1.
The Usual Suspects
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The Usual Suspects is a 1995 American neo-noir mystery film directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie. It stars Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite, and Kevin Spacey. The film follows the interrogation of Roger Verbal Kint, a con man who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. He tells an interrogator a convoluted story about events that led him and his partners in crime to the boat, using flashback and narration, Kints story becomes increasingly complex. The film, shot on a $6 million budget, began as a title taken from a column in Spy magazine called The Usual Suspects, after one of Claude Rains most memorable lines in the classic film Casablanca. Singer thought it would make a title for a film. The film was out of competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. It received favorable reviews, and was given a wider release. McQuarrie won an Academy Award for Best Writing and Spacey won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, the Writers Guild of America ranked the film as having the 35th greatest screenplay of all time. It is now remembered for having one of the most celebrated plot twists in cinematic history, the film opens with criminal Dean Keaton lying badly wounded on a ship docked in the San Pedro Bay. He is confronted by a figure whom he calls Keyser. The bloodbath on the leaves only two survivors, Arkosh Kovash, a Hungarian mobster hospitalized with severe burns, and Roger Verbal Kint. Verbal explains that, six earlier in New York, he and the other criminals were arrested on supposedly a trumped-up hijacking charge. Led by Keaton, a corrupt policeman, they robbed a group of corrupt cops who transported smugglers in a police convoy. They then went to California to fence the stolen jewels with a criminal named Redfoot, the quarry turned out to be heroin, and the five had to shoot their way out. When Kujan learns of Söze from FBI agent Jack Baer, he questions Verbal about him and he then went underground, never to be seen again, and did business only through underlings who did not know for whom they were working. He became an urban legend, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. Verbal goes on to explain that, after Fenster had bailed on the group and they tried to kill Kobayashi, but he strong-armed them into performing the heist by threatening their loved ones
2.
Christopher McQuarrie
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Christopher McQuarrie is an American screenwriter, director and producer. McQuarrie won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Usual Suspects and he also created the 2010 NBC television series Persons Unknown. McQuarrie was born in 1968 in either Princeton, New Jersey or Princeton Junction, New Jersey, an unincorporated community. I picked a place out of a hat and ended up at Christ Church Grammar School, I lived at the school and worked at the boarding school, though I did very little work. Fired after nine months, I hitchhiked for three months, came home, knocked around for about a month and then started working for this detective agency. Was actually a glorified security-guard position, I think in the four years I worked there I did about six investigations. He had been acquainted with his future filmmaking collaborator, director-producer Bryan Singer, I had been in one of his 8mm films. They attended the high school, with Singer two years ahead, and became friends after Singers graduation. At 16, McQuarrie wrote a screenplay for a film project with Singer. And then I was offered my own agency in Florida, I was 22 years old, and was being given this opportunity to run my own business. So I called Bryan and he said, “Listen, I’d love to have you out here but there’s nothing going on, and then, out of nowhere, it fell through. So I applied for the New York Police Department and we both passed, as we were gearing up to do that, Bryan called. He had made a film called Lion’s Den, with Ethan Hawke –. My parts of it were written by hand, so Bryan called me and said that these people had seen Lion’s Den and really liked it and had asked to see another script. And he made up a pitch off the top of his head. He asked me if I wanted to write it, I wrote a draft in 15 days. Bryan then got Michael Dougan involved in the writing, and he came in and took this basically glorified episode of Murder, She Wrote and it did not secure a theatrical distributor. In 2006, the Writers Guild of America voted The Usual Suspects No.35 on their list of 101 Greatest Screenplays, five years later, in 2000, Artisan Entertainment released The Way of the Gun, a modern-day Western written and directed by McQuarrie
3.
Kevin Spacey
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Kevin Spacey Fowler, better known as Kevin Spacey, is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, and singer. He began his career as an actor during the 1980s before obtaining supporting roles in film. In Broadway theatre, Spacey won a Tony Award for his role in Lost in Yonkers and he was the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London from 2004 until stepping down in mid-2015. Since 2013, Spacey has played Frank Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House of Cards, Spacey was born in South Orange, New Jersey, to Kathleen Ann, a secretary, and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, a technical writer and data consultant. He has two siblings, a sister, Julie, and a brother, Randy. He has English, Swedish, and Welsh ancestry and his family relocated to Southern California when Spacey was four years old. He attended Northridge Military Academy, Canoga Park High School, and then Chatsworth High School in Chatsworth, California, where he graduated co-valedictorian of his class in 1977. At Chatsworth, Spacey starred in the senior production of The Sound of Music. He took Spacey as his stage name, several reports have incorrectly suggested that he took his name in tribute to actor Spencer Tracy, combining Tracys first and last names. He had tried to succeed as a comedian for several years, before attending the Juilliard School in New York City, during this time period, Spacey performed stand-up comedy in bowling alley talent contests. Spaceys first professional appearance was as a spear carrier in a New York Shakespeare Festival performance of Henry VI. The following year, he made his first Broadway appearance, as Oswald in a production of Henrik Ibsens Ghosts, then he portrayed Philinte in Molières The Misanthrope. In 1984, he appeared in a production of David Rabes Hurlyburly, next came Anton Chekhovs The Seagull. In 1986, he appeared in a production of Sleuth in a New Jersey dinner theatre, Lemmon in particular would become a mentor to Spacey. He made his first major appearance in the second-season premiere of Crime Story. Although his interest soon turned to film, Spacey remained actively involved in the theater community. In 1991, he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Uncle Louie in Neil Simons Broadway hit Lost in Yonkers, Spaceys father was unconvinced that Spacey could make a career for himself as an actor, and did not change his mind until Spacey became well-known. Some of Spaceys early roles include a widowed eccentric millionaire on L. A. Law, the television miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan, opposite Lemmon, and he earned a fan base after playing the criminally insane arms dealer Mel Profitt on the television series Wiseguy
4.
Bryan Singer
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Bryan Jay Singer is an American film director, film producer, writer, and actor. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and he has produced or co-produced almost all of the films he has directed and he wrote and directed his first film in 1988 after graduating from university. His next film, Public Access, was a co-winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, in the mid-1990s, Singer received critical acclaim for directing the neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects, which starred Stephen Baldwin, Benicio del Toro and Kevin Spacey. He followed this with another thriller, Apt Pupil, about a boys fascination with a Nazi war criminal. In the 2000s, he known for big budget superhero films such as X-Men, for which Singer won the 2000 Saturn Award for Best Direction, its sequel X2. He has also directed and produced shows, including two episodes of House in 2004. Singer was born in New York City, and was adopted by Grace Sinden, an environmental activist, and Norbert Dave Singer and he grew up in a Jewish household in West Windsor Township, New Jersey. He attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, graduating in 1984, for college, Singer studied filmmaking for two years at New Yorks School of Visual Arts and later transferred to the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles. Actors Lori and Marc Singer are his cousins, after a screening of Lions Den, Singer was approached by someone who knew of a Japanese company that funded low-budget films. Ottman again served as editor but this time composed the score for the film. At the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, the film was named as co-winner of the Grand Jury Prize. In early 2001, Singer was planning to direct Confessions of a Dangerous Mind with Johnny Depp in the lead role, financial troubles delayed production and Singer moved on. The film was directed by George Clooney for Miramax Films with Sam Rockwell in the lead role. Singer has said that he was impressed by Clooneys debut as a director. In late 2001, Singer was planning to help DeSanto produce a new Battlestar Galactica television series for Studios USA, Singer was scheduled to direct the mini-series which would have served as a backdoor pilot for a potential series. Speaking to Variety in February 2001, Singer said he was confident that the Galactica brand is a sleeping giant and it was a show I watched during its initial run, from the pilot to the final episode. The essence and the name is quite potent in a climate where theres a great deficit of sci-fi programming. Despite his enthusiasm, production delays caused by the September 11,2001 attacks meant Singer had to drop out due to his commitment to direct a sequel of X-Men
5.
