Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
Name	Janet Ellen Morris
Birth date	1946
Occupation	Author, defense analyst
Genre	Fantasy, Science fiction, Historical novels
Website	}}

Janet Ellen Morris (born May 25, 1946) is an American author of fiction and nonfiction, best known for her fantasy and science fiction and her authorship of a nonlethal weapons concept for the U.S. military.

Background

Writing

Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 20 novels, many co-authored with her husband Chris Morris or others. Her first novel, written as Janet E. Morris, was ''High Couch of Silistra'', the first in a quartet of novels with a very strong female protagonist.

She has contributed short fiction to the shared universe fantasy series ''Thieves World'', in which she created the Sacred Band of Stepsons, a mythical unit of ancient fighters modeled on the Sacred Band of Thebes.

She created, orchestrated, and edited the Bangsian fantasy series ''Heroes in Hell'', writing stories for the series as well as co-writing the related novel, ''The Little Helliad'', with Chris Morris.

Most of her fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres, although she has also written historical and other novels. Her 1983 book ''"I, the Sun"'', a detailed biographical novel about the Hittite King Suppiluliuma I was praised for its historical accuracy; O.M. Gurney, Hittite scholar and author of "The Hittites," commented that "the author is familiar with every aspect of Hittite culture."

Morris has written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on nonlethal weapons, developmental military technology and other defense and national security topics.

Academic, strategic and business activity

Morris was elected to the New York Academy of Sciences in 1980. Morris served as Research Director and Senior Fellow (1989–1994) at the United States Global Strategy Council, as well as Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1993–1995). Morris partnered with John B. Alexander and co-authored The Warriors Edge, which explores embracing unconventional psychological combat techniques, in 1990. Janet Morris and the USGSC's campaign for the creation of a non-lethality panel resulted in the assembly of the Non-lethality Policy Review Group, led by Major General Chris S. Adams, USAF (retd.) in 1991. The group earned the political backing of Sam Nunn, chair of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services. Janet Morris published numerous white papers in 1991, detailing the USGSC’s non-lethal war doctrine proposals. The papers promoted diversifying and expanding non-lethal weapon capability for use in increased American intervention in global conflicts. The papers urged additional development of anti-personnel incapacitants as well as vehicular area denial devices.

Morris visited Moscow in 1991 to the Moscow Institute of Psycho-correlations and observed the demonstration of the transmission of subliminal commands via infrasound.

In 1995, Morris and her husband and frequent co-writer Christopher Morris founded M2 Technologies. Since that time, their writing output has decreased in proportion to the increasing success of the company, which works with U.S. federal and military agencies on nonlethal weapon systems, novel technology applications, and software.

In 2003-4 she served on the Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force on Nonlethal Weapons and Capabilities and contributed to the Task Force report, ''Nonlethal Weapons and Capabilities'' (2004).

Horsewoman

A lifelong horsewoman, Morris and her husband breed Thoroughbreds and also maintains a World-Champion producing Morgan Horse breeding program. Her foundation mare, UVM Christine (pictured above) won Morgan Grand National Champion Four-Year-Old Mare, World Champion Senior Mare, and Reserve World Champion Mare in 1998.

Other Grand National and Reserve Grand National and World Champions followed, including Reserve World Champion and Reserve Grand National Champion Park Horse, Pastorale in 2001 and 2002; Grand National Champion Morgan Snaffle-bit Reining Horse, Spring Diva, in 2003; and Grand National Champion Pleasure Driving Horse Burkland Rafinesque in 2008. The Morrises' Morgan breeding program was featured on the cover and in a profile article in ''Equine International'' in 2009.

Select fiction bibliography

;Silistra: ''High Couch of Silistra (1977) aka ''Returning Creation''

''The Golden Sword'' (1977)

''Wind from the Abyss'' (1978)

''The Carnelian Throne'' (1979)

;Kerrion Empire'''

''Dream Dancer'' (1980)

''Cruiser Dreams'' (1981)

''Earth Dreams'' (1982)

;Threshold (with Chris Morris)'''

''Threshold'' (1990)

''Trust Territory'' (1992)

''The Stalk'' (1994)

;ARC Riders (with David Drake):

''ARC Riders'' (1995)

''The Fourth Rome'' (1996)

;Novels:

''I, the Sun'' (1983)

''The 40-Minute War'' (1984) (with Chris Morris)

''Active Measures'' (1985) (with David Drake)

''Afterwar'' (1985)

''Medusa'' (1986) (with Chris Morris)

''Warlord!'' (1987)

''Kill Ratio'' (1987) (with David Drake)

''Outpassage'' (1988) (with Chris Morris)

''Target'' (1989) (with David Drake)

;Series contributed to:

Merovingen Nights

The Fleet

War World

Thieves' World

;The Sacred Band of Stepsons saga:

''Beyond Sanctuary'' (1985)

''Beyond the Veil'' (1985)

''Beyond Wizardwall'' (1986)

''Tempus'' (1987)

''City at the Edge of Time'' (1988) (with Chris Morris)

''Tempus Unbound'' (1989) (with Chris Morris)

''Storm Seed'' (1990) (with Chris Morris)

''The Sacred Band'' (2010) (with Chris Morris)

;Heroes in Hell:

''Heroes in Hell'' (1986)

''The Gates of Hell'' (1986) (with C J Cherryh)

''Rebels in Hell'' (1986) (with C J Cherryh)

''Crusaders in Hell'' (1987)

''Angels in Hell'' (1987)

''Masters in Hell'' (1987)

''The Little Helliad'' (1988) (with Chris Morris)

''War in Hell'' (1988)

''Prophets in Hell'' (1989)

''Kings in Hell'' (1987) (with C J Cherryh)

''Explorers in Hell'' (1989) (with David Drake)

''Lawyers in Hell'' (2011) (edited with Chris Morris)

Select short story bibliography

"Raising the Green Lion" (1980)

"Vashanka's Minion" (1980)

"A Man and His God" (1981)

"An End to Dreaming" (1982)

"Wizard Weather" (1982)

"High Moon" (1983)

"Basileus" (1984)

"Hero's Welcome" (1985)

"Graveyard Shift" (1986)

"To Reign in Hell" (1986)

"Power Play" (1984)

"Pillar of Fire" (1984)

"Gilgamesh Redux" (1987)

"Sea of Stiffs" (1987)

"The Nature of Hell" (1987)

"The Best of the Achaeans" (1988)

"The Collaborator" (1988)

"[...] Is Hell" (1988)

"Moving Day" (1989)

"Sea Change" (1989)

Select non-fiction bibliography

"Nonlethality: A Global Strategy" (1990, 2010) (with Chris Morris)

"Weapons of Mass Protection" (1995) (with Morris and Baines)

''The American Warrior'' (1992) (Morris and Morris, ed.)

