Greater grison
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Mustelidae
Genus:	Galictis
Species:	G. vittata
Binomial name
Galictis vittata (Schreber, 1776)
Greater grison range

The greater grison, Galictis vittata, is an animal belonging to the ferret family Mustelidae from Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil and Bolivia, living in savannas and rainforests, usually seen near rivers and streams.

Greater grisons are terrestrial and nocturnal, with some diurnal activity in the morning. They live alone or in pairs, feeding on small vertebrates including fish, amphibians, birds, and other mammals.

References[link]

• Cuarón, A.D., Reid, F. & Helgen, K. (2008). Galictis vittata. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 24 February 2009.
• Louise H. Emmons and Francois Feer, 1997 - Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, A Field Guide.

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Al Gore 45th Vice President of the United States In office January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001 President Bill Clinton Preceded by Dan Quayle Succeeded by Dick Cheney United States Senator from Tennessee In office January 3, 1985 – January 2, 1993 Preceded by Howard Baker Succeeded by Harlan Mathews Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 6th district In office January 3, 1983 – January 3, 1985 Preceded by Robin Beard Succeeded by Bart Gordon Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 4th district In office January 3, 1977 – January 3, 1983 Preceded by Joe L. Evins Succeeded by Jim Cooper Personal details Born Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. (1948-03-31) March 31, 1948 (age 64) Washington, D.C., U.S. Political party Democratic Spouse(s) Tipper Aitcheson (m. 1970, separated June 2010)[1] Relations Albert A. Gore, Sr., (father) Pauline LaFon Gore, (mother) Children Karenna (b. 1973) Kristin (b. 1977) Sarah (b. 1979) Albert III (b. 1982) Alma mater Harvard College (A.B.) Profession Author Politician Environmental Activist Religion Baptist[2] (formerly Southern Baptist) Signature Website algore.com Military service Allegiance United States Service/branch United States Army Years of service 1969–1971 Rank Private; Occupational specialist: Journalist[3] Unit 20th Engineer Brigade Battles/wars Vietnam War The life of Al Gore v t e Vice Presidency of Al Gore Al Gore presidential campaign, 1988 Al Gore presidential campaign, 2000 Role in information technology Environmental activism

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) served as the 45th Vice President of the United States (1993–2001), under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President and won the popular vote in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

Gore is currently an author and environmental activist. He has founded a number of non-profit organizations, including the Alliance for Climate Protection, and has received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in climate change activism.^[4]

Gore was previously an elected official for 24 years, representing Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85), and later in the U.S. Senate (1985–93), and finally becoming Vice President in 1993. In the 2000 presidential election, Gore won the popular vote by a margin of more than 500,000 votes. However, he ultimately lost the Electoral College to Republican George W. Bush when the U.S. Supreme Court settled the legal controversy over the Florida vote recount by ruling 5-4 in favor of Bush.^[5] It was the only time in history that the Supreme Court has determined the outcome of a presidential election.^[6]

Gore is the founder and current chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection, the co-founder and chair of Generation Investment Management, the co-founder and chair of Current TV, a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc., and a senior adviser to Google.^[7] Gore is also a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading its climate change solutions group.^[8][9] He has served as a visiting professor at Middle Tennessee State University, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Fisk University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.^{[7][10][11][12]} He is also a member of the Board of Directors of World Resources Institute.

Gore has received a number of awards including the Nobel Peace Prize (joint award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (2007), a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album (2009) for his book An Inconvenient Truth,^[13] a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV (2007), and a Webby Award (2005). Gore was also the subject of the Academy Award-winning (2007) documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. In 2007 he was named a runner-up for Time's 2007 Person of the Year.^[14]

Early life[link]

Albert Gore, Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., the second of two children of Albert Gore, Sr., a U.S. Representative who later served as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee, and Pauline LaFon Gore, one of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt University Law School.^[15] Gore is partly descended from Scots-Irish immigrants who first settled in Virginia in the mid-17th-century, and moved to Tennessee after the Revolutionary War.^[16] His older sister Nancy LaFon Gore, who was born in 1938, died of lung cancer in 1984.^[17]

During the school year he lived with his family in The Fairfax Hotel in the Embassy Row section in Washington D.C.^[18] During the summer months, he worked on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee, where the Gores grew tobacco and hay^[19][20] and raised cattle.^[21]