Unreliable narrator
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An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C, booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. Sometimes the narrators unreliability is made immediately evident, a more dramatic use of the device delays the revelation until near the storys end. In some cases, the reader discovers that in the foregoing narrative, such a twist ending forces readers to reconsider their point of view and experience of the story. In some cases the narrators unreliability is never revealed but only hinted at, leaving readers to wonder how much the narrator should be trusted. Attempts have been made at a classification of unreliable narrators, william Riggan analysed in a 1981 study discernible types of unreliable narrators, focusing on the first-person narrator as this is the most common kind of unreliable narration. Examples in modern literature are Moll Flanders, Simplicius Simplicissimus or Felix Krull, the Madman a narrator who is either only experiencing mental defense mechanisms, such as dissociation and self-alienation, or severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia or paranoia. The Clown a narrator who does not take seriously and consciously plays with conventions, truth. Examples of the type include Tristram Shandy and Bras Cubas, the Naïf a narrator whose perception is immature or limited through their point of view. Examples of naïves include Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield and Forrest Gump, the Liar a mature narrator of sound cognition who deliberately misrepresents themselves, often to obscure their unseemly or discreditable past conduct. John Dowell in Ford Madox Fords The Good Soldier exemplifies this kind of narrator, for example, in the three interweaving plays of Alan Ayckbourns The Norman Conquests, each confines the action to one of three locations during the course of a weekend. He writes, I have called a narrator reliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work, unreliable when he does not. Peter J. Rabinowitz criticized Booths definition for relying too much on the extradiegetic facts such as norms and ethics and he consequently modified the approach to unreliable narration. An unreliable narrator however, is not simply a narrator who does not tell the truth – what fictional narrator ever tells the literal truth, in other words, all fictional narrators are false in that they are imitations. But some are imitations who tell the truth, some of people who lie, Rabinowitz main focus is the status of fictional discourse in opposition to factuality. Although there are ways to understand this duality, I propose to analyze the four audiences which it generates. Similarly, Tamar Yacobi has proposed a model of five criteria which determine if a narrator is unreliable, to determine a narrators unreliability one need not rely merely on intuitive judgments. It is neither the readers intuitions nor the implied authors norms and values that provide the clue to a narrators unreliability and these include both textual data and the readers preexisting conceptual knowledge of the world
6.
John List
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John Emil List was a convicted multiple murderer and long-time fugitive. On November 9,1971, he killed his wife, mother and he had planned the murders so meticulously that nearly a month passed before anyone noticed that anything was wrong. A fugitive from justice for nearly 18 years, List assumed a new identity and he was finally apprehended in Virginia on June 1,1989, after the story of his murders was broadcast on the television program Americas Most Wanted. After extradition to New Jersey, he was convicted on five counts of first-degree murder, List cited critical financial problems, and his perception that his family was falling away from God, as his rationale. Killing them, he reasoned, would assure their souls a place in Heaven and he died in prison in 2008 at the age of 82. Born in Bay City, Michigan, List was the child of German American parents, John Frederick List. Like his father, he was a devout Lutheran and a Sunday school teacher, in 1943, he enlisted in the Army and served in the infantry as a laboratory technician during World War II. In November 1950, as the Korean War escalated, List was recalled to military service. At Fort Eustis, in Virginia, he met Helen Morris Taylor, the widow of an officer killed in action in Korea. John and Helen married on December 1,1951, in Baltimore, after completion of his second tour in 1952, List worked for an accounting firm in Detroit, and then as an audit supervisor at a paper company in Kalamazoo, where their three children were born. By 1959 List had risen to general supervisor of the accounting department, but Helen. On November 9,1971, List methodically murdered his entire family, using his own 9mm Steyr 1912 semi-automatic handgun. While his children were at school he shot his wife Helen,46, in the back of the head, as his daughter Patricia,16, and younger son Frederick,13, arrived home from school, he shot each of them in the back of the head. After making himself lunch, List drove to his bank to close his own and his mothers bank accounts and he drove the boy home, then shot him repeatedly in the chest and face. List placed the bodies of his wife and children on sleeping bags in the mansions ballroom and he left his mothers body in her apartment in the attic. In a five-page letter to his pastor, found on the desk in his study, he wrote that he saw too much evil in the world, and he had killed his family to save their souls. He then cleaned the various scenes, carefully cut his own picture out of every family photograph in the house, tuned a radio to a religious station. He also stopped milk, mail and newspaper deliveries, neighbors noticed that all of the mansions lights were illuminated day and night, with no apparent activity within
7.
No Way Out (1987 film)
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No Way Out is a 1987 American political thriller drama film. It stars Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, and Sean Young, will Patton, Howard Duff, George Dzundza, Jason Bernard, Fred Thompson and Iman appear in supporting roles. The film is a remake of The Big Clock, both films are based on Kenneth Fearings 1946 novel The Big Clock. Filming locations included Baltimore, Annapolis, Arlington, Washington, D. C. and Auckland, the film features original music by Academy Award-winning composer Maurice Jarre. In a suburban house, U. S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Tom Farrell is asked by two men about how he first met Secretary of Defense David Brice. In a flashback, Farrell is invited to a ball by his college buddy Scott Pritchard. Pritchard, Brices General Counsel, hopes that Brice will transfer Farrell to the Pentagon, on meeting Farrell, Brice is unimpressed and virtually ignores him. Moments later, Farrell begins flirting with another guest, Susan Atwell, the two make love in her limousine and begin a secret relationship, even though she admits to also being involved with a married man. Farrell returns to sea and rescues a crewman from being washed overboard during a storm, Brice reads a newspaper story about the rescue and orders Farrell transferred to his intelligence staff. After Susan and Farrell return from a weekend, her married lover - Secretary Brice - arrives at her door. After urging a hurt and jealous Farrell to leave through the back door, Brice sees a man leaving Susans house but cannot see that it was Farrell. After Susan lets him in, an enraged Brice demands to know the name of her other lover, Brice resists, and ultimately pushes Susan to her death over an upstairs railing. After calling Pritchard, Brice is ready to turn himself in, but Pritchard suggests that if the other man was made out to be a suspected KGB sleeper agent code-named Yuri, then the other mans elimination could be made a matter of national security. Pritchard cleans Susans house of all evidence that Brice was there, the negative shows a very poor, unidentifiable image of a man. Unaware that Farrell was in a relationship with Susan, Brice orders him to find and arrest Yuri, Farrell is told that the city police have not been informed, and that CID officers, commanded by Major Donovan, have been assigned to conduct the investigation. Meanwhile, to protect his concocted story, Pritchard sends two former CIA assassins to eliminate everyone who knew of Brices affair with Susan, beginning with her girlfriends. Attempts to enhance the photo negative begin to bear fruit due to Sam Hesselman, meanwhile, Farrell sets out to conclusively link Brice to Susan by searching computer files for evidence that Brice gave her a Government-registered gift from the Moroccan Foreign Minister. Needing more time, Farrell convinces Hesselman to delay the work on the photograph, CID officers bring two witnesses to Donovan who have seen Yuri with Susan during their romantic weekend
8.
KGB
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The KGB, an initialism for Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. Formed in 1954, as a successor of such preceding agencies as the Cheka, NKGB, and MGB. It was the government agency of union-republican jurisdiction, acting as internal security, intelligence. Similar agencies were constituted in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from Russia and consisted of ministries, state committees. The KGB was a service and was governed by army laws and regulations. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two documentary sources are available. After the dissolution of the USSR, the KGB was split into the Federal Security Service, after breaking away from the Republic of Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB. A1983 Time magazine article reported that the KGB was the worlds most effective information-gathering organization, at best, the compromised spy was either returned to the Soviet Union or was declared persona non grata and expelled by the government of the target country. The illegal resident spied, unprotected by diplomatic immunity, and worked independently of Soviet diplomatic, in its early history, the KGB valued illegal spies more than legal spies, because illegal spies infiltrated their targets with greater ease. The KGB classified its spies as agents and controllers, the false-identity or legend assumed by a USSR-born illegal spy was elaborate, using the life of either a live double or a dead double. In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup détat attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev, the thwarted coup détat ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGBs successors are the police agency FSB and the espionage agency SVR. The GRU recruited the ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936, the NKVDs first US operation was establishing the legal residency of Boris Bazarov and the illegal residency of Iskhak Akhmerov in 1934. Throughout, the Communist Party USA and its General Secretary Earl Browder, helped NKVD recruit Americans, working in government, business, moreover, when Whittaker Chambers, formerly Alger Hisss courier, approached the Roosevelt Government—to identify the Soviet spies Duggan, White, and others—he was ignored. To wit, British Manhattan Project team physicist Klaus Fuchs was the agent of the Rosenberg spy ring. In 1944, the New York City residency infiltrated the top secret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, by recruiting Theodore Hall, the KGB failed to rebuild most of its US illegal resident networks. The aftermath of the Second Red Scare and the crisis in the CPUSA hampered recruitment, the last major illegal resident, Rudolf Abel, was betrayed by his assistant, Reino Häyhänen, in 1957. One notable KGB success occurred in 1967, with the recruitment of US Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker
9.
