1.
Secularity
–
Secularity is the state of being separate from religion, or of not being exclusively allied with or against any particular religion. Historically, the secular was not related or linked to religion. The idea of a dichotomy between religion and the secular originated in the 18th century European Enlightenment, one can regard eating and bathing as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them. Nevertheless, some religious traditions see both eating and bathing as sacraments, therefore making them religious activities within those world views, saying a prayer derived from religious text or doctrine, worshipping through the context of a religion, and attending a religious school are examples of religious activities. The secular is experienced in diverse ways ranging from separation of religion and state to being anti-religion or even pro-religion, a related term, secularism, involves the principle that government institutions and their representatives should remain separate from religious institutions, their beliefs, and their dignitaries. Many businesses and corporations, and some operate on secular lines. This stands in contrast to theocracy, government with deity as its highest authority, Secular and secularity derive from the Latin word saeculum which meant of a generation, belonging to an age or denoted a period of about one hundred years. In the ancient world, saeculum was not defined in contrast to any sacred concerns and had a usage in Latin. It was in Christian Latin of medieval times, that saeculum was used for distinguishing this temporal age of the world from the realm of God. The Christian doctrine that God exists outside time led medieval Western culture to use secular to indicate separation from specifically religious affairs and involvement in temporal ones. This does not necessarily imply hostility to God or religion, though some use the term this way, routinization — institutionalizing through integration into the society. Differentiation — a redefined place such as when accepting its status as one religion in a plural religious field or morphing into a more generic, disengagement — the detachment of certain facets of social life from religion. Transformation — gradual change over time in a sense that Protestantism became for Christianity. Generalization — a particular kind of change in which it becomes less specific, more abstract, has moderation of controversial and divisive claims. Desacralization — culture and rationality guide people while leaving out religious beings, segmentation — the development of specialized religious institutions, which take their place beside other specialized social institutions. Secularism — the only form that leads to rejection of religion. Examples of secular used in this way include, Secular authority, which involves legal, police, and military authority, as distinct from clerical authority, or matters under church control. Secular clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, who, traditionally, do not live the lives of the regular clergy and are therefore, in a sense
2.
Christmas
–
In several countries, celebrating Christmas Eve on December 24 has the main focus rather than December 25, with gift-giving and sharing a traditional meal with the family. Although the month and date of Jesus birth are unknown, by the fourth century the Western Christian Church had placed Christmas on December 25. Today, most Christians celebrate on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar and this is not a disagreement over the date of Christmas as such, but rather a preference of which calendar should be used to determine the day that is December 25. Although it is not known why December 25 became a date of celebration, December 25 was the date the Romans marked as the winter solstice, the shortest, and therefore darkest day of the year. Jesus was identified with the Sun based on an Old Testament verse, the date is exactly nine months following Annunciation, when the conception of Jesus is celebrated. Finally, the Romans had a series of pagan festivals near the end of the year, so Christmas may have been scheduled at this time to appropriate, or compete with, one or more of these festivals. The celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, the economic impact of Christmas has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world. Christmas is a form of Christs mass. It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is from Old English Crīstesmæsse, crīst is from Greek Khrīstos, a translation of Hebrew Māšîaḥ, Messiah, meaning anointed, and mæsse is from Latin missa, the celebration of the Eucharist. The form Christenmas was also used, but is now considered archaic and dialectal, it derives from Middle English Cristenmasse. In addition to Christmas, the holiday has been known by other names throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as midwinter, or, more rarely, Nativity, meaning birth, is from Latin nātīvitās. In Old English, Gēola referred to the corresponding to December and January. Noel entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël, itself ultimately from the Latin nātālis, the canonical gospels of Luke and Matthew both describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem in Judea, to a virgin mother. In the Gospel of Luke account, Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census and it says that angels proclaimed him a savior for all people, and shepherds came to adore him. In the Matthew account, magi follow a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, King Herod orders the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family flees to Egypt and later settles in Nazareth. The Nativity stories of Matthew and Luke are prominent in the gospels, the first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome in 336. Christmas played a role in the Arian controversy of the fourth century, the feast regained prominence after 800, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day
3.
Seinfeld
–
Seinfeld is an American sitcom that originally ran for nine seasons on NBC, from 1989 to 1998. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a version of himself. It is often described as being a show about nothing, as many of its episodes are about the minutiae of daily life, Seinfeld was produced by Castle Rock Entertainment. In syndication, the series has been distributed by Sony Pictures Television since 2002, a favorite among critics, the series led the Nielsen ratings in seasons six and nine, and finished among the top two every year from 1994 to 1998. In 2002, TV Guide named Seinfeld the greatest television program of all time, E. named it the number 1 reason the 90s ruled. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America named Seinfeld the No.2 Best Written TV Series of All Time and that same year, Entertainment Weekly named it the No.3 best TV series of all time and TV Guide ranked it at No.2. Main Jerry Seinfeld – Jerry is a minor celeb stand-up comedian who is depicted as the voice of reason amidst the general insanity generated by the people in his world. The in-show character is a mild germaphobe and neat freak, as well as an avid Superman, New York Mets, Jerrys apartment is the center of a world visited by his eccentric friends and a focus of the show. Plot lines often involve Jerrys social interactions and romantic relationships around New York City and he typically finds minor, pedantic reasons to break up with women, including a habit of eating peas one at a time, oversized man hands and an irritating laugh. Other plot lines involve his longtime enemy Newman and his overbearing relatives, Elaine Benes – Elaine is Jerrys ex-girlfriend and later friend. She is attractive and genial, while also being humorous, arrogant and she sometimes has a tendency to be too honest with people, which often gets her into trouble. She usually gets caught up in her boyfriends quirks, eccentric employers unusual behaviors and idiosyncrasies, and she tends to make poor choices in men she chooses to date and is often overly reactionary. First she works at Pendant Publishing with Mr. Lippman, is hired as a personal assistant for Mr. Pitt. One of Elaines trademark moves is her forceful shove while exclaiming Get Out, when she receives good, objectionable or surprising news. Another is her memorable Little Kicks dance move, which is described as a full body heave accompanied by a double-fisted thumbs-up and she hates The English Patient, which is met with significant social disapproval. Elaine is popularly described as an amalgamation of Davids and Seinfelds girlfriends during their days in New York as struggling comedians. Cosmo Kramer – Kramer is Jerrys wacky neighbor and his trademarks include his humorous upright pompadour hairstyle, vintage clothes, and energetic sliding bursts through Jerrys apartment door. Kramer was heavily based on a neighbor of Davids during his amateur comedic years in Manhattan and this is seen in his success with women and employers
4.
Aluminium
–
Aluminium or aluminum is a chemical element in the boron group with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery-white, soft, nonmagnetic, ductile metal, Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is combined in over 270 different minerals. The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite, Aluminium is remarkable for the metals low density and its ability to resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation. Aluminium and its alloys are vital to the industry and important in transportation and structures, such as building facades. The oxides and sulfates are the most useful compounds of aluminium, despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically, but aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Because of these salts abundance, the potential for a role for them is of continuing interest. Aluminium is a soft, durable, lightweight, ductile. It is nonmagnetic and does not easily ignite, a fresh film of aluminium serves as a good reflector of visible light and an excellent reflector of medium and far infrared radiation. The yield strength of aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel and it is easily machined, cast, drawn and extruded. Aluminium atoms are arranged in a cubic structure. Aluminium has an energy of approximately 200 mJ/m2. Aluminium is a thermal and electrical conductor, having 59% the conductivity of copper. Aluminium is capable of superconductivity, with a critical temperature of 1.2 kelvin. Aluminium is the most common material for the fabrication of superconducting qubits, the strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is reduced by aqueous salts, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals. In highly acidic solutions, aluminium reacts with water to form hydrogen, primarily because it is corroded by dissolved chlorides, such as common sodium chloride, household plumbing is never made from aluminium
5.
Parody
–
A parody is a work created to imitate, make fun of, or comment on an original work—its subject, author, style, or some other target—by means of satiric or ironic imitation. As the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon puts it, parody … is imitation, another critic, Simon Dentith, defines parody as any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice. Parody may be found in art or culture, including literature, music, animation, gaming, the writer and critic John Gross observes in his Oxford Book of Parodies, that parody seems to flourish on territory somewhere between pastiche and burlesque. According to Aristotle, Hegemon of Thasos was the inventor of a kind of parody, in ancient Greek literature, a parodia was a narrative poem imitating the style and prosody of epics but treating light, satirical or mock-heroic subjects. Indeed, the components of the Greek word are παρά para beside, counter, against, Thus, the original Greek word παρῳδία parodia has sometimes been taken to mean counter-song, an imitation that is set against the original. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines parody as imitation turned as to produce a ridiculous effect, because par- also has the non-antagonistic meaning of beside, there is nothing in parodia to necessitate the inclusion of a concept of ridicule. Old Comedy contained parody, even the gods could be made fun of, the Frogs portrays the hero-turned-god Heracles as a Glutton and the God of Drama Dionysus as cowardly and unintelligent. The traditional trip to the Underworld story is parodied as Dionysus dresses as Heracles to go to the Underworld, roman writers explained parody as an imitation of one poet by another for humorous effect. In French Neoclassical literature, parody was also a type of poem where one work imitates the style of another to produce a humorous effect, the Ancient Greeks created satyr plays which parodied tragic plays, often with performers dressed like satyrs. In classical music, as a term, parody refers to a reworking of one kind of composition into another. The term is sometimes applied to procedures common in the Baroque period. The musicological definition of the parody has now generally been supplanted by a more general meaning of the word. In its more contemporary usage, musical parody usually has humorous, even satirical intent, in which familiar musical ideas or lyrics are lifted into a different, often incongruous, context. Musical parodies may imitate or refer to the style of a composer or artist. For example, The Ritz Roll and Rock, a song and dance performed by Fred Astaire in the movie Silk Stockings, parodies the Rock. Conversely, while the work of Weird Al Yankovic is based on particular popular songs. The first usage of the parody in English cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is in Ben Jonson, in Every Man in His Humour in 1598, A Parodie. The next citation comes from John Dryden in 1693, who also appended an explanation, suggesting that the word was in common use, in the 20th century, parody has been heightened as the central and most representative artistic device, the catalysing agent of artistic creation and innovation
6.