References

External links

Janet Morris fiction bibliography

M2 Technologies information on Janet Morris

Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force Report on Nonlethal Weapons and Capabilities

Nonlethality: A Global Strategy

Weapons of Mass Protection

Psychic Warfare and Non-Lethal Weapons

List of quotes from Janet Morris' fiction

Category:1946 births Category:Living people * Category:American novelists Category:American fantasy writers Category:American science writers Category:American science fiction writers Category:American military writers

Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
Name	Dick Morris
Birth date
Birth place	New York City, New York
Nationality	American
Religion	Jewish
Known for	Political Strategist, Fox News Analyst
Occupation	Author

Dick Morris (born November 28, 1948) is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant.

A longtime friend and advisor to Bill Clinton during his time as Governor of Arkansas, Morris became a political adviser to the White House after Clinton was elected president in 1992. Morris encouraged Clinton to pursue third way policies of triangulation that combined traditional Republican and Democratic proposals, rhetoric, and issues to achieve maximum political gain and popularity. He worked as a Republican strategist before joining the Clinton administration, where he helped Clinton recover from the 1994 midterm elections by convincing the President to adopt Republican policies.

The president consulted Morris in secret beginning in 1994. Clinton's communications director George Stephanopoulos has said that "Over the course of the first nine months of 1995, no single person had more power over the president". Morris went on to become campaign manager of Bill Clinton's successful 1996 bid for re-election to the office of President. His tenure on that campaign was cut short two months before the election, when it was revealed that he had allowed a prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President. Morris then turned his focus to media commentary. He now writes a weekly column for the ''New York Post'' which is carried nationwide, contributes columns and blogs to both the print and online versions of The Hill, and appears regularly on the Fox News Channel for political commentary. He is also President of Vote.com, a website which conducts polls on "important public issues and other topics" and then emails results to "important decision makers" in government.

More recently, Morris has emerged as a harsh critic of the Clintons and has written several books that criticize them, including ''Rewriting History'', a rebuttal to Senator Hillary Clinton's ''Living History.'' Morris said that he would leave the United States if Hillary Clinton were elected president in 2008.

Morris was the strategist for Republican Christy Mihos' failed campaign in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.

While promoting his new book on a radio show hosted by Peter Schiff, Dick Morris stated that the War on Drugs was not being won because "we're not fighting it", and advocated drug testing every high school student in America.

Early life

Morris attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he was active on the debate team. He managed Jerrold Nadler's campaign for class president; Nadler has since gone on to represent New York in the House of Representatives. Morris was also involved in the first campaign of Richard Gottfried for New York State Assembly in 1970. Morris graduated from Stuyvesant in 1964, then attended Columbia University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating in 1967.

Morris and the Clintons

Morris first worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton during Bill Clinton's successful 1978 bid for Governor of Arkansas. Morris is credited by many with engineering Clinton's re-election to the Arkansas governorship after a humiliating defeat at the end of Clinton's first term. As a result, Clinton turned to Morris after the mid-term elections of 1994, when Republicans gained control of the U.S. House and Senate and Clinton's own chance for a second presidential term seemed remote. From the early months of 1995 to August 1996, Morris was a principal architect of the Clinton-Gore re-election strategy.

Morris did not have a role in Clinton's successful 1992 Presidential campaign, which instead was headed by David Wilhelm, James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, and Paul Begala. After the 1994 mid-term election, in which Republicans took control of both houses of the United States Congress and gained considerable power in the states, Clinton once again sought Morris' help to prepare for the 1996 Presidential election. It was Morris who proposed a strategy that is now referred to as "triangulation," where Clinton would appeal to a diverse group of voters by distancing himself from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Scandal

On August 29, 1996, Morris resigned from the Clinton campaign after tabloid reports stated that he had been involved with a female prostitute, Sherry Rowlands, as reported by the Washington Post. A New York tabloid newspaper, the ''Star'', had obtained and published a set of photographs allegedly of Morris and the woman on a Washington, D.C., hotel balcony. News of the impending publication broke during the third day of the 1996 Democratic Convention. The ''Electronic Telegraph'' reported unverified claims that in order to impress the woman, S. Rowlands, Morris invited her to listen in on his conversations with President Clinton. It was also alleged he had an illegitimate child from an affair with a Texas woman.

Morris resigned on the same day that Bill Clinton spoke and accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. In his resignation statement, he said that "while I served I sought to avoid the limelight because I did not want to become the message. Now, I resign so I will not become the issue." In his response, President Clinton praised Morris as a "friend", and thanked him for his years of service. Privately various aides to Clinton were furious that in his resignation statement Morris credited himself with helping the President "come back from being buried in a landslide" and that Morris ended by comparing himself to Robert Kennedy.

Morris was featured on two consecutive covers of ''Time'' magazine. The September 2, 1996 issue, which was released before the prostitute story broke, featured Morris as "The Man Who Has Clinton's Ear." The following week, the cover featured Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, and the headline read "The Morris Mess: After the Fall."

Later work

In his 1997 book ''Behind the Oval Office,'' Morris wrote that, following an argument in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, he strode toward the exit and was tackled by Clinton. In 2003, Morris further stated that Clinton cocked his arm back to throw a punch, but Hillary Clinton pulled her husband off Morris. In both versions of the story, she consoled Morris and apologized to him, stating that Bill only behaved such with those he cared for most. According to Morris, she did this to keep him quiet about the incident. He says the incident was the reason for denying Bill Clinton's request to work on the 1992 campaign.

Morris has become a vocal and regular critic of the Clintons since his departure, in particular Hillary Rodham Clinton and her bid for the presidency. Morris has written extensively about the Clintons (see below) and also contributed to ''Hillary: The Movie'', a documentary about Rodham Clinton when she was still a 2008 Presidential candidate. Later, after former President Bill Clinton's comments about the similarities between the Obama win and the win of Presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1988, Morris put out an article on his blog that asserted that this was Clinton's way of injecting race into the political campaign.