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
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The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered a performance in a supporting role while working within the film industry. At the 9th Academy Awards ceremony held in 1937, Walter Brennan was the first winner of award for his role in Come. Initially, winners in both supporting acting categories were awarded instead of statuettes. Beginning with the 16th ceremony held in 1944, however, winners received full-sized statuettes, currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the actors branch of AMPAS, winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy. Since its inception, the award has given to 72 actors. Brennan has received the most awards in this category with three awards, Brennan, Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, and Claude Rains were nominated on four occasions, more than any other actor. As of the 2017 ceremony, Mahershala Ali is the most recent winner in category for his role as Juan in Moonlight. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 978-1-55002-574-3. org The Academy Awards Database Oscar. com Complete Downloadable List of Academy Award Nominees
10.
Public Access
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Public Access is a 1993 American drama film directed by Bryan Singer in his feature film debut. Singer also wrote the screenplay with Christopher McQuarrie and Michael Feit Dougan, the film was shot in 18 days for US$250,000. It was screened at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, where it was a joint winner of the Grand Jury Prize, critics praised the technical direction of Public Access but did not lend similar praise to the films story and the characters. A clean-cut drifter ends up in a town called Brewster. However, things start to get ugly and tensions rise for the show, which begins to elevate the mans signature catchphrase Whats wrong with Brewster. Into an entirely new subject for the people of Brewster, when the town becomes embroiled in a mess it has created, Bryan Singer, Christopher McQuarrie, and Michael Feit Dougan wrote the screenplay for Public Access. Singer directed the screenplay in 1992 on a budget of $250,000, the crew used leftover film stock from Dracula and Hoffa. The director recalled the experience, Chris and I look at that film. Part of our reaction is, Wow, look what we did then and it was so small and undeveloped. Part of it is reliving the circumstances of the days we filmed each scene and this production was fraught with 100 times more turmoil than Usual Suspects—every day was a crisis. And then we also feel very nostalgic about it, Singer compared Public Accesss themes to his follow-up film The Usual Suspects, The two films are similar in the notion of things not always being what they seem. Theyre also about audiences projections on a stranger, in many ways, Verbal in The Usual Suspects is an extension of Whiley, by being a foil for our projections. Both films are about telling stories and provoking, which segues into my sound and images. When Public Access screened at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, it was one of the two films to win the Grand Jury Prize in dramatic competition, sharing the award with Ruby in Paradise. It also screened at the 1993 Florida Film Festival and won the Audience Award for best feature film, despite the recognition, the film did not secure a theatrical distributor. Variety called Public Access a technically proficient film considering its small budget, newsweek wrote, The 27-year-old Singers a real talent, but the moody Public Access needed a stronger script. After an intriguing buildup, in which a mysterious stranger enters a town and stirs up trouble on public-access TV. Time Out Film Guide described Public Access as this chilly little parable taps into the poisonous well-springs of the middle-American psyche
11.
Confidence trick
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A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence, used in the classical sense of trust. Confidence tricks exploit characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naïveté, the perpetrator of a confidence trick is often referred to as a confidence man, con-artist, or a grifter. Samuel Thompson was the confidence man. Thompson was a swindler who asked his victims to express confidence in him by giving him money or their watch rather than gaining their confidence in a more nuanced way. A few people trusted Thompson with their money and watches, Thompson was arrested in July 1849. Reporting about this arrest, Dr. James Houston, a reporter of the New York Herald, although Thompson was an unsuccessful scammer, he gained reputation as a genius operator mostly because Houstons satirical writing wasnt understood. The National Police Gazette coined the term confidence game a few weeks after Houston first used the name, the confidence man. A confidence trick is known as a con game, a con, a scam, a grift, a hustle, a bunko, a swindle, a flimflam. The intended victims are known as marks, suckers, or gulls, when accomplices are employed, they are known as shills. A short con or small con is a fast swindle which takes just minutes and it typically aims to rob the victim of everything in his or her wallet. A long con or big con is a scam that unfolds over several days or weeks and involves a team of swindlers, as well as props, sets, extras, costumes, and scripted lines. It aims to rob the victim of huge sums of money or valuable things, often by getting him or her to empty out banking accounts, in Confessions of a Confidence Man, Edward H. Smith lists the six definite steps or stages of growth of a confidence game. He notes that some steps may be omitted, foundation Work Preparations are made in advance of the game, including the hiring of any assistants required. Build-up The victim is given an opportunity to profit from a scheme, the victims greed is encouraged, such that their rational judgment of the situation might be impaired. Pay-off or Convincer The victim receives a small payout as a demonstration of the schemes effectiveness and this may be a real amount of money, or faked in some way. In a gambling con, the victim is allowed to win small bets. In a stock market con, the victim is given fake dividends, the Hurrah A sudden crisis or change of events forces the victim to act immediately. This is the point at which the con succeeds or fails, the In-and-In A conspirator puts an amount of money into the same scheme as the victim, to add an appearance of legitimacy to the scheme
12.
United States Customs Service
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The United States Customs Service was an agency of the U. S. federal government that collected import tariffs and performed other selected border security duties. Border Patrol and former INS inspectors, together with border agriculture inspectors, to form U. S. Customs and Border Protection, a single, unified border agency for the U. S. The United States Customs Service had three missions, collecting tariff revenue, protecting the U. S. economy from smuggling and illegal goods. Four weeks later, on July 31, the act of Congress established the United States Customs Service. As part of new government agency, a new role was created for government officials which was known as Customs Collector. In this role, one person would have responsibility to supervise the collection of duties in a particular city or region. For over 100 years after its birth, the U. S. Customs Service was the source of funds for the entire government. Purchases include the Louisiana and Oregon territories, Florida and Alaska, funding the National Road and the Transcontinental Railroad, building many of the nations lighthouses, military and Naval academies, and Washington, D. C. The original design had the Customs Service seal that was an eagle with three arrows in his left talon, a branch in his right and surrounded by an arc of 13 stars. In 1951, this was changed to the eagle depicted on the Great Seal of the United States and its actual name is the Revenue Ensign, as it was flown by ships of the Revenue Cutter Service, later the Coast Guard, and at customs houses. In 1910, President William Howard Taft issued an order to add an emblem to the flag flown by ships from the one flown on land at customs houses, the version with the badge continues to be flown by Coast Guard vessels. Until 2003, the version was flown at all United States ports of entry. The U. S. Customs Service employed a number of law enforcement officers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Customs Special Agents investigated smuggling and other violations of customs, narcotics, Customs Inspectors were uniformed officers at airports, seaports and land border ports of entry who inspected people and vehicles entering the U. S. for contraband and dutiable merchandise. Customs Patrol Officers conducted uniformed and plainclothes patrol of the borders on land, sea and air to deter smuggling, in the 20th century, as international trade and travel increased dramatically, the Customs Service transitioned from an administrative bureau to a federal law enforcement agency. S. Postal Inspection Service, U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Border Patrol—to investigate cases often far from international airports, bridges and land crossings. With the passage of the Homeland Security Act, the U. S. Customs Service passed from under jurisdiction of the Treasury Department to the Department of Homeland Security, on March 1,2003, parts of the U. S. S. The Federal Protective Service, along with the arms of the U. S. Customs Service
13.