Allen Salkin
–
Allen Salkin is an American journalist, author, and critic. His 2013 book, From Scratch, gives a look at the history. He is also the author of the book Festivus, The Holiday for the Rest of Us about the holiday of Festivus. Salkin spent three years as a reporter at The New York Times, hosted a video series on AOLs former blog Slashfood. Salkin interviewed over 200 people who have involved with the networks history. He appeared on the reality TV show #1 Single, on episode 2 of this show, he is shown meeting Lisa Loeb on an airplane date, and then having a second date where he takes Lisa to the Donut Plant. The relationship ends after an item about the budding romance appears in a newspaper. He appeared on two episodes of E, in the documentary City of Gold, Salkin compares the restaurant critic Jonathan Gold to Raymond Chandler. Salkin also appeared in the documentary series Eat, The Story of Food and, uncredited, starting in 2015, Salkin began writing film reviews for the New York Daily News, and is listed on Rotten Tomatoes as a Top Critic. Salkin video on Morning Joe Official Website Website for From Scratch, Inside The Food Network
7.
Latin
–
Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
8.
Cosmo Kramer
–
Cosmo Kramer, usually referred to as simply Kramer, is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Seinfeld, played by Michael Richards. The character is based on comedian Kenny Kramer, Larry Davids ex-neighbor across the hall. Kramer is the friend and neighbor of main character Jerry, residing in Apartment 5B, of the series four central characters, only Kramer has no visible means of support, what few jobs he holds seem to be nothing more than larks. Hes been described as a cross between Eraserhead and Herman Munster. Kramer appeared in all but two episodes, The Chinese Restaurant and The Pen, in the second and third seasons, in The Trip, Kramer admits that a man in a park exposed himself to him when he was a young boy. In The Big Salad Kramer reveals to Jerry that he grew up in a household where he had to be in bed every night by 9. In The Letter, Kramer tells two art patrons that he ran away home at age seventeen and stowed away aboard a steamer bound for Sweden. Unlike George and Jerry, Kramers character does not have a network of family members shown in the sitcom. He also apparently has no children, although he adopted mile 114 of the Arthur Burkhardt Expressway in The Pothole. During an opening discussion, Kramer reveals to Jerry that in 1979 he was struck on the head by an air conditioner while walking on the sidewalk. Jerry asks if that was when Kramer lived in Greenwich Village and this is discussed in the beginning of The Little Kicks. In The Strong Box, it is revealed that Kramer spent a time in the Army. In episode three of one he says he lived in Los Angeles for three months. An art patron described a painting of him in The Letter as a loathsome, offensive brute, hes sometimes shallow, callous and his quirkiness, strange body movements and frequent gibberish mutterings have become his trademark. Kramer is also known to mooch off his friends, especially Jerry, Kramer regularly enters and uses Jerrys apartment without his consent or knowledge, and often helps himself to Jerrys food. Kramer is also known to use tools/appliances of Jerrys, only occasionally with permission, the reason for all this is because Kramer is told Whats mine is yours on his first meeting with Jerry. Instead of being horrified, many end up thanking Kramer for his candor. One explanation as to Kramers personality and traits, with respect to his mysterious childhood, after a series of conflicts, Jerry is forced to live in Kramers apartment and vice versa, which quickly has an effect on both characters
9.
Michael Richards
–
Richards began his career as a stand-up comedian, first entering the national spotlight when he was featured on Billy Crystals first cable TV special. He went on to become a regular on ABCs Fridays. Prior to Seinfeld, he made numerous guest appearances on a variety of television shows, such as Cheers. His film credits include So I Married an Axe Murderer, Airheads, Young Doctors in Love, Problem Child, Coneheads, UHF, during the run of Seinfeld, he made a guest appearance in Mad About You. After Seinfeld, Richards starred in his own sitcom, The Michael Richards Show, when Seinfeld ended in 1998, Richards returned to stand-up comedy. Subsequent to significant media coverage of the event he announced his retirement from stand-up early in 2007, in 2013, Richards returned to television when he played the role of Frank in the sitcom Kirstie, co-starring Kirstie Alley and Rhea Perlman. Richards was born in Culver City, California, the son of Phyllis, a medical records librarian, and William Richards and his father died in a car crash when Michael was two and his mother never remarried. Richards graduated from Thousand Oaks High School and he was drafted into the United States Army in 1970. He trained as a medic and was stationed in West Germany, after being honorably discharged he used the benefits of the G. I. Bill to enroll in the California Institute of the Arts, and he also had a short-lived improv act with Ed Begley, Jr. During this period, he enrolled at Los Angeles Valley College, Richards got his big TV break in 1979, appearing in Billy Crystals first cable TV special. In 1980, he began as one of the cast members on ABCs Fridays television show, the film Man on the Moon featured a re-enactment of the Andy Kaufman incident in which Richards was portrayed by actor Norm Macdonald. In 1989, Richards had a role in Weird Al Yankovics comedy film UHF as janitor Stanley Spadowski. On television, Richards also appeared in Miami Vice, Cheers, hoberman said that ABC wanted Richards to play Adrian Monk, but he turned it down. In 1989, he was cast as Cosmo Kramer in the NBC television series Seinfeld, although it got off to a slow start, by the mid-1990s, the show had become one of the most popular sitcoms in television history. The series ended its run in 1998 at #1 in the Nielsen ratings. In the setting of Seinfeld, Kramer is usually referred to by his last name only and is the neighbor of the eponymous character. Kramers first name, Cosmo, was revealed in the sixth-season episode The Switch, Richards won more Emmys than any other cast member on Seinfeld
10.
H&H Bagels
–
H&H Bagels has been a popular bagel company in Manhattan, in New York City. The original two stores closed, but one with the name continues. There is an H&H Midtown Bagels East at 1551 2nd Avenue between East 80th and East 81st streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, with different owners, in 1997, it had sales of $2 million. The business was started in 1972 when Puerto Rican Helmer Toro and his brother-in-law Hector Hernandez bought Midtown Bagels at Broadway and 80th Street for $5,000 in cash, Toro eventually assumed full control of the business. In 1993 it moved its bakery to 46th Street at 12th Avenue in Hells Kitchen although its primary storefront remained on the Upper West Side, in addition to its retail locations, H&H also shipped bagels worldwide. H&H Bagels were Hechsher-certified Kosher and Pareve by Star-K, on November 18,2009, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced the indictment and arrest of Helmer Toro for stealing withholding taxes and evading unemployment insurance taxes. The indictment alleged that between July 2003 and April 2009, Toro failed to pay $369,000 withheld from H&H employees. H&H filed for protection in February 2011 in an effort to maintain its manufacturing facility in Secaucus, New Jersey. The West 46th and West 80th retail locations closed in January 2012, H&H Midtown Bagels East at 1551 2nd Avenue between East 80th and East 81st streets on the Upper East Side is owned by different owners than the original stores. In 1997, it had sales of $2 million, in November 2016, H&H Midtown Bagels East opened a second location on the Upper West Side. Opened in 1972, this was the location of H&H Bagels. It was open to the public 24 hours a day, Bagels were produced at the location at nearly all times of the day and night. It was closed by New York City marshals on June 29,2011, the H&H location at 639 West 46th Street also held a manufacturing plant. This location was also open 24 hours a day, the property was sold in December 2011, but the company continued operating until they were evicted in January 2012
11.
