relations between Perot and the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Perot also launched private investigations of, and attacks upon, U.S. Department of Defense official Richard Armitage.
Perot did not support President George H. W. Bush and vigorously opposed the United States involvement in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War. He unsuccessfully urged Senators to vote against the war resolution, and began to consider his own presidential run.
Perot's candidacy received increasing media attention when the competitive phase of the primary season ended for the two major parties. With the insurgent candidacies of Republican Pat Buchanan and Democrat Jerry Brown winding down, Perot was the natural beneficiary of populist resentment toward establishment politicians. On May 25, 1992 he was featured on the cover of Time Magazine with the title "Waiting for Perot", an allusion to Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot.
Several months before the Democratic and Republican conventions, Perot filled the vacuum of election news, as his supporters began petition drives to get him on the ballot in all fifty states. This sense of momentum was reinforced when Perot employed two savvy campaign managers in Democrat Hamilton Jordan and Republican Ed Rollins.
In July, while Perot was pondering whether to run for office, his supporters established a campaign organization United We Stand America. Perot was late in making formal policy proposals, but most of what he did call for were intended to reduce the deficit. He wanted a gasoline tax increase and some cutbacks of Social Security.
On July 11, while attending an NAACP meeting, Perot, in describing the criminality of certain populations, referred to them to the members as "your people", causing a negative reaction.
By the summer Perot commanded a lead in the presidential race with thirty-nine percent of the vote, but on July 16, Perot unexpectedly dropped out. Perot eventually stated the reason was that he received threats that digitally altered photographs would be released by the Bush campaign to sabotage his daughter's wedding. Regardless of the reasons for withdrawing, his reputation was badly damaged. Many of his supporters felt betrayed and public opinion polls would subsequently show a large negative view of Perot that was absent prior to his decision to end the campaign.
In September he qualified for all fifty state ballots. On October 1, he announced his intention to reenter the presidential race. He said that Republican operatives had wanted to reveal compromising photographs of his daughter, which would disrupt her wedding, and he wanted to spare her from embarrassment. Scott Barnes, a private investigator and security consultant who had testified to that effect, later recanted his story. He revealed in 1997 that he had deceived Perot about the existence of the photographs, and that he had created the hoax with others who were not involved with any political campaign. Barnes was a Bush supporter, and believed that if it were revealed that Republicans were involved in dirty tricks, it would harm Bush's candidacy.
He campaigned in 16 states and spent an estimated $65.4 million of his own money. Perot employed the innovative strategy of purchasing half-hour blocks of time on major networks for infomercial-type campaign advertisements; this advertising garnered more viewership than many sitcoms, with one Friday night program in October attracting 10.5 million viewers.
Perot's running mate was retired Vice Admiral James Stockdale, a highly-decorated former Vietnam prisoner of war (POW). In December 1969 he organized and flew to North Vietnam in an attempt to deliver thirty tons of supplies to beleaguered American POWs in North Vietnam. Although North Vietnam blocked the flights, the effort was instrumental in bringing the plight of those POWs to the world's attention and their captors soon began treating them better.
At one point in June, Perot led the polls with 39% (versus 31% for Bush and 25% for Clinton). Just prior to the debates, Perot received 7-9% support in nationwide polls. It is likely that the debates played a significant role in his ultimate receipt of 19% of the popular vote. Although his answers during the debates were often general, many Democrats and Republicans conceded that Perot won at least the first debate. In the debate he remarked: "Keep in mind our Constitution predates the Industrial Revolution. Our founders did not know about electricity, the train, telephones, radio, television, automobiles, airplanes, rockets, nuclear weapons, satellites, or space exploration. There's a lot they didn't know about. It would be interesting to see what kind of document they'd draft today. Just keeping it frozen in time won't hack it."
Perot denounced Congress for its inaction in his speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 1992. Perot said:
In the 1992 election, he received 18.9% of the popular vote, approximately 19,741,065 votes (but no electoral college votes), making him the most successful third-party presidential candidate in terms of the popular vote since Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election. Unlike Perot, however, some other third party candidates since Roosevelt have won electoral college votes. (Strom Thurmond had thirty-nine in 1948, George Wallace had forty-six in 1968 and John Hospers won one in 1972). Compared with Thurmond and Wallace, who polled very strongly in a small number of states, Perot's vote was more evenly spread across the country. Perot managed to finish second in two states: In Maine, Perot received 30.44% of the vote to Bush's 30.39% (Clinton won Maine with 38.77%); In Utah, Perot received 27.34% of the vote to Clinton's 24.65% (Bush won Utah with 43.36%).