Other work

Political consulting

As of August, 2009, Morris lends his name and assistance to the League of American Voters, an advocacy group for seniors to defeat the Obama health care reform. He has been described as America's most ruthless political consultant in the BBC documentary Century of the Self Episode 4, which chronicled how he brought lifestyle marketing to politics for the first time.

Morris has also consulted for candidates in other countries of the western hemisphere, including the campaigns of Fernando de la Rua for President of Argentina (1999), Jorge Batlle for President of Uruguay (1999), Vicente Fox for President of Mexico (2000), and Raphael Trotman for President of Guyana (2006).

Morris and Eileen McGann are behind www.vote.com, a site intended to register non-scientific political public opinion on various issues.

Dick Morris had recently worked as a strategist for Christy Mihos, a Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts running to unseat incumbent Deval Patrick. Morris "oversaw strategy, polling, and advertising for Mihos." Mihos declined to continue his campaign after balloting at the Massachusetts Republican State Convention resulted in Charles D. Baker beating Mihos by a margin of 89 per cent to 11 per cent in a potential primary.

Guest commentator and political prognosticator

Since leaving the Clintons' employ in 1996, Morris has said he has become profoundly "disillusioned" with the actions of the Clintons in the late 1990s. He has now formed a career as a political commentator and critic of the Clintons (particularly towards Hillary), appearing on Fox News programs such as ''Hannity & Colmes'', ''Hannity'', and the ''O'Reilly Factor'', and on various local and nationally syndicated radio talk shows. Morris is also a regular columnist and Pundits Blogger for The Hill, a nonpartisan daily newspaper based in Washington, D.C., and for NewsMax.com, a conservative online news website.

Morris regularly makes predictions about candidates' chances of winning elections during these appearances. In a 2005 book on the 2008 Presidential campaign, Morris stated that it was most likely that Hillary Clinton would face Condoleezza Rice for the presidency. Morris critics reacted by mocking his mistaken predictions of past races. Regarding the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, he initially stated that Howard Dean's candidacy could be written off right away. While ultimately vindicated, he had discussed the likelihood of Dean defeating John Kerry after early strong showings by the former Vermont governor. Kerry defeated Dean and all his other rivals and won the nomination. Additionally, in an column in "The Hill" on June 22, 2005, Morris predicted that Hillary Clinton would face her "worst nightmare" in her 2006 Senate race against moderate Republican candidate Jeanine Pirro, whose campaign subsequently collapsed within a matter of two months after repeated crushing defeats in the opinion polls due to her husband's alleged mafia ties. He even went so far as to suggest that Clinton would "give up" and drop out to focus on her 2008 campaign.

Morris further wrote that "[Hurricane] Katrina has the capacity to shape the second Bush term in the same way September 11 shaped his first term—not only in rebuilding New Orleans but in taking preventative steps around the nation to bolster our defenses against natural and man-made disasters and terror strikes. Responding to disasters is a source of presidential strength and popularity, and Bush is about to show how it is done." Appearing on Fox News' ''Hannity and Colmes'' on January 29, 2008, Morris said that those voting for John Edwards were "at the moment... those that can't decide which they don’t like more—a black or a woman getting elected". Host Alan Colmes asked if he was "saying that Edwards voters are bigots?" Morris elaborated that exit polls showed some Edwards voters were unsure if a woman or a Black American, in reference to then Democratic Primary front runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, could get elected to the Presidency for the first time in '08.

After Obama won the 2008 election, Morris was critical of him. In early 2009, Morris said: "Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over'? Well, they’re beginning to have a case." In April 2009, Morris keynoted an animated debate at the Yale Political Union on the topic "Resolved: Save Capitalism from President Obama".

In a March 2011 column for ''The Hill'', Morris predicted that Obama would not win a second term as President. For many years a "disillusioned Democrat," Dick Morris has stated he is now a Republican.

Foreign political consultant

Morris worked with the United Kingdom Independence Party in their campaign before the 2004 European Parliament election. The party, which advocates withdrawal from the European Union, won 12 of Britain's 78 seats.

In 2004 and 2005, he and his wife had acted as campaign consultants to the successful Yushchenko Presidential campaign in Ukraine. Morris reports that he insisted on the use of exit polls as a means of potentially exposing ballot tampering. He argues this played a significant role in forcing the government of then President Leonid Kuchma to acquiesce to a new poll when the official results of the first varied materially from the exit surveys. Interestingly, faced with a similar (though smaller) divergence between exit polling and election returns, he took the opposite stance in a 2004 article in ''The Hill'' when he suspected "foul play" on the part of the exit pollsters in the U.S. Presidential race. Mexico 2004; Morris outlined the strategy of the negative campaign that would be used against the PRD and AMLO: “The PRD would be a disaster for Mexico, the country would go in the same direction as Chávez and Castro.” That is to say, López Obrador would be “a danger to Mexico,” as Rob Allyn said in an article published on April 3, 2006, published in the New York Post.

In a November 13, 2007 press conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Morris announced that he would be offering his consultancy services pro bono for the campaign to elect Raila Odinga as President of Kenya in the 2007 Presidential election running on the Orange Democratic Movement ticket.

With four weeks to the National Elections, an editorial in one of the leading dailies called into question the legalities of Dick Morris' consulting work from the perspective of his presence in, and lack of legal ability to work in Kenya "pro bono" or "through the back door".

The outcome of the December 27, 2007 elections in Kenya is still disputed due to allegations of electoral fraud and rigging by the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, the Party of National Unity and erroneous reporting by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). Massive protests and tribal tensions have since erupted between the president's Kikuyu tribe and the majority of other tribes not favorably aligned to the outcome. Major mediations have commenced between concerned parties, including possible formation of a coalition and/or interim government until reelections are held.

Morris' DVD

Morris has appeared in the documentary film ''FahrenHYPE 9/11'', a response to Michael Moore's 2004 film, ''Fahrenheit 9/11''. He also wrote the screenplay.

Tax issues

Morris said that he has reached an agreement with Connecticut and his name will be removed from the next delinquency list. Morris says that he is committed to paying his taxes: "Following a difficult period in my life, I fell into arrears. But since then, I have paid almost $3 million in state and federal taxes."