George Costanza
–
George Louis Costanza is a character in the American television sitcom Seinfeld, played by Jason Alexander. He has variously described as a short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man. George and Jerry were junior high school friends and remained friends afterwards and he is friends with Jerry Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer, and Elaine Benes. George appears in every episode except The Pen, the character was originally based on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David but is surnamed after Jerry Seinfelds real-life New York friend, Mike Costanza. Alexander reprised his role in an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, reuniting with Jerry Seinfeld, George is the son of Frank, an Italian-American and Estelle Costanza, presumably Jewish-American. Though he never made an appearance on the show, George has mentioned twice that he has a brother, lloyd Braun is his childhood nemesis who George feels was the son his parents always wanted. Georges best friend Jerry Seinfeld described Frank and Estelle as psychopaths, George also describes himself as the result of his parents having stayed together. In The Junior Mint, he states he grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in a previous episode he mentions he went to high school on Long Island. He met Jerry during his youth, and they remained friends from that point on, George and Jerry both attended John F. Kennedy High School, class of 1971. During their high school years, George and Jerry frequently hung out at a pizzeria called Marios Pizzas, George was picked on by his gym teacher Mr. Heyman, who deliberately mispronounced his name as Cant stand ya and gave him wedgies. George has three cousins, Shelly, who appeared in The Contest, George Howarth and Rhisa. George talks to his parents about his family in The Money, during which its revealed that he had an Uncle Moe, who died a man and an Aunt Baby. It is also revealed that his mother has a Cousin Henny, in The Doll, its revealed that Frank Costanza was born in Italy and has a cousin, Carlo, who still lives there. As of The Robbery, George had living grandparents who hed recently visited, George is neurotic, self-loathing and dominated by his parents, yet also prone to occasional periods of overconfidence that invariably arise at the worst possible time. However, one Chicago Tribune reviewer noted that, despite all his shortcomings, Georges relationship with Frank is estranged. Episode plots frequently feature George manufacturing elaborate deceptions at work or in his relationships in order to gain or maintain some small or imagined advantage or image of success. He had success in The Opposite, where he starts to do the complete opposite of what his instincts tell him to do and his neurosis is also evident in The Note, where he begins doubting his sexuality after receiving a massage from a male masseuse. George sometimes refers to himself in the person, after befriending a person with a similar trait in The Jimmy
12.
Jason Alexander
–
Jay Scott Greenspan, known by his stage name Jason Alexander, is an American actor, voice actor, comedian and director. Alexander is best known for his prominent role as George Costanza in the television series Seinfeld, Other well-known roles include Phillip Stuckey in the film Pretty Woman and the title character in the animated series Duckman. Alexander has had a career on stage, appearing in several Broadway musicals including Jerome Robbins Broadway in 1989. He appeared in the Los Angeles production of The Producers and he was the Artistic Director of Reprise. Broadways Best in Los Angeles, where he has directed several musicals, Alexander was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Jewish parents Ruth Minnie, a nurse and health care administrator, and Alexander B. He has a half-sister, Karen Van Horne, and a half-brother, Alexander grew up in Livingston, New Jersey and is a 1977 graduate of Livingston High School. He attended Boston University but left the summer before his senior year and he was later given an honorary degree in 1995. He is a magician, and only switched to acting as a career when he realized that he was unlikely to succeed as a magician. Alexander began his career on the New York stage and is an accomplished singer and dancer. Returning to the stage in 2003, Alexander was cast in a run, opposite Martin Short. Alexander also appeared with Kelsey Grammer in the 2004 musical adaptation of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, Alexander was recently named the Artistic Director of Reprise Theatre Company in Los Angeles, where he previously directed Sunday in the Park with George. He is scheduled to direct the revival of Damn Yankees at Reprise. In 2015, he replaced Larry David as the lead in Davids Broadway play Fish in the Dark, Alexander is best known as one of the key cast members of the award-winning television sitcom Seinfeld, in which he played George Costanza. He did, however, win a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series for his work, before Seinfeld, he starred in a short-lived CBS sitcom called Everythings Relative in 1987 which lasted six episodes. Concurrently with his Seinfeld role, Alexander provided the voice of the character in the cult animated series Duckman. Alexander also voiced Catbert, the director of human resources. Alexander made cameo appearances in the season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Alexander also appeared in the season of Curb Your Enthusiasm
13.
Jerry Seinfeld (character)
–
Jerome Jerry Seinfeld is the protagonist of the American television sitcom Seinfeld. The straight man among his group of friends, this version of comedian Jerry Seinfeld was named after, co-created by, based on. The series revolves around Jerrys misadventures with his best friend George Costanza, neighbor Cosmo Kramer and he is usually the voice of reason amidst his friends antics and the focal point of the foursomes relationship. An eternal optimist, he runs into major personal problems. Jerry is the main character on the show to maintain the same career throughout the series. He is the most observational character, sarcastically commenting on his friends quirky habits, much of the shows action takes place in Jerrys apartment located at 129 West 81st Street, apartment 5A. He and his friends also frequently have coffee or meals together at Monks Café, Jerry appeared in all 180 episodes of Seinfeld, the only character in the show to appear in every episode. In the shows setting, Jerry is the man, a figure who is able to observe the chaos around him. Plot lines involving Jerry often concern his various relationships - Jerry often finds stupid reasons to break up with women, which, according to Elaine, occurs every week. Jerry is generally indifferent to what goes on in his friends lives, seeing their misery as merely an entertaining distraction. He often plays along with their schemes, even encouraging them. In the episode The Serenity Now, Jerry is perplexed by his experience of crying, asking What is this salty discharge, in The Foundation Elaine points out that he has never felt remorse, to which Jerry replies, Yeah, I feel kinda bad about that. He will often state, Thats a shame when something bad happens. Jerry, George and Elaine all share a trait of not letting go of other characters remarks. In one episode, Jerry goes out of his way to rent a house in Tuscany, another example is when he buys his parents the same car over and over again, at great financial loss. In The Invitations, for example, Jerry admits that he feels depressed about George getting married, seeing as how George will eventually leave the group, Jerry himself perfectly sums up his relation to his three friends in the episode The Letter. In a deleted scene from that show, he claims that his friends are not more important than his girlfriends, unlike George and Elaine, Jerry rarely runs into major personal problems. Even when Elaine threw Jerrys $20 bill out of the window, he found one in his coat pocket
14.
Elaine Benes
–
Elaine Marie Benes /ˈbɛnᵻs/ is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Seinfeld, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Elaines best friend is her ex-boyfriend Jerry Seinfeld, and she is good friends with George Costanza. Julia Louis-Dreyfus received critical acclaim for her performance as Elaine, winning an Emmy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus reprised the role during season 41 of Saturday Night Live. Unlike her three friends, Elaine is absent from the pilot episode. Previously the female role was supposed to be Claire, the waitress at Petes Luncheonette played by Lee Garlington, Elaine first appears in The Stake Out, but in production order she appears in a final scene eating M&Ms in Male Unbonding. In addition to the first episode, Elaine doesnt appear in The Trip and therefore appears in fewer episodes than George and Jerry. After it was discovered that Jerry Seinfeld once dated writer and comedian Carol Leifer, speculation grew that Elaine was based on Leifer, though that was later largely denied. She says some elements of the character of Elaine, especially her assertiveness, intelligence, according to Seinfelds biography, Elaine was based in part on Susan McNabb, though eventually named after friend and fellow comic Elayne Boosler. Also, the character was based on Monica Yates, daughter of novelist Richard Yates, whom Larry David once dated. Elaine is normally intelligent and assertive, but also quite superficial, shes one of the boys, and despite the troubles they go through as a group, she remains the closest female friend to the main male cast throughout the series. Her traits are usually edgy and neurotic and she has a tendency to easily get angry with almost everybody, Elaine is a serial dater, a trait lampooned in The Sponge, where shes desperate to buy a cache of discontinued contraceptive sponges before theyre all bought up. She coins the word spongeworthy debating her then-boyfriends prospects of intimacy at the expense of her inventory and her neuroses often interfere with her relationships, leading to the premature end of a blossoming relationship. For example, in The Stall, Elaine is dating Tony, after a rock climbing accident mangles Tonys face, Elaine admits to Jerry that she cant date somebody whos unattractive and wonders how long shes obligated to stay with him post-accident. Later, in The Couch after proclaiming her love for new boyfriend Carl, Elaine also is attracted to men with lucrative jobs, especially doctors. Generally, her hair was long with curls or waves, by Season 7, her hairstyle had matured and had a more modern look for the rest of the series, even wearing it straight in The Wait Out and The Invitations. There are a few episodes where her hair has an effect on mostly her boyfriends, in The Strike, its damaged when affected by steam. In The Smelly Car a valet makes Jerrys car and Elaines hair smell like body odor, in The Movie George describes Elaine as having a big wall o hair. Her clothes are quite conservative
15.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
–
Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus is an American actress, comedian, and producer. She is known for her work in comedy, including Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine. Louis-Dreyfus holds several records for most Primetime Emmy Award wins and nominations, Louis-Dreyfus broke into comedy as a performer in The Practical Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois, which led to her casting in the sketch show Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985. Her breakthrough came in 1990 with a run playing Elaine Benes on Seinfeld. Louis-Dreyfus film roles have included Hannah and Her Sisters, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, Deconstructing Harry and she has voiced roles in several animated films, including A Bugs Life and Planes. Louis-Dreyfus has received nine Emmy Awards, seven for acting and two for producing, with a total of 22 nominations throughout her career and she has also received a Golden Globe Award, seven Screen Actors Guild Awards, five American Comedy Awards, and two Critics Choice Television Awards. Louis-Dreyfus received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010, in 2016, Time named Louis-Dreyfus one of the 100 most influential people in the world on the annual Time 100 list. Louis-Dreyfus was born in New York City and her American-born mother, Judith, was a writer and special needs tutor, and her French-born father, Gérard Louis-Dreyfus, chaired Louis Dreyfus Energy Services. Her paternal grandfather, Pierre Louis-Dreyfus, was president of the Louis Dreyfus Group, Pierre was from an Alsatian Jewish family, he remained in France during World War II, fighting as a cavalry officer and later in the French Resistance. Her paternal grandmother was born in America, to parents from Brazil and Mexico, during the 1940s, in 1962, one year after Louis-Dreyfuss birth, her parents divorced. After relocating to Washington, D. C. when Julia was eight, her mother married L. Thompson Bowles, during her childhood, her mother occasionally took her to Unitarian church services. Louis-Dreyfus spent her childhood in several states and countries, in connection with her stepfathers work with Project HOPE, including Vietnam, Colombia and she graduated from the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland in 1979, and attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. There, she was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority, as part of her comedic training, Louis-Dreyfus appeared in The Second City, one of Chicagos best-known improvisation theatre groups. It was her performance with The Practical Theatre Company at their Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee that led to her being asked to join the cast of NBCs Saturday Night Live at the age of 21. Louis-Dreyfus was subsequently made into a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985, during her time on SNL, she appeared alongside several actors who would later rise to prominence, such as Eddie Murphy, Jim Belushi, Billy Crystal, and Martin Short. It was during her third and final year on SNL that she met writer Larry David during his year on the show. In 1988, she was cast in the NBC sitcom Day by Day, in the early-1990s Louis-Dreyfus became famous for the role of Elaine Benes on NBCs Seinfeld. She played the role for nine seasons, appearing in all, one of the episodes that she did not appear in was the inaugural pilot episode, The Seinfeld Chronicles, because her character was not initially intended to be a part of the series
16.
