Shield

A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a hit from a sword, mace, battle axe or similar weapon to the side of the shield-bearer.

Shields vary greatly in size, ranging from large panels that protect the user's whole body to small models (such as the buckler) that were intended for hand-to-hand-combat use. Shields also vary a great deal in thickness; whereas some shields were made of relatively deep, absorbent, wooden planking to protect soldiers from the impact of spears and crossbow bolts, others were thinner and lighter and designed mainly for deflecting blade strikes.

In prehistory and during the era of the earliest civilizations, shields were made of wood, animal hide, woven reeds or wicker. In classical antiquity, the Migration Period and the Middle Ages, they were normally constructed of poplar tree, lime or another split-resistant timber, covered in some instances with a material such as leather or rawhide and often reinforced with a metal boss, rim or banding. They were carried by foot soldiers, knights and cavalry.

Mark Shields

Mark Shields (born May 25, 1937) is an American political columnist and commentator.

Since 1988, Shields has provided weekly political analysis and commentary for PBS's award-winning PBS NewsHour. His current sparring partner is David Brooks of The New York Times. Previous counterparts were the late William Safire, Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal, and David Gergen. Shields was also a regular panelist on Inside Washington, a weekly public affairs show that was seen on both PBS and ABC until it ceased production in December 2013. For 17 years, Shields was moderator and panelist on CNN's Capital Gang.

Early life and career

Shields was born and raised in Weymouth, Massachusetts, in an Irish Catholic family. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1959. He served as an enlisted man in the United States Marine Corps before coming to Washington in 1965, where he became an aide to Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire. In 1968, Shields went to work for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. He later held leadership positions in the presidential campaigns of Edmund Muskie and Morris Udall, and was political director for Sargent Shriver when he ran for vice president on the Democratic ticket in 1972. Over more than a decade, he helped manage state and local campaigns in some 38 states, including incumbent Boston, Massachusetts, Mayor Kevin White's successful re-election campaign in 1975.

Daniel Kerr

Daniel Matthew Kerr (born 16 May 1983) is a former Australian rules footballer who played his entire career with the West Coast Eagles of the Australian Football League (AFL). Kerr was recruited from East Fremantle Football Club and made his debut in 2001. He was a hard-running midfielder who was a vital part of the midfield at the Eagles. He retired from football at the end of the 2013 season.

Background

Kerr is of Anglo-Indian descent. His father, Roger Kerr, was born in Calcutta to an English father and an Indian mother and played for East Fremantle in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). His sister Samantha Kerr plays for the Australia national women's soccer team and Perth Glory W-League in the W-League (Australia). Kerr is a second cousin of former Fremantle player Shaun McManus.

Football career

Kerr was selected with the number 18 pick in the 2000 AFL Draft. Kerr is widely known as one of the toughest players in the AFL. In August 2006, the much bigger Fraser Gehrig considered one of the strongest players in the AFL, tried to palm off a tackle by Kerr, only to have Kerr resist and re-tackle Gehrig, with the result being the umpire rewarding Kerr with a "holding the ball" decision. Similarly, his physical strength was further demonstrated in round one in the 2007 AFL season against the Sydney Swans when he successfully tackled and took down the far bigger Barry Hall in the goalsquare.

James Comey

James Brien Comey, Jr. (born December 14, 1960) is an American lawyer. He is the seventh and current Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He was the United States Deputy Attorney General, serving in President George W. Bush's administration. As Deputy Attorney General, Comey was the second-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and ran the day-to-day operations of the Department, serving in that office from December 2003 through August 2005. He was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York prior to becoming Deputy Attorney General.

In December 2003, as Deputy Attorney General, Comey appointed the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, close friend and former colleague Patrick Fitzgerald, as Special Counsel to head the CIA leak grand jury investigation after Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself. In August 2005, Comey left the DOJ and he became General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Lockheed Martin. In 2010, he became General Counsel at Bridgewater Associates. In early 2013, he left Bridgewater to become Senior Research Scholar and Hertog Fellow on National Security Law at Columbia Law School. He also joined the London-based board of directors of HSBC Holdings.

Columnist

A columnist is someone who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions.

Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the form of a short essay by a specific writer who offers a personal point of view. In some instances, a column has been written by a composite or a team, appearing under a pseudonym, or (in effect) a brand name. Some columnists appear on a daily or weekly basis and later reprint the same material in book collections.

Radio and television

Newspaper columnists of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Franklin Pierce Adams (aka FPA), Nick Kenny, John Crosby, Jimmie Fidler, Louella Parsons, Drew Pearson, Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell, achieved a celebrity status and used their syndicated columns as a springboard to move into radio and television. In some cases, such as Winchell and Parsons, their radio programs were quite similar in format to their newspaper columns. Rona Barrett began as a Hollywood gossip columnist in 1957, duplicating her print tactics on television by the mid-1960s. One of the more famous syndicated columnists of the 1920s and 1930s, O. O. McIntyre, declined offers to do a radio series because he felt it would interfere and diminish the quality of writing in his column, "New York Day by Day."