Chazz Palminteri
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Palminteri was born on May 15,1952, in the Bronx, the son of Rose, a homemaker, and Lorenzo Palminteri, a bus driver. He was raised in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx, palminteris surname is of Sicilian origin and his family is originally from Menfi in the province of Agrigento, Sicily. His grandparents, Calogero Palminteri and Rosa Bonfante, married in 1908 and he struggled to become a star, splitting his time between acting in off-Broadway plays and moonlighting as a bouncer, alongside Dolph Lundgren. Palminteri has had acclaimed dramatic performances in such as The Perez Family, Jade, and Diabolique, as well as comedic roles in films such as Oscar, Analyze This. Palminteri has voiced characters in animated films, the most notable being 2006s Hoodwinked. He made his debut with Women vs. Men. Palminteris recent acting efforts include A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Running Scared, and Arthur, in 2004, he received the Indie Hero Award from the Method Fest Independent Film Festival for his artistic achievements in film. Palminteri starred on Broadway in A Bronx Tale, the semiautobiographical one-man show he first performed at Theatre West in Los Angeles in 1989. The Broadway production, directed by Jerry Zaks and with music by John Gromada, began previews October 4,2008, at the Walter Kerr Theatre and opened on October 25, running for 18 weeks. Palminteri plays 18 roles in A Bronx Tale, which depicts a rough childhood on the streets of the Bronx, the play ran for two months at Playhouse 91 in 1989. Robert De Niro saw this show there and made his debut with the big-screen version. Palminteri starred opposite Kenny DAquila in DAquilas play, Unorganized Crime, Palminteri always appreciated the shot that Robert De Niro gave him, so he in turn agreed to star in DAquilas mafia-themed drama. On January 20,2010, Palminteri guested on Modern Family and played the character on the November 2,2011. Palminteri has reprised the role twice more in season 5, in 2011, Palminteri opened a restaurant, Chazz, A Bronx Original, in Baltimores Little Italy neighborhood, their main foods are coal-fired pizza and Italian food. However, the restaurant closed in 2015, Palminteri opened an Italian restaurant, Chazz Palminteri Ristorante Italiano, in New York City on Second Avenue. Also, Palminteri did the voice acting for the Call of Duty, Black Ops II character Sal De Luca in the zombies map Mob of the Dead, Palminteri lives in Bedford, New York. He describes himself as a spiritual, devout Roman Catholic. He has two children, Dante Lorenzo and Gabriella Rose and he is a self-avowed New York Yankees fan, and is often heard as caller Chazz from Bedford on WFAN-AM, a sports radio station
14.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States, which simultaneously serves as the nations prime federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the U. S. Department of Justice, Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U. S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, although many of the FBIs functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and the Russian FSB. At an FBI field office, a senior-level FBI officer concurrently serves as the representative of the Director of National Intelligence. Despite its domestic focus, the FBI also maintains a significant international footprint and these overseas offices exist primarily for the purpose of coordination with foreign security services and do not usually conduct unilateral operations in the host countries. The FBI can and does at times carry out secret activities overseas, just as the CIA has a domestic function. The FBI was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation and its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building, located in Washington, in the fiscal year 2012, the Bureaus total budget was approximately $8.12 billion. In 1896, the National Bureau of Criminal Identification was founded, the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley created an urgent perception that America was under threat from anarchists. The Departments of Justice and Labor had been keeping records on anarchists for years, the Justice Department had been tasked with the regulation of interstate commerce since 1887, though it lacked the staff to do so. It had made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the breakage of the Oregon land fraud scandal at approximately the turn of the 20th Century, President Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to organize an autonomous investigative service that would report only to the Attorney General. Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the Secret Service, for personnel, on May 27,1908, the Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department, citing fears that the new agency would serve as a secret police department. Again at Roosevelts urging, Bonaparte moved to organize a formal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Investigation was created on July 26,1908, after the Congress had adjourned for the summer. Attorney General Bonaparte, using Department of Justice expense funds, hired thirty-four people, including veterans of the Secret Service. Its first Chief was Stanley Finch, Bonaparte notified the Congress of these actions in December 1908. The bureaus first official task was visiting and making surveys of the houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the White Slave Traffic Act, or Mann Act, in 1932, the bureau was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. The following year it was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition, in the same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the present-day Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI. J. Edgar Hoover served as Director from 1924 to 1972, a combined 48 years with the BOI, DOI, Hoover was substantially involved in most major cases and projects that the FBI handled during his tenure
15.
Giancarlo Esposito
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Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito is an American actor. He is well known for his roles in Spike Lee films such as Do the Right Thing, School Daze, other notable films include Fresh, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, The Usual Suspects and King of New York. He has portrayed Sidney Glass / Magic Mirror on ABCs Once Upon a Time, Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito was born in Copenhagen, the son of Giovanni Esposito and Elizabeth Foster. His mother was an African-American opera and nightclub singer from Alabama, Esposito was raised in Europe until the age of six, when his family settled in Manhattan, New York. He attended Elizabeth Seton College in New York and received a degree in radio. Esposito made his Broadway debut at age eight playing a slave child opposite Shirley Jones in the short-lived musical Maggie Flynn, during the 1980s, Esposito appeared in films such as Maximum Overdrive, King of New York, and Trading Places. He also performed in TV shows such as Miami Vice and Spenser and he played J. C. Pierce, a cadet in the 1981 movie Taps. In 1988, he landed his role as the leader of the black fraternity Gamma Phi Gamma in director Spike Lees film School Daze. Over the next four years, Esposito and Lee collaborated on three movies, Do the Right Thing, Mo Better Blues, and Malcolm X. During the 1990s Esposito appeared in the indie films Night on Earth, Fresh and Smoke. He also appeared in the mainstream film Reckless with Mia Farrow, Esposito is known for his portrayal of FBI agent Mike Giardello on the TV crime drama Homicide, Life on the Street. That role drew from both his African-American and Italian ancestry and he played this character during the shows seventh and final season. Mikes estranged father, shift lieutenant Al Giardello, is portrayed as subject to racism, another multiracial role was as Sergeant Paul Gigante in the television comedy series, Bakersfield P. D. In 1997, Esposito played the roles of Darryl in Trouble on the Corner. Other TV credits include NYPD Blue, Law & Order, The Practice, New York Undercover, Esposito has portrayed drug dealers, policemen, political radicals, and a demonic version of the Greek God of Sleep Hypnos from another dimension. In 2001, he played Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr. in Ali, in 2006, Esposito starred in Last Holiday as Senator Dillings, alongside Queen Latifah and Timothy Hutton. Also in 2006, he played a detective named Esposito in the 2005 film. Esposito played Robert Fuentes, a Miami businessman with shady connections and he has appeared in New Amsterdam and CSI, Miami
16.
Devil
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The Devil is, according to Christianity, the primary opponent of God. Islam identifies the Devil with all those who oppose Allah, some non-Abrahamic religions contain figures similar to the Devil, such as the Buddhist demon Mara and the Zoroastrian spirit Angra Mainyu. The Modern English word devil descends from the Middle English devel, from Old English dēofol, that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of Latin diabolus. This in turn was borrowed from Ancient Greek Greek, διάβολος, slanderer, from Greek, διαβάλλειν to slander, διά- across, through + βάλλειν to hurl, probably akin to the Sanskrit gurate he lifts up. In the New Testament, Satan occurs more than 30 times in passages alongside diábolos, in mainstream Judaism there is no concept of a devil as in mainstream Christianity or Islam. Texts make no direct link between the serpent that tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis and the references to Satan are in Zechariah. For the Hasidim of the century, ha-satan was Baal Davar. In the Book of Wisdom, the devil is represented as the one who brought death into the world, a similar story is found in 1 Enoch, however, in that book, the leader of the Grigori is called Semjâzâ. In the apocryphal literature, Satan rules over a host of angels, mastema, who induced God to test Abraham through the sacrifice of Isaac, is identical with Satan in both name and nature. The Book of Enoch contains references to Sathariel, thought also to be Sataniel and Satanel, the similar spellings mirror that of his angelic brethren Michael, Raphael, Uriel and Gabriel, previous to his expulsion from Heaven. In mainstream Christianity the devil is usually referred to as Satan, some modern Christians consider the devil to be an angel who, along with one-third of the angelic host rebelled against God and has consequently been condemned to the Lake of Fire. He is described as hating all humanity, opposing God, spreading lies, other modern Christians consider the devil in the Bible to refer figuratively to human sin and temptation and to any immoral human system. Satan is often identified as the serpent who convinced Eve to eat the fruit, thus. He is also identified as the dragon in the Book of Revelation, beelzebub is originally the name of a Philistine god but is also used in the New Testament as a synonym for Satan. A corrupted version, Belzeboub, appears in The Divine Comedy, in Islam the Devil is referred to as Iblis or sometimes the Shaytan. Etymologically, Iblis means the desperate in Arabic, thus, the name Iblis can be seen as a sobriquet given to Shaitan after falling from Grace. The primary characteristic of the Devil, besides hubris, is that he has no other than the power to cast evil suggestions into the hearts of men and women. He was of the jinn and departed from the command of his Lord, then will you take him and his descendants as allies other than Me while they are enemies to you
17.