Jerry Stiller
–
Gerald Isaac Jerry Stiller is an American comedian and actor. He is known for playing Frank Costanza on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld and he spent many years in the comedy team Stiller and Meara with his wife, Anne Meara. They are the parents of actor Ben Stiller, with whom Stiller co-starred in the films Zoolander, Heavyweights, Hot Pursuit, The Heartbreak Kid, Stiller is best known for his unique angry, yelling acting style. The eldest of four children, Stiller was born at Unity Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Bella and William Stiller and his paternal grandparents immigrated from Galicia, and his mother was born in Poland. He lived in the Williamsburg and East New York neighborhoods before his family moved to the Lower East Side, a drama major at Syracuse University, he earned a bachelors degree in Speech and Drama in 1950. In the 1953 Phoenix Theater production of Coriolanus, Stiller formed the best trio of Shakespearian clowns that had seen on any stage. Their career declined as variety series gradually disappeared, but they subsequently forged a career in radio commercials and they starred in their own syndicated five-minute sketch comedy show, Take Five with Stiller and Meara. From 1979 to 1982, Stiller and Meara hosted HBO Sneak Previews and they also did some comedy sketches between show discussions. The duos own 1986 TV sitcom, The Stiller and Meara Show, in which Stiller played the deputy mayor of New York City and Meara portrayed his wife, Stiller played the short-tempered Frank Costanza, the father of George Costanza in the sitcom Seinfeld from 1993 to 1998. After Seinfelds run ended, Stiller had planned on retiring, James, who played the leading role of Doug Heffernan, had told Stiller that he needed him in order to have a successful show. Stiller obliged, and played the role of Arthur Spooner, the father of Carrie Heffernan, Stiller said this role tested his acting ability more than any others have and that, before being a part of King of Queens, he only saw himself as a decent actor. Stiller played himself in filmed skits, opening and closing Canadian rock band Rushs 30th Anniversary Tour concerts in 2004 and these appearances are seen on the bands DVD R30, 30th Anniversary World Tour, released in 2005. Stiller later appeared in cameos in later films for the bands 2007-2008 Snakes & Arrows Tour. He also appeared on the game show Tattletales with his wife Anne in the Blue rooting section, in the late 1990s, Stiller appeared in a series of Nike television commercials as the ghost of deceased Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi. Stiller has appeared in motion pictures, most notably Zoolander. On February 9,2007, Stiller and Meara were honored with a joint star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on October 28,2010, the couple appeared on an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Stiller voiced the announcer on the educational show Crashbox. Starting in October 2010, Stiller and Meara began starring in a Yahoo web series, Stiller & Meara from Red Hour Digital, each episode was about two minutes long
17.
Picketing
–
Picketing is a form of protest in which people congregate outside a place of work or location where an event is taking place. Often, this is done in an attempt to dissuade others from going in, picketers normally endeavor to be non-violent. It can have a number of aims, but is generally to put pressure on the party targeted to meet particular demands and/or cease operations. Picketing is a tactic used by trade unions during strikes. Those who cross the line and work despite the strike are known pejoratively as scabs. Informational picketing is the name given to the type of picketing described above. It is a popular picketing technique for nurses to use outside of healthcare facilities, for example, on April 5,2006 nurses of the UMass Memorial Medical Center participated in two separate informational picketing events to protect the quality of their nursing program. Informational picketing was used to public support and promote further bargaining with management. A mass picket is an attempt to bring as many people as possible to a line to demonstrate support for the cause. It is primarily used only one workplace is being picketed or for a symbolically or practically important workplace. Due to the numbers involved, a mass picket may turn into a potentially unlawful blockade, secondary picketing people picketing locations that directly connected to the issue of protest. In many jurisdictions, secondary pickets do not have the civil law protection as primary pickets. However, such plans had been dropped by the time Labour returned to power under Tony Blair in 1997, another tactic is to organise highly-mobile pickets, who can turn up at any of a companys locations on short notice. The first recorded use of flying pickets was during the 1969 miners strike in Britain, Picketing is also used by pressure groups across the political spectrum. In particular, picketing has been employed by groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church that picket a variety of stores or events they consider to be sinful. For example, during the UK miners strike, strikebreakers were pelted by pickets with stones, paint and their legality has been challenged in some jurisdictions on the grounds that such tactics violate privacy rights and/or are intended to incite later reprisals against such individuals. In the US, this type of picketing, under Section 8 of the Labor Act, is illegal if representation is not relevant or is unquestionable. In the UK mass picketing was illegal under the Trade Disputes
18.
Queens
–
Queens is the easternmost and largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City. Coterminous with Queens County since 1899, the borough of Queens is the second-largest in population, with a census-estimated 2,339,150 residents in 2015, approximately 48% of them foreign-born. Queens County also is the second-most populous county in the U. S. state of New York, behind the borough of Brooklyn. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated county among New York Citys boroughs, if each of New York Citys boroughs were an independent city, Queens also would be the nations fourth most populous city, after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn. Queens is the most ethnically diverse area in the world. Queens was established in 1683 as one of the original 12 counties of New York and it was named after the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza, Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It became a borough of New York City in 1898, and from 1683 until 1899, Queens has the most diversified economy of the five boroughs of New York City It is home to JFK International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. These airports are among the busiest in the world, causing the airspace above Queens to be the most congested in the country, attractions in Queens include Flushing Meadows Park, Citi Field, the US Open tennis tournament, Kaufman Astoria Studios, Silvercup Studios, and Aqueduct Racetrack. European colonization brought Dutch and English settlers, as a part of the New Netherland colony, First settlements occurred in 1635 followed by early colonizations at Maspeth in 1642, and Vlissingen in 1643. Other early settlements included Newtown and Jamaica, however, these towns were mostly inhabited by English settlers from New England via eastern Long Island subject to Dutch law. After the capture of the colony by the English and its renaming as New York in 1664, the Flushing Remonstrance signed by colonists in 1657 is considered a precursor to the United States Constitutions provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights. The signers protested the Dutch colonial authorities persecution of Quakers in what is today the borough of Queens, originally, Queens County included the adjacent area now comprising Nassau County. It was a county of New York State, one of twelve created on November 1,1683. The county was named after Catherine of Braganza, since she was queen of England at the time, the county was founded alongside Kings County, and Richmond County. On October 7,1691, all counties in the Colony of New York were redefined, Queens gained North Brother Island, South Brother Island, and Huletts Island. On December 3,1768, Queens gained other islands in Long Island Sound that were not already assigned to a county, Queens played a minor role in the American Revolution, as compared to Brooklyn, where the Battle of Long Island was largely fought. Queens, like the rest of Long Island, remained under British occupation after the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and was occupied throughout most of the rest of the Revolutionary War. Under the Quartering Act, British soldiers used, as barracks, even though many local people were against unannounced quartering, sentiment throughout the county remained in favor of the British crown
19.
Yarmulke
–
A kippah is a brimless cap, usually made of cloth, worn by Jews to fulfill the customary requirement held by orthodox halachic authorities that the head be covered. It is usually worn by men in Orthodox communities at all times, most synagogues and Jewish funeral services keep a ready supply of kippot. There is considerable debate among Halachic authorities as to whether or not wearing a kippah at all times is required, however, according to some authorities it has since taken on the force of law because it is an act of Kiddush Hashem. The 17th-century authority Rabbi David HaLevi Segal suggested that the reason was to distinguish Jews from their non-Jewish counterparts and he held that nowadays wearing a kippah is required by halacha. Other halachic authorities like Sephardi posek, the Chida hold that wearing a head covering is a midat hasidut, in a recent responsum, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Ovadia Yosef ruled that it should be worn to show affiliation with the religiously observant community. The Talmud states, Cover your head in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you, Rabbi Hunah ben Joshua never walked 4 cubits with his head uncovered. He explained, Because the Divine Presence is always over my head and this was understood by Rabbi Yosef Karo in the Shulchan Arukh as indicating that Jewish men should cover their heads and should not walk more than four cubits bareheaded. Covering ones head, such as by wearing a kippah, is described as honoring God, in many communities, boys are encouraged to wear a kippah from a young age in order to ingrain the habit. The Talmud also implies that men did not wear a kippah. He said to him, When he visits you, bring him to me, when he arrived, he saw that he wore no head-covering. Why do you not have head-covering, because I am not married, was the reply. Thereupon, he turned his face away from him and said, See to it that you do not appear before me again before you are married. The Tanach implies that covering ones head was a sign of mourning, And David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, and wept as he went, then all the people who were with him each covered his head and went up weeping as they went. And their nobles send their lads for water, they come to the pits, and find no water, their vessels return empty, they are ashamed and confounded, and cover their heads. Because of the ground which is cracked, for there hath been no rain in the land, and Mordecai returned to the kings gate. But Haman hasted to his house, mourning and having his head covered, the argument for the kipa has two sides. The Vilna Gaon says one can make a berakhah without a kippah, recently, there has been an effort to suppress earlier sources that practiced this leniency, including erasing lenient responsa from newly published books. According to Rabbi Isaac Klein, a Conservative Jew ought to cover his head when in the synagogue, at prayer or sacred study, when engaging in an act
20.