Books

Morris has written several books. He authored ''Condi vs. Hillary'' (subtitled ''The next great presidential race'') (ISBN 0-06-083913-9) in which he argues that only Condoleezza Rice could block Hillary Clinton's anticipated 2008 bid for the White House. He co-authored this book with his wife, Eileen McGann.

Previously he wrote a pair of books criticizing the Clintons, again co-authored by his wife, Eileen McGann. ''Rewriting History'' (ISBN 0-06-073668-2) was published in May 2004 as a rebuttal to Hillary Clinton's book, ''Living History'' (ISBN 0-7432-2224-5). In it, he argues that Hillary Clinton has presented a false "nice" persona in the book. Morris instead remembers her as manipulative, cold, and single-minded in her pursuit of power. Similarly, Morris and McGann wrote ''Because He Could'' (ISBN 0-06-078415-6) in response to Bill Clinton's memoir ''My Life'' (ISBN 0-375-41457-6). Morris has also written ''Behind the Oval Office: Winning the Presidency in the Nineties'' (ISBN 1-58063-053-7), a retrospective of his work with the Clintons that was published soon after his resignation from the campaign in 1996. Other books include ''Power Plays: Win or Lose—How History's Great Political Leaders Play the Game'' (ISBN 0-06-000444-4), ''The New Prince'' (ISBN 1580631479 ),''Vote.com: How Big-Money Lobbyists and the Media Are Losing Their Influence, and the Internet Is Giving Power Back to the People'' (ISBN 1-58063-163-0)and "Outrage" (ISBN 978-0-06-119540-2).

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest collaboration is ''Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want To Kill Talk Radio, The Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, And Washington Lobbyists For Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us...And What To Do About It '' (ISBN 9780061718663), published in June 2008. Its jacket copy states, "In this hard-hitting call to arms, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann reveal the hundreds of ways American tax-payers are routinely fleeced--by our own government; by foreign countries like Dubai that are gobbling up American interests and spending millions to influence government decisions and American public opinion; by Washington lobbying firms that are pushing the agendas of corrupt foreign dictators on Capitol Hill; and by hedge-fund billionaires collecting huge tax breaks courtesy of the IRS."

His book ''Catastrophe'' was released in June 2009.

His latest book is ''Revolt! How to Defeat Obama and Repeal His Socialist Programs'', which was released in March 2011.

References

External links

DickMorris.com, Dick Morris Blog and Opinion Site

Vote.com, Dick Morris online polling site

Podcasts of Morris' recent articles

The Hill">Dick Morris' Pundits Blogs for The Hill

Category:1948 births Category:American campaign managers Category:American columnists Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:Clinton Administration personnel Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Living people Category:Stuyvesant High School alumni Category:United States presidential advisors

de:Dick Morris he:דיק מוריס sh:Dick Morris

Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
name	Janet Wood Reno
order	78th
title	United States Attorney General
term start	March 11, 1993
term end	January 20, 2001
president	Bill Clinton
predecessor	William Barr
successor	John Ashcroft
birth date	July 21, 1938
birth place	Miami, Florida
party	Democrat
alma mater	Cornell UniversityHarvard Law School }}

Janet Wood Reno (born July 21, 1938) is a former Attorney General of the United States (1993–2001). She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11. She was the first female Attorney General and the second longest serving Attorney General after William Wirt.

Early life and career

Reno's father, Henry Olaf Reno (original surname Rasmussen), emigrated to the United States from Denmark and for forty-three years was a police reporter for the ''Miami Herald''. Jane Wallace (née Wood), Reno's mother, raised her children and then became an investigative reporter for the ''Miami News''. Janet Reno has three younger siblings.

Reno attended public school in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where she was a debating champion and was valedictorian at Coral Gables High School. In 1956, Reno enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she majored in chemistry, lived in Balch Hall, became president of the Women's Self-Government Association, and earned her room and board.

After Cornell she enrolled at Harvard University Law School, graduating in 1963. From 1963 to 1971 Reno worked as a lawyer for two Miami law firms.

Reno was named staff director of the Judiciary Committee of the Florida House of Representatives in 1971. She helped revise the Florida court system. In 1973, she accepted a position with the Dade County State's Attorney's Office. She worked for the Judiciary Circuit, and left the state's attorney's office in 1976 to become a partner in a private law firm.

State Attorney

In 1978, Reno was appointed State Attorney for Dade County (now called Miami-Dade County). She was elected to the Office of State Attorney in November 1978 and was returned to office by the voters four more times. During her tenure as state attorney, Reno began what the PBS series ''Frontline'' described as a "crusade" against accused child abusers. According to the ''St. Petersburg Times'':

"Reno's reputation as a state attorney, the foundation for her eight years as the nation's attorney general and her [2002] candidacy for governor of Florida, was built in significant part by her aggressive prosecution of three sensational child abuse cases in Miami-Dade County. She pioneered a controversial technique for eliciting intimate details from young children and inspired passage of a law allowing them to testify by closed-circuit television, out of the possibly intimidating presence of their suspected molesters.

Several of those prosecuted by Reno were either acquitted or later released by appellate judges. One defendant, "a 14-year-old boy, was acquitted after his attorneys discredited the children's persistent interrogations by a psychologist who called herself the 'yucky secrets doctor.' Another was freed by a federal appeals court after 12 years in prison."

Country Walk

In 1984 Frank Fuster, the owner of the Country Walk Babysitting Service, in a suburb of Miami, Florida, was found guilty of 14 counts of abuse. He was sentenced to a prison sentence with a minimum of 165 years. Fuster's victims testified that his "unspeakable acts" included leading them in Satanic rituals and terrorizing them by forcing them to watch him mutilate birds, a lesson to children who might reveal the abuse. Fuster had been previously convicted for manslaughter and for fondling a 9 year old child. Testimony from children in the case was extracted by Laurie and Joseph Braga, a husband-and-wife team who resorted to coercive questioning of the alleged victims when the desired answers were not forthcoming.