Gore attended the all-boys St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. from 1956 to 1965, a prestigious feeder school for the Ivy League.^[22][23] He was the captain of the football team, threw discus for the track and field team, and participated in basketball, art, and government.^{[15][18][24][25]} He graduated 25th in his class of 51, applied to only one college, Harvard, and was accepted.^[22][23]

Marriage and family[link]

He met Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Aitcheson from the nearby St. Agnes School at his St. Albans senior prom in 1965.^[18] Tipper followed Gore to Boston to attend college,^[17] and on May 19, 1970, shortly after Tipper graduated from Boston University, they married at the Washington National Cathedral.^{[17][26][27][28]}

They have four children, Karenna (b. 1973), Kristin Carlson Gore (b. 1977), Sarah LaFon Gore (b. 1979), and Albert Gore III (b. 1982).^[2]

In early June 2010, shortly after purchasing a new home,^[29] the Gores announced in an e-mail to friends that after "long and careful consideration," they had made a mutual decision to separate.^[1]

Harvard, Vietnam, journalism, and Vanderbilt (1965–1976)[link]

Harvard[link]

Gore enrolled in Harvard College in 1965, initially planning to major in English and write novels, but later deciding to major in government.^[22][23] On his second day on campus, he began campaigning for the freshman student government council, and was elected its president.^[23]

Although he was an avid reader who fell in love with scientific and mathematical theories,^[23] he did not do well in science classes in college, and avoided taking math.^[22] His grades during his first two years put him in the lower one-fifth of the class. During his sophomore year, he reportedly spent much of his time watching television, shooting pool, and occasionally smoking marijuana.^[22][23] In his junior and senior years, he became more involved with his studies, earning As and Bs.^[22] In his senior year, he took a class with oceanographer and global warming theorist Roger Revelle, who sparked Gore's interest in global warming and other environmental issues.^[23][30] Gore earned an A on his thesis, "The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency, 1947-1969", and graduated with an A.B. cum laude in June 1969.^[22][31]

Gore attended college during the era of anti Vietnam War protests. Though he was against that war, he disagreed with the tactics of the student protest movement, thinking it silly and juvenile to take anger at the war out on a private university.^[23] He and his friends did not participate in Harvard demonstrations. John Tyson, a former roommate, recalled that "We distrusted these movements a lot .... We were a pretty traditional bunch of guys, positive for civil rights and women's rights but formal, transformed by the social revolution to some extent but not buying into something we considered detrimental to our country."^[23][32] Gore helped his father write an anti-war address to the Democratic National Convention of 1968, but stayed with his parents in their hotel room during the violent protests.^[23]

Military service[link]

Al and Tipper Gore's wedding day, May 19, 1970 at the Washington National Cathedral

Gore with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa as a journalist with the paper, The Castle Courier.

When Gore graduated in 1969, his student deferment ended and he immediately became eligible for the military draft. His father, a vocal anti-Vietnam War critic, was facing a reelection in 1970. Gore eventually decided that the best way he could contribute to the anti-war effort was to enlist in the Army, which would improve his father's reelection prospects.^[33] Although nearly all of his Harvard classmates avoided the draft and service in Vietnam,^[34] Gore believed if he found a way around military service, he would be handing an issue to his father's Republican opponent.^[35] According to Gore's Senate biography, "He appeared in uniform in his father's campaign commercials, one of which ended with his father advising: 'Son, always love your country.'^[33] Despite this, Al senior lost the election.

Gore has said that his other reason for enlisting was that he did not want someone with fewer options than he to go in his place.^[36] Actor Tommy Lee Jones, a former college housemate, recalled Gore saying that "if he found a fancy way of not going, someone else would have to go in his place."^[23][37] His Harvard advisor, Richard Neustadt, also stated that Gore decided, "that he would have to go as an enlisted man because, he said, 'In Tennessee, that's what most people have to do.'" In addition, Michael Roche, Gore's editor for The Castle Courier, stated that "anybody who knew Al Gore in Vietnam knows he could have sat on his butt and he didn't."^[35]

After enlisting in August 1969, Gore returned to the anti-war Harvard campus in his military uniform to say goodbye to his adviser and was "jeered" at by students.^[17][23] He later said he was astonished by the "emotional field of negativity and disapproval and piercing glances that ... certainly felt like real hatred".^[23]

Gore had basic training at Fort Dix from August to October, and then was assigned to be a journalist at Fort Rucker, Alabama. In April 1970, he was "Soldier of the Month".^[17][35]

