Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1973 for his critical writing as TV-radio-columnist for Chicago Sun-Times about television during 1972. He was the first television critic to win the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1985, Powers won an Emmy Award for his work on CBS News Sunday Morning. Hannibal was influential in much of Powers' writing
In addition to writing, Powers has taught for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Salzburg Seminar in Salzburg, Austria, and at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.
Powers is married and has two sons. He currently resides in Castleton, Vermont.
;Co-authored:
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Ron Paul |
|---|---|
| Image name | Ron Paul, official Congressional photo portrait, 2007.jpg|thumb|Paul's Congressional portrait |
| Birth date | August 20, 1935 |
| Birth place | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| State | Texas |
| District | 14th |
| Term start | January 3, 1997 |
| Preceded | Greg Laughlin |
| State2 | Texas |
| District2 | 22nd |
| Term start2 | January 3, 1979 |
| Term end2 | January 3, 1985 |
| Preceded2 | Robert Gammage |
| Succeeded2 | Tom DeLay |
| Term start3 | April 3, 1976 |
| Term end3 | January 3, 1977 |
| Preceded3 | Robert R. Casey |
| Succeeded3 | Robert Gammage |
| Party | Republican (1976–1988)Libertarian (1988 Presidential Election)Republican (1988–present) |
| Spouse | Carolyn "Carol" Paul |
| Children | Ronald "Ronnie" Paul, Jr.Lori Paul PyeattRandal "Rand" PaulRobert PaulJoy Paul-LeBlanc |
| Alma mater | Gettysburg College (B.S.)Duke University School of Medicine (M.D.) |
| Profession | Physician, Politician |
| Residence | Lake Jackson, Texas |
| Religion | Baptist |
| Website | U.S. House of Representatives Office of Ron Paul |
| Signature | Ron Paul signature.svg |
| Branch | United States Air ForceUnited States Air National Guard |
| Serviceyears | 1962–19651965–1968 |
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American physician and Republican Congressman for the 14th congressional district of Texas. Paul serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Committee on Financial Services, where he has been an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policy. He has gained prominence for his libertarian positions on many political issues, often clashing with both Republican and Democratic Party leaders. He is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. Paul has run for President of the United States twice, first in 1988 as the nominee of the Libertarian Party and again in 2008 as a candidate for the Republican nomination.
He is the founder of the advocacy group Campaign for Liberty and his ideas have been expressed in numerous published articles and books, including End The Fed (2009), and (2008). According to a 1998 study published in the American Journal of Political Science, Paul has the most conservative voting record of any member of Congress since 1937. His son Rand Paul was sworn in as a Senator for Kentucky in 2011, an event with made the elder Paul the first Representative in history to serve alongside a son or daughter in the Senate.
Paul has been married to Carol Wells since 1957. They have five children, who were baptized Episcopalian: Ronald, Lori, Rand, Robert, and Joy. Paul's son Rand is senator-elect of the state of Kentucky. They also have eighteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He has four brothers. Two of them, including David Paul, are ministers. Wayne Paul is a Certified Public Accountant.
Paul was the first Republican representative from the area; he also led the Texas Reagan delegation at the national Republican convention. His successful campaign against Gammage surprised local Democrats, who had expected to retain the seat easily in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Gammage underestimated Paul's support among local mothers: "I had real difficulty down in Brazoria County, where he practiced, because he'd delivered half the babies in the county. There were only two obstetricians in the county, and the other one was his partner."
On the House Banking Committee, Paul blamed the Federal Reserve for inflation, it is now available from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, to which Paul is a distinguished counselor.
In 1984, Paul chose to run for the U.S. Senate instead of re-election to the House, but lost the Republican primary to Phil Gramm. He returned to full-time medical practice In his House farewell address, Paul said, "Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare. Vote trading is seen as good politics. The errand-boy mentality is ordinary, the defender of liberty is seen as bizarre. It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic."
As the "Libertarian standard bearer", Paul gained supporters who agreed with his positions on gun rights, fiscal conservatism, homeschooling, and abortion, and won approval from many who thought the federal government was misdirected. This nationwide support base encouraged and donated to his later campaigns.
According to Paul, his presidential run was about more than reaching office; he sought to spread his libertarian ideas, often to school and university groups regardless of vote eligibility. He said, "We're just as interested in the future generation as this election. These kids will vote eventually, and maybe, just maybe, they'll go home and talk to their parents."
After the election, Paul continued his medical practice until he returned to Congress. He also co-owned a coin dealership, Ron Paul Coins, for twelve years with Burt Blumert, who continued to operate it after Paul returned to office. He spoke multiple times at the American Numismatic Association's 1988 convention. In 1985 Ron Paul & Associates began publishing The Ron Paul Investment Letter and The Ron Paul Survival Report; it added the more controversial Ron Paul Political Report in 1987. Many articles lacked a byline, yet often invoked Paul's name or persona.
After his unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988, Paul returned to private medical practice and continued to allow the newsletters to be published bearing his name. For 1992, RP&A; earned $940,000 and employed Paul's family as well as Lew Rockwell (its vice-president and seven other workers. Murray Rothbard and other libertarians believed Rockwell ghostwrote the newsletters for Paul; Rockwell later acknowledged involvement in writing subscription letters, but attributed the newsletters to "seven or eight freelancers".
Paul considered running for President in 1992, but instead chose to support Pat Buchanan that year, and served as an adviser to his Republican presidential campaign against incumbent President George H. W. Bush.
Morris also accused Paul of authoring questionable statements in past newsletters, Paul's congressional campaign countered the statements were taken out of context. and that voters might not understand the "tongue-in-cheek, academic" quotes out of context. Further, the campaign rejected Morris' demand to release all back issues.
Paul went on to win the election in a close margin. It became the third time Paul had been elected to Congress as a non-incumbent. In both campaigns, the national Democratic Party and major unions continued to spend heavily on targeting Paul. On December 11, 2001, he told the independent movement that he was encouraged by the fact that the petition had spread the message of Constitutionalism, but did not expect a White House win at that time. Further prompting in early 2007 led him to enter the 2008 race.
Unlike many political candidates, Paul receives the overwhelming majority of his campaign contributions from individuals (97 percent in the 2006 cycle), and receives much less from political action committees (PAC's) than others, ranging from two percent (2002) to six percent (1998). The group Clean Up Washington, analyzing from 2000 to mid-2006, listed Paul as seventh-lowest in PAC receipts of all House members; one of the lowest in lobbyist receipts; and fourth-highest in small-donor receipts. He had the lowest PAC receipts percentage of all the 2008 Republican presidential candidates.
Paul was re-elected to his tenth term in Congress in November 2006. In the March 4, 2008, Republican primary for his Congressional seat, he defeated Friendswood city councilman Chris Peden, obtaining over 70 percent of the vote. On the 2008 ballot, Paul won his eleventh term in Congress running unopposed. In the 2010 Republican primary for his Congressional seat, Paul defeated three opponents with 80 percent of the vote.
Paul adds his own earmarks, such as for Texas shrimp promotion, but he routinely votes against most spending bills returned by committee. Earmarks permit members of Congress, rather than executive branch civil servants, to designate spending priorities for previously authorized funds directed otherwise. In , Paul states his views on earmarks this way: "The real problem, and one that was unfortunately not addressed in the 2007's earmark dispute, is the size of the federal government and the amount of money we are spending in these appropriations bills. Cutting even a million dollars from an appropriations bill that spends hundreds of billions will make no appreciable difference in the size of government, which is doubtless why politicians and the media are so eager to have us waste our time on [earmarks]."
Paul also spends extra time in the district to compensate for "violat[ing] almost every rule of political survival you can think of,"
In March 2001, Paul introduced a bill to repeal the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR) and reinstate the process of formal declaration of war by Congress. Later in 2001, Paul voted to authorize the president, pursuant to WPR, to respond to those responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks. He also introduced Sunlight Rule legislation, which requires lawmakers to take enough time to read bills before voting on them, after the Patriot Act was passed within 24 hours of its introduction. Paul was one of six Republicans to vote against the Iraq War Resolution, and (with Oregon representative Peter DeFazio) sponsored a resolution to repeal the war authorization in February 2003. Paul's speech, 35 "Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq", was translated and published in German, French, Russian, Italian, and Swiss periodicals before the Iraq War began. After a 2005 bill was touted as "slashing" government waste, Paul wrote that it decreased spending by a fraction of one percent and that "Congress couldn't slash spending if the members' lives depended on it." He said that in three years he had voted against more than 700 bills intended to expand government.
Paul has introduced several bills to apply tax credits toward education, including credits for parental spending on public, private, or homeschool students (Family Education Freedom Act); for salaries for all K–12 teachers, librarians, counselors, and other school personnel; and for donations to scholarships or to benefit academics (Education Improvement Tax Cut Act). In accord with his political positions, he has also introduced the Sanctity of Life Act, the We the People Act, and the American Freedom Agenda Act.
Note: The numbers for the current session of Congress may no longer reflect the actual numbers as they are still actively in session.
Paul was honorary chair of, and is a current member of, the Republican Liberty Caucus, a political action committee which describes its goal as electing "liberty-minded, limited-government individuals". Paul also hosts a luncheon every Thursday as chair of the Liberty Caucus, composed of 20 members of Congress. Washington DC area radio personality Johnny "Cakes" Auville gave Paul the idea for the Liberty Caucus and is a regular contributing member. He remains on good terms with the Libertarian Party and addressed its 2004 convention. He also was endorsed by the Constitution Party's 2004 presidential candidate, Michael Peroutka.
Paul was on a bipartisan coalition of 17 members of Congress that sued President Bill Clinton in 1999 over his conduct of the Kosovo war. They accused Clinton of failing to inform Congress of the action's status within 48 hours as required by the War Powers Resolution, and of failing to obtain Congressional declaration of war. Congress had voted 427–2 against a declaration of war with Yugoslavia, and had voted to deny support for the air campaign in Kosovo. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that since Congress had voted for funding after Clinton had actively engaged troops in the war with Kosovo, legislators had sent a confusing message about whether they approved of the war. Paul said that the judge's decision attempted to circumvent the Constitution and to authorize the president to conduct a war without approval from Congress.