Fuster was convicted based in large part on the testimony of his 18-year-old wife, Ileana Flores, who pleaded guilty and testified against him. According to a 2002 episode of ''Frontline'', Flores maintained that "he was innocent, she was innocent and that she was coerced by Reno and others into denouncing her husband. She said she was kept naked in a suicide watch cell and given cold showers and that Reno visited her late at night in pursuit of her confession and damning testimony." Reno, then a candidate for Governor of Florida, refused to discuss her role in the case, leading to charges that she was "stonewalling" and exhibiting "arrogance of power, a trait that becomes less and less tolerable in inverse proportion to the importance and authority of the office sought."

Attorney General

In 1993, Reno was nominated and confirmed as the first female Attorney General under Bill Clinton, after both of his previous choices, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, had problems when it was revealed both had previously employed illegal immigrants as nannies. Reno remained Attorney General for the rest of Clinton's presidency, making her the longest-serving Attorney General since William Wirt in 1829.

While Clinton could steer a middle ground between his Democratic supporters and the Republican Congress on monetary issues, Reno's job was at the center of a variety of intractable cultural conflicts. This made her a lightning rod for criticism of the Clinton Administration from activists who often denounced the federal government as a threat to their fundamental freedoms.

At the Justice Department

The following Department of Justice actions occurred during Reno's tenure:

The 51 day Waco siege standoff and resulting 76 deaths—the Branch Davidians—in Waco, Texas.

:Reno in congressional testimony stated that she authorized the FBI assault on the Branch Davidians because of reports that Militia groups were enroute to Waco during the standoff "either to help [Branch Davidian leader David] Koresh or to attack him."

Bringing suit against the software company Microsoft for violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Prosecution resulting in the conviction of 21 of the Montana Freemen after an 81 day armed standoff.

Capture and conviction of Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

Capture and conviction of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Capture and conviction of those who conducted the World Trade Center bombing (resulting in life-sentences of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and four conspirators)

Leak to the news media regarding Richard Jewell that led to the widespread and incorrect presumption of his guilt in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. She later apologized, saying "I'm very sorry it happened. I think we owe him an apology. I regret the leak."

The government's unsuccessful defense of the Communications Decency Act, which culminated in the Supreme Court decision ''Reno v. ACLU''.

Identification of the correct suspect (Eric Rudolph) in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing and other bombings, who remained a fugitive throughout her tenure. Rudolph was apprehended in 2003 and pleaded guilty to the attacks.

Capture and conviction of Mir Aimal Kasi for the 1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters.

The armed seizure of six-year-old Elián González and his return to his father, who eventually took him home to Cuba; Elián's mother and stepfather had died in a dangerous trip by sea, and though his U.S. relatives had lost custody to his father in court, local officials did not enforce the ruling. Reno made the decision to remove Elián González from the house of a relative and instructed law enforcement officials to determine the best time to obtain the boy.

In 1998, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee voted to cite Reno for contempt of Congress for not turning over documents during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The full House of Representatives never voted on the resolution and the documents were turned over to the House.

Her Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, David W. Ogden, led a lawsuit against the tobacco companies

In 1995, while serving as Attorney General, Reno announced that she was suffering from Parkinson's disease.

Post-political life

Reno ran for Governor of Florida in 2002, but lost in the Democratic primary to Bill McBride. Voting problems arose in the election, and she did not concede defeat until a week later. She has since retired from public life but frequently makes guest appearances for Democratic and other political causes.

After her tenure as attorney general and her unsuccessful gubernatorial election bid, Reno tours the country giving speeches on topics relating to the criminal justice system. For example, on March 31, 2006, she spoke at a criminology conference held at the University of Pennsylvania. At this conference, she stated that she believes that the education system in the United States needs to be improved, as there is a link between the quality of education and the crime rate. She also believes that too much money has been diverted away from the juvenile court system and believes that the government should find some way to make the juvenile courts work effectively so as to prevent problems in troubled children and adolescents before these problems are exacerbated by the time these adolescents reach adulthood.

In 2001, Reno appeared alongside Will Ferrell on ''Saturday Night Live'' in the final installment of the recurring sketch "Janet Reno's Dance Party". In another television appearance, on a 2007 Super Bowl XLI TV commercial, Janet Reno was among the guests at Chad Ochocinco's Super Bowl party.

Reno is also curating a compilation of old-time American songs performed by contemporary artists called the Song of America.

Reno also serves on the board of directors for the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization which assists prisoners who could be exonerated through DNA testing.

In March 2008, Reno received the Council on Litigation Management's Professionalism Award, which recognizes and commemorates an individual who has demonstrated the unique ability to lead others by example in the highest standard of their profession.

On April 17, 2009, Reno was awarded the Justice Award by the American Judicature Society. Eric Holder, Attorney General under the Obama Administration, presented Reno the award. Seth Andersen, Executive Vice President of AJS said the award recognizes "her commitment to improving our systems of justice and educating Americans about our great common enterprise -- to ensure equality under the law." The award is the highest given by the AJS, and recognizes significant contributions toward improvements in the administration of justice within the United States.

Sources

''This article incorporates text from the Department of Justice website, which is in the public domain.''

References

{{U.S. Secretary box |before=William Barr |after= John Ashcroft |years= 1993–2001 |president= Bill Clinton |department= Attorney General}} Category:1938 births Category:United States Attorneys General Category:Clinton Administration cabinet members Category:American prosecutors Category:Cornell University alumni Category:Harvard Law School alumni Category:American people of Danish descent Category:Living people Category:People from Miami, Florida Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:Whitewater figures Category:American female lawyers Category:Women members of the Cabinet of the United States Category:Waco siege Category:Florida Democrats Category:Daughters of the American Revolution

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Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
name	Errol Morris
birth date	February 05, 1948
birth place	Hewlett, New York, United States
occupation	Director
years active	1978–present
website	www.errolmorris.com
employer	}}

Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American director. In 2003, ''The Guardian'' put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. In 2003, Morris won the Academy Award for his film ''The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara''.

Biography

Early life and education

Morris was born in Hewlett, New York on February 5, 1948. When he was two years old, his father died of a heart attack. His mother, a Juilliard graduate, supported Morris and his brother as a music teacher. Morris attended Hewlett Elementary School in a class with Brent Glass, Tony Kornheiser and former Village Voice editor David Schneiderman. In the 10th grade, Morris enrolled at the Putney School, a boarding school in Vermont. He began playing the cello, spending a summer in France studying music under the acclaimed Nadia Boulanger, who also taught Morris' future collaborator Philip Glass. Describing Morris as a teenager, Mark Singer wrote that he "read with a passion the forty-odd ''Oz'' books, watched a lot of television, and on a regular basis went with a doting but not quite right maiden aunt ("I guess you'd have to say that Aunt Roz was somewhat demented") to Saturday matinées, where he saw such films as ''This Island Earth'' and ''Creature from the Black Lagoon'' — horror movies that, viewed again 30 years later, still seem scary to him."