A detailed analysis of voting demographics revealed that Perot's support drew heavily from across the political spectrum, with 20% of his votes coming from self-described liberals, 27% from self-described conservatives, and 53% coming from self-described moderates. Economically, however, the majority of Perot voters (57%) were middle class, earning between $15,000 and $49,000 annually, with the bulk of the remainder drawing from the upper middle class (29% earning more than $50,000 annually). Exit polls also showed that Ross Perot drew 38% of his vote from Bush, and 38% of his vote from Clinton, while the rest of his voters would have stayed home had he not been on the ballot.
Based on his performance in the popular vote in 1992, Perot was entitled to receive federal election funding for 1996. Perot remained in the public eye after the election and championed opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), urging voters to listen for the "giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading south to Mexico should NAFTA be ratified.
In 1995, he founded the Reform Party and won their nomination for the 1996 election. His running mate was Pat Choate. Because of the ballot access laws, he had to run as an Independent on many state ballots. Perot received eight percent of the popular vote in 1996, much less than in the 1992 race but still an unusually successful third-party showing by U.S. standards. He spent much less of his own money in this race than he had four years before, and also allowed other people to contribute to his campaign, unlike his prior race. One common explanation for the decline was Perot's exclusion from the presidential debates, based on the preferences of the Democratic and Republican party candidates (as described by George Farah in Open Debates).
In the 2000 presidential election, Perot refused to become openly involved with the internal Reform Party dispute between supporters of Pat Buchanan and of John Hagelin. Perot was reportedly unhappy with what he saw as the disintegration of the party, as well as his own portrayal in the press; thus he chose to remain quiet. He appeared on Larry King Live four days before the election and endorsed George W. Bush for President. Despite his earlier opposition to NAFTA, Perot remained largely silent about expanded use of guest worker visas in the United States, with Buchanan supporters attributing this silence to his corporate reliance on foreign workers. Some state parties have affiliated with the new (Buchananite) America First Party; others gave Ralph Nader their ballot lines in the 2004 presidential election.
Since then, Perot has been largely silent on political issues, refusing to answer most questions from the press. When interviewed, he usually remains on the subject of his business career and refuses to answer specific questions on politics, candidates, or his past activities.
The one exception to this came in 2005, when he was asked to testify before the Texas Legislature in support of proposals to extend technology to students, including making laptops available to them; additionally, changing the process of buying textbooks, by making electronic books (ebooks) available and by allowing schools to buy books at the local level instead of going through the state. In an April 2005 interview, Perot expressed concern about the state of progress on issues that he had raised in his presidential runs.
In January 2008, Perot publicly came out against Republican candidate John McCain and endorsed Mitt Romney for President. He also announced that he would soon be launching a new website with updated economic graphs and charts. In June 2008, the blog launched, focusing on entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security), the U.S. national debt and related issues.
Mr. Perot was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1988.
On September 18, 2009, the Texarkana Independent School District named him (1947 graduate of Texas High School) as a 2009 Distinguished Alumnus.
In May 2009, he was appointed an honorary chairman of The OSS Society.
On October 15, 2009, the United States Military Academy at West Point awarded him with the distinguished Sylvanus Thayer Award.
In honor of his 80th birthday, the bridge connecting Walton and University drives in Texarkana, Texas, was named the H. Ross Perot Bridge.
On Oct. 2, 2010, Perot was given the William J. Donovan Award from the OSS Society at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C. He is the 26th receipent of the award.
United States presidential election, 1996
Category:1930 births Category:Living people Category:People from Texarkana, Texas Category:American billionaires Category:American businesspeople Category:Distinguished Eagle Scouts Category:IBM employees Category:Recipients of the Order of Saint Maurice Category:People from Dallas, Texas Category:United States Naval Academy graduates Category:United States Navy officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 1992 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1996 Category:Vietnam War POW/MIA issues Category:Reform Party of the United States of America politicians
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| Name | Larry King |
|---|---|
| Caption | King in September 2010 |
| Birth name | Lawrence Harvey Zeiger |
| Birth date | November 19, 1933 |
| Birth place | Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Television/Radio personality |
| Years active | 1957–2010| spouse = Freda Miller (1952–1953)Annette Kaye (1961)Alene Akins (1961–1963)Mickey Sutphin (1963–1967)Alene Akins (1967–1972)Sharon Lepore (1976–1983)Julie Alexander (1989–1992)Shawn Southwick (1997–present) |
He is recognized in the United States as one of the premier broadcast interviewers. He has won an Emmy Award, two Peabody Awards, and ten Cable ACE Awards.