Wrestling
–
Wrestling is a combat sport involving grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. The sport can either be theatrical for entertainment, or genuinely competitive, a wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position. There are a range of styles with varying rules with both traditional historic and modern styles. Wrestling techniques have incorporated into other martial arts as well as military hand-to-hand combat systems. The term wrestling is attested in late Old English, as wræstlunge, Wrestling represents one of the oldest forms of combat. The origins of wrestling go back 15,000 years through cave drawings in France, babylonian and Egyptian reliefs show wrestlers using most of the holds known in the present-day sport. Literary references to it occur as early as in the ancient Indian Vedas, the Iliad contains references, in which Homer recounts the Trojan War of the 13th or 12th century BC. Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata contain references to martial arts including wrestling, in ancient Greece wrestling occupied a prominent place in legend and literature, wrestling competition, brutal in many aspects, served as the focal sport of the ancient Olympic Games. The ancient Romans borrowed heavily from Greek wrestling, but eliminated much of its brutality, during the Middle Ages wrestling remained popular and enjoyed the patronage of many royal families, including those of France, Japan and England. Early European settlers in America brought a strong wrestling tradition with them if they came from England, the settlers also found wrestling to be popular among Native Americans. Amateur wrestling flourished throughout the years of the North American colonies and served as a popular activity at country fairs, holiday celebrations. The first organized national wrestling tournament took place in New York City in 1888, the international governing body for the sport, United World Wrestling, was established in 1912 in Antwerp, Belgium as the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles. The 1st NCAA Wrestling Championships were also held in 1912, in Ames, USA Wrestling, located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, became the national governing body of amateur wrestling in 1983. It conducts competitions for all age-levels, some of the earliest references to wrestling, can be found in wrestling mythology. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh established his credibility as a leader, after wrestling Enkidu, Greek mythology celebrates the rise of Zeus as ruler of the earth after a wrestling match with his father, Cronus. Both Heracles and Theseus were famous for their wrestling against man, the Mahabharata describes a malla-dwandwa between the accomplished wrestlers Bhima and Jarasandha. Rustam of the Shahnameh is regarded by Iranian pahlevans as the greatest wrestler, in Pharaonic Egypt, wrestling has been evidenced by documentation on tombs and Egyptian artwork. Greek wrestling was a form of martial art, at least in Ancient Greece
21.
Pin (amateur wrestling)
–
A pin, or fall, is a victory condition in various forms of wrestling that is met by holding an opponents shoulders or scapulae on the wrestling mat for a prescribed period of time. This article deals with the pin as it is defined in amateur wrestling, in amateur wrestling, a pin ends the match regardless of when it occurs. Under the 2004–05 changes to the United World Wrestling rules, amateur wrestling moved to a system in which each period is conducted as a separate match with a winner declared. The pin is an exception — it ends a match outright, in this way, the fall is analogous to a knockout in boxing. In Greco Roman and freestyle wrestling, the two shoulders of the wrestler must be held long enough for the referee to observe the total control of the fall. Then either the judge or the mat chairman concurs with the referee that a fall is made, in the United States, for the Kids Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling division in competitions sponsored by USA Wrestling, it is specified that a fall must be held for two seconds. In American collegiate wrestling, a pin must be held for one second, in American scholastic wrestling, a pin must be held for two seconds. In the half-nelson, the wrestler is on top of the opponent on the ground with both wrestlers face down, a half nelson can be used to turn the opponent over. The attackers arm is pushed below the shoulder from the outside. A cradle is a move where the attacker performs the cradle by grabbing the neck of his opponent with one arm, the wrestler then locks both hands together, forcing the opponents knee toward his face, and rolls the opponent over onto his back. The hooked leg can be either the leg or the far leg. In this move, the top wrestler, just to his opponents left, grasps the left elbow with his left hand. He quickly pull his arm out while still holding onto it. He pushes him down with his body, using his right knee to push him forward and he then grabs his right wrist with the right hand and pulls it outward. His belly is now down on the mat, legs flat, the aggressor is above the opponent with his chest several inches above his back. The aggressors left knee holds up most of his own body weight, the aggressors right leg is extended between his legs with the ball of the foot on the floor. The aggressor curls his wrist, then encloses the opponents left arm inside the left elbow joint. With the aggressors chest is resting on the left elbow, he uses his body to push his left shoulder into his ear
22.
Hip flask
–
A hip flask is a thin flask for holding a distilled beverage. Hip flasks were made of pewter, silver, or even glass. Some modern flasks are made of plastic so as to avoid detection by metal detectors, hip flasks can vary in shape, although they are usually contoured to match the curve of the wearers hip or thigh for comfort and discretion in a design also known as a kidney flask. Some flasks have captive tops which is an arm that attaches the top to the flask in order to stop it from getting lost when it is taken off. A hip flask is most commonly purchased empty and then filled by the owner, however, the term flask also applies to smallest bottle sizes of alcohol in commercial markets. Some flasks come with small cups to make sharing easier, although generally liquid is drunk directly from the flask, the hip flask is popular as a commemorative item, often being engraved. The Modern Drunkard Magazine describes the engraved flask as the best present one can give, the engravings may be a short quote, the recipients initials, toasts, dates of memorable occasions, or signs of friendship. Similar to wrist watches the hip flask began to appear in the form it is recognized today in the 18th century, however, less compact versions had been in production for several centuries. Notably, in the Middle Ages, there are accounts of gutted fruit being used to store liquor. During the 18th century, women boarding docked British warships would smuggle gin into the ship via makeshift flasks, created from pigs bladders, following the act of prohibition in 1920s America, the state of Indiana banned the sale of cocktail shakers and hip flasks. Antique hip flasks, particularly those made of silver, are now collectors items. In the Royal Air Force, “hip-flask” was used as code for a revolver, carrying a hip flask filled with alcohol in a public place is illegal in many locations in the United States due to open container laws. These laws prohibit possession of a container of alcohol in public or within the passenger compartment of a vehicle. It also appears rarely in The Simpsons, when Homer drinks from it on occasion, in Family Guy, the character Brian Griffin also carries around a hip flask in the earlier seasons. In another adult animation, Rick and Morty, the character Rick Sanchez, who is shown to be notably alcoholic, carries a hip flask under his lab coat
23.
Coffeehouse
–
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment which primarily serves hot coffee, related coffee beverages, tea, and other hot beverages. Some coffeehouses also serve cold beverages such as iced coffee and iced tea, many cafés also serve some type of food, such as light snacks, muffins, or pastries. Coffeehouses range from owner-operated small businesses to multinational corporations. A coffeehouse may share some of the characteristics of a bar or restaurant. Many coffee houses in the Middle East and in West Asian immigrant districts in the Western world offer shisha, espresso bars are a type of coffeehouse that specializes in serving espresso and espresso-based drinks. Since the development of Wi-Fi, coffeehouses with this capability have also become places for patrons to access the Internet on their laptops, a coffeehouse can serve as an informal club for its regular members. As early as the 1950s Beatnik era and the 1960s folk music scene, coffeehouses have hosted singer-songwriter performances, coffeehouses in Mecca became a concern as places for political gatherings to the imams, who banned them, as well as the drink, for Muslims between 1512 and 1524. In 1530, the first coffeehouse was opened in Damascus and not long there were many coffeehouses in Cairo. About that year, a fellow called Hakam from Aleppo and a wag called Shams from Damascus came to the city, they opened a large shop in the district called Tahtakale. Various legends involving the introduction of coffee to Istanbul at a Kiva Han in the late 15th century circulate in culinary tradition, resembling checkers, hopscotch, and chess, are played. In addition, mollas, dervishes, and poets take turns telling stories in verse or in prose, the narrations by the mollas and the dervishes are moral lessons, like our sermons, but it is not considered scandalous not to pay attention to them. No one is forced to give up his game or his conversation because of it. It often happens that two or three people talk at the time, one on one side, the other on the opposite, and sometimes one will be a preacher. The most common English spelling, café, is the French, Portuguese and Spanish spelling, thus the spelling cafe has become very common in English-language usage throughout the world, especially for the less formal, i. e. greasy spoon variety. The Italian spelling, caffè, is sometimes used in English. In southern England, especially around London in the 1950s, the French pronunciation was often altered to /ˈkæf/. The English words coffee and café both descend from the Italian word for coffee, caffè—first attested as caveé in Venice in 1570— and in turn derived from the Arabic qahuwa. The Arabic term qahuwa originally referred to a type of wine but after the ban by Mohammed
24.