His orders to be sent to Vietnam were "held up" for some time and he suspected that this was due to a fear by the Nixon administration that if something happened to him, his father would gain sympathy votes^{[citation needed]}. He was finally shipped to Vietnam on January 2, 1971, after his father had lost his seat in the Senate during the 1970 Senate election, becoming one "of only about a dozen of the 1,115 Harvard graduates in the Class of '69 who went to Vietnam."^[35][38][39] Gore was stationed with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and was a journalist with The Castle Courier.^[40] He received an honorable discharge from the Army in May 1971.^[17]

Of his time in the Army, Gore later stated, "I didn't do the most, or run the gravest danger. But I was proud to wear my country's uniform."^[37] He also later stated that his experience in Vietnam "didn't change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang on to what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments expressed by people who did the laundry and ran the restaurants and worked in the fields was something I was naively unprepared for."^[41]

Vanderbilt and journalism[link]

Gore was "dispirited" after his return from Vietnam.^[33] NashvillePost.com noted that, "his father's defeat made service in a conflict he deeply opposed even more abhorrent to Gore. His experiences in the war zone don't seem to have been deeply traumatic in themselves; although the engineers were sometimes fired upon, Gore has said he didn't see full-scale combat. Still, he felt that his participation in the war was wrong."^[38]

Although his parents wanted him to go to law school, Gore first attended Vanderbilt University Divinity School from 1971 to 1972 on Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for people planning secular careers. He later said he went there in order to explore "spiritual issues",^[2] and that "he had hoped to make sense of the social injustices that seemed to challenge his religious beliefs."^[42]

Gore also began to work the night shift for The Tennessean as an investigative reporter in 1971.^[43] His investigations of corruption among members of Nashville's Metro Council resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two councilmen for separate offenses.^[38]

He took a leave of absence from The Tennessean to attend Vanderbilt University Law School in 1974. His decision to become an attorney was a partial result of his time as a journalist, as he realized that while he could expose corruption, he could not change it.^[2] Gore did not complete law school, deciding abruptly in 1976 to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives when he found out that his father's former seat in the House was about to be vacated.^[2][44]

Congress and first presidential run (1976–1993)[link]

Gore began serving in the U.S. Congress at the age of 28 and stayed there for the next 16 years, serving in both the House (1977–1985) and the Senate (1985–1993).^[43] Gore spent many weekends in Tennessee, working with his constituents.^[15][33]

House and Senate[link]

At the end of February 1976, U.S. Representative Joe L. Evins unexpectedly announced his retirement from Congress, making the Tennessee's 4th congressional district seat to which he had succeeded Albert Gore, Sr. in 1953 open. Within hours after Tennessean publisher John Seigenthaler, Sr., called him to tell him the announcement was forthcoming,^[44] Gore decided to quit law school and run for the House of Representatives:

Gore's abrupt decision to run for the open seat surprised even himself; he later said that 'I didn't realize myself I had been pulled back so much to it.' The news came as a 'bombshell' to his wife. Tipper Gore held a job in the Tennessean's photo lab and was working on a master's degree in psychology, but she joined in her husband's campaign (with assurance that she could get her job at the Tennessean back if he lost). By contrast, Gore asked his father to stay out of his campaign: 'I must become my own man,' he explained. 'I must not be your candidate.'^[33]

Gore won a seat in Congress in 1976 "with 32 percent of the vote, three percentage points more than his nearest rival."^[45] He won the next three elections in 1978, 1980, and 1982 where "he was unopposed twice and won 79 percent of the vote the other time."^[45] In 1984, Gore successfully ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, which had been vacated by Republican Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. He was "unopposed in the Democratic Senatorial primary and won the general election going away," despite the fact that Republican President Ronald Reagan swept Tennessee in his reelection campaign the same year.^[45]

Gore during his congressional years

During his time in Congress, Gore was considered a "moderate" (he referred to himself as a "raging moderate")^[46] opposing federal funding of abortion, voting in favor of a bill which supported a moment in silence in schools, and voting against a ban on interstate sales of guns.^[47] His position as a moderate (and on policies related to that label) shifted later in life after he became Vice President and ran for president in 2000.^[48]

During his time in the House, Gore sat on the Energy and Commerce and the Science and Technology committees, chairing the latter for four years.^[45] He also sat on the House Intelligence Committee and in 1982 introduced the Gore Plan for arms control, to "reduce chances of a nuclear first strike by cutting multiple warheads and deploying single-warhead mobile launchers."^[33] While in the Senate, he sat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the Rules and Administration, and the Armed Services Committees.^[33] In 1991, Gore was one of ten democrats who supported the Gulf War.^[33]