King began as a local Florida journalist and radio interviewer in the 1950s and 1960s. He became prominent as an all-night national radio broadcaster starting in 1978, and then, in 1985, began hosting the nightly interview TV program Larry King Live on CNN.
On June 29, 2010, it was announced that he would step down as host of the show but would continue to host specials for CNN. In early September, CNN confirmed that he would be replaced by Piers Morgan. King's last show aired on December 16, 2010.
His Miami radio show launched him to local stardom. A few years later, in May 1960, he hosted Miami Undercover, airing Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. on WPST-TV Channel 10 (now WPLG). On the show, he moderated debates on important issues of the time. King credits his success on local TV to the assistance of another showbiz legend, comedian Jackie Gleason, whose national TV variety show was being filmed in Miami Beach during this period. "That show really took off because Gleason came to Miami," King said in a 1996 interview he gave when inducted into the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. "He did that show and stayed all night with me. We stayed till five in the morning. He didn't like the set, so we broke into the general manager's office and changed the set. Gleason changed the set, he changed the lighting, and he became like a mentor of mine." Jackie Gleason was instrumental in getting Larry a hard-to-get on air interview with Frank Sinatra during this time.
During this period, WIOD gave King further exposure as a color commentator for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, during their 1970 season and most of their 1971 season. However, he was dismissed by both WIOD and television station WTVJ as a late-night radio host and sports commentator as of December 20, 1971, when he was arrested after being accused of grand larceny by a former business partner. Other staffers covered the Dolphins' games into their 24–3 loss to Dallas in Super Bowl VI. King also lost his weekly column at the Miami Beach Sun newspaper. The charges were dropped on March 10, 1972, and King spent the next several years in reviving his career, including a stint as the color announcer in Louisiana for the Shreveport Steamer of the World Football League in 1974–75. For several years during the 1970s in South Florida, he hosted a sports talk-show called "Sports-a-la-King" that featured guests and callers.
King managed to get back into radio by becoming the color commentator for broadcasts of the Shreveport Steamer of the World Football League on KWKH. Eventually, King was rehired by WIOD in Miami.
It was broadcast live Monday through Friday from midnight to 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time. King would interview a guest for the first 90 minutes, with callers asking questions that continued the interview for another 90 minutes. At 3 a.m., he would allow callers to discuss any topic they pleased with him, until the end of the program, when he expressed his own political opinions. That segment was called "Open Phone America". Some of the regular callers used the pseudonyms "The Portland Laugher", "The Miami Derelict", "The Todd Cruz Caller", "The Scandal Scooper", "Mr. Radio" and "The Water Is Warm Caller". "Mr. Radio" made over 200 calls to King during Open Phone America. The show was successful, starting with relatively few affiliates and eventually growing to more than 500. It ran until 1994.
For its final year, the show was moved to afternoons, but, because most talk radio stations at the time had an established policy of local origination in the time-slot (3 to 6 p.m. Eastern Time) that Mutual offered the show, a very low percentage of King's overnight affiliates agreed to carry his daytime show and it was unable to generate the same audience size. The afternoon show was eventually given to David Brenner and radio affiliates were given the option of carrying the audio of King's new CNN evening television program. The Westwood One radio simulcast of the CNN show continues.
program at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA in 2006]]
Unlike many interviewers, King has a direct, non-confrontational approach. His reputation for asking easy, open-ended questions has made him attractive to important figures who want to state their position while avoiding being challenged on contentious topics. His interview style is characteristically frank, but with occasional bursts of irreverence and humor. His approach attracts some guests who would not otherwise appear. King, who is known for his general lack of pre-interview preparation, once bragged that he never read the books of authors before making an appearance on his program.
In a show dedicated to the surviving Beatles, King asked George Harrison's widow about the song "Something", which was written about George Harrison's first wife. He seemed surprised when she did not know very much about the song.
Throughout his career King has interviewed many of the leading figures of his time. CNN claimed during his final episode that he had performed 60,000 interviews in his career.