Morris attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, graduating in 1969 with a B.A. in history. For a brief time Morris held small jobs, first as a cable television salesman and then as a term-paper writer. His unorthodox approach to applying for grad school included "trying to get accepted at different graduate schools just by showing up on their doorstep." Having unsuccessfully approached both the University of Oxford and Harvard University, Morris was able to talk his way into Princeton University, where he began studying the history of science, a topic in which he had "absolutely no background." His concentration was in the history of physics, and he was bored and unsuccessful in the prerequisite physics classes he had to take. This, together with his antagonistic relationship with his advisor Thomas Kuhn ("'You won't even look through my telescope.' And his response was 'Errol, it's not a telescope, it's a kaleidoscope.'") ensured that his stay at Princeton would be short. He left Princeton in 1972, enrolling at Berkeley as a Ph.D. student in philosophy. At Berkeley, Morris once again found that he was not well-suited to his subject. "Berkeley was just a world of pedants. It was truly shocking. I spent two or three years in the philosophy program. I have very bad feelings about it," he later said. He became a regular at the Pacific Film Archive, as Tom Luddy, the director of the archive at the time, later remembered: "He was a film noir nut. He claimed we weren't showing the real film noir. So I challenged him to write the program notes. Then, there was his habit of sneaking into the films and denying that he was sneaking in. I told him if he was sneaking in he should at least admit he was doing it."

Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's film ''Psycho'', Morris visited Plainfield, Wisconsin in 1975. While in Wisconsin, he conducted multiple interviews with Ed Gein, the infamous serial killer who was a resident at Mendota State Hospital in Madison. He later made plans with German film director Werner Herzog, whom Tom Luddy had introduced to Morris, to return in the summer of 1975 to secretly open the grave of Gein's mother to test their theory that Gein himself had already dug her up. Herzog arrived on schedule, but Morris had second thoughts and was not there. Herzog did not open the grave. Morris later returned to Plainfield, this time staying for almost a year, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews. Although he had plans to either write a book or make a film (which he would call ''Digging up the Past''), Morris never completed his Ed Gein project. In the fall of 1976, Herzog visited Plainfield again, this time to shoot part of his film ''Stroszek''. After the shooting finished, Herzog handed Morris an envelope full of cash. Morris walked over to the motel window and tossed the envelope out the window into a parking lot. Herzog went out to the parking lot and brought the money back, again offering it to Morris, saying, "Please don't do that again." Morris accepted the $2,000 and used it to take a trip to Vernon, Florida. Vernon was nicknamed Nub City because its residents participated in a particularly gruesome form of insurance fraud in which they deliberately amputated a limb in order to collect the insurance money. "In the hierarchy of nubbiedom, the supremely rewarding self-sacrifice was the loss of a right leg and a left arm, because, so the theory went, 'afterward, you could still write your name and still have a foot to press the gas pedal of your Cadillac.'" Morris's second documentary would be about the town and bear its name, although it makes no mention of Vernon as Nub City, but instead explores other idiosyncrasies of the town's residents. Morris made this omission because he received death threats while doing research; the town's residents were afraid that Morris would reveal their secret.

After spending two weeks in Vernon, Morris returned to Berkeley and began working on a script for a work of fiction that he called ''Nub City''. After a few unproductive months, he happened to read a headline in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' that read, "450 DEAD PETS GOING TO NAPA VALLEY". Morris left for Napa Valley and began working on the film that would become his first feature, ''Gates of Heaven''. In 1978 when the film premiered, Werner Herzog cooked and publicly ate his shoe, an event later incorporated into a short documentary by Les Blank. Herzog had promised to eat his shoe if Morris completed the project, to challenge and encourage Morris, whom Herzog perceived as incapable of following up on the projects he conceived. At the public shoe-eating, Herzog suggested that he hoped the act would serve to encourage anyone having difficulty bringing a project to fruition.

Early career

''Gates of Heaven'' was given a limited release in the spring of 1981. Critic Roger Ebert was and remains today a champion of the film, including it on his all-time top ten best films list. Morris returned to Vernon in 1979 and again in 1980, renting a house in town and conducting interviews with the town's citizens. ''Vernon, FL'' premiered at the 1981 New York Film Festival. ''Newsweek'' called it, "a film as odd and mysterious as its subjects, and quite unforgettable." The film, like ''Gates of Heaven'', suffered from poor distribution. It was released on video in 1987, and DVD in 2005.

After finishing ''Vernon, FL'', Morris tried unsuccessfully to get funding for a variety of projects. There was ''Road'', a story about an interstate highway in Minnesota; a project about Robert Golka, the creator of laser-induced fireballs in Utah; and the story of Centralia, Pennsylvania, the coal town in which an "inextinguishable subterranean fire" ignited in 1962. He eventually got funding in 1983 to write a script about John and Jim Pardue, a pair of Missouri bank robbers who had killed their father and grandmother and robbed five banks. Morris's pitch went, "The great bank-robbery sprees always take place at a time when something is going wrong in the country. Bonnie and Clyde were apolitical, but it's impossible to imagine them without the Depression as a back-drop. The Pardue brothers were apolitical, but it's impossible to imagine them without Vietnam." Morris wanted Tom Waits and Mickey Rourke to play the brothers, and he wrote the script, but the project eventually failed. Morris worked on writing scripts for various other projects, including a pair of ill-fated Stephen King adaptations.

In 1984 he married Julia Sheehan, whom he had met in Wisconsin while researching Ed Gein and other serial killers. Morris would later recall an early conversation with Julia: "I was talking to a mass murderer but I was thinking of you," he said, and instantly regretted it, afraid that it might not have sounded as affectionate as he had wished. But Julia was actually flattered: "I thought, really, that was one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me. It was hard to go out with other guys after that."