Charles Baudelaire
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Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal, expresses the nature of beauty in modern. Baudelaires highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a generation of poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud. He is credited with coining the term modernity to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in a metropolis. This obsessive idea is all a child of giant cities. Baudelaire is one of the innovators in French literature. He made Paris the subject of modern poetry and he would bring the citys details to life in the eyes and hearts of his readers. Baudelaire was born in Paris, France, on April 9,1821 and his father, François Baudelaire, a senior civil servant and amateur artist, was 34 years older than Baudelaires mother, Caroline. François died during Baudelaires childhood, in 1827, the following year, Caroline married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick, who later became a French ambassador to various noble courts. He stated in a letter to her that, There was in my childhood a period of passionate love for you, Baudelaire regularly begged his mother for money throughout his career, often promising that a lucrative publishing contract or journalistic commission was just around the corner. Baudelaire was educated in Lyon, where he boarded, Baudelaire was erratic in his studies, at times diligent, at other times prone to idleness. Later, he attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, studying law and he began to frequent prostitutes and may have contracted gonorrhea and syphilis during this period. He also began to run up debts, mostly for clothes, upon gaining his degree in 1839, he told his brother I dont feel I have a vocation for anything. His stepfather had in mind a career in law or diplomacy and his mother later recalled, Oh, what grief. If Charles had let himself be guided by his stepfather, his career would have very different. He would not have left a name in literature, it is true and his stepfather sent him on a voyage to Calcutta, India, in 1841 in the hope of ending his dissolute habits. The trip provided strong impressions of the sea, sailing, and exotic ports, on returning to the taverns of Paris, he began to compose some of the poems of Les Fleurs du Mal. At 21, he received an inheritance but squandered much of it within a few years
18.
Pete Postlethwaite
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After minor television appearances, including in The Professionals, his first major success arose through the British autobiographical film Distant Voices, Still Lives. Following this role, he portrayed the mysterious lawyer, Mr. Kobayashi, in The Usual Suspects, in television, Postlethwaite played Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill on Sharpe. He trained as a teacher and taught drama before training as an actor, director Steven Spielberg called him the best actor in the world after working with him on The Lost World, Jurassic Park. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year Honours list. Less than one month after his death from cancer, he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Ben Afflecks The Town. Postlethwaite was born in Warrington, Lancashire, the fourth and youngest child of William and Mary Postlethwaite and he had two sisters, Anne and Patricia, and a brother, Michael. He attended St Benedicts RC Junior School and a seminary and he then joined the 4th form at West Park Grammar School, St Helens where he enjoyed sport including rugby. He spent an extra year re-sitting some O-levels and then took four A-levels in English, history, geography, despite portraying Irish characters on multiple occasions, it had been claimed that Postlethwaite was not of Irish descent. Postlethwaite and Walters had a relationship during the latter half of the 1970s. He was a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and other acting companies, after other early appearances in small parts for television programmes such as The Professionals, Postlethwaites first film success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in In the Name of the Father in 1993 and he is well known for his role as mysterious lawyer Mr. Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects. He made appearances in several films, including Alien 3, Amistad, Brassed Off, The Shipping News, The Constant Gardener, Inception. In 2003, he was both the physical and vocal actor for the villain Deeth in Zixx, Level One, a Canadian TV series created by IDT Entertainment. This was directed by Rupert Goold, who would direct his Lear in 2008. As well as Australia, the play toured Canada, New Zealand, in The Art of Discworld, Terry Pratchett wrote that he had always imagined Sam Vimes as a younger, slightly bulkier version of Pete Postlethwaite. One of his notable roles was Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in ITVs Sharpe series. The actor said this was one of his roles and that he and fellow actor Sean Bean played well off each other because of their mutual love. Bernard Cornwell, the author and creator of the Sharpe series, Postlethwaite co-starred with Bean in When Saturday Comes
19.
Gabriel Byrne
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Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londons Royal Court Theatre in 1979, Byrnes screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the spin-off show Bracken. Byrne has also produced films, including the Academy Award–nominated In the Name of the Father. One of Byrnes most identifiable roles is that of Dr. Paul Weston in the HBO drama In Treatment, for which he won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for two Emmy Awards and two Satellite Awards. Byrne, the first of six children, was born in Walkinstown, Dublin 12, Dublin, Republic of Ireland, the son of a cooper and soldier, Dan, and a hospital nurse, Eileen from Elphin, County Roscommon. He has four siblings, Donal, Thomas, Breda, and Margaret, another, Marian, Byrne was raised a strict Roman Catholic and educated in Ardscoil Éanna in Crumlin, where he later taught Spanish and History. About his early training to become a priest, he said in an interview, I spent five years in the seminary, I realised subsequently that I didnt. He attended University College Dublin, where he studied archaeology and linguistics and he played soccer in Dublin with Stella Maris. In January 2011, he spoke in an interview on The Meaning of Life about being abused by priests during his childhood. Byrne worked in archaeology when he left UCD and he maintained his love of his language, later writing the first television drama in Irish, Draíocht, on Irelands national Irish-language television station, TG4, when it began broadcasting in 1996. Before becoming an actor, Byrne had many jobs, including archaeologist, cook and he started acting at age 29, and began his career on stage with the Focus Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He later joined the Performing Arts Course in Sandymount Dublin 4, Byrne came to prominence on the final season of the Irish television show The Riordans, subsequently starring in his own spin-off series, Bracken. His first play for television was Michael Feeney Callans Love Is and he made his film debut in 1981, as King Uther Pendragon in John Boormans King Arthur epic, Excalibur. In 1983, he appeared with Richard Burton in the miniseries Wagner, co-starring Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, in 2007 Gabriel Byrne topped Kerry Film Festivals jury lineup. Upon his return to theatre in 2008, he appeared as King Arthur in Camelot with the New York Philharmonic from 7 to 10 May, following the footsteps of veteran actors Richard Burton and Richard Harris. Byrne was cast in an adaptation of Flann OBriens metafictional novel At Swim-Two-Birds, alongside Colin Farrell. Actor Brendan Gleeson was set to direct the film, in October 2009, however, Gleeson expressed fear that, should the Irish Film Board be abolished as planned by the Irish State, the production might fall through. Byrne starred as therapist Dr. Paul Weston in the critically acclaimed HBO primetime weeknight series In Treatment from 2008 to 2010
20.
Facial composite
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A facial composite is a graphical representation of an eyewitnesss memory of a face, as recorded by a composite artist. Facial composites are used mainly by police in their investigation of crimes and these images are also used to reconstruct the victims face in hope of identifying them. Construction of the composite was originally performed by a trained artist, through drawing, sketching, or painting, in the U. S. the FBI maintains that hand-drawing is its preferred method for constructing a facial composite. Many other police agencies, however, use software, since suitable artistic talent is not available. Such systems are referred to as feature-based since they essentially rely on the selection of individual features in isolation. However, after a period of research and development work conducted largely within British Universities. A general review of research into the evaluation of mechanical template techniques may be found in Davies, a review of research into more modern feature and recognition systems, and into methods for improving the effectiveness of composites, may be found in Frowd et al. and. The systems used in the UK have been subjected to a number of academic studies and these have typically shown that E-FIT and PRO-fit produce composites that are correctly named, either immediately or a few hours after construction, about 20% of the time. When witnesses in these studies are required to two days before constructing a composite, which matches real use more closely, naming falls to a few percent at best. Evolutionary systems show an improvement in accuracy. In academic trials, research on a fairly-recent version of the EvoFIT system has shown correct naming levels of about 30% after a 2-day delay, using more-recent construction techniques, the performance increased to 45% correct naming. Using the very latest system, interview and enhancement techniques, naming of an EvoFIT composite is 74% correct, similarly in extensive field use EFIT-V has shown a 40% naming rate over an 18-month period with 1000 interviews. The EvoFIT system has been evaluated in formal police field-trials. These evaluations have reported a much higher naming rate for EvoFIT composites but, using the latest interview techniques and this latest police field trial has also indicated that an EvoFIT directly leads to the arrest of a suspect and then a conviction in 29% of cases. There have been many notable successes - for example, in this investigation, while the classic use of the facial composite is the citizen recognizing the face as an acquaintance, there are other ways where a facial composite can prove useful. The facial composite can contribute in law enforcement in a number of ways, warning vulnerable population against serial offenders. These notable cases had facial composites assist in identifying the perpetrator, niklas Lindgren, also known as Hagamannen, a serial sexual assaulter in Umeå. Baton Rouge serial killer Derrick Todd Lee
21.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
22.