Baltimore Ravens
–
The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League as a club of the American Football Conference North division. The team plays its games at M&T Bank Stadium and is headquartered in Owings Mills. The Ravens were established in 1996, when Art Modell, who was then the owner of the Cleveland Browns, in return, he was allowed to take his own personnel and team to Baltimore, where such personnel would then form an expansion team. The Ravens organization has been led by general manager Ozzie Newsome since 1996, the team is owned by Steve Bisciotti and valued at $1.5 billion, making the Ravens the 24th-most valuable sports franchise in the world. The name Ravens was inspired by Edgar Allan Poes poem The Raven, chosen in a fan contest that drew 33,288 voters, the allusion honors Poe, who spent the early part of his career in Baltimore and is buried there. As the Baltimore Sun reported at the time, fans also liked the tie-in with the birds in town, the Orioles. After the controversial relocation of the Colts to Indianapolis, several attempts were made to bring an NFL team back to Baltimore. In 1993, ahead of the 1995 league expansion, the city was considered a favorite, behind only St. Louis and this led to public outrage and the Baltimore Sun describing Taglibue as having an Anybody But Baltimore policy. Maryland governor William Donald Schaefer said afterward that Taglibue had led him on, praising Baltimore, by May 1994, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos had gathered a new group of investors, including author Tom Clancy, to bid on teams whose owners had expressed interest in relocating. Angelos found a partner in Georgia Frontiere, who was open to moving the Los Angeles Rams to Baltimore. Jack Kent Cooke opposed the move, intending to build the Redskins new stadium in Laurel, Maryland and this led to heated arguments between Cooke and Angelos, who accused Cooke of being a carpetbagger. Following this, Angelos made an unsuccessful $200 million bid to bring the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to Baltimore, enticed by Baltimores available funds for a first-class stadium, Modell announced on November 6,1995 his intention to relocate the team from Cleveland to Baltimore the following year. The resulting controversy ended when representatives of Cleveland and the NFL reached a settlement on February 8,1996, tagliabue promised the city of Cleveland that an NFL team would be located in Cleveland, either through relocation or expansion, no later than 1999. Additionally, the agreement stipulated that the Browns name, colors, uniform design, the franchise history includes Browns club records and connections with Pro Football Hall of Fame players. Modells Baltimore team, while retaining all current player contracts, would, for purposes of history, appear as an expansion team. Not all players, staff or front office would make the move to Baltimore, after relocation, Modell hired Ted Marchibroda as the head coach for his new team in Baltimore. Marchibroda was already well known because of his work as coach of the Baltimore Colts during the 1970s
25.
Super Bowl XXXV
–
The Ravens defeated the Giants by the score of 34–7, tied for the seventh largest Super Bowl margin of victory with Super Bowl XXXVII. The game was played on January 28,2001 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the Ravens, who posted a 12–4 regular season record, became the third wild card team to win the Super Bowl and the second in four years. The Giants entered the game seeking to go 3–0 in Super Bowls after also finishing the season with a 12–4 record. The game was the first Super Bowl contested by teams representing cities that had contested a previous Super Bowl with two different franchises, Baltimore allowed only 152 yards of offense by New York, recorded 4 sacks, and forced 5 turnovers. All 16 of the Giants possessions ended with punts or interceptions, with the exception of the last one, New Yorks lone touchdown, a 97-yard kickoff return, was quickly answered by Baltimore on an 84-yard touchdown return on the ensuing kickoff. NFL owners awarded Super Bowl XXXV to Tampa during their October 31,1996 meeting in New Orleans, Tampa became the fourth metropolitan area to host the game at least three times, joining New Orleans, Miami, and Los Angeles. Other cities under consideration at the meeting were Miami, Atlanta, owners initially planned on selecting only two hosts, but decided to name three after strong showings by the respective delegations. Tampa was essentially promised a Super Bowl after committing to the construction of a new stadium, Miami, Atlanta, and Tampa were selected to host XXXIII, XXXIV, and XXXV, respectively. The Ravens entered the game with the second-best defense in allowing yards in the league, with the fewest points allowed and the fewest rushing yards allowed during the regular season. At the time, they were the team to hold the opposition to under 1,000 yards rushing in a season since the NFL adopted a 16-game schedule in 1978. Baltimores 165 points allowed broke the record set by the 1986 Chicago Bears, the Ravens defense had held their opponents to 10 or fewer points in 11 games, including four shutouts. The defense was led by a trio of outstanding linebackers, Peter Boulware, Jamie Sharper, during the regular season, Boulware recorded 7 sacks, while Sharper forced 5 fumbles and made one interception. Lewis was named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year by recording 3 sacks, making 138 tackles, Pro Bowl defensive tackle Sam Adams and veteran Tony Siragusa anchored the defensive line, along with defensive ends Rob Burnett and Pro Bowler Michael McCrary. Baltimore also had a corps of defensive backs led by Pro Bowl veteran safety Rod Woodson, who along with Kim Herring, Duane Starks. On offense, the Ravens main strength was rushing, led by rookie Jamal Lewis, also, tight end Shannon Sharpe recorded 67 receptions for 810 yards and 5 touchdowns. Receiver Qadry Ismail added 49 receptions for 655 yards and four touchdowns, the offensive line was anchored by tackle Jonathan Ogden, who was named to the Pro Bowl for the 4th consecutive season. On special teams, Jermaine Lewis ranked second in the NFL with 36 punt returns for 578 yards, kicker Matt Stover led the NFL in field goals made and attempted, while ranking 7th in field goal percentage and second in scoring. However, the Baltimore offense was mediocre, ranking only 13th in the league in scoring, 16th in total yards, the team had a lot of trouble scoring, and at one point they went through five games without scoring an offensive touchdown
26.
2000 Baltimore Ravens season
–
The 2000 Baltimore Ravens season was the franchises 5th season in the National Football League and the second under head coach Brian Billick. The Ravens concluded their season with a 12–4 record, and came in for second place in the AFC central, and also earning them a spot in the playoffs as a wild card team. The Ravens won three games in the 2000 AFC playoffs, culminating in a trip to Tampa Florida for Super Bowl XXXV. The teams defense, which allowed 10.3 points per game in the season, is considered among the greatest of all time. On June 5, a bargain was struck, and murder. Lewis pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to a year of probation, the Ravens started the season with a 5–1 start, with three of their victories coming by shutout. Despite the great play of the defense, the hit a major swoon after the first month of the season. Following a 37–0 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, the Ravens would not score a touchdown for five consecutive games. The Ravens won the first two of these games thanks to their defense, but lost the three, including a critical division loss at home to the Tennessee Titans. During this game, quarterback Tony Banks was benched in favor of Trent Dilfer, after a loss at home to Pittsburgh, the Ravens broke both their touchdown-less streak and losing streak against the Bengals the next week. It would be the first of seven wins to end the season. The Ravens finished one game behind the Tennessee Titans in the AFC central, the team cruised to a 21–3 victory, setting up a date with the Titans the following week in Nashville. The Ravens prevailed 24–10, thanks to linebacker Ray Lewis 50 yard interception return for a touchdown that put the game away. The Ravens easily defeated the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV, 34–7, the Ravens relied heavily on their defense, which set several records during the 2000 season, including fewest points allowed during a 16-game season and fewest rushing yards allowed. The defense finished the season number one overall in points allowed, starting cornerbacks Chris McAlister and Duane Starks combined to intercept ten passes, and defensive end Rob Burnett contributed with 10.5 sacks. Offensively, the Ravens relied heavily on the running game, rookie running back Jamal Lewis led the way with 1364 yards and veteran Priest Holmes added 588 yards. The passing game was rather pedestrian, but Trent Dilfer brought stability to the position when he took over for Tony Banks mid-season. Tight end Shannon Sharpe, acquired as a free agent from Denver during the offseason, was the teams leading pass receiver with 67 catches for 810 yards
27.
Brian Billick
–
Brian Harold Billick is a former National Football League coach and commentator. He was also the coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings when they broke the scoring record in the 1998 season. Billick, who played football and basketball at Redlands High School in Redlands and he played both quarterback and cornerback and holds the state record with 21 career interceptions. After spending his freshman season as a linebacker at the United States Air Force Academy, Billick transferred to Brigham Young University and became a tight end. He later told friends that he left the Air Force Academy because he learned, after hed already enrolled and he received All-Western Athletic Conference and honorable mention All-America honors in 1976. Billick was selected in the 11th round of the 1977 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers and that season, he also split time as an assistant coach at Redlands High School. Billick said he coached the school teams practice from 2 to 4 p. m. then headed over to the university for the college practice. Billick worked as an assistant at Brigham Young for one season before joining the 49ers as the assistant director of public relations for two years. He returned to coaching with San Diego State University, serving as the ends coach. After being named the offensive coordinator of Utah State University, Billick improved the second-worst offense in Division I-A into an offense in three seasons. Billick was then hired as the assistant head coach and tight ends coach at Stanford by Dennis Green, the Vikings made the playoffs during six of the seven seasons that Billick spent with the team, and set several offensive records in the process. In 1998, Minnesota set an NFL record for most points scored in a season and his work under Minnesota head coach Dennis Green put Billick in the Bill Walsh coaching tree. Billick became the coach in Baltimore Ravens history on January 19,1999. He had an 85–67 record in nine seasons with the team and he won a Super Bowl title. Although Billick had the opportunity to interview for the coaching job of the reactivated Cleveland Browns and was rumored to be their top candidate. He signed with Baltimore in under 24 hours after his initial interview, in his first season with the Ravens, Billick led the team to its first non-losing record in the franchises four-year history. The next season, the Ravens finished with a 12–4 record, Billick felt this approach would help them reach that goal, and went so far as to fine Tony Siragusa for violating the rule. In response, the players borrowed the term Festivus from the television series Seinfeld for the playoffs, when they reached the playoffs, Billick lifted this ban
28.