In 1985, Morris became interested in Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist in Dallas. Under Texas law, the death penalty can only be issued if the jury is convinced that the defendant is not only guilty, but will commit further violent crimes in the future if he is not put to death. Grigson had spent 15 years testifying for such cases, and he almost invariably gave the same damning testimony, often saying that it is "one hundred per cent certain" that the defendant would kill again. This led to Grigson being nicknamed "Dr. Death". Through Grigson, Morris would meet the subject of his next film, 36 year-old Randall Dale Adams.

Adams was serving a life sentence that had been commuted from a death sentence on a legal technicality for the 1976 murder of Robert Wood, a Dallas police officer. Adams told Morris that he had been framed, and that David Harris, who was present at the time of the murder and was the principal witness for the prosecution, had in fact killed Wood. Morris began researching the case because it related to Dr. Grigson; he was at first unconvinced of Adams's innocence. After reading the transcripts of the trial and meeting David Harris at a bar, however, Morris was no longer so sure.

At the time, Morris had been making a living as a private investigator for a well-known private detective agency that specialized in Wall Street cases. Bringing together his talents as an investigator and his obsessions with murder, narration and epistemology, Morris went to work on the case in earnest. Unedited interviews in which the prosecution's witnesses systematically contradicted themselves were used as testimony in Adams's 1986 habeas corpus hearing to determine if he would receive a new trial. David Harris famously confessed, in a roundabout manner, to killing Wood. Although Adams was finally found innocent after years of being processed by the legal system, the judge in the habeas corpus hearing officially stated that, "much could be said about those videotape interviews, but nothing that would have any bearing on the matter before this court." Regardless, ''The Thin Blue Line'', as Morris's film would be called, was popularly accepted as the main force behind getting its subject, Randall Adams, out of prison. As Morris said of the film, "''The Thin Blue Line'' is two movies grafted together. On one simple level is the question, Did he do it, or didn’t he? And on another level, ''The Thin Blue Line'', properly considered, is an essay on false history. A whole group of people, literally everyone, believed a version of the world that was entirely wrong, and my accidental investigation of the story provided a different version of what happened."

According to a survey by ''The Washington Post'', ''The Thin Blue Line'' made dozens of critics' top ten lists for 1988, more than any other film that year. It won the documentary of the year award from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. Despite its widespread acclaim, it was not nominated for an Oscar, which created a small scandal regarding the nomination practices of the Academy. The Academy cited the film's genre of "non-fiction", arguing that it was not actually a documentary. To this day, ''The Thin Blue Line'' is one of the most critically acclaimed documentaries ever made.

2000s

Although Morris has achieved fame as a documentary filmmaker, he is also an accomplished director of television commercials. In 2002, Morris directed a series of television ads for Apple Computer as part of a popular "Switch" campaign. The commercials featured ex-Windows users discussing their various bad experiences that motivated their own personal switches to Macintosh. One commercial in the series, starring a high-school friend of his son Hamilton Morris, named Ellen Feiss, became an Internet fad. Morris has directed hundreds of commercials for various companies and products, including Adidas, AIG, Cisco Systems, Citibank, Kimberly-Clark's Depend brand, Levi's, Miller High Life, Nike, PBS, The Quaker Oats Company, Southern Comfort, EA Sports, Toyota and Volkswagen. Many of these commercials are available on his website.

In 2002, Morris was commissioned to make a short film for the 75th Academy Awards. He was hired based on his advertising resume, not his career as a director of feature-length documentaries. Those interviewed ranged from Laura Bush to Iggy Pop to Kenneth Arrow to Morris's 15 year old son Hamilton Morris . Morris was nominated for an Emmy for this short film. He considered editing this footage into a feature length film, focusing specifically on Donald Trump discussing ''Citizen Kane'' (This segment was later released on the second issue of Wholphin). Morris went on to make a second short for the 79th Academy Awards in 2007, this time interviewing the various nominees and asking them about their Oscar experiences.

In July 2004, Morris directed another series of commercials in the style of the "Switch" ads. This campaign featured Republicans who voted for Bush in the 2000 election giving their personal reasons for voting for Kerry in 2004. Upon completing more than 50 commercials, Morris had difficulty getting them on the air. Eventually the liberal advocacy group MoveOn PAC paid to air a few of the commercials. Morris eventually wrote an editorial for ''the New York Times'' discussing the commercials and Kerry's losing campaign.

In the fall of 2004, Morris also directed a series of noteworthy commercials for Sharp Electronics. The commercials enigmatically depicted various scenes from what appeared to be a short narrative that climaxed with a car crashing into a swimming pool. Each commercial showed a slightly different perspective on the events, and each ended with a cryptic weblink. The weblink was to a fake webpage advertising a prize offered to anyone who could discover the secret location of some valuable urns. It was in fact an alternate reality game. The original commercials can be found on Morris's website.

Morris also directed a series of spots for Reebok that featured rapper 50 Cent. The spots featured a title design by The Wilderness.

In 2004, Morris won the Best Documentary Oscar at the Academy Awards, for his film The Fog of War, about the career of Robert S. MacNamara, who was famous for having been the Secretary of Defense who had led the nation into the Vietnam War under Presidents John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and who was also crucially involved in having helped President Kennedy avoid a Third World War over the issue of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. In the hauntingly re-enacted opening portion of the film concerning the background that MacNamara and his pro-nuclear-war adversary U.S. General Curtis LeMay had shared together during World War II, director Morris brought out complexities in the character of MacNamara, which the public had not previously recognized, but which largely shaped MacNamara's positions regarding both the missiles-in-Cuba issue and the Vietnam War issue, and which therefore created the historical figure that MacNamara turned out to be as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. In this documentary, Morris brought to a pinnacle the revolutionary technique that he had first introduced to the world in his 1988 The Thin Blue Line: the use of re-enactments in a documentary film -- a technique (re-enactments) which had previously been thought to be inappropriate for use in a "documentary" film. However, by now, in 2004, the use of re-enactments in a documentary had become accepted by critics, and therefore this time around, Morris finally won the Academy Award that he should earlier have won also for his The Thin Blue Line, which had actually revolutionized documentary filmmaking.

In early 2010, a new Morris documentary had been submitted to several film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, and Telluride Film Festival. The film, titled ''Tabloid'', features interviews with Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming, who was convicted ''in absentia'' for the kidnap and indecent assault of a Mormon missionary in England during 1977.