Postmodernism
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Postmodernism describes a broad movement that developed in the mid to late 20th century across philosophy, the arts, architecture and criticism which marked a departure from modernism. Accordingly, postmodern thought is characterized by tendencies to epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, irreverence. The term postmodernism has been applied both to the era following modernity, and to a host of movements within that era that reacted against tendencies in modernism. Postmodernism includes skeptical critical interpretations of culture, literature, art, philosophy, history, linguistics, economics, architecture, fiction, feminist theory, and literary criticism. Postmodernism is often associated with schools of such as deconstruction and post-structuralism, as well as philosophers such as Jean-François Lyotard. The term postmodern was first used around the 1880s, John Watkins Chapman suggested a Postmodern style of painting as a way to depart from French Impressionism. In 1921 and 1925, postmodernism had been used to new forms of art. In 1942 H. R. Hays described it as a new literary form, however, as a general theory for a historical movement it was first used in 1939 by Arnold J. Toynbee, Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914–1918. Peter Drucker suggested the transformation into a post modern world happened between 1937 and 1957, post-structuralism resulted similarly to postmodernism by following a time of structuralism. It is characterized by new ways of thinking through structuralism, contrary to the original form, postmodernist describes part of a movement, Postmodern places it in the period of time since the 1950s, making it a part of contemporary history. Martin Heidegger rejected the philosophical basis of the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity, instead of resisting the admission of this paradox in the search for understanding, Heidegger requires that we embrace it through an active process of elucidation he called the hermeneutic circle. He stressed the historicity and cultural construction of concepts while simultaneously advocating the necessity of an atemporal, in this latter premise, Heidegger shares an affinity with the late Romantic philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, another principal forerunner of post-structuralist and postmodernist thought. Instead, Foucault focused on the ways in which such constructs can foster cultural hegemony, violence and his writings have had a major influence on the larger body of postmodern academic literature. These metanarratives still remain in Western society but are now being undermined by rapid Informatization, Richard Rorty argues in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature that contemporary analytic philosophy mistakenly imitates scientific methods. For Baudrillard, “simulation is no longer that of a territory and it is the generation by models of a real without origin or a reality, a hyperreal. In Analysis of the Journey, a journal birthed from postmodernism, Douglas Kellner insists that the assumptions and his terms defined in the depth of postmodernism are based on advancement, innovation, and adaptation. Extensively, Kellner analyzes the terms of theory in real-life experiences and examples. Kellner used science and technology studies as a part of his analysis
23.
Sociopath
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Different conceptions of psychopathy have been used throughout history. These conceptions are only partly overlapping and may sometimes be contradictory, the creation of ASPD and DPD was driven by the fact that many of the classic traits of psychopathy were impossible to measure objectively. Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare later repopularized the construct of psychopathy in criminology with his Psychopathy Checklist, the study of psychopathy is an active field of research, and the term is also used by the general public, in popular press, and in fictional portrayals. While the term is employed in common usage along with the related but distinct crazy, insane and mentally ill. There are multiple conceptualizations of psychopathy, including Cleckleyan psychopathy and criminal psychopathy, the latter conceptualization is typically used as the modern clinical concept and assessed by the Psychopathy Checklist. The label psychopath may have implications and stigma related to decisions about punishment severity for criminal acts, medical treatment, civil commitments, efforts have therefore been made to clarify the meaning of the term. Yet another conceptualization, the model, suggests that other conceptualizations of psychopathy emphasize three observable characteristics to varying degrees. Analyses have been made with respect to the applicability of measurement tools such as the Psychopathy Checklist, low fear including stress-tolerance, toleration of unfamiliarity and danger, and high self-confidence and social assertiveness. The PCL-R measures this relatively poorly and mainly through Facet 1 of Factor 1, may correspond to differences in the amygdala and other neurological systems associated with fear. Psychopaths tend to have reduced fear, poor impulse control including problems with planning and foresight, lacking affect and urge control, demand for immediate gratification, and poor behavioral restraints. Similar to PCL-R Factor 2 and PPI Impulsive antisociality, may correspond to impairments in frontal lobe systems that are involved in such control. The PCL-R in general is related to this but in some elements in Factor 1. Similar to PPI Coldheartedness but also elements of subscales in Impulsive antisociality. An early and influential analysis from Harris and colleagues indicated a discrete category may underlie PCL-R psychopathy and they again found that the psychopathy measurements do not appear to be identifying a discrete type. There are different views as to which personality dimensions are more central in regard to psychopathy, besides dimensions described elsewhere in this article, studies have linked psychopathy to alternative dimensions such as antagonism, conscientiousness and anxiousness. Psychopathy has also linked to high psychoticism—a theorized dimension referring to tough. Aspects of this that appear associated with psychopathy are lack of socialization and responsibility, impulsivity, sensation-seeking, however, narcissism is generally seen as only one possible aspect of psychopathy as broadly defined. The dark tetrad refers to these traits with the addition of sadism, Psychopathy is a personality disorder which has symptoms expressed over a wide range of settings
24.
The Independent
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The Independent is a British online newspaper. The printed edition of the paper ceased in March 2016, nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet newspaper, but changed to tabloid format in 2003. Until September 2011, the paper described itself on the banner at the top of every newspaper as free from party political bias and it tends to take a pro-market stance on economic issues. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. In June 2015, it had a daily circulation of just below 58,000,85 per cent down from its 1990 peak. On 12 February 2016, it was announced that The Independent, the last print edition of The Independent on Sunday was published on 20 March 2016, with the main paper ceasing print publication the following Saturday. Launched in 1986, the first issue of The Independent was published on 7 October in broadsheet format and it was produced by Newspaper Publishing plc and created by Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds. All three partners were former journalists at The Daily Telegraph who had left the paper towards the end of Lord Hartwells ownership, marcus Sieff was the first chairman of Newspaper Publishing, and Whittam Smith took control of the paper. The paper was created at a time of a change in British newspaper publishing. Rupert Murdoch was challenging long-accepted practices of the print unions and ultimately defeated them in the Wapping dispute, consequently, production costs could be reduced which, it was said at the time, created openings for more competition. As a result of controversy around Murdochs move to Wapping, the plant was effectively having to function under siege from sacked print workers picketing outside, the Independent attracted some of the staff from the two Murdoch broadsheets who had chosen not to move to his companys new headquarters. Launched with the advertising slogan It is, and challenging both The Guardian for centre-left readers and The Times as the newspaper of record, The Independent reached a circulation of over 400,000 by 1989. Competing in a market, The Independent sparked a general freshening of newspaper design as well as, within a few years. Some aspects of production merged with the paper, although the Sunday paper retained a largely distinct editorial staff. It featured spoofs of the other papers mastheads with the words The Rupert Murdoch or The Conrad Black, a number of other media companies were interested in the paper. Tony OReillys media group and Mirror Group Newspapers had bought a stake of about a third each by mid-1994, in March 1995, Newspaper Publishing was restructured with a rights issue, splitting the shareholding into OReillys Independent News & Media, MGN, and Prisa. In April 1996, there was another refinancing, and in March 1998, OReilly bought the other 54% of the company for £30 million, brendan Hopkins headed Independent News, Andrew Marr was appointed editor of The Independent, and Rosie Boycott became editor of The Independent on Sunday. Marr introduced a dramatic if short-lived redesign which won critical favour but was a commercial failure, Marr admitted his changes had been a mistake in his book, My Trade
25.