Paul's campaign showed "surprisingly strong" fundraising with several record-breaking events. He had the highest rate of military contribution for 2008, and donations coming from individuals, aided significantly by an online presence and very active campaigning by supporters, who organized moneybomb fundraisers netting millions over several months. Such fundraising earned Paul the status of having raised more than any other Republican candidate in 2007's fourth-quarter. Paul's name was a number-one web search term as ranked by Technorati, beginning around May 2007. He has led other candidates in YouTube subscriptions since May 20, 2007.
Paul was largely ignored by traditional media, including at least one incident where FOX News did not invite him to a GOP debate featuring all other presidential candidates at the time. One exception was Glenn Beck's program on Headline News, where Beck interviewed Paul for the full hour of his show.
Though projections of 2008 Republican delegate counts varied widely, Paul's count was consistently third among the three candidates remaining after Super Tuesday. According to CNN and the New York Times, by Super Tuesday Paul had received five delegates in North Dakota, and was projected to receive two in Iowa, four in Nevada, and five in Alaska based on caucus results, totaling 16 delegates. However, Paul's campaign projected 42 delegates based on the same results, including delegates from Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota.
In the January Louisiana caucus, Paul placed second behind John McCain, but uncommitted delegates outnumbered both candidates' pledged delegates, since a registration deadline had been extended to January 12. Paul said he had the greatest number of pledged Louisiana delegates who had registered by the original January 10 deadline, and formally challenged the deadline extension and the Louisiana GOP's exclusion of voters due to an outdated list; he projected three Louisiana delegates. The Super Tuesday West Virginia caucus was won by Mike Huckabee, whose state campaign coordinators reportedly arranged to give three Huckabee delegates to Paul in exchange for votes from Paul's supporters. Huckabee has not confirmed this delegate pledge.
Paul's preference votes in primaries and caucuses began at 10 percent in Iowa (winning Jefferson County) and eight percent in New Hampshire, where he had the support of state sovereignty champion, State Representative Dan Itse; on Super Tuesday they ranged from 25 percent in Montana and 21 percent in North Dakota caucuses, where he won several counties, to three percent in several state primaries, averaging under 10 percent in primaries overall. After sweeping four states on March 4, McCain was widely projected to have a majority of delegates pledged to vote for him in the September party convention. Paul obliquely acknowledged McCain on March 6: "Though victory in the political sense [is] not available, many victories have been achieved due to hard work and enthusiasm." He continued to contest the remaining primaries, having added, "McCain has the nominal number ... but if you're in a campaign for only gaining power, that is one thing; if you're in a campaign to influence ideas and the future of the country, it's never over." Paul's recent book, , became a New York Times and Amazon.com bestseller immediately upon release. His newest book, End the Fed, has been released.
On June 12, 2008, Paul withdrew his bid for the Republican nomination, citing his resources could be better spent on improving America. Some of the $4 million remaining campaign contributions was invested into the new political action and advocacy group called Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty. Paul told the newsmagazine NOW on PBS the goal of the Campaign for Liberty is to "spread the message of the Constitution and limited government, while at the same time organizing at the grassroots level and teaching pro-liberty activists how to run effective campaigns and win elections at every level of government."
Controversial claims made in Ron Paul's newsletters, written in the first person, included statements such as "Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist philanderer Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day." Along with "even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming." Another notable statement that garnered controversy was "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be" An issue from 1992 refers to carjacking as the "hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos." In an article title "The Pink House" the newsletter wrote that " "Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."
Shortly afterwards, The New Republic released many previously unpublicized quotations attributed to Paul in James Kirchick's "Angry White Man" article. Kirchick accused Paul of having made racist, sexist, and derogatory comments geared towards African Americans, women, and the LGBT community. Kircheck also accused Paul of possessing "an obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry." CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer that the writing "Didn't sound like the Ron Paul I've come to know." Later, Nelson Linder, president of the Austin chapter of the NAACP, also defended Paul.
Reason republished Paul's 1996 defense of the newsletters, and later reported evidence from "a half-dozen longtime libertarian activists" that Lew Rockwell had been the chief ghostwriter.
Paul had given his own account of the newsletters in March 2001, stating the documents were authored by ghostwriters, and that while he did not author the challenged passages, he bore "some moral responsibility" for their publication.
On September 10, 2008, Paul confirmed his "open endorsement" (CNN) for the four candidates at a press conference in Washington D.C. He also revealed that he had rejected a request for an endorsement of John McCain. He later appeared on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer with Nader where they presented and briefly laid out the four principles that all the independent candidates had agreed on as the most important key issues of the presidential race. On September 22, 2008, in response to a written statement by Bob Barr, Paul abandoned his former neutral stance and announced his support of Chuck Baldwin in the 2008 presidential election.
In the 2008 general election, Paul still received 41,905 votes despite not actively running for the seat. He was listed on the ballot in Montana on the Constitution Party label, and in Louisiana on the "Louisiana Taxpayers Party" ticket, and received write-in votes in California (17,006), Pennsylvania (3,527), New Hampshire (1,092), and other states. (Not all U.S. jurisdictions require the counting or reporting of write-in votes.)
In the 2009 CPAC Presidential Preference straw poll for the 2012 election, Paul tied 2008 GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin for third place with 13% of the vote, behind fellow former candidate Mitt Romney and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. However, in the 2010 CPAC straw poll, he came out on top, decisively winning with 31%, followed distantly by Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, among others. In the 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll, Paul finished second place with 24% of the vote (438 votes), behind only Mitt Romney (with 439 votes). An April 2010 Rasmussen poll found that Ron Paul and President Obama were nearly tied for the 2012 presidential election among likely voters, although later polls showed him trailing significantly. He also trails in polls for the Republican presidential nomination, typically behind Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich.
Jesse Benton, Senior VP of Campaign for Liberty, has said of the prospective run: "If the decision had to be made today, it would be 'no', but he is considering it very strongly and there is a decent likelihood that he will. A lot of it depends on things going on in his personal life and also what's going on in the country."
As part of an effort to encourage Ron Paul to run for president in 2012, a Tea Party moneybomb has been set up with the aim of repeating the 2007 Ron Paul Tea Party moneybomb, which gave Paul's 2008 presidential campaign over $6 million in one day. The goal of The Ron Paul Tea Party is to have 100,000 people donate $100 each on December 16, 2010 to kick off Paul's 2012 presidential run, should he decide to run.
Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, June 15, 2007.]]
Paul has been described as conservative, Constitutionalist, and libertarian. reflects both his medical degree and his insistence that he will "never vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution." One scoring method published in the American Journal of Political Science found Paul the most conservative of all 3,320 members of Congress from 1937 to 2002. Paul's foreign policy of nonintervention made him the only 2008 Republican presidential candidate to have voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002. He advocates withdrawal from the United Nations, and from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for reasons of maintaining strong national sovereignty. He supports free trade, rejecting membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization as "managed trade". He supports tighter border security and opposes welfare for illegal aliens, birthright citizenship and amnesty; he voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006. He voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks, but suggested war alternatives such as authorizing the president to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal targeting specific terrorists.
Paul adheres deeply to Austrian school economics; he has authored six books on the subject, and displays pictures of Austrian school economists Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Ludwig von Mises (as well as of Grover Cleveland) he cast two thirds of all the lone negative votes in the House during a 1995–1997 period. and states he has never voted to approve a budget deficit. Paul believes that the country could abolish the individual income tax by scaling back federal spending to its fiscal year 2000 levels; financing government operations would primarily come through the corporate income tax, excise taxes and tariffs. He supports eliminating most federal government agencies, calling them unnecessary bureaucracies. Paul also believes the longterm erosion of the U.S. dollar's purchasing power through inflation is attributable to its lack of any commodity backing. However, Paul does not support a complete return to a gold standard, instead preferring to legitimize gold and silver as legal tender and to remove the sales tax on them. He also advocates gradual elimination of the Federal Reserve System.
Paul supports constitutional rights, such as the right to keep and bear arms, and habeas corpus for political detainees. He opposes the Patriot Act, federal use of torture, presidential autonomy, a national ID card, domestic surveillance, and the draft. Citing the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, Paul advocates states' rights to decide how to regulate social matters not directly found in the Constitution. Paul calls himself "strongly pro-life", "an unshakable foe of abortion", and believes regulation or ban on medical decisions about maternal or fetal health is "best handled at the state level". He says his years as an obstetrician led him to believe life begins at conception; his abortion-related legislation, like the Sanctity of Life Act, is intended to negate Roe v. Wade and to get "the federal government completely out of the business of regulating state matters." Paul also believes that the notion of the separation of church and state is currently misused by the court system: "In case after case, the Supreme Court has used the infamous 'separation of church and state' metaphor to uphold court decisions that allow the federal government to intrude upon and deprive citizens of their religious liberty."
He opposes federal regulation of the death penalty, of education, and of marriage, and supports revising the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy to focus on disruptive sexual behavior (whether heterosexual or homosexual). As a free-market environmentalist, he asserts private property rights in relation to environmental protection and pollution prevention. He also opposes the federal War on Drugs, and thinks the states should decide whether to regulate or deregulate drugs such as medical marijuana. Paul pushes to eliminate federal involvement in and management of health care, which he argues would allow prices to drop due to the fundamental dynamics of a free market. He is an outspoken proponent for increased ballot access for 3rd party candidates and numerous election law reforms which he believes would allow more voter control. Ron Paul has also stated that “The government shouldn't be in the medical business." He is also opposed to government flu inoculation programs.
Paul takes a critical view of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, arguing that it was unconstitutional and did not improve race relations.