King also wrote a regular newspaper column in USA Today for almost 20 years, from shortly after that newspaper's origin in 1982 until September 2001. The column consisted of short "plugs, superlatives and dropped names" but was dropped when the newspaper redesigned its "Life" section. The column was resurrected in blog form in November 2008 and on Twitter in April 2009.
On September 8, 2010, CNN confirmed that Morgan would occupy King's 9:00 pm timeslot from January 2011 onward.
The final edition of Larry King Live aired on December 16, 2010.
On February 12, 2010, Larry King revealed that he had undergone surgery 5 weeks earlier to place stents in his coronary artery to remove plaque from his heart. During the segment on Larry King Live which discussed Bill Clinton's similar procedure, King said he was "feeling great" and had been in hospital for just one day.
As a result of heart attacks, he established the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, an organization to which David Letterman, through his American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming, has also contributed. King gave $1 million to George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs for scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
On September 3, 2005, following the devastation to the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, King aired "How You Can Help", a three-hour special designed to provide a forum and information clearinghouse for viewers to understand and join nationwide and global relief efforts. Guest Richard Simmons, a native of New Orleans, told him, "Larry, you don't even know how much money you raised tonight. When we rebuild the city of New Orleans, we're going to name something big after you."
On January 18, 2010, in the wake of the devastation caused by the 2010 Haiti earthquake, King aired "Haiti: How You Can Help", a special two-hour edition designed to show viewers how to take action and be a part of the global outreach.
King serves as a member of the Board of Directors on the Police Athletic League of New York City, a nonprofit youth development agency serving inner-city children and teenagers.
On August 30, 2010, King served as the host of Chabad's 30th annual "To Life" telethon, in Los Angeles.
In 1997, King was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, comparing it to the Nazis' oppression of Jews in the 1930s. Other signatories included Dustin Hoffman and Goldie Hawn. He married high-school sweetheart Freda Miller in 1951 at age 18. King was later briefly married to Annette Kaye Larry Jr. and his wife, Shannon, have three children.
King met businesswoman Julie Alexander in summer 1989, and proposed to her on the couple's first date, on August 1, 1989. Alexander became King's sixth wife on October 7, 1989, when the two were married in Washington, D.C. The couple lived in different cities, however, with Alexander in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and King in Washington, D.C., where he worked. The couple separated in 1990 and divorced in 1992.
He married his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, born in 1959 a former singer and TV host, in King's Los Angeles, California, hospital room three days before King underwent heart surgery to clear a clogged blood vessel. The couple has two children: Chance, born March 1999, and Cannon, born May 2000. He is stepfather to Danny Southwick. On King and Southwick's 10th anniversary in September 2007, Southwick boasted she was "the only [wife] to have lasted into the two digits". but have since stopped the proceedings, claiming "We love our children, we love each other, we love being a family. That is all that matters to us".
Shawn attempted suicide in May 2010 when she overdosed on prescription pills.
In July 2009, King appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, where he told host O'Brien about his wishes to be cryogenically preserved upon death, as he had revealed in his book My Remarkable Journey.
In 1989, King was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, and in 1996 to the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame.
in June 1998, King received an Honorary Degree from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, for his life achievements.
King was given the Golden Mike Award for Lifetime Achievement in January 2009, by the Radio & Television News Association of Southern California.
King is an honorary member of the Rotary Club of Beverly Hills. He is also a recipient of the President's Award honoring his impact on media from the Los Angeles Press Club in 2006.
King is the first recipient of the Arizona State University Hugh Downs Award for Communication Excellence, presented April 11, 2007, via satellite by Downs himself. Downs sported red suspenders for the event and turned the tables on King by asking "very tough questions" about King's best, worst and most influential interviews during King's 50 years in broadcasting.
Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:American actors Category:American agnostics Category:American Jews Category:American talk radio hosts Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish agnostics Category:Miami Dolphins broadcasters Category:National Football League announcers Category:People from Brooklyn Category:World Football League announcers
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| Name | Christopher Hitchens |
|---|---|
| Color | green |
| Caption | Hitchens in 2007 |
| Birthname | Christopher Eric Hitchens |
| Birthdate | April 13, 1949 |
| Birthplace | Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK |
| Occupation | Writer and pundit |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
| Nationality | American/British |
| Religion | None |
| Genre | Polemicism, journalism, essays, biography, literary criticism |
| Spouse | Carol Blue (1989–present) |
| Children | Alexander, Sophia, Antonia |
| Relatives | Peter Hitchens (brother) |
| Influences | George Orwell, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Joseph Heller, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Llewellyn, Aldous Huxley, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Paul Mark Scott, James Fenton, James Joyce, Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Leon Trotsky, Colm Tóibín, Bertrand Russell, Wilfred Owen, Isaiah Berlin He is a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 he was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a Prospect/Foreign Policy poll. |
| Name | Hitchens, Christopher Eric |
| Short description | Author, journalist and literary critic |
| Date of birth | 13 April 1949 |
| Place of birth | Portsmouth, England, UK}} |
Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:American atheists Category:American biographers Category:American essayists Category:American journalists Category:American Marxists Category:American media critics Category:American people of Polish descent Category:American people of English descent Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:American humanists Category:Anti-Vietnam War activists Category:Atheism activists Category:British republicans Category:Cancer patients Category:English atheists Category:English biographers Category:English essayists Category:English humanists Category:English journalists Category:English immigrants to the United States Category:English Marxists Category:English people of Polish descent Category:English political writers Category:English socialists Category:Genital integrity activists Category:Marxist journalists Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Old Leysians Category:People from Portsmouth Category:Slate magazine people Category:Socialist Workers Party (Britain) members Category:The Nation (U.S. periodical) people Category:University Challenge contestants
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| Name | Molly Ivins |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Mary Tyler Ivins |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Birth date | August 30, 1944 |
| Birth place | Monterey, California |
| Death date | |
| Death cause | Inflammatory breast cancer |
| Death place | Austin, Texas |
After graduating from Columbia, she took a job in the Twin Cities at the Minneapolis Tribune, where she covered "militant blacks, angry Indians, radical students, uppity women and a motley assortment of other misfits and troublemakers."
In 1970 Ivins left the Tribune for Austin, Texas to be the co-editor and political reporter for the Texas Observer. She covered the Texas Legislature and befriended folklorist John Henry Faulk, Secretary of State Bob Bullock and future Governor Ann Richards, among others. She also gained increasing national attention through op-ed and feature stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post along with a busy speaking schedule inside and outside Texas. and she wrote for the Times until 1982. During her run there, Ivins became Rocky Mountain bureau chief, covering nine western states, although the writer was known to say she was named chief because there was no one else in the bureau. Ivins also wrote the obituary for Elvis Presley in The New York Times for the August 17, 1977 edition. Generally, her more colorful writing style clashed with the editors' expectations, and in 1980, after she wrote about a "community chicken-killing festival" in New Mexico and called it a "gang-pluck," she was recalled to New York as punishment. When Abe Rosenthal, editor of the Times, accused her of trying to inspire readers to think "dirty thoughts" with these words, her response was, "Damn if I could fool you, Mr. Rosenthal." One friend saw her rebellion against the Times authority structure as a continuation of her rebellion against her father's authority.
In 1995, humorist Florence King wrote in a The American Enterprise column that Ivins had plagiarized King's work and mis-stated a quotation from a King column in a 1988 Mother Jones article. David Rubien, writing in Salon, described the incident: "In a 1995 article for Mother Jones on Southern manners and mores, she extensively quoted, with affectionate attribution, statements from Florence King's book Southern Ladies and Gentlemen. But for some careless reason Ivins still fails to comprehend, she left the attribution off a few King statements." Ivins wrote a letter of apology to King, but characteristically ended it with:"...boy you really are a mean bitch, aren't you? Sincerely, Molly Ivins, plagiarist." King published Ivins's apology and her own reply in a later article.
After her death, George W. Bush, a frequent target of her barbs, said in a statement, "I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words. She fought her illness with that same passion. Her quick wit and commitment will be missed."
Practice, practice, practice, that's what Texas provides when it comes to sleaze and stink. Who can forget such great explanations as "Well, I'll just make a little bit of money, I won't make a whole lot"? And "There was never a Bible in the room"?In 2003, she coined the term "Great Liberal Backlash of 2003," and was a passionate critic of the 2003 Iraq War. She is also credited with applying the nickname "Shrub" to George W. Bush.
"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war...We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'" (from her last column)
"Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that."
"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."—quoted by John Nichols for The Nation Original source: "The Fun's in the Fight" column for Mother Jones, 1993.