The Atlantic
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The Atlantic is an American magazine, founded in 1857 as The Atlantic Monthly in Boston, Massachusetts. Since 2006, the magazine is based in Washington, D. C, created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine, it has grown to achieve a national reputation as a high-quality review organ with a moderate worldview. The magazine has recognized and published new writers and poets. It has published leading writers commentary on abolition, education, the periodical has won more National Magazine Awards than any other monthly magazine. The first issue of the magazine was published on November 1,1857, the magazines initiator and founder was Francis H. Underwood, an assistant to the publisher, who received less recognition than his partners because he was neither a humbug nor a Harvard man. After experiencing financial hardship and a series of changes, the magazine was reformatted as a general editorial magazine. Focusing on foreign affairs, politics, and the cultural trends, it is now primarily aimed at a target audience of serious national readers. In 2010, The Atlantic posted its first profit in a decade, in profiling the publication at the time, The New York Times noted the accomplishment was the result of a cultural transfusion, a dose of counterintuition and a lot of digital advertising revenue. The magazine, subscribed to by over 425,000 readers, the Atlantic features articles in the fields of the arts, the economy, foreign affairs, political science, and technology. The Atlantics president is Bob Cohn, in April 2005, The Atlantics editors decided to cease publishing fiction in regular issues in favor of a newsstand-only annual fiction issue edited by longtime staffer C. Michael Curtis. They have since re-instituted the practice, on January 22,2008, TheAtlantic. com dropped its subscriber wall and allowed users to freely browse its site, including all past archives. TheAtlantic. com covers politics, business, entertainment, technology, health, international affairs, and more. In December 2011, a new Health Channel launched on TheAtlantic. com, incorporating coverage of food, as well as related to the mind, body, sex, family. TheAtlantic. com has expanded to visual storytelling with the addition of the In Focus photo blog, curated by Alan Taylor. A leading literary magazine, The Atlantic has published significant works. It was the first to publish pieces by the abolitionists Julia Ward Howe, for example, Emily Dickinson, after reading an article in The Atlantic by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, asked him to become her mentor. In 2005, the magazine won a National Magazine Award for fiction, the magazine also published many of the works of Mark Twain, including one that was lost until 2001. Editors have recognized major cultural changes and movements, for example, the magazine has also published speculative articles that inspired the development of new technologies
26.
American Film Institute
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The American Film Institute is an American film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the moving picture arts in America. AFI is supported by funding and public membership. The institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business, a board of trustees chaired by Sir Howard Stringer and a board of directors chaired by Robert A. Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO Bob Gazzale. Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens, Jr. and Jean Picker Firstenberg. <ref>AFI Board of Trustees etc. American Film Institute. October 2014. Retrieved December 24,2014. </ref>Two years later, in 1967, AFI was established, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Ford Foundation. The institute established a program for filmmakers known then as the Center for Advanced Film Studies. The institute moved to its current eight-acre Hollywood campus in 1981, the film training program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate school. AFI educates audiences and recognizes excellence through its awards programs and 10 Top 10 Lists. In 1969, the established the AFI Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies at Greystone. The first class included filmmakers Terrence Malick, Caleb Deschanel and Paul Schrader, mirroring a professional production environment, Fellows collaborate to make more films than any other graduate level program. Admission to AFI Conservatory is highly selective, with a maximum of 140 graduates per year, in 2013, Emmy and Oscar-winning director, producer and screenwriter James L. Brooks joined AFI as Artistic Director of the AFI Conservatory where he provides leadership for the film program. Brooks artistic role at the AFI Conservatory has a legacy that includes Daniel Petrie, Jr. Robert Wise. Award-winning director Bob Mandel served as Dean of the AFI Conservatory for nine years, jan Schuette took over as Dean in 2014. AFI Conservatorys alumni have careers in film, television and on the web and they have been recognized with all of the major industry awards – Academy Award, Emmy Award, guild awards, and the Tony Award. The AFI Catalog, started in 1968, is a web-based filmographic database, early print copies of this catalog may also be found at your local library. Each year the AFI Awards honor the ten outstanding films and ten outstanding television programs, the awards are a non-competitive acknowledgement of excellence. The Awards are announced in December and a luncheon for award honorees takes place the following January. The juries consisted of over 1,500 artists, scholars, critics and historians, with movies selected based on the films popularity over time, historical significance, citizen Kane was voted the greatest American film twice. AFI operates two film festivals, AFI Fest in Los Angeles, and AFI Docs in Silver Spring, Maryland, AFI Fest is the American Film Institutes annual celebration of artistic excellence
27.
Time (magazine)
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Time is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It was founded in 1923 and for decades was dominated by Henry Luce, a European edition is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong, the South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney, Australia. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian advertiser edition, Time has the worlds largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 26 million,20 million of which are based in the United States. As of 2012, it had a circulation of 3.3 million making it the eleventh most circulated magazine in the United States reception room circuit, as of 2015, its circulation was 3,036,602. Richard Stengel was the editor from May 2006 to October 2013. Nancy Gibbs has been the editor since October 2013. Time magazine was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, the two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor respectively of the Yale Daily News. They first called the proposed magazine Facts and they wanted to emphasize brevity, so that a busy man could read it in an hour. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan Take Time–Its Brief and it set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazines cover depicted a single person. More recently, Time has incorporated People of the Year issues which grew in popularity over the years, notable mentions of them were Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Matej Turk, etc. The first issue of Time was published on March 3,1923, featuring Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the House of Representatives, on its cover, a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28,1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazines 15th anniversary. The cover price was 15¢ On Haddens death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time, the Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941. In 1929, Roy Larsen was also named a Time Inc. director, J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune. Other shareholders were Brown Brothers W. A. Harriman & Co. the Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise 1957–1983. According to the September 10,1979 issue of The New York Times, after Time magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by utilizing U. S. radio and movie theaters around the world. It often promoted both Time magazine and U. S. political and corporate interests, Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio program, The March of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6,1931
28.
Entertainment Weekly
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Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by Time Inc. that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books and popular culture. Different from celebrity-focused publications like Us Weekly, People, and In Touch Weekly, EW primarily concentrates on entertainment media news, however, unlike Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, which are aimed at industry insiders, EW targets a more general audience. The first issue was published on February 16,1990, the cover price was $1.95 The title word entertainment was not capitalized on the cover until mid-1992 and has remained so since. By 2003, the weekly circulation averaged 1.7 million copies per week. In March 2006, managing editor Rick Tetzeli oversaw an overhaul of EWs graphics, Entertainment Weekly follows a typical magazine format by featuring a letters to the editor and table of contents in the first few pages, while also featuring advertisements. While many advertisements are unrelated to the entertainment industry, the majority of ads are typically related to up-and-coming television and these beginning articles open the magazine and as a rule focus on current events in pop culture. First Look, subtitled An early peek at some of Hollywoods coolest projects, is a spread with behind-the-scenes or publicity stills of upcoming movies. The Hit List, written each week by critic Scott Brown, highlights ten major events, Typically, there will be some continuity to the commentaries. This column was written by Jim Mullen and featured twenty events each week. The Hollywood Insider is a section that reports breaking news in entertainment. It gives details, in the columns, on the most-current news in television, movie. The Style Report is a section devoted to celebrity style. Because its focus is on celebrity fashion or lifestyle, it is rich in nature. Recently, the converted to a new format, five pictures of celebrity fashions for the week. A spin-off section, Style Hunter, which finds reader-requested articles of clothing or accessories that have appeared in pop culture recently, appears frequently. The Monitor is a two-page spread devoted to events in celebrity lives with small paragraphs highlighting events such as weddings, illnesses, arrests, court appearances. Deaths of major celebrities are typically detailed in a one-half- or full-page obituary titled Legacy and this feature is nearly identical to sister publication Peoples Passages feature. Harris column focuses on analyzing current popular-culture events, and is generally the most serious of the columns, harris has written about the writers strike and the 2008 presidential election, among other topics
29.
Ask Men
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AskMen is a free online men’s web portal, with international versions in Australia, Canada, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is owned by Ziff Davis and operates through the IGN Entertainment unit, AskMen was founded in August 1999, created by Ricardo Poupada, Christopher Bellerose Rovny and Luís Rodrigues, all three graduates of Concordia Universitys John Molson School of Business in Montreal. The company secured $500,000 in venture capital in 2000 while its competitor, TheMan. com. In November 2000, TheMan. com shut down operations, providing an opportunity for AskMen to become the largest mens lifestyle website online, by 2001, AskMen surpassed the other websites in its category to become the largest mens lifestyle website. In 2005, AskMen was acquired by IGN, in 2010 the site ranked #819 for world-wide traffic on Alexa. In December 2009, the site had an estimated 12 million unique visitors, according to Hitwise, AskMen was ranked No.1 in the Lifestyle – Men’s Sites category, as it has over 40,000 articles available for free online. AskMen launched a series published by HarperCollins in May 2007
30.