Super Bowl
–
The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League. The game is the culmination to a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. Normally, Roman numerals are used to each game, rather than the year in which it is held. For example, Super Bowl I was played on January 15,1967, the single exception to this rule is Super Bowl 50, which was played on February 7,2016, following the 2015 regular season. The next game, Super Bowl LII, scheduled for February 4,2018, the game was created as part of a merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football League. It was agreed that the two champion teams would play in the AFL–NFL World Championship Game until the merger was to officially begin in 1970. After the merger, each league was redesignated as a conference, currently, the National Football Conference leads the league with 26 wins to 25 wins for the American Football Conference. The Pittsburgh Steelers have the most Super Bowl championship titles, with six, the New England Patriots have the most Super Bowl appearances, with nine. The day on which the Super Bowl is played, now considered by some as an unofficial American national holiday, is called Super Bowl Sunday and it is the second-largest day for U. S. food consumption, after Thanksgiving Day. In addition, the Super Bowl has frequently been the most-watched American television broadcast of the year, in 2015, Super Bowl XLIX became the most-watched American television program in history with an average audience of 114. The NFL restricts the use of its Super Bowl trademark, it is called the Big Game or other generic terms by non-sponsoring corporations. As a result, watching and discussing the broadcasts commercials has become a significant aspect of the event, for four decades after its 1920 inception, the NFL successfully fended off several rival leagues. However, in 1960, it encountered its most serious competitor when the American Football League was formed. The AFL vied heavily with the NFL for both players and fans, but by the middle of the decade the strain of competition led to merger talks between the two leagues. Prior to the 1966 season, the NFL and AFL reached an agreement that was to take effect for the 1970 season. As part of the merger, the champions of the two agreed to meet in a world championship game for professional American football until the merger was effected. A bowl game is a college football game. Exploiting the Rose Bowl Games popularity, post-season college football contests were created for Miami, New Orleans, and El Paso, Texas in 1935, by the time the first Super Bowl was played, the term bowl for any major American football game was well established
29.
Wisconsin
–
Wisconsin is a U. S. state located in the north-central United States, in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, Wisconsin is the 23rd largest state by total area and the 20th most populous. The state capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee, the state is divided into 72 counties. Wisconsin is second to Michigan in the length of its Great Lakes coastline, Wisconsin is known as Americas Dairyland because it is one of the nations leading dairy producers, particularly famous for its cheese. Manufacturing, especially paper products, information technology, and tourism are major contributors to the states economy. The word Wisconsin originates from the given to the Wisconsin River by one of the Algonquian-speaking Native American groups living in the region at the time of European contact. French explorer Jacques Marquette was the first European to reach the Wisconsin River, arriving in 1673, subsequent French writers changed the spelling from Meskousing to Ouisconsin, and over time this became the name for both the Wisconsin River and the surrounding lands. English speakers anglicized the spelling from Ouisconsin to Wisconsin when they began to arrive in numbers during the early 19th century. The legislature of Wisconsin Territory made the current spelling official in 1845, the Algonquin word for Wisconsin and its original meaning have both grown obscure. Interpretations vary, but most implicate the river and the red sandstone that lines its banks, other theories include claims that the name originated from one of a variety of Ojibwa words meaning red stone place, where the waters gather, or great rock. Wisconsin has been home to a variety of cultures over the past 12,000 years. The first people arrived around 10,000 BCE during the Wisconsin Glaciation and these early inhabitants, called Paleo-Indians, hunted now-extinct ice age animals such as the Boaz mastodon, a prehistoric mastodon skeleton unearthed along with spear points in southwest Wisconsin. After the ice age ended around 8000 BCE, people in the subsequent Archaic period lived by hunting, fishing, agricultural societies emerged gradually over the Woodland period between 1000 BCE to 1000 CE. Toward the end of period, Wisconsin was the heartland of the Effigy Mound culture. Later, between 1000 and 1500 CE, the Mississippian and Oneota cultures built substantial settlements including the village at Aztalan in southeast Wisconsin. The Oneota may be the ancestors of the modern Ioway and Ho-Chunk tribes who shared the Wisconsin region with the Menominee at the time of European contact, the first European to visit what became Wisconsin was probably the French explorer Jean Nicolet. He canoed west from Georgian Bay through the Great Lakes in 1634, pierre Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers visited Green Bay again in 1654–1666 and Chequamegon Bay in 1659–1660, where they traded for fur with local Native Americans. In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet became the first to record a journey on the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway all the way to the Mississippi River near Prairie du Chien
30.
Jim Doyle
–
James Edward Jim Doyle, Jr. is an American politician, attorney and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 44th Governor of Wisconsin, serving from January 6,2003 to January 3,2011. He defeated incumbent Governor Scott McCallum by a margin of 45 percent to 41 percent, although in 2002 Democrats increased their number of governorships, Doyle was the only one of them to unseat a sitting Republican governor. He is currently an attorney of counsel in the Madison, Wisconsin office of the law firm of Foley & Lardner. Jim Doyle was born on November 23,1945 in Washington, D. C. the son of Ruth Bachhuber Doyle and James Edward Doyle, James E. Doyle Sr. ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1954 and was appointed as a federal judge in 1965. Ruth Bachhuber Doyle was the first woman from Dane County to be elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1948. After graduating from college and inspired by John F. Kennedys call to service, Doyle worked as a teacher with his wife. In 1972, Doyle earned his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School and he then moved to the Navajo Indian Reservation in Chinle, Arizona, where he worked as an attorney in a federal legal services office. They have two adopted sons, Gus and Gabe, a daughter-in-law Carrie, a grandson Asiah, and granddaughters Lily, in 1975, Doyle returned to Madison, Wisconsin and served three terms as Dane County District Attorney, from 1977 to 1982. After leaving that office, he spent eight years in private practice, Doyle was elected Wisconsin Attorney General in 1990, and reelected in 1994 and 1998. Between 1997–1998, he served as the president of the National Association of Attorneys General, during his twelve years as Attorney General, Doyle was considered tough on crime, but not unsympathetic to its causes. He also gained recognition as a result of successful lawsuits against tobacco companies in the state. The 2002 governors race is considered by some to have been the most negative campaign in the states history. In response, Libertarian Ed Thompson, publicly critical of the campaigning of both major party candidates, who became a more viable option for some voters, garnered 10% of the vote. On election day, Doyle defeated McCallum by over four percent of the vote, Doyle was sworn in on January 6,2003 at the State Capitol in Madison. Doyle defeated Republican Congressman Mark Green in 2006, Doyle topped Green 53% to 45% in a year in which no incumbent Democratic governor, senator, or congressman lost their reelection bid. During the campaign, Doyle was dogged by charges that Georgia Thompson, Thompson was convicted in federal court in late 2006 and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The conviction was reversed by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in April 2007, Doyle raised about $500,000 for a campaign fund in the first half of 2007, leading political analysts to think he would have been financially ready to run for a third-term as governor. In a speech to the state Democratic Party convention on July 6,2007, he said, And at the end of four years of working together
31.
Madison, Wisconsin
–
Madison is the capital of the U. S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. As of July 1,2015, Madisons estimated population of 248,951 made it the second largest city in Wisconsin, after Milwaukee, and the 84th largest in the United States. The city forms the core of the United States Census Bureaus Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Dane County and neighboring Iowa, Green, the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Areas 2010 population was 568,593. When the Wisconsin Territory was created in 1836 the territorial legislature convened in Belmont, One of the legislatures tasks was to select a permanent location for the territorys capital. Doty lobbied aggressively for Madison as the new capital, offering buffalo robes to the freezing legislators and he had James Slaughter plat two cities in the area, Madison and The City of Four Lakes, near present-day Middleton. Doty named the city Madison for James Madison, the fourth President of the U. S. who had died on June 28,1836 and he named the streets for the other 39 signers of the U. S. Constitution. Being named for the founding father James Madison, who had just died. The cornerstone for the Wisconsin capitol was laid in 1837, on October 9,1839, Kintzing Prichett registered the plat of Madison at the registrars office of the then-territorial Dane County. Madison was incorporated as a village in 1846, with a population of 626, when Wisconsin became a state in 1848, Madison remained the capital, and the following year it became the site of the University of Wisconsin. The Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad connected to Madison in 1854, Madison incorporated as a city in 1856, with a population of 6,863, leaving the unincorporated remainder as a separate Town of Madison. The original capitol was replaced in 1863 and the capitol burned in 1904. The current capitol was built between 1906 and 1917, during the Civil War, Madison served as a center of the Union Army in Wisconsin. Camp Randall, on the west side of Madison, was built and used as a camp, a military hospital. After the war ended, the Camp Randall site was absorbed into the University of Wisconsin, in 2004 the last vestige of active military training on the site was removed when the stadium renovation replaced a firing range used for ROTC training. The City of Madison continued annexations from the Town of Madison almost from the date of the citys incorporation, Madison is located in the center of Dane County in south-central Wisconsin,77 miles west of Milwaukee and 122 miles northwest of Chicago. The city completely surrounds the smaller Town of Madison, the City of Monona, Madison shares borders with its largest suburb, Sun Prairie, and three other suburbs, Middleton, McFarland and Fitchburg. The citys boundaries also approach the city of Verona, and the villages of Cottage Grove, DeForest, and Waunakee. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 94.03 square miles
32.