;Congress
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;Presidential campaign
Category:1935 births Category:Living people Category:American anti-Iraq War activists Category:American foreign policy writers Category:American libertarians Category:American physicians Category:American political writers Category:American writers of German descent Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Classical liberals Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Drug policy reform activists Category:Duke University alumni Category:Gettysburg College alumni Category:Internet memes Category:Libertarian Party (United States) presidential nominees Category:Libertarian theorists Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas Category:Military physicians Category:People from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Category:People from Brazoria County, Texas Category:Physicians from Texas Category:Politicians from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Texas Republicans Category:Texas Libertarians Category:United States Air Force officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 1988 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2008 Category:University of Pittsburgh people
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| Name | Lex Luger |
|---|---|
| Names | Lex LugerThe Total PackageThe Narcissist |
| Height | better known by his ring name Lex Luger, is an American former professional wrestler and football player. He is best known for his work with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). |
Category:1958 births Category:Living people Category:American bodybuilders Category:American Christians Category:American professional wrestlers Category:American television actors Category:People from Erie County, New York Category:People from Atlanta, Georgia Category:People from Marietta, Georgia Category:American sportspeople of German descent
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Eric Bischoff |
|---|---|
| Height | |
| Weight | |
| Birth date | Eric Aaron BischoffMay 27, 1957 |
| Birth place | Detroit, Michigan |
| Resides | Cody, Wyoming |
| Trained | subin raj |
| Debut | 1987 |
| Promotions | WCW, WWE, TNA |
With an amateur background in martial arts, Bischoff also sporadically competed as an in-ring performer, and is a former WCW Hardcore Champion. He wrote an autobiography, titled Controversy Creates Cash, that was released in 2006 under WWE Books.
During the gradual demise of the AWA, the company was unable to meet payroll, and Bischoff auditioned for an announcer's position with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1990, but was not hired.
As an announcer, Bischoff reported to producer Tony Schiavone and WCW's Vice President of Broadcasting, Jim Ross. In 1993, after WCW President Bill Watts resigned from the company, Bischoff went to TBS executive Bill Shaw and WCW Vice President Bob Dhue to ask for the job of Executive Producer. At the time, Ross and Tony Schiavone seemed to be the two top candidates. However, Bischoff was hired in Watts' place. Schiavone remained a producer until the company's demise, but Ross was released from the company and ended up in the rival WWF. Initially, Bischoff and Dhue worked together as partners, but frequently clashed over the direction of the company.
In 1994, Bischoff was promoted from Executive Producer to Executive Vice President, effectively making him the boss of the entire company. Dhue resigned, as did event manager Don Sandefeur and junior vice president Jim Barnett. Bischoff convinced Turner executives to better finance WCW in order to compete with the WWF. Almost immediately, he used the money allotted to him to sign big names such as Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and others away from the WWF. He also invested money in production values and increased the number of WCW pay-per-views (first 7 a year, then 10, and then once a month). The plans paid off, and in 1995, WCW turned a profit for the first time in the company's history. By 1997, Bischoff's official job title was President of WCW.
Bischoff designed and produced the new show, WCW Monday Nitro, and showcased the company as a fresh alternative to the WWF. Bischoff has stated that he wanted to draw an audience by being different from the competition and not trying to be similar. Nitro was live each week, whereas at the time Raw was live every other week (with the next week's show taped after the live Raw on Tuesday nights). Knowing this, Bischoff would often give away Raw results to encourage viewers to watch his show instead. On Nitro, he called the WWF the World Whining Federation. In his book (Controversy Creates Ca$h), Bischoff describes the design for Nitro as being a complete alternative to the WWF. Raw catered to younger crowds, so Nitro went for the 18-35 male demographic. Character-wise, Raw featured larger than life cartoon characters, while Nitro would begin to integrate edgier characters with more depth. Raw tended to have lots of squash matches on its television each week during this part of its history while Nitro regularly showcased competitive matches that would normally be reserved for pay-per-view.
Because WCW and TNT were both part of Turner, Bischoff was able to start Nitro several minutes earlier than Raw, as well as provide a late-night rebroadcast so viewers who opted to watch Raw could still see the show (Not to mention West Coast viewers who -- because the Turner networks operate on a single coast-to-coast live feed -- would otherwise have missed Nitro entirely because of the three-hour time difference). With the influx of new money Bischoff also began signing wrestlers from around the world, including All Japan, New Japan, and Extreme Championship Wrestling to fill the undercard with quicker paced, more action-packed matches. Although most industry insiders had predicted a short and certain death for Nitro at the time, it was an immediate success. What would be dubbed the "Monday Night Wars" began, as Nitro beat Raw in their first head-to-head week and ran neck-and-neck with the WWF for the remainder of the year. The show garnered eleven ratings-victories by the end of 1995, and slowly but steadily, the popularity of the wrestling business in general began to grow during this period, driven largely by the direct competition between the two wrestling shows.
The nWo was depicted as a rival company engaging in a "hostile takeover" of WCW. Week to week, the angle grew more complex, with a barrage of main-eventers, mid-carders, executives, referees, managers, and announcers involved in various subplots related to the onscreen "WCW vs nWo" power-struggle.
Led by the nWo storyline, WCW overtook the WWF as the number one wrestling promotion in America with Nitro defeating Raw in the ratings by a wide margin for 84 consecutive weeks. During this era, Bischoff moved from a commentator to a manager role with the nWo. His television character, dubbed "Eazy E" by Hall, which had always been a babyface-announcer, became a dictator and egomaniac as the nWo boss. Bischoff also enjoyed some mainstream exposure in his own right at the time, appearing on the HBO series Arli$$ as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
The forced shift in WCW's programming, the addition of new show WCW Thunder, and the addition of a third hour to Nitro, took a great strain on the resources of Bischoff and the WCW staff. At the same time the WWF, buoyed by its new "Attitude" branding and product, began beating an increasingly stagnant WCW week after week in the Monday night ratings war. By January 1999, the tide had completely turned. According to Controversy Creates Ca$h Bischoff marks the point when the Standards & Practices and Advertising Sales departments began applying heavy restrictions on WCW's creativity section as the time when he should have left the company, but he remained.
His TV presence disappeared, and a demoralized Bischoff began to turn his attention to other projects other than WCW. When Bischoff returned from hiatus in April 1999, the company was in bad shape. He would try to unsuccessfully extend the WCW brand outside of wrestling with a restaurant called The Nitro Grill in Las Vegas (which went under in less than a year) and a brand of cologne. Bischoff also tried to bring in musical talent such as Kiss, Master P, Chad Brock, and Megadeth in an effort to co-brand with WCW's product, but none of these performances were able to make an impact in the ratings.
However, less than six months went by before Busch was removed from power. Busch, according to Controversy Creates Ca$h, was a numbers man and had no idea how to run a wrestling company. To make matters worse, ratings, which had been at least decent under Bischoff's tenure, plummeted to embarrassing lows. Replacing Busch at the helm was Time Warner programming executive Brad Siegel. Siegel's first order of business was to ask Bischoff what could be done to save the company, and because of this, Bischoff briefly came back into power in April 2000, although not as president; instead, he was named event and television manager, and was to be seconded by creative director Vince Russo who had been the head writer at the WWF when Raw began to overtake Nitro in the ratings. Although unhappy with Russo's booking (which Bischoff would later describe as "dark, mean-spirited, and creatively shallow"), Bischoff worked with Russo for the good of WCW. The last straw, according to Bischoff, was the Hulk Hogan incident at Bash at the Beach in 2000. Bischoff would quietly leave his post after six weeks; Russo assumed complete control over WCW television and pay-per-views.
However, if Siegel wanted nothing to do with WCW, then his new supervisor in the AOL Time Warner merger Jamie Kellner (former WB Network executive) wanted even less to do with the company. Named the new head of Turner Broadcasting, Kellner formally canceled all WCW programming from its television networks. With no network on which to air its programming, WCW was of little value to Bischoff and Fusient (Bischoff: "It made absolutely no sense for us to do the deal under those circumstances."), whose offer depended on being able to continue to air WCW programming on the Turner networks. With WCW programming canceled (and Viacom subsequently no longer objecting), the company was purchased by the WWF in March 2001 for a substantially lower price (approximately US $3.5 million) than what had been offered.
Bischoff was kayfabe "fired" as General Manager in late 2005, when Vince McMahon tossed him into a garbage truck - following a "trial" where his history of unscrupulous actions were listed - and driven out of the arena. Bischoff then sat out the remainder of the year and spent the start of 2006 writing a book that would become Controversy Creates Cash. Bischoff was against writing a wrestling book initially, as he believes "most are bitter, self-serving revisionist history at best—and monuments to bullshit at their worst."
On September 25, 2006, Bischoff appeared on WWE TV for the first time in close to a year, being brought into the ring by Jonathan Coachman where he proceeded to promote his recently finished book Controversy Creates Ca$h (ISBN 1-4165-2729-X) and gave a worked shoot on McMahon and WWE. During his segment Bischoff stated, "Without Monday Nitro there would be no Monday Night Raw...without the nWo there would be no DX...and without Eric Bischoff there would be no Vince McMahon", after which Bischoff's microphone was turned off and he was escorted from the building by security. A few days later John Bradshaw Layfield conducted a four-part interview with Bischoff, further discussing his book on WWE.com. During the interview, Bischoff discussed various topics, such as his true feelings towards Lex Luger, his thoughts on ECW promoter Paul Heyman, his decision of giving Kevin Nash booking power, and his overall reaction to the Monday Night Wars. At one point, it was even on the New York Times best seller list.
Bischoff was chosen as the special guest referee for the D-Generation X vs. Rated-RKO match at Cyber Sunday on November 5, with 60% of the vote. He then cheated DX out of the win, leaving Orton and Edge the victors. The next night on Raw, Bischoff was reinstated as General Manager for one night only. During his time as the GM on Raw, he restarted matches if he did not like the outcome. He also got revenge on Maria for her statement made in his trial the year before by making her face Umaga, forced John Cena to "take the night off," and banned DX from the building. He restarted the match between Jeff Hardy and Johnny Nitro for the WWE Intercontinental Championship after Hardy won by DQ. Bischoff restarted that match as a No Disqualification match, and Nitro took advantage of that using Melina to distract Hardy and striking him with the title belt. At the end of the show, DX interfered in the main event when Bischoff tried to help Edge and Randy Orton win the tag team title, and forced him to be humiliated by "Big Dick Johnson" as revenge for costing them their match the night before.