Gore was one of the Atari Democrats who were given this name due to their "passion for technological issues, from biomedical research and genetic engineering to the environmental impact of the "greenhouse effect."^[33] On March 19, 1979 he became the first member of Congress to appear on C-SPAN.^[49] During this time, Gore co-chaired the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future with Newt Gingrich.^[50] In addition, he has been described as having been a "genuine nerd, with a geek reputation running back to his days as a futurist Atari Democrat in the House. Before computers were comprehensible, let alone sexy, the poker-faced Gore struggled to explain artificial intelligence and fiber-optic networks to sleepy colleagues."^[33][51] Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn noted that, "as far back as the 1970s, Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship [...] the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication."^[52]

Gore introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986.^[53] He also sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises."^[54]

As a Senator, Gore began to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as "The Gore Bill") after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by UCLA professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet).^[55][56][57] The bill was passed on December 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the "information superhighway."^[58]

After joining the U.S. House of Representatives, Gore held the "first congressional hearings on the climate change, and co-sponsor[ed] hearings on toxic waste and global warming."^[59][60] He continued to speak on the topic throughout the 1980s.^[33][61][62] In 1990, Senator Gore presided over a three-day conference with legislators from over 42 countries which sought to create a Global Marshall Plan, "under which industrial nations would help less developed countries grow economically while still protecting the environment."^[63]

First presidential run (1988)[link]

Gore campaigned for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States against Joe Biden, Gary Hart, Dick Gephardt, Paul Simon, Jesse Jackson, and Michael Dukakis (who eventually won the Democratic nomination). Gore carried seven states in the primaries, finishing third overall.

Although Gore initially denied that he intended to run, his candidacy was the subject of speculation: "National analysts make Sen. Gore a long-shot for the Presidential nomination, but many believe he could provide a natural complement for any of the other candidates: a young, attractive, moderate Vice Presidential nominee from the South. He currently denies any interest, but he carefully does not reject the idea out of hand."^[18] At the time, he was 39 years old, making him the "youngest serious Presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy."^[18]

After announcing that he would run, Gore ran his campaign as "a Southern centrist, [who] opposed federal funding for abortion. He favored a moment of silence for prayer in the schools and voted against banning the interstate sale of handguns."^[64]

CNN noted that, "in 1988, for the first time, 12 Southern states would hold their primaries on the same day, dubbed "Super Tuesday". Gore thought he would be the only serious Southern contender; he had not counted on Jesse Jackson."^[64] Jackson defeated Gore in the South Carolina Primary, winning, "more than half the total vote, three times that of his closest rival here, Senator Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee."^[65] Gore next placed great hope on Super Tuesday where they split the Southern vote: Jackson winning Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia; Gore winning Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Nevada, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.^[33][64][66] Gore was later endorsed by New York City Mayor, Ed Koch who made statements in favor of Israel and against Jackson. These statements cast Gore in a negative light,^[64] leading voters away from Gore who only received 10% of the vote in the New York Primary. Gore then dropped out of the race.^[33] The New York Times said that Gore also lost support due to his attacks against Jackson, Dukakis, and others.^[67]

Gore was eventually able to mend fences with Jackson who supported the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1992 and 1996, and campaigned for the Gore-Lieberman ticket during the 2000 presidential election.^[68][69] Gore's policies changed substantially in 2000, reflecting his eight years as Vice President.^[70]

Son's 1989 accident, 1992 election, and first book[link]

On April 3, 1989 as the Gores and their six-year-old son Albert were leaving a baseball game, Albert ran across the street to see his friend and was hit by a car. He was thrown 30 feet (9 m), and then traveled along the pavement for another 20 feet (6 m).^[15] Gore later recalled: "I ran to his side and held him and called his name, but he was motionless, limp and still, without breath or pulse [...] His eyes were open with the nothingness stare of death, and we prayed, the two of us, there in the gutter, with only my voice."^[15] Albert was tended to by two nurses who happened to be present during the accident. The Gores spent the next month in the hospital with Albert. Gore also commented: "Our lives were consumed with the struggle to restore his body and spirit."^[15] This event was "a trauma so shattering that [Gore] views it as a moment of personal rebirth", a "key moment in his life" which "changed everything."^[15]