MSN
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MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24,1995, the same release date as Windows 95. Along with Windows 95s release, Microsoft debuted The Microsoft Network, at the same time, the company launched a new web portal named Microsoft Internet Start and set it as the first default home page of Internet Explorer, its original web browser. In 1998, Microsoft renamed and moved this web portal to the domain name MSN. com, the current website and suite of apps offered by MSN was first introduced by Microsoft in 2014 as part of a complete redesign and relaunch. MSN is based in the United States and offers international versions of its portal for dozens of countries around the world, from 1995 to 1998, the MSN. com domain was used by Microsoft primarily to promote MSN as an online service and Internet service provider. At the time, MSN. com also offered a start page and an Internet tutorial. Microsofts original news website, msnbc. com, which launched in 1996, was tied closely to the Internet Start portal. The new website put MSN in direct competition with such as Yahoo. Because the new format opened up MSNs content to the world for free, MSN. com became the successor to the default Internet Explorer start page, as all of the previous Microsoft Internet Start website was merged with MSN. com. Some of the websites that Microsoft launched during that era remain active in some form today. Other websites since divested by Microsoft include the travel website Expedia, the online magazine Slate, in the late 1990s, Microsoft collaborated with many other service providers, as well as other Microsoft departments, to expand the range of MSNs services. Some examples include MSN adCenter, MSN Shopping, and the Encarta encyclopedia with various levels of access to information, since then, MSN. com has remained a popular destination, launching many new services and content sites. MSNs Hotmail and Messenger services were promoted from the MSN. com portal, MSN Search, a dedicated search engine, launched in 1999. The single sign-in service for Microsofts online services, Microsoft Passport, the MSN. com portal and related group of services under the MSN umbrella remained largely the same in the early 2000s. The sports section of the MSN portal was ESPN. com from 2001 to 2004, and FoxSports. com from 2004 to 2014. MSN had a partnership with msnbc. com for news content from 1996 until 2012, when Microsoft sold its remaining stake in msnbc. com to NBCUniversal. Since then, MSN has launched MSN News, a news operation. MSN released a preview of a home page and logo on November 3,2009. It was originally expected to be available to over 100 million U. S. customers by early 2010
31.
Empire (film magazine)
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Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media of Hamburg based Bauer Media Group. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney, Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008. It is the biggest selling magazine in the United Kingdom and is also published in the United States, Australia, Turkey, Russia, Italy. Empire organises the annual Empire Awards which were sponsored by Sony Ericsson, the awards are voted for by readers of the magazine. Empire is populist in both approach and coverage and it reviews both mainstream films and art films, but feature articles concentrate on the former. As well as news, previews, and reviews, Empire has some other regular features. Each issue features a Classic Scene, a transcript from a film scene. The first such classic scene to be featured was the I could have been a scene from On the Waterfront. The regular Top 10 feature lists Empires choice of the top ten examples of something film-related, for example,10 Best Chase Scenes or 10 Best Movie Gags in The Simpsons. The Re. View section covers Blu-ray and DVD news and releases, Kim Newmans Movie Dungeon is a regular feature in the Re. View section, in which critic Kim Newman reviews the most obscure releases, mostly low budget horror movies. How much Is Pint of Milk presents celebrities answers to silly or unusual questions and this is intended as a guide to the chosen celebritys contact with reality, and as such can be more informative than a direct interview by reporting some surprising responses. Each magazine includes a Spine Quote, in which a relatively challenging quote is printed on the spine of the magazine, there are usually some obvious and obscure links from the quote to the main features of that months edition. Readers are invited to identify the source and the links to win a prize. Celebrity Mastermind is another regular in which a celebrity is given questions about the films they were in or they directed, celebrities range from Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Lee to John Carpenter and Michael Keaton. A regular feature since issue 167, the feature is a two-page essay on a film selected by Empire in the Re. View section. The selection of the films seem to be random and follow no specific pattern. Only a few issues since the first masterpiece feature have not featured one –169,179,196,197,198 and 246, Issue 240 had director Frank Darabont select 223 masterpieces. L. A. Confidential was featured twice, once in issue 191 and this list is as follows, Alien – Dinner chestburster The Omen – Glass decapitation An American Werewolf in London – Wolf transformation The Exorcist – Crucifix abuse Risky Business – Ready Ralph
32.
Metro Silicon Valley
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Metro is a free weekly newspaper published by the San Jose, California, based Metro Newspapers. Also known as Metro Silicon Valley, the serves the greater Silicon Valley area. In addition to print form, Metro can be downloaded, in PDF format, Metro also keeps tabs on local politics and the chattering class of San Jose through its weekly column, The Fly. The newspaper has published since 1985 and is one of the remaining owner-operated publications in the alternative press. Its principal distribution area encompasses the cities of San Jose, Los Gatos, Campbell, Saratoga, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Milpitas, Mountain View, Los Altos, Metro is largely read for its coverage of the San Jose regions culture and entertainment scene. It publishes an exhaustive arts section, which includes calendar listings, music reviews, critical coverage of the performing and visual arts, as well as movie reviews, the newspaper has employed well-regarded film critic Richard von Busack since 1985. Steve Palopoli edited the publication from March 2005 until December 2008, in 1986, Metro published the last interview with Don Hoefler, the man credited with naming Silicon Valley. The disclosures resulted in an investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission, shirakawa pleaded guilty on March 1,2013 to five felonies and seven misdemeanors and resigned his office. Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu Towery credited Metro’s reports with prompting the criminal investigation at the press announcing the plea. The House Committee on Ethics investigated Rep. Mike Honda following revelations in Metro that contributors were receiving favors from the congressman’s office, vietnamese-American author Andrew Pham, author Jim Rendon, marketing consultant Vrinda Normand, Obama administration education advisor Hal Plotkin and BlogHer CEO Lisa Stone. It also published the writings of Michelle Goldberg, six-word memoirist Larry Smith and it was also one of the first newspapers to publish Matt Groenings Life in Hell long before he created The Simpsons. The San Jose Jazz Society was started by Metro jazz writer Sammy Cohen, the outgrowth was the annual San Jose Jazz Festival. During the 1990s, Metro purchased community newspapers from companies such as the Tribune Company and established Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, Metro was the first to call for a Sunshine Ordinance during the 1998 mayor’s race. An ordinance was passed in 2009 and we have pushed for preservation of historic buildings and agricultural lands that represent the valley’s heritage and soul. And we have promoted sensible, pedestrian-oriented development that gets out of their cars so they can get to know one another. A newspaper at its best should be a community-builder. ”In 2012, Metro sponsored the Silicon Valley Sound Experience, a music festival, which led to the establishment of Creative Convergence Silicon Valley, or C2SV. The 2013 event included performances by Iggy and The Stooges and a technology conference with appearances by Steve Wozniak, Nolan Bushnell. The 2015 C2SV brought camera phone inventor Philippe Kahn and Oculus VR co-inventor Jack McCauley to the stage of the California Theatre
33.
UGO Networks
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UGO Entertainment, Inc. was a website that provided coverage of online media in entertainment, targeting males aged 18–34. The company was based in New York, New York, United States. The company started in 1997 as Unified Gamers Online, billed in directories as a network of professionally managed gaming sites and services. ”In 1997, founder Chris Sherman hired Ken Margolis Associates to manage sales. Chris sold UGO to Actionworld, Inc. a subsidiary of InterWorld and that same year, InterWorld spun off the company “in order to permit UGO Networks to build a separate management team…and to position UGO Networks to seek private parts equity financing. In 1999, UGO changed its name to UnderGround Online as part of its efforts to expand its target audience, the company streamed various forms of media entertainment on its website as well as offering articles on topics of interest to its target audience. Topics included comics, television, music and film and its main competitors included CNET Networks, IGN, and Yahoo. On July 24,2007 it was announced that Hearst Corporation would acquire UGO Entertainment to expand its interactive media division, on January 6,2009, UGO Entertainment acquired 1UP. com and its associated sites from publisher Ziff Davis. In May 2011, IGN Entertainment announced that it would acquire UGO from Hearst in a cash, at the same time, its parent company News Corporation also announced that the profitable IGN division would be spun off into a new company. In March 2012, UGO ceased to exist as a website and was dormant for a short period. Later in 2012, UGO. com relaunched as a pop culture comedy site