On March 5, 2007, Bischoff made a brief appearance on Raw in Phoenix, Arizona to give Vince McMahon his thoughts on the WrestleMania 23 match against Donald Trump. Then on December 10, 2007, Bischoff made his last appearance with WWE on Raw for its 15th Anniversary Special and was confronted by Chris Jericho, who was fired on Raw in 2005.
He premiered alongside Hogan on the January 4, 2010, edition of TNA Impact! as part of a alliance to take over and rebuild the franchise. Behind the scenes, he was also appointed TNA executive producer and has authority to book matches.
Despite being a heel when dealing with the likes of Jeff Jarrett, Mick Foley and Abyss, Bischoff refereed his first TNA match at Against All Odds, favoring the face challenger Samoa Joe over the heel champion A.J. Styles in a match for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. During the match, as part of the storyline, Bischoff punched out Styles' manager Ric Flair, after he interfered in the match, but the distraction led to Styles retaining his belt. On the March 15 edition of Impact! Bischoff attempted to shave Mick Foley bald as a punishment for trying to help Jeff Jarrett in a handicap match the previous week, but was shaved bald himself, when Foley turned the tables on him. At Lockdown Bischoff turned face by helping Team Hogan defeat Team Flair in the Lethal Lockdown match. The next months Bischoff worked with Hogan, Jeff Jarrett and Samoa Joe against Sting and Kevin Nash, who claimed that they knew that Bischoff and Hogan were up to something. During this time Abyss turned on Hogan and went on a rampage, which included attacking the TNA World Heavyweight Champion Rob Van Dam to the point that he was forced to vacate the title, all the while claiming that he was controlled by some entity, that was coming to TNA. After he manhandled TNA president Dixie Carter on the October 7 edition of Impact!, Bischoff presented Carter with the paperwork that would have Abyss fired after his match with Rob Van Dam at Bound for Glory, which she then proceeded to sign.
Eric also appeared in a training video for bank loan officers that covered prohibited lending practices.
Today, Bischoff lives in Cody, Wyoming, with his wife Loree and his two children, son Garrett and daughter Montanna. Garrett, under the ring name Jackson James, made his debut as a referee for TNA Wrestling on November 7, 2010, at Turning Point.
Category:American professional wrestlers Category:Professional wrestling executives Category:Professional wrestling announcers Category:Professional wrestling managers and valets Category:American television producers Category:People from Detroit, Michigan Category:People from Park County, Wyoming Category:University of Minnesota alumni Category:1955 births Category:Living people
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Dennis Kucinich |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Image name | Dennis_Kucinich.jpg |
| State | Ohio |
| District | 10th |
| Party | Democratic |
| Term start | January 3, 1997 |
| Preceded | Martin Hoke |
| State senate2 | Ohio |
| State2 | Ohio |
| District2 | 23rd |
| Term2 | January 3, 1995-January 2, 1997 |
| Preceded2 | Anthony Sinagra |
| Succeeded2 | Patrick Sweeney |
| Office3 | Mayor of Cleveland |
| Term start3 | 1977 |
| Term end3 | 1979 |
| Order3 | 53rd |
| Predecessor3 | Ralph J. Perk |
| Successor3 | George Voinovich |
| Office4 | Cleveland City Councilman |
| Term start4 | 1970 |
| Term end4 | 75 |
| Term start5 | 1981 |
| Term end5 | 1982 |
| Birth date | October 08, 1946 |
| Birth place | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Spouse | Helen Kucinich (divorced)Sandra Lee McCarthy (1977–1986, divorced)Elizabeth Kucinich (2005–present) |
| Children | Jackie Kucinich |
| Alma mater | Cleveland State UniversityCase Western Reserve University |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Residence | Cleveland |
| Website | Congressman Dennis Kucinich |
The district includes most of western Cleveland as well as suburbs such as Parma and Lakewood. He is currently the chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He is also a member of the Education and Labor Committee.
From 1977 to 1979, Kucinich served as the 53rd mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, a tumultuous term in which he survived a recall election and was successful in a battle against selling the municipal electric utility before being defeated for reelection by George Voinovich.
Through his various governmental positions and campaigns, Kucinich has attracted attention for consistently delivering "the strongest liberal" perspective. This perspective and his actions, such as bringing articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and being the only Democratic candidate in the 2008 election to have voted against invading Iraq, has often been in sharp contrast to the more moderate tone the Democratic Party has often adopted.
He attended Cleveland State University from 1967 to 1970. In 1973, he graduated from Case Western Reserve University with both a Bachelor and a Master of Arts degree in speech and communication. Kucinich was baptized a Roman Catholic. He married his third wife, Elizabeth Harper, a British citizen, on August 21, 2005. The two met while Harper was working as an assistant for the Chicago-based American Monetary Institute, which brought her to Kucinich's House of Representatives office for a meeting. She is 31 years younger than Kucinich.
Dennis was raised with four brothers, Larry, Frank, Gary and Perry; and two sisters, Theresa and Beth Ann. On December 19, 2007, Perry Kucinich, the youngest brother, was found dead in his apartment. On November 11, 2008, his youngest sister, Beth Ann Kucinich, also died.
in 1978.]]
Kucinich was elected Mayor of Cleveland in 1977 and served in that position until 1979. At thirty-one years of age, he was the youngest mayor of a major city in the United States, After Kucinich refused to sell Muni Light, Cleveland's publicly owned electric utility, the Cleveland mafia put out a hit on Kucinich. A hit man from Maryland planned to shoot him in the head during the Columbus Day Parade, but the plot fell apart when Kucinich was hospitalized and missed the event. When the city fell into default shortly thereafter, the mafia leaders called off the contract killer.
Specifically, it was the Cleveland Trust Company that suddenly required all of the city's debts be paid in full, which forced the city into default, after news of Kucinich's refusal to sell the city utility. For years, these debts were routinely rolled over, pending future payment, until Kucinich's announcement was made public. In 1998 the council honored him for having the "courage and foresight" to stand up to the banks and saving the city an estimated $195 million between 1985 and 1995.
In 1985, there was some speculation that Kucinich might run for mayor again. Instead, his brother Gary ran against (and lost to) the incumbent Voinovich. Kucinich, meanwhile, gave up his council position to run for Governor of Ohio as an independent against Richard Celeste, but later withdrew from the race.
On August 27, 2008, he delivered a widely publicized speech at the Democratic National Convention.
in June 2007]] Kucinich helped introduce and is one of 93 cosponsors (as of Feb. 22, 2010) in the House of Representatives of the United States National Health Care Act or HR 676 proposed by Rep. John Conyers in 2003, which provides for a universal single-payer public health-insurance plan.
Although his voting record is not always in line with that of the Democratic Party, on March 17, 2010, after being courted by President Barack Obama, his wife and others, reluctantly agreed to vote with his colleagues for the Healthcare Bill without a public option component.
Kucinich voted against the USA PATRIOT Act, against the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and was one of six who voted against the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act. He also voted for authorizing and directing the Committee on the Judiciary to investigate whether sufficient grounds existed for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
Kucinich criticized the flag-burning amendment and voted against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. His congressional voting record has leaned strongly toward a pro-life stance, although he noted that he has never supported a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion altogether. In 2003, however, he began describing himself as pro-choice and said he had shifted away from his earlier position on the issue. Press releases have indicated that he is pro-choice and supports ending the abstinence-only policy of sex education and increasing the use of contraception to make abortion "less necessary" over time. His voting record since 2003 has reflected mixed ratings from abortion rights groups.
He has criticized Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) for promoting voting machines that fail to leave a traceable paper trail, and posted on his website internal company memos in which company executives promised to deliver the 2004 Ohio election to Bush. He was one of the thirty-one who voted in the House to not count the electoral votes from Ohio in the United States presidential election, 2004.
He advocates the abolition of all nuclear weapons, calling on the United States to be the leader in multilateral disarmament. Kucinich has also strongly opposed space-based weapons and has sponsored legislation, HR 2977, banning the deployment and use of space-based weapons.
Kucinich advocates US withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) because, in his view, it causes the loss of more American jobs than it creates, and does not provide adequate protections for worker rights and safety and environmental safeguards. He is against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) for the same reason.
Kucinich is also in favor of increased dialog with Iran in order to avoid a militaristic confrontation at all costs. He expressed such sentiments at an American Iranian Council conference in New Brunswick, New Jersey which included Chuck Hagel, Javad Zarif, Nicholas Kristof, and Anders Liden to discuss Iranian-American relations, and potential ways to increase dialog in order to avoid conflict.
He believes the US should move aggressively to reduce emissions that cause climate change due to global warming and should ratify the Kyoto Protocol, a major international agreement signed by over 160 countries to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by each signatory.
Kucinich and Ron Paul are the only two congressional representatives who voted against the Rothman-Kirk Resolution, which calls on the United Nations to charge Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the genocide convention of the United Nations Charter based on statements that he has made. Kucinich defended his vote by saying that Ahmadinejad's statements could be translated to mean that he wants a regime change in Israel, not death to its people and supporters, and that the resolution is an attempt to beat "the war drum to build support for a US attack on Iran." In October 2009, Kucinich and Ron Paul were the only two congressional representatives to vote against H.Res.175 condemning the government of Iran for “state-sponsored persecution of its Bahá’í minority and its continued violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights.”
On January 9, 2009, Kucinich was one of the dissenters in a 390-5 vote with 22 abstentions for a resolution recognizing Israel's "right to defend itself [against Hamas rocket attacks]" and reaffirming the U.S.'s support for Israel. The other 4 "no" votes were Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Maxine Waters of California, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and Ron Paul of Texas.
Kucinich is the only congressional representative to vote against the symbolic "9/11 Commemoration" resolution. In a press statement he defended his vote by saying that the bill did not make reference to "the lies that took us into Iraq, the lies that keep us there, the lies that are being used to set the stage for war against Iran and the lies that have undermined our basic civil liberties here at home."
In a visit to the rest of the Middle East in September 2007, Kucinich said he did not visit Iraq because "I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation." Kucinich was criticized for his visit to Syria and praise of the President Bashar al-Assad on Syria's national TV. He praised Syria for taking in Iraqi refugees. "What most people are not aware of is that Syria has taken in more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees," Kucinich said. "The Syrian government has actually shown a lot of compassion in keeping its doors open, and being a host for so many refugees."