On Bill Clinton: "If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal." (Introduction to You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You)
On James M. Collins, US Representative, R-Dallas: "If his IQ slips any lower we'll have to water him twice a day." Collins had said that the current energy crisis could be averted if "...we didn't use all that gas on school busing..." Ivins' quote engendered substantial controversy, with calls and letters pouring into her newspaper, The Dallas Times Herald. The newspaper turned the controversy into a publicity campaign, with billboards all over the city asking, "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?"—which she later employed as the title for her first book.
On George W. Bush, she likened him to a Post Turtle.
"Of Bush's credentials as an economic conservative, there is no question at all - he owes his political life to big corporate money; he's a CEO's wet dream. He carries their water, he's stumpbroke - however you put it, George W. Bush is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America. ... We can find no evidence that it has ever occurred to him to question whether it is wise to do what big business wants."
In addition to these formal awards, Ivins said that she was particularly proud of two distinct honors: having the Minneapolis police force's mascot pig named after her, and being banned from the Texas A&M; campus.
In Huntsville, TX each year the Walker County Democrat Club has a Charity Dinner in honor of Molly Ivins.
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There is no evidence of who exactly designed the Eureka Flag, but it was Ross who took the design to three women - Anastasia Withers, Anne Duke and Elizabeth Hayes - to ask them to sew it and have it ready in time for the meeting taking place at Bakery Hill at 2.00pm on Wednesday the 29 November 1854.
At Bakery Hill on 30 November 1854 Captain Ross unfurled the Southern Cross and led the march from Bakery Hill to Eureka Stockade, behind him followed about 1,000 diggers, some armed with rifles, many only armed with picks and shovels. Captain Ross was given the command of a division of miners by a meeting of the 7 captains of the rebellion who met at Eureka that afternoon to organise the defence of Eureka.
Later that afternoon Captain Ross raised the flag on the temporary flagpole that had been erected at Bakery Hill. Sword in hand, his division gathered at the foot of the flagstaff, the sun going down behind them. Peter Lalor jumped onto a stump and asked those around him to take an oath to the Southern Cross. He pointed his right hand towards the Southern Cross and delivered the diggers oath.
:"We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties"
The miners shouted 'Amen' and then marched back to the Eureka Stockade and hoisted the Southern Cross on a makeshift flagpole at the centre of their camp.
When the first shots rang out at daybreak on Sunday the 3 December 1854, Captain Henry Ross took up his position at the foot of the flagpole. He was mortally wounded during the early phase of the battle and lay dying at the foot of the Southern Cross when trooper King scaled the flagpole and tore the flag down. By some accounts Ross was shot 10 or 15 minutes after he surrendered. Fellow Canadian (Charles) Alphonse Doudiet, who painted earlier Eureka events, recorded that he was among those who carried the Stockade leader to the nearby Star Hotel, and remained with him until he died "in great pain" at 2 am on 5 December 1854. Duncan Clark, from the same regiment as Ross, had been out scouting and returned in time to assist his leader to the hotel.
Some 260 mourners followed the funeral procession of Ross to the Ballarat Cemetery. He was eulogised as one of the best loved men of those who fell. The young Canadian digger, Henry Ross, was buried at the bottom of a mass grave at the Old Ballarat cemetery, while his beloved Southern Cross is displayed for all to see at the Ballarat Art Gallery that stands on the site of the soldiers encampment.
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| Caption | Dana Carvey, September 1987 |
|---|---|
| Birth date | June 02, 1955 |
| Birth place | Missoula, Montana, U.S. |
| Birth name | Dana Thomas Carvey |
| Medium | Stand-up, Television, Film |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Character comedy, improvisational comedy, observational comedy, satire/political satire |
| Subjects | Everday life, sex, self-deprecation, American politics |
| Spouse | Leah Carvey (1979 - 1980) (divorced)Paula Zwagerman (1983 - present) 2 children |
| Years active | 1978–present |
Dana Thomas Carvey (born June 2, 1955) is an American actor and stand-up comedian, best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for playing the role of Garth in the Wayne's World movies.
In 1979, while performing at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, he met Paula Zwaggerman, who would later become his wife. Soon after returning to the Bay Area in 1980, Dana and Paula were engaged. They have two sons together, Dex and Thomas, who were born in 1991 and 1993 respectively.
Carvey's other original characters included Garth Algar (from "Wayne's World"), Hans (from "Hans and Franz"), and The Grumpy Old Man (from Weekend Update appearances).