Additionally Morris has been writing long-form journalism exploring different areas of his interest, published on the New York Times website. A collection of these essays, entitled ''Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography,'' will be published by Penguin Press on September 1, 2011.

The Interrotron

The Interrotron is a device similar to a teleprompter: Errol and his subject each sit facing a camera. The image of each person's face is then projected onto a two-way mirror positioned in front of the lens of the other's camera. Instead of looking at a blank lens, then, both Morris and his subject are looking directly at a human face. (Diagram) Morris believes that the machine helps to explore the relationship between "monologue and language, and how people present themselves to camera, and express themselves to camera."

The name "Interrotron" was coined by Morris's wife, who, according to Morris, "liked the name because it combined two important concepts — terror and interview."

Filmography

''Gates of Heaven'' (1978)

''Vernon, Florida'' (1981)

''The Thin Blue Line'' (1988)

''The Dark Wind'' (1991)

''A Brief History of Time'' (1991)

''Fast, Cheap and Out of Control'' (1997)

''Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.'' (1999)

''First Person'' (2000)

''The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara'' (2003)

''Standard Operating Procedure'' (2008)

''Tabloid'' (2010)

Writing

"Will The ''Real'' Hooded Man Please Stand Up" (2007)

"Which Came First, The Chicken or the Egg?" (2007)

"Cartesian Blogging, Part One" (2007)

"Play It Again, Sam (Re-Enactments, Part One)" (2008)

"Play It Again, Sam (Re-Enactments, Part Two)" (2008)

"The Most Curious Thing" (2008)

"Cartesian Blogging, Part Two" (2008)

"People in the Middle" (2008)

"Photography as a Weapon" (2008)

"Cartesian Blogging, Part Three" (2008)

"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" (2009)

"Whose Father Was He?" (2009)

"Bamboozling Ourselves" (2009)

"Seven Lies About Lying" (2009)

"The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock" (2009)

"The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is" (2010)

"The Ashtray" (2011)

Awards and honors

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007)

Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival for ''Standard Operating Procedure''

Academy Award for Documentary Feature ''The Fog of War'' (2004)

Best Documentary of the Year awards for ''The Fog of War'' (2003): the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics, and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics.

2002 International Documentary Association list of the 20 all-time best documentaries: ''The Thin Blue Line'' (#2), ''Fast, Cheap & Out of Control'' (#14)

Emmy for Best Commercial for PBS commercial "Photobooth" (2001)

In December 2001, the United States' National Film Preservation Foundation announced that Morris's ''The Thin Blue Line'' would be one of the 25 films selected that year for preservation in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress, bringing the total at the time to 325.

MacArthur Fellowship (1989)

Washington Post Best Film of the Year for ''The Thin Blue Line'' (1988)

New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics Best Documentary for ''The Thin Blue Line'' (1988)

Golden Horse for Best Foreign Film at the Taiwan International Film Festival for ''The Thin Blue Line'' (1988)

Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture, from the Mystery Writers of America, for ''The Thin Blue Line'' (1989)

''Gates of Heaven'' (1978) has long been on Roger Ebert's list of the ten greatest films ever made.

References

External links

Errol Morris's website

Errol Morris at Rotten Tomatoes)

Errol Morris (Jonathan Crow, Allmovie)

Errol Morris (Nina Rehfeld, GreenCine)

''Voices on Antisemitism'' Interview with Errol Morris from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Werner Herzog in coversation with Errol Morris (''The Believer'')

Category:1948 births Category:American documentary filmmakers Category:American film directors Category:Living people Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Edgar Award winners Category:San Francisco Art Institute alumni Category:Documentary film directors Category:People from Hempstead (town), New York Category:Apple Inc. advertising Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni

de:Errol Morris fr:Errol Morris it:Errol Morris pt:Errol Morris ru:Моррис, Эррол fi:Errol Morris sv:Errol Morris zh:埃洛·莫里斯

Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
name	Ben Morris
alias	Stripes
background	solo_singer
instrument	Guitar, Vocals
genre	Alternative, Metal, Pop, Punk, Queercore, Rock
occupation	Musician, Guitarist, Songwriter
associated acts	Zig Zag TreeHoneyNick Name & The NormalsBallentine Band}}

Ben Morris is an American Musician. He is also known as Stripes.

Nick Name and The Normals

In 2000, Kent James began performing as "Nick Name", an out, proud, and sometimes confrontational punk rock singer with his back-up band "The Normals". "The Normals" were Ben ("Stripes"), Ralf Balzer ("Demon"), and Ralf's sister Sandra Balzer ("Demon Sister"). In 2001, Nick Name and The Normals recorded with music producer Michael Vail Blum and released the "Nick Name" album. All of the songs were written by Ben & Kent. Nick Name and The Normals performed their original songs "Head Rush" and "I Fucked Your Boyfriend" on the "Tolerance" episode of "Flipped" on MTV. In 2002, Sandra was replaced with Ben's long-time live-together girlfriend Rachel Rattner ("Sunshine") and Tony Jardine ("Clean"). The "POW!" album was released and Nick Name and The Normals toured the U.S. West Coast. In 2003, Willamette Week proclaimed "If Kurt Cobain had stayed around long enough to come out of the closet, he would have sounded just like Nick Name and The Normals". Nick Name and The Normals performed at the Sunset Junction Street Fair. In 2004, a documentary film entitled "Nick Name and The Normals" premiered in London, England. The film also screened in New York City, Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Dallas, and Providence, Rhode Island. In 2005, the final performance of Nick Name and The Normals was on the Q Television Network.

Ben resides in Los Angeles, California.

Discography

Albums and EPs

2001: ''Nick Name''

2002: ''Nick Name: POW!''

2004: ''Ballentine: 4U''

Compilations

"I Fucked Your Boyfriend" on "The Freak Show: Year One" (2001)

"Nick Name and The Normals" ("Nick Name" & "Nick Name: POW!" re-mastered and combined) (2003)

"Porno Di Giorno" and "Who's Your Daddy?" on the "Hellbent" movie soundtrack (2004)

"Kent James: Decade Of Dirt (1997-2007)" (2007)

References

External links

Nick Name and The Normals Documentary Film Official Site

Nick Name & The Normals at the Internet Movie Database

Ballentine Band

Category:American musicians Category:American rock guitarists Category:American songwriters Category:Living people