Despite Kucinich's committed opposition to the war in Iraq, in the days after the September 11, 2001 attacks he did vote to authorize President Bush broad war making powers, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists. The Authorization was used by the Bush Administration in its justification for suspension of habeas corpus in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and its wiretapping of American citizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Kucinich voted along with 419 of his House colleagues in favor of this resolution, while only one Congresswoman opposed, Representative Barbara Lee.
In March 2010, the House rejected a Kucinich resolution regarding the War in Afghanistan by a vote of 356-65. The resolution would have required the Obama administration to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. Kucinich reportedly based the resolution on the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
Ralph Nader praised Kucinich as "a genuine progressive," and most Greens were friendly to Kucinich's campaign, some going so far as to indicate that they would not have run against him had he won the Democratic nomination. However, Kucinich was unable to carry any states in the 2004 Democratic Primaries, and John Kerry eventually won the Democratic nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
The announcement came one day after a Democratic presidential debate hosted by ABC News' Ted Koppel, in which Koppel asked whether the candidacies of Kucinich, Moseley Braun and Sharpton were merely "vanity campaigns," and Koppel and Kucinich exchanged uncomfortable dialog.
Kucinich, previously critical of the limited coverage given his campaign, characterized ABC's decision as an example of media companies' power to shape campaigns by choosing which candidates to cover and questioned its timing, coming immediately after the debate. and chose to focus on Oregon "because of its progressive tradition and its pioneering spirit." He even offered to campaign jointly with Kerry during Kerry's visit to the state, though the offer was ignored. He won 16% of the vote.
Even after Kerry won enough delegates to secure the nomination, Kucinich continued to campaign until just before the convention, citing an effort to help shape the agenda of the Democratic Party. He was the last candidate to end his campaign. He endorsed Kerry on July 22, four days before the start of the Democratic National Convention.
On December 11, 2006 in a speech delivered at Cleveland City Hall, Kucinich announced he would seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for President in 2008. His platform for 2008 included:
Kucinich described his stance on the issues as mainstream. "My politics are center for the Democratic party," he said in an interview before an AFL-CIO sponsored debate.
Kucinich told his supporters in Iowa that if he did not appear on the second ballot in any caucus that they should back Barack Obama:
"I hope Iowans will caucus for me as their first choice ... because of my singular positions on the war, on health care and trade," Kucinich said. "But in those caucus locations where my support doesn't reach the necessary threshold, I strongly encourage all of my supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice."At a debate of Democratic presidential candidates in Philadelphia on October 30, 2007, NBC's Tim Russert cited a passage from a book by Shirley MacLaine in which the author writes that Kucinich had seen a UFO from her home in Washington State. Russert asked if MacLaine's assertion was true. Kucinich confirmed and emphasized that he merely meant he had seen an unidentified flying object, just as former US president Jimmy Carter has. Russert then cited a statistic that 14% of Americans say they have witnessed a UFO.
On November 16, 2007, Larry Flynt hosted a fundraiser for Kucinich at the Los Angeles-based Hustler-LFP headquarters, attended by Kucinich and his wife, which has drawn criticism from Flynt's detractors. Attendees included such notables as Edward Norton, Woody Harrelson, Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, Melissa Etheridge, Tammy Etheridge, Stephen Stills, Kristen Stills, Frances Fisher, and Esai Morales. Campaign representatives declined to comment.
In December 2007, author Gore Vidal endorsed Kucinich for president.
Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign was advised by a steering committee including Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Founder Steve Cobble, long-time Kucinich press secretary Andy Junewicz, former RFK, McCarthy, Humphrey, McGovern and Carter political consultant Michael Carmichael, former Carter Fundraiser Marcus Brandon, Ani DiFranco Tour Manager Susan Alzner, West Point Graduate and former Army Captain Mike Klein, former Communications Director of Democrats Abroad Sharon Manitta and New Jersey-based political consultant Vin Gopal. The campaign was seen as a platform to push progressive issues into the Democratic Party, including a not-for-profit health care system, same-sex marriage, increasing the minimum wage, opposing capital punishment, and impeachment.
On Monday, January 7, 2008 actor Viggo Mortensen endorsed Kucinich's presidential campaign in New Hampshire. On Thursday, January 10, 2008, Kucinich asked for a New Hampshire recount based on discrepancies between the machine-counted ballots and the hand-counted ballots. He stated that he wanted to make sure "100% of the voters had 100% of their votes counted."
On Tuesday, January 15, 2008, Kucinich was "disinvited" from a Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC. A ruling that the debate could not go ahead without Kucinich was overturned on appeal. Kucinich later responded to the questions posed in the MSNBC debate in a show hosted by Democracy Now!
Kucinich dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination on Thursday, January 24, 2008, and did not endorse any other candidate. He later endorsed Barack Obama after he had won the nomination. On Friday, January 25, 2008, he made a formal announcement of the end of his campaign for president and his focus on reelection to Congress.
Cimperman, who was endorsed by the Mayor of Cleveland and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, criticized Kucinich for focusing too much on campaigning for president and not on the district. Kucinich accused Cimperman of representing corporate and real estate interests. Cimperman described Kucinich as an absentee congressman who failed to pass any major legislative initiatives in his 12-year House career. In an interview, Cimperman said he was tired of Kucinich and Cleveland being joke fodder for late-night talk-show hosts, saying "It's time for him to go home." An ad paid for by Cimperman's campaign claimed that Kucinich has missed over 300 votes, but by checking the ad's source, the actual number was 139. However, Kucinich is well known for his constituency service.
A report suggested that representatives of Nancy Pelosi and American Israel Public Affairs Committee would "guarantee" Kucinich's re-election if he dropped his bid to impeach Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, though Kucinich denies the meeting happened. It was also suggested that Kucinich's calls for universal health care and an immediate withdrawal from Iraq made him a thorn in the side of the Democrats' congressional leadership, as well as his refusal to pledge to support the eventual presidential nominee, which he later reconsidered.
Kucinich won the primary, receiving 68,156 votes out of 135,589 cast to beat Cimperman 52% to 33%.
Kucinich defeated former State Representative Jim Trakas in the November 4, 2008 general election with 153,357 votes, 56.8% of those cast.
# Announce that the US will end the occupation, close the military bases, and withdraw. # Announce that existing funds will be used to bring the troops and the necessary equipment home. # Order a simultaneous return of all US contractors to the US and turn over the contracting work to the Iraqi government. # Convene a regional conference for developing a security and stabilization force for Iraq. # Prepare an international security peacekeeping force to replace US troops, who then return home. # Develop and fund a process of national reconciliation. # Restart programs for reconstruction and creating jobs for the Iraqi people. # Provide reparations for the damage that has been done to the lives of Iraqis. # Assure the political sovereignty of Iraq and ensure that their oil is not stolen. # Repair the Iraqi economy. # Guarantee economic sovereignty for Iraq. # Commence an international truth and reconciliation process, which establishes a policy of truth and reconciliation between the people of the US and Iraq.
Kucinich have also crticised the Obama administraion for supporting the People's Mujahedin of Iran terrorist group in Iraq and other insurgent groups that have attacked the Iranian state.
Kucinich held a press conference on the evening of April 24, 2007, revealing House Resolution 333 and the three articles of impeachment against Cheney. He charges Cheney with manipulating the evidence of Iraq's weapons program, deceiving the nation about Iraq's connection to al-Qaeda, and threatening aggression against Iran in violation of the United Nations charter. Kucinich opened his press conference by quoting from the Declaration of Independence, and stated: "I believe the Vice President's conduct of office has been destructive to the founding purposes of our nation. Today, I have introduced House Resolution 333, Articles of Impeachment Relating to Vice President Richard B. Cheney. I do so in defense of the rights of the American people to have a government that is honest and peaceful."
During the first Democratic Presidential debate at South Carolina State University, none of the other candidates' hands went up when the moderator, Brian Williams, asked if they would support Kucinich's plan to impeach Cheney. In response, Kucinich retrieved a pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution from his coat and expressed the importance of protecting and defending constitutional principles.
}}
As of January 29, 2008, 24 other Congressional representatives have become cosponsors. Six of these are members of the House Judiciary Committee: Tammy Baldwin, Keith Ellison, Hank Johnson, Maxine Waters, Steve Cohen and Sheila Jackson-Lee. In addition, Congressman Robert Wexler, supported by Representatives Luis Gutierrez and Tammy Baldwin, have begun openly calling for impeachment hearings to begin.
The congressman has pushed for gun control, even as a city councilman. He kept a pistol in his house for a period in 1978 (under the recommendation of the police) when he was the target of a Mafia plot. He no longer keeps the pistol.
Kucinich is one of the few vegans in Congress.
In 2010 Kucinich stated that new nuclear reactors are not cost-effective, and that they are a slow way of meeting our electricity needs as it takes five or six years for new reactors to come on line. He also said that new nuclear reactors are a risky way to meet electricity needs.
On June 10, 2008, Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush on the floor of the House of Representatives. On June 11, the resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Calling it "a sworn duty" of Congress to act, co-sponsor Robert Wexler stated: "President Bush deliberately created a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people and the charges detailed in this impeachment resolution indicate an unprecedented abuse of executive power."
On July 10, 2008, Kucinich introduced an additional article of impeachment accusing Bush of misleading Congress into war.
On July 14, 2008 Kucinich introduced a new resolution of impeachment against George W. Bush, charging him with manufacturing evidence to sway public opinion in favor of the war in Iraq. This resolution was also sent to the judiciary committee.
Democratic leaders Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi opposed the impeachment efforts. None of them ever progressed to a full House vote.
Category:Dennis Kucinich Category:American Roman Catholic politicians Category:Anti-corporate activists Category:American environmentalists Category:American people of Croatian descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American politicians of Croatian descent Category:American politicians of Irish descent Category:American vegans Category:Case Western Reserve University alumni Category:Cleveland City Council members Category:Cleveland State University alumni Category:Drug policy reform activists Category:Mayors of Cleveland, Ohio Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio Category:Ohio Democrats Category:Ohio State Senators Category:People from Cleveland, Ohio Category:United States presidential candidates, 2004 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2008 Category:Youth rights individuals Category:1946 births Category:Living people
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Tony Atlas |
|---|---|
| Names | Tony AtlasSaba Simba |
| Height | |
| Weight | |
| Birth date | April 23, 1954 |
| Resides | Auburn, Maine |
| Trainer | Larry Sharpe |
| Debut | 1974 (born April 23, 1954) better known by his ring name "Tony Atlas" is a bodybuilder, powerlifter, and professional wrestler who has held multiple titles and championships in each sport. He is also known by his bodybuilding title, "Mr. USA" (a distinction he earned three times), the nom de guerre the "Black Superman", as well as an alter ego named Saba Simba. He returned as an on screen manager for World Wrestling Entertainment, recently appearing on its now-defunct ECW brand. |
| Name | Atlas, Tony |
| Date of birth | 1954-04-23 |
| Place of birth | Roanoke, Virginia |
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Mark Twain |
|---|---|
| Caption | Mark Twain, detail of photo by Mathew Brady, February 7, 1871 |
| Birthname | Samuel Langhorne Clemens |
| Pseudonym | Mark Twain |
| Birthdate | November 30, 1835 |
| Birthplace | Florida, Missouri, U.S. |
| Deathdate | April 21, 1910 |
| Deathplace | Redding, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer, lecturer |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Fiction, historical fiction, children's literature, non-fiction, travel literature, satire, essay, philosophical literature, social commentary, literary criticism |
| Signature | Mark Twain Signatures-2.svg |
| Notableworks | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Langdon, Susy, Clara, Jean |
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which proved to be very popular and brought him nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling.
He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
However, he lacked financial acumen. Though he made a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he squandered it on various ventures, in particular the Paige Compositor, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. With the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers, however, he eventually overcame his financial troubles. Twain worked hard to ensure that all of his creditors were paid in full, even though his bankruptcy had relieved him of the legal responsibility.
Born during a visit by Halley's Comet, he died on its return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".
Twain was the sixth of seven children. Only three of his siblings survived childhood: his brother Orion (July 17, 1825 – December 11, 1897); Henry, who died in a riverboat explosion (July 13, 1838 – June 21, 1858); and Pamela (September 19, 1827 – August 31, 1904). His sister Margaret (May 31, 1830 – August 17, 1839) died when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin (June 8, 1832 – May 12, 1842) died three years later. Another brother, Pleasant (1828–1829), died at six months. Twain was born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halley's Comet. On December 4, 1985, the United States Postal Service issued a stamped envelope for "Mark Twain and Halley's Comet."
When Twain was four, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Missouri was a slave state and young Twain became familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he would later explore in his writing.
Twain’s father was an attorney and a local judge. The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was organized in his office in 1846. The railroad connected the second and third largest cities in the state and was the westernmost United States railroad until the Transcontinental Railroad. It delivered mail to and from the Pony Express.
In March 1847, when Twain was 11, his father died of pneumonia. The next year, he became a printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper owned by his brother Orion. When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. He joined the union and educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. At 22, Twain returned to Missouri.
On a voyage to New Orleans down the Mississippi, steamboat pilot Horace E. Bixby inspired Twain to be a steamboat pilot. As Twain observed in Life on the Mississippi, the pilot surpassed a steamboat's captain in prestige and authority; it was a rewarding occupation with wages set at $250 per month, roughly equivalent to $}} a year today. A steamboat pilot needed to know the ever-changing river to be able to stop at the hundreds of ports and wood-lots. Twain studied 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of the Mississippi for more than two years before he received his steamboat pilot license in 1859.
While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him. Henry was killed on June 21, 1858, when the steamboat on which he was working, the Pennsylvania, exploded. Twain had foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier, which inspired his interest in parapsychology; he was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research. Twain was guilt-stricken and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. He continued to work on the river and was a river pilot until the American Civil War broke out in 1861 and traffic along the Mississippi was curtailed.
Missouri was considered by many to be part of the South, and was represented in both the Confederate and Federal governments during the Civil War. Twain wrote a sketch, "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed", which claimed he and his friends had been Confederate volunteers for two weeks before disbanding their company.
Twain moved to San Francisco, California in 1864, still as a journalist. He met writers such as Bret Harte, Artemus Ward, and Dan DeQuille. The young poet Ina Coolbrith may have romanced him.
His first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", was published in a New York weekly, The Saturday Press, on November 18, 1865. It brought him national attention. A year later, he traveled to the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) as a reporter for the Sacramento Union. His travelogues were popular and became the basis for his first lectures.
In 1867, a local newspaper funded a trip to the Mediterranean. During his tour of Europe and the Middle East, he wrote a popular collection of travel letters, which were later compiled as The Innocents Abroad in 1869. It was on this trip that he met his future brother-in-law.
The couple lived in Buffalo, New York from 1869 to 1871. Twain owned a stake in the Buffalo Express newspaper, and worked as an editor and writer. Their son Langdon died of diphtheria at 19 months.
In 1871, Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where starting in 1873, he arranged the building of a home (local admirers saved it from demolition in 1927 and eventually turned it into a museum focused on him). While living there, Olivia gave birth to three daughters: Susy (1872–1896), Clara (1874–1962) and Jean (1880–1909). The couple's marriage lasted 34 years, until Olivia's death in 1904.
During his seventeen years in Hartford (1874–1891), Twain wrote many of his best-known works: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889).
Twain made a second tour of Europe, described in the 1880 book A Tramp Abroad. His tour included a stay in Heidelberg from May 6 until July 23, 1878, and a visit to London.
Twain patented three inventions, including an "Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (to replace suspenders) and a history trivia game. Most commercially successful was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages only needed to be moistened before use.
His book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court features a time traveler from contemporary America, using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. This type of storyline would later become a common feature of the science fiction sub-genre, Alternate history.
In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at his home in Redding, Connecticut and filmed him. Part of the footage was used in The Prince and the Pauper (1909), a two-reel short film.
Twain embarked on an around-the-world lecture tour in 1894 to pay off his creditors in full, although he was no longer under any legal obligation to do so. In mid-1900, he was the guest of newspaper proprietor Hugh Gilzean-Reid at Dollis Hill House. Twain wrote of Dollis Hill that he had "never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the world". He then returned to America in 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts.
In 1906, Twain began his autobiography in the North American Review. In April, Twain heard that his friend Ina Coolbrith had lost nearly all she owned in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and he volunteered a few autographed portrait photographs to be sold for her benefit. To further aid Coolbrith, George Wharton James visited Twain in New York and arranged for a new portrait session. Initially resistant, Twain admitted that four of the resulting images were the finest ones ever taken of him.
Twain formed a club in 1906 for girls he viewed as surrogate granddaughters, the Angel Fish and Aquarium Club. The dozen or so members ranged in age from 10 to 16. Twain exchanged letters with his "Angel Fish" girls and invited them to concerts and the theatre and to play games. Twain wrote in 1908 that the club was his "life's chief delight."
Oxford University awarded Twain an honorary doctorate in letters (D.Litt.) in 1907.
In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:
His prediction was accurate – Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.
Upon hearing of Twain's death, President William Howard Taft said:
"Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come... His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature."
.]] Twain's funeral was at the "Old Brick" Presbyterian Church in New York. He is buried in his wife's family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York. His grave is marked by a 12-foot (i.e., two fathoms, or "mark twain") monument, placed there by his surviving daughter, Clara. There is also a smaller headstone.
A complete bibliography of his works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number of pieces written by Twain (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names. Additionally, a large portion of his speeches and lectures have been lost or were not written down; thus, the collection of Twain's works is an ongoing process. Researchers rediscovered published material by Twain as recently as 1995.
After this burst of popularity, Twain was commissioned by the Sacramento Union to write letters about his travel experiences for publication in the newspaper, his first of which was to ride the steamer Ajax in its maiden voyage to Hawaii, referred to at the time as the Sandwich Islands. These humorous letters proved the genesis to his work with the San Francisco Alta California newspaper, which designated him a traveling correspondent for a trip from San Francisco to New York City via the Panama isthmus. All the while, Twain was writing letters meant for publishing back and forth, chronicling his experiences with his burlesque humor. On June 8, 1867, Twain set sail on the pleasure cruiser Quaker City for five months. This trip resulted in The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims' Progress.
In 1872, Twain published a second piece of travel literature, Roughing It, as a semi-sequel to Innocents. Roughing It is a semi-autobiographical account of Twain's journey to Nevada and his subsequent life in the American West. The book lampoons American and Western society in the same way that Innocents critiqued the various countries of Europe and the Middle East. Twain's next work kept Roughing It's focus on American society but focused more on the events of the day. Entitled , it was not a travel piece, as his previous two books had been, and it was his first attempt at writing a novel. The book is also notable because it is Twain's only collaboration; it was written with his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner.
Twain's next two works drew on his experiences on the Mississippi River. Old Times on the Mississippi, a series of sketches published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1875, featured Twain’s disillusionment with Romanticism. Old Times eventually became the starting point for Life on the Mississippi.
The Prince and the Pauper, despite a storyline that is omnipresent in film and literature today, was not as well received. Telling the story of two boys born on the same day who are physically identical, the book acts as a social commentary as the prince and pauper switch places. Pauper was Twain's first attempt at fiction, and blame for its shortcomings is usually put on Twain for having not been experienced enough in English society, and also on the fact that it was produced after a massive hit. In between the writing of Pauper, Twain had started Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which he consistently had problems completing) and started and completed another travel book, A Tramp Abroad, which follows Twain as he traveled through central and southern Europe.
Twain's next major published work, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, solidified him as a noteworthy American writer. Some have called it the first Great American Novel, and the book has become required reading in many schools throughout the United States. Huckleberry Finn was an offshoot from Tom Sawyer and had a more serious tone than its predecessor. The main premise behind Huckleberry Finn is the young boy's belief in the right thing to do though most believed that it was wrong. Four hundred manuscript pages of Huckleberry Finn were written in mid-1876, right after the publication of Tom Sawyer. Some accounts have Twain taking seven years off after his first burst of creativity, eventually finishing the book in 1883. Other accounts have Twain working on Huckleberry Finn in tandem with The Prince and the Pauper and other works in 1880 and other years. The last fifth of Huckleberry Finn is subject to much controversy. Some say that Twain experienced, as critic Leo Marx puts it, a "failure of nerve". Ernest Hemingway once said of Huckleberry Finn:
If you read it, you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating.
Hemingway also wrote in the same essay:
All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Near the completion of Huckleberry Finn, Twain wrote Life on the Mississippi, which is said to have heavily influenced the former book.
Twain next focused on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which featured him making his first big pronouncement of disappointment with politics. Written with the same "historical fiction" style of The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee showed the absurdities of political and social norms by setting them in the court of King Arthur. The book was started in December 1885, then shelved a few months later until the summer of 1887, and eventually finished in the spring of 1889.
Twain had begun to furiously write articles and commentary with diminishing returns to pay the bills and keep his business projects afloat, but it was not enough. He filed for bankruptcy in 1894.
His next large-scale work, Pudd'nhead Wilson, was written rapidly, as Twain was desperately trying to stave off the bankruptcy. From November 12 to December 14, 1893, Twain wrote 60,000 words for the novel.
Other authors to fall under Twain's attack during this time period (beginning around 1890 until his death) were George Eliot, Jane Austen, and Robert Louis Stevenson. In addition to providing a source for the "tooth and claw" style of literary criticism, Twain outlines in several letters and essays what he considers to be "quality writing". He places emphasis on concision, utility of word choice, and realism (he complains that Cooper's Deerslayer purports to be realistic but has several shortcomings). Ironically, several of his works were later criticized for lack of continuity (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and organization (Pudd'nhead Wilson).
Twain's wife died in 1904 while the couple were staying at the Villa di Quarto in Florence, and after an appropriate time Twain allowed himself to publish some works that his wife, a de facto editor and censor throughout his life, had looked down upon. Of these works, The Mysterious Stranger, depicting various visits of Satan to the Earth, is perhaps the best known. This particular work was not published in Twain's lifetime. There were three versions found in his manuscripts made between 1897 and 1905: the Hannibal, Eseldorf, and Print Shop versions. Confusion between the versions led to an extensive publication of a jumbled version, and only recently have the original versions as Twain wrote them become available.
Twain's last work was his autobiography, which he dictated and thought would be most entertaining if he went off on whims and tangents in non-chronological order. Some archivists and compilers have rearranged the biography into more conventional forms, thereby eliminating some of Twain's humor and the flow of the book. The first volume of autobiography, over 736 pages, was published by the University of California in November 2010, 100 years after his death as Twain wished. It soon became an unexpected best selling book, making Twain one of very few authors publishing new best-selling volumes in all 3 of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
in 1908]]
The two men introduced each other to their acquaintances. Twain was an admirer of the remarkable deafblind girl Helen Keller. He first met Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan at a party in the home of Laurence Hutton in New York City in the winter of 1894. Twain introduced them to Rogers, who, with his wife, paid for Keller's education at Radcliffe College. Twain is credited with labeling Sullivan, Keller's governess and companion, a "miracle worker". His choice of words later became inspiration for the title of William Gibson's play and film adaptation, The Miracle Worker. Twain also introduced Rogers to journalist Ida M. Tarbell, who interviewed the robber baron for a muckraking expose that led indirectly to the breakup of the Standard Oil Trust. On cruises aboard the Kanawha, Twain and Rogers were joined at frequent intervals by Booker T. Washington, the famed former slave who had become a leading educator.
While the two famous old men were widely regarded as drinking and poker buddies, they also exchanged letters when apart, and this was often since each traveled a great deal. Unlike Rogers' personal files, which have never become public, these insightful letters were published. The written exchanges between the two men demonstrate Twain's well-known sense of humor and, more surprisingly, Rogers' sense of fun, providing a rare insight into the private side of the robber baron.
In April 1907, Twain and Rogers cruised to the opening of the Jamestown Exposition in Virginia. Twain's public popularity was such that many fans took boats out to the Kanawha at anchor in hopes of getting a glimpse of him. As the gathering of boats around the yacht became a safety hazard, he finally obliged by coming on deck and waving to the crowds.
Because of poor weather conditions, the steam yacht was delayed for several days from venturing into the Atlantic Ocean. Rogers and some of the others in his party returned to New York by rail; Twain disliked train travel and so elected to wait and return on the Kanawha. However, reporters lost track of his whereabouts; when he failed to return to New York City as scheduled, The New York Times speculated that he might have been "lost at sea". Upon arriving safely in New York and learning of this, the humorist wrote a satirical article about the episode, offering to "...make an exhaustive investigation of this report that I have been lost at sea. If there is any foundation for the report, I will at once apprise the anxious public". This bore similarities to an earlier event in 1897 when he made his famous remark "The report of my death was an exaggeration", after a reporter was sent to investigate whether he had died. In fact, it was his cousin who was seriously ill.
Later that year, Twain and Rogers's son, Henry Jr., returned to the Jamestown Exposition aboard the Kanawha. The humorist helped host Robert Fulton Day on September 23, 1907, celebrating the centennial of Fulton's invention of the steamboat. Twain, filling in for ailing former U.S. President Grover Cleveland, introduced Rear Admiral Purnell Harrington. Twain was met with a five-minute standing ovation; members of the audience cheered and waved their hats and umbrellas. Deeply touched, Twain said, "When you appeal to my head, I don't feel it; but when you appeal to my heart, I do feel it".
In April 1909, the two old friends returned to Norfolk, Virginia for the banquet in honor of Rogers and his newly completed Virginian Railway. Twain was the keynote speaker in one of his last public appearances, and was widely quoted in newspapers across the country.
A month later, Twain was en route from Connecticut to visit his friend in New York City when Rogers died suddenly on May 20, 1909. Twain arrived at Grand Central Station to be met by his daughter with the news. Stricken with grief, he uncustomarily avoided news reporters who had gathered, saying only "This is terrible...I cannot talk about it". Two days later, he served as an honorary pallbearer at the funeral in New York City. However, he declined to join the funeral party on the train ride for the interment at Fairhaven. He said "I cannot bear to travel with my friend and not converse".
Before 1899 Twain was an ardent imperialist. In the late 1860s and early 1870s he spoke out strongly in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands. In the mid 1890s he explained later, he was "a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming over the Pacific." He said the war with Spain in 1898 was "the worthiest" war ever fought. In 1899 he reversed course, and from 1901, soon after his return from Europe, until his death in 1910, Twain was vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, which opposed the annexation of the Philippines by the United States and had "tens of thousands of members". He summed up his views of revolutions in the following statement:
Mark Twain was a staunch supporter of women's rights and an active campaigner for women's suffrage. His "Votes for Women" speech, in which he pressed for the granting of voting rights to women, is considered one of the most famous in history.
Helen Keller benefited from Twain's support, as she pursued her college education and publishing, despite her disabilities and financial limitations.
Twain's liberal views on race were not shown in his early sketches of Native Americans. Of them, Twain wrote in 1870:
As counterpoint, Twain's essay on "The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper" offers a much kinder view of Indians. In his later travelogue Following the Equator (1897), Twain observes that in colonized lands all over the world, "savages" have always been wronged by "whites" in the most merciless ways, such as "robbery, humiliation, and slow, slow murder, through poverty and the white man's whiskey"; his conclusion is that "there are many humorous things in this world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages".
I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. ... The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.
In 1901 Twain criticized the actions of missionary Dr. William Scott Ament (1851–1909) because Ament and other missionaries had collected indemnities from Chinese subjects in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising of 1900. Twain's response to hearing of Ament's methods was published in the North American Review in February 1901: To the Person Sitting in Darkness, and deals with examples of imperialism in China, South Africa, and with the U.S. occupation of the Philippines. A subsequent article, "To My Missionary Critics" published in The North American Review in April 1901, unapologetically continues his attack, but with the focus shifted from Ament to his missionary superiors, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
After his death, Twain's family suppressed some of his work which was especially irreverent toward conventional religion, notably Letters from the Earth, which was not published until his daughter Clara reversed her position in 1962 in response to Soviet propaganda about the withholding. The anti-religious The Mysterious Stranger was published in 1916. Little Bessie, a story ridiculing Christianity, was first published in the 1972 collection Mark Twain's Fables of Man.
Despite these views, he raised money to build a Presbyterian Church in Nevada in 1864, although it has been argued that it was only by his association with his Presbyterian brother that he did that.
Twain created a reverent portrayal of Joan of Arc, a subject over which he had obsessed for forty years, studied for a dozen years and spent two years writing. In 1900 and again in 1908, he stated, "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books, it is the best."
Those who knew Twain well late in life recount that he dwelt on the subject of the afterlife, his daughter Clara saying: "Sometimes he believed death ended everything, but most of the time he felt sure of a life beyond."
Mark Twain's frankest views on religion appeared in his final Autobiography which was published 100 years after his death, in November 2010. In it, he said,
Twain was a Freemason. He belonged to Polar Star Lodge No. 79 A.F.&A.M.;, based in St. Louis. He was initiated an Entered Apprentice on May 22, 1861, passed to the degree of Fellow Craft on June 12, and raised to the degree of Master Mason on July 10.
in the Braeswood Place neighborhood of Houston, Texas]]
Public Library in Garden City, Kansas]]
Twain's legacy lives on today as his namesakes continue to multiply. Several schools are named after him, including Mark Twain Elementary School in Houston, Texas, which has a statue of Twain sitting on a bench, and Mark Twain Intermediate School in New York. There are several schools named Mark Twain Middle School in different states, as well as Samuel Clemens High School in Schertz, near San Antonio, Texas. There are also other structures, such as the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge.
Mark Twain Village is a United States Army installation located in the Südstadt district of Heidelberg, Germany. It is one of two American bases in the United States Army Garrison Heidelberg that house American soldiers and their families (the other being Patrick Henry Village).
Awards in his name proliferate. In 1998, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts created the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, awarded annually. The Mark Twain Award is an award given annually to a book for children in grades four through eight by the Missouri Association of School Librarians. Stetson University in DeLand, Florida sponsors the Mark Twain Young Authors' Workshop each summer in collaboration with the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal. The program is open to young authors in grades five through eight. The museum sponsors the Mark Twain Creative Teaching Award.
in Sydney, Australia]]
Buildings associated with Twain, including some of his many homes, have been preserved as museums. His birthplace is preserved in Florida, Missouri. The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal, Missouri preserves the setting for some of the author's best known work. The home of childhood friend Laura Hawkins, said to be the inspiration for his fictional character Becky Thatcher, is preserved as the "Thatcher House".In May 2007, a painstaking reconstruction of the home of Tom Blankenship, the inspiration for Huckleberry Finn, was opened to the public. The family home he had built in Hartford, Connecticut, where he and his wife raised their three daughters, is preserved and open to visitors as the Mark Twain House.
Actor Hal Holbrook created a one-man show called Mark Twain Tonight, which he has performed regularly for about years. The broadcast by CBS in 1967 won him an Emmy Award. Of the three runs on Broadway (1966, 1977, and 2005), the first won him a Tony Award.
Additionally, like many influential individuals, Twain was honored by having an asteroid, 2362 Mark Twain, named after him.
Often, Twain is depicted in pop culture as wearing a white suit. While there is evidence that suggests that, after Livy's death in 1904, Twain began wearing white suits on the lecture circuit, modern representations suggesting that he wore them throughout his life are unfounded. There is no evidence of him wearing a white suit before 1904; however, it did eventually become his trademark, as illustrated in anecdotes about this eccentricity (such as the time he wore a white summer suit to a Congressional hearing during the winter). In 2011, the US Postal Service plans to release another stamp in his honor.
He maintained that his primary pen name came from his years working on Mississippi riverboats, where two fathoms, a depth indicating safe water for passage of boat, was measured on the sounding line. A fathom is a maritime unit of depth, equivalent to two yards (1.8 m); twain is an archaic term for "two". The riverboatman's cry was mark twain or, more fully, by the mark twain, meaning "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two [fathoms]", that is, "The water is deep and it is safe to pass".
Twain claimed that his famous pen name was not entirely his invention. In Life on the Mississippi, he wrote:
Captain Isaiah Sellers was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the river, and sign them "MARK TWAIN", and give them to the New Orleans Picayune. They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate and valuable; ... At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands – a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.
Twain's version of the story about his nom de plume has been questioned by biographer George Williams III, the Territorial Enterprise newspaper, and Purdue University's Paul Fatout. which claim that mark twain refers to a running bar tab that Twain would regularly incur while drinking at John Piper's saloon in Virginia City, Nevada.
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Category:1835 births Category:1910 deaths Category:American agnostics Category:American humorists Category:American memoirists Category:American novelists Category:American satirists Category:American short story writers Category:American travel writers Category:Alternate history writers Category:American autobiographers Category:Writers from Connecticut Category:Writers from Missouri Category:Writers from Nevada Category:Literary collaborators Category:Holy Land travellers Category:People of the Philippine–American War Category:People of the California Gold Rush Category:People from Elmira, New York Category:People from Hannibal, Missouri Category:People from St. Louis, Missouri Category:People from Monroe County, Missouri Category:Lecturers Category:Critics of Christian Science
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Jim Baker was born in England 1966, Middlesex hospital in North London. He played Henry Parker in the BBC TV Drama The Tripods.
Other TV credits include The Barchester Chronicles (BBC), Diamonds (ATV), The Further Adventures of Oliver Twist (ATV) and several stage plays and musicals while attending the Boden Studios of speech and drama, Enfield, London
Jim also worked behind the camera for a short time, in partnership with a friend in Inkling Productions. Several projects including the video recording of the Jah Shaka Sound System. Music videos, adverts and live concerts where Inking provided technical support and staff to other production company's.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | James Baker |
|---|---|
| Order | 16th |
| Title | White House Chief of Staff |
| Term start | August 24, 1992 |
| Term end | January 20, 1993 |
| Predecessor | Samuel Skinner |
| Successor | Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty |
| President | George H.W. Bush |
| Order2 | 61st |
| Title2 | United States Secretary of State |
| President2 | George H.W. Bush |
| Term start2 | January 20, 1989 |
| Term end2 | August 23, 1992 |
| Predecessor2 | George P. Shultz |
| Successor2 | Lawrence Eagleburger |
| Order3 | 67th |
| Title3 | United States Secretary of the Treasury |
| Term start3 | February 4, 1985 |
| Term end3 | August 17, 1988 |
| Predecessor3 | Donald Regan |
| Successor3 | Nicholas F. Brady |
| President3 | Ronald Reagan |
| Order4 | 10th |
| Title4 | White House Chief of Staff |
| Term start4 | January 20, 1981 |
| Term end4 | February 3, 1985 |
| Predecessor4 | Jack Watson |
| Successor4 | Donald T. Regan |
| President4 | Ronald Reagan |
| Birth date | April 28, 1930 |
| Birth place | Houston, Texas |
| Party | Republican |
| Religion | Episcopalian |
| Alma mater | Princeton UniversityUniversity of Texas-Austin |
| Spouse | Mary Stuart McHenry(1953-1970; her death)Susan Garrett Baker(1973-present) |
| Profession | Lawyer/Politician |
| Signature | James Addison Baker, III Signature.svg |
| Branch | United States Marine Corps |
| Rank | Captain |
| Serviceyears | 1952-1954 (active) |
He served as the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan's first administration and in the final year of the administration of President George H. W. Bush. Baker also served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1985-1988 in the second Reagan administration, and Secretary of State in the George H. W. Bush administration. He is also the namesake of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Baker attended The Hill School, a boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Princeton University in 1952. Afterwards, he earned a J.D. (1957) from The University of Texas at Austin and began to practice law in Texas.
Baker served in the United States Marine Corps (1952–1954), attaining the rank of First Lieutenant and later rising to Captain in the United States Marine Corps Reserve.
From 1957 to 1969, and then from 1973 to 1975 he practiced law at the law firm of Andrews & Kurth.
Bush then encouraged Baker to become active in politics to deal with the grief, something Bush had done when his daughter, Pauline Robinson (1949–1953), died of leukemia. Baker became chairman of Bush's Senate campaign in Harris County. Though Bush lost to Lloyd Bentsen in the election, Baker continued in politics, becoming the Finance Chairman of the Republican Party in 1971. The following year, he was selected as the Gulf Coast Regional Chairman for the Richard Nixon presidential campaign. In 1973 and 1974, Baker returned to the full time practice of law at Andrews & Kurth.
He served as Undersecretary of Commerce under President Gerald Ford in 1975 and ran Ford's unsuccessful re-election campaign in 1976. In 1978, Baker ran unsuccessfully to become Attorney General of Texas, losing the election to future Governor Mark White.
Baker managed the president's 1984 re-election campaign in which Reagan won with a record 525 electoral votes total (of 538 possible), and received 58.8% of the popular vote to Walter Mondale's 40.6%.
" is named after New York City's Plaza Hotel, which was the location of a meeting of finance ministers who reached an agreement about managing the fluctuating value of the US dollar. From left are Gerhard Stoltenberg of West Germany, Pierre Bérégovoy of France, James Baker of the United States, Nigel Lawson of Britain and Noboru Takeshita of Japan.]] In the new administration Baker "switched roles" with Secretary of the Treasury Donald Regan, who replaced Baker as Chief of Staff.
While serving as Treasury Secretary, he organized the Plaza Accord of September 1985 and the Baker Plan to target international debt. He tapped Richard Darman as his Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. Darman would continue in the next administration as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
During the Reagan administration, Baker also served on the Economic Policy Council, where he played an instrumental role in achieving the passage of the administration's tax and budget reform legislation package in 1981.
Baker served on Reagan's National Security Council, and remained Treasury Secretary through 1988, during which time he also served as campaign chairman for Bush's successful presidential bid.
President George H.W. Bush appointed Baker Secretary of State in 1989. Baker served in this role through 1992. From 1992 to 1993, he served as Bush's White House Chief of Staff, the same position that he had held from 1981 to 1985 during the first Reagan administration.
On January 9, 1991, during the Geneva Peace Conference with Tariq Aziz in Geneva, Baker as Secretary of State declared that "If there is any user of (chemical or biological weapons), our objectives won't just be the liberation of Kuwait, but the elimination of the current Iraqi regime...." Baker later acknowledged that the intent of this statement was to threaten a retaliatory nuclear strike on Iraq, and the Iraqis received his message Baker helped to construct the 34-nation alliance that fought alongside the United States in the Gulf War.
He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991.
" (from left to right) Chief of Staff James Baker, Counsellor to the President Ed Meese, Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver at the White House, December 2, 1981.]]
In 1995, Baker published his memoirs of service as Secretary of State in a book entitled The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989-1992 (ISBN 0-399-14087-5).
In March 1997, Baker became the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Western Sahara. In June 2004 he resigned from this position, frustrated over the lack of progress in reaching a complete settlement acceptable to both the government of Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front. He left behind the Baker II plan, accepted as a suitable basis of negotiations by the Polisario and unanimously endorsed by the Security Council, but rejected by Morocco.
In addition to the numerous recognitions received by Baker, he was presented with the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Award for public service on September 13, 2000 in Washington, D.C..
State of Denial, a book by investigative reporter Bob Woodward, says that White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, urged President Bush to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with Baker following the 2004 election. However, another G. H. W. Bush Administration veteran, Robert Gates, was appointed instead, and only after the 2006 elections.
On March 15, 2006, Congress announced the formation of the Iraq Study Group, a high-level panel of prominent former officials charged by members of Congress with taking a fresh look at America's policy on Iraq. Baker was the Republican co-chair along with Democratic Representative Lee H. Hamilton, to advise Congress on Iraq. Baker also advised George W. Bush on Iraq.
The Iraq Study Group examined a number of ideas, including one that would create a new power-sharing arrangement in Iraq that would give more autonomy to regional factions. On October 9, 2006, the Washington Post quoted co-chairman Baker as saying "our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives, the ones that are out there in the political debate, of 'stay the course' and 'cut and run'".
Until 2005 he was senior counsel to the Carlyle Group and is currently a senior partner at the law firm of Baker Botts.
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