CNN
–
The Cable News Network is an American basic cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner. It was founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner as a 24-hour cable news channel, upon its launch, CNN was the first television channel to provide 24-hour news coverage, and was the first all-news television channel in the United States. While the news channel has numerous affiliates, CNN primarily broadcasts from the Time Warner Center in New York City and its headquarters at the CNN Center in Atlanta is only used for weekend programming. CNN is sometimes referred to as CNN/U. S. to distinguish the American channel from its sister network. As of August 2010, CNN is available in over 100 million U. S. households, broadcast coverage of the U. S. channel extends to over 890,000 American hotel rooms, as well as carriage on cable and satellite providers throughout Canada. Globally, CNN programming airs through CNN International, which can be seen by viewers in over 212 countries and territories, as of February 2015, CNN is available to about 96,289,000 cable, satellite, and telco television households in the United States. The Cable News Network was launched at 5,00 p. m. Eastern Time on June 1,1980, after an introduction by Ted Turner, the husband and wife team of David Walker and Lois Hart anchored the channels first newscast. Burt Reinhardt, the vice president of CNN at its launch, hired most of the channels first 200 employees, including the networks first news anchor. Since its debut, CNN has expanded its reach to a number of cable and satellite providers, several websites. The company has 36 bureaus, more than 900 affiliated local stations, the channels success made a bona-fide mogul of founder Ted Turner and set the stage for conglomerate Time Warners eventual acquisition of the Turner Broadcasting System in 1996. A companion channel, CNN2, was launched on January 1,1982, on January 28,1986, CNN carried the only live television coverage of the launch and subsequent break-up of Space Shuttle Challenger, which killed all seven crew members on board. On October 14,1987, Jessica McClure, an 18-month-old toddler, fell down a well in Midland, CNN quickly reported on the story, and the event helped make its name. This was before correspondents reported live from the capital while American bombs were falling. Before Saddam Hussein held a press conference with a few of the hundreds of Americans he was holding hostage. Before the nation watched, riveted but powerless, as Los Angeles was looted and burned, before O. J. Simpson took a slow ride in a white Bronco, and before everyone close to his case had an agent and a book contract. This was uncharted territory just a time ago. The moment when bombing began was announced on CNN by Bernard Shaw on January 16,1991, as follows, lets describe to our viewers what were seeing. The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated, were seeing bright flashes going off all over the sky
33.
Eric Cantor
–
Eric Ivan Cantor is an American politician, lawyer, and businessman, who served as the United States representative for Virginias 7th congressional district from 2001 until 2014. A member of the Republican Party, he became House Majority Leader when the 112th Congress convened on January 3,2011 and he previously served as House Minority Whip from 2009 until 2011. His district included most of the northern and western sections of Richmond, along with most of Richmonds western suburbs and, until redistricting in 2013, portions of the Shenandoah Valley. Cantor was the highest-ranking Jewish member of Congress in its history, and at the time of his resignation, in June 2014, in his bid for re-election, Cantor lost the Republican primary to economics professor Dave Brat in an upset that surprised political analysts. In response Cantor announced his resignation as House Majority Leader, and several weeks later, he announced his resignation from Congress. Immediately thereafter, Cantor accepted a position as chairman of investment bank Moelis & Company. Cantor, the second of three children, was born in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Mary Lee, a schoolteacher, and Eddie Cantor and his family emigrated from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His father was the treasurer for Ronald Reagans 1980 presidential campaign. Cantor was raised in Conservative Judaism and he graduated from the Collegiate School, a co-ed private school in Richmond, in 1981. He enrolled at George Washington University in 1981, and as a freshman he worked as an intern for House Republican Tom Bliley of Virginia and was Blileys driver in the 1982 campaign. Cantor was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity while at GW and he earned a Juris Doctor degree from William & Mary Law School in 1988, and received a Master of Science in Real Estate Development from Columbia University in 1989. Cantor worked for over a decade with his fathers business doing legal work, Cantor served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1992–January 1,2001. At various times he was a member of committees on Science and Technology, Corporation Insurance and Banking, General Laws, Courts of Justice, Claims. Cantor announced on March 14,2000 that he would seek the seat in the United States House of Representatives that was being vacated by Tom Bliley. Cantor had chaired Blileys reelection campaigns for the six years. During his first term, Cantor was chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and he has also served on the House Financial Services Committee and on the House International Relations Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee. In 2002–only a few weeks after winning a second term–Roy Blunt appointed Cantor Chief Deputy Republican Whip, on November 19,2008, Cantor was unanimously elected Republican Whip for the 111th Congress, after serving as Deputy Whip for six years under Blunt. Blunt had decided not to seek reelection to the post after Republican losses in the two elections
34.
The Christian Science Monitor
–
It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2011, the print circulation was 75,052, the Monitor is a newspaper that covers international and United States current events. The paper includes a daily feature on The Home Forum page. In 2008 the Monitor discontinued its print version to focus on web-based publishing, replacing its daily print edition with a weekly news magazine with an international focus. Since late 2013, the Editor-in-chief has been Marshall Ingwerson, despite its name, the Monitor does not claim to be a religious-themed paper, and says it does not promote the doctrine of its patron church. However, at its founder Eddys request, a religious article has appeared in every issue of the Monitor. Eddy also required the inclusion of Christian Science in the papers name, in addition, Joseph Pulitzers New York World was consistently critical of Eddy, and this, along with a derogatory article in McClures, furthered Eddys decision to found her own media outlet. These descriptions carry fears to many minds, to be depicted in some time upon the body. Eddy declared that the Monitors mission should be to no man. The Monitor was for several decades published in form but in 1975 switched to tabloid format. The papers overall circulation has ranged widely, from a peak of over 223,000 in 1970 and these developments also presaged administrative moves to scale back the print newspaper in favor of expansions into radio, a magazine, shortwave broadcasting, and television. Expenses, however, rapidly outpaced revenues, contradicting predictions by church directors, on the brink of bankruptcy, the board was forced to close the broadcast programs in 1992. The paper has been known for avoiding sensationalism, producing a brand of nonhysterical journalism. Monitor staff have been the recipients of seven Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2002,1950, Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, Edmund Stevens, for his series of 43 articles written over a three-year residence in Moscow entitled, This Is Russia Uncensored. 1967, Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, R. John Hughes, For his thorough reporting of Indonesias attempted Transition to the New Order in 1965,1968, Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, Howard James, for his series of articles, Crisis in the Courts. 1969, Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, Robert Cahn, for his inquiry into the future of the United States national parks and the methods that may help to preserve them. 1996, Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, David Rohde, for his persistent on-site reporting of the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in the Srebrenica Genocide. S, senate Committee led by Norm Coleman of personally profiting from corruption within the United Nations Oil-for-Food program. The Monitor investigated the matter, concluding that the documents were almost certainly forgeries, in 2006, Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Monitor, was kidnapped in Baghdad, and released safely after 82 days
35.
Twitter
–
Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages, tweets, restricted to 140 characters. Registered users can post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them, users access Twitter through its website interface, SMS or a mobile device app. Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco, California, United States, Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams and launched in July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, in 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day, and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day. In 2013, it was one of the ten most-visited websites and has described as the SMS of the Internet. As of 2016, Twitter had more than 319 million monthly active users. On the day of the 2016 U. S. presidential election, Twitter proved to be the largest source of breaking news, Twitters origins lie in a daylong brainstorming session held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo. Jack Dorsey, then a student at New York University. The original project name for the service was twttr, an idea that Williams later ascribed to Noah Glass, inspired by Flickr. The developers initially considered 10958 as a code, but later changed it to 40404 for ease of use. Work on the project started on March 21,2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9,50 PM Pacific Standard Time, Dorsey has explained the origin of the Twitter title. we came across the word twitter, and it was just perfect. The definition was a short burst of inconsequential information, and chirps from birds, and thats exactly what the product was. The first Twitter prototype, developed by Dorsey and contractor Florian Weber, was used as a service for Odeo employees. Williams fired Glass, who was silent about his part in Twitters startup until 2011, Twitter spun off into its own company in April 2007. Williams provided insight into the ambiguity that defined this early period in a 2013 interview, With Twitter and they called it a social network, they called it microblogging, but it was hard to define, because it didnt replace anything. There was this path of discovery with something like that, where over time you figure out what it is, Twitter actually changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status updates and a social utility. It is that, in part, but the insight we eventually came to was Twitter was really more of an information network than it is a social network, the tipping point for Twitters popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive conference. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000, the Twitter people cleverly placed two 60-inch plasma screens in the conference hallways, exclusively streaming Twitter messages, remarked Newsweeks Steven Levy
Definitions from Wiktionary
Media from Wikimedia Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Data from Wikidata