During the 1992 US presidential election campaign, he did an impression of independent candidate Ross Perot; in a prime-time special before the election, Carvey played both George H. W. Bush and Perot in a three-way debate with Bill Clinton, played by Phil Hartman. As Perot—prerecorded and timed to give the appearance of interacting with the live Bush and Clinton—Carvey eschewed the show's signature "Live from New York" opening line, telling Carvey (as Bush) "Why don't you do it, live-boy?" Carvey left SNL in 1993.
In 1992, Carvey joined Mike Myers to bring their popular "Wayne's World" sketch to the silver screen with Wayne's World, the movie. A sequel was filmed and released in 1993, titled Wayne's World 2. After the two reprised their Wayne's World characters at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards (see below), Myers shot down rumors that there would be a second sequel.
Carvey's SNL work won him an Emmy in 1993 for "Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program." He has a total of six Emmy nominations.
He held the record for having said "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" most often, until Darrell Hammond surpassed him.
It was recently announced on January 14th, 2011 that Carvey would return to host SNL for the fourth time on February 5th, 2011. Carvey previously hosted episodes in , and .
In 1994, Carvey starred in the film Clean Slate. The following year, in 1995, Carvey filmed his first HBO stand-up special, Critic's Choice. The show featured Carvey doing many of his SNL impersonations, as well as making fun of the premium channel's name, pronouncing it "huhbo."
He reprised many of his SNL characters in 1996 for The Dana Carvey Show, a critically acclaimed but short-lived prime-time variety show on ABC. The show was most notable for launching Robert Smigel's cartoon "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" as well as the careers of Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert.
In 2002, he returned to films in the comedy The Master of Disguise, which was panned by critics but managed about $40 million at the North American box office. Carvey has not appeared in a feature film since.
He is number 90 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.
Carvey eventually withdrew from the limelight to focus on his family. He later said in an interview that he does not want to be in a career in which his kids would already be grown with him having neglected spending time with them.
At the January 2, 2007 funeral of Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush reminisced in his eulogy about how Ford took it in stride when SNL's Chevy Chase made Ford the object of impressions. Bush cited this as a valuable lesson in learning to laugh at one's self as a part of public life. "I'd tell you more about that," Bush continued, "but as Dana Carvey would say, [imitating Carvey imitating him] 'Not gonna do it! Wouldn't be prudent!'".
Carvey made an appearance at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, reprising his SNL character Garth Algar with host Mike Myers for a Wayne's World sketch. On June 14, 2008, Carvey filmed a second HBO stand-up special, the first in 13 years, entitled Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies.
In 2010, Carvey appeared in the Funny or Die original comedy sketch, "Presidential Reunion." He played the role of President Bush alongside other current and former SNL president impersonators. He also played in another sketch of a mock movie trailer for "Darwin," playing the evolutionary biologist.
In early 2010, Carvey and comedian/writer Spike Feresten created and starred together in "Spoof", a sketch comedy pilot for Fox.
In The Fairly OddParents, he voiced the fairy con artist Schnozmo who is also Cosmo's brother.
Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from California Category:Actors from Montana Category:American Christians Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American impressionists (entertainers) Category:American Lutherans Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American television writers Category:Emmy Award winners Category:People from Missoula, Montana Category:People from San Mateo County, California Category:San Francisco State University alumni
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Leonard served on the Board of Directors of the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District before being elected to the California State Assembly in 1978 on the coattails of Proposition 13.
In 1988, after serving five terms in the Assembly, he successfully won election to the State Senate, representing an 11,000-square mile district. During his time in the Senate, Leonard was the longest-serving Republican Caucus Chairman, holding the post from 1990 until term limits forced him to leave the Senate in 1996.
During his time in the Senate, Leonard wrote California's Leonard Law, the only law in the United States to extend First Amendment rights to students at private colleges and universities.
In 1996, by a margin of 63%-37%, voters returned Leonard to the Assembly, where he served as Republican Leader from 1997 to 1998. He was re-elected in 1998 with 72% of the vote and in 2000 with 58% of the vote in a three-way race.
After term limits forced Leonard to leave the Assembly in 2002, he won election to represent the Second District on the five-member State Board of Equalization with 59% of the vote. He was re-elected in 2006 with 55.8% of the vote.
Leonard resigned from the State Board of Equalization in March 2010 in order to join Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration.
Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:California State Senators Category:Members of the California State Assembly Category:People from San Bernardino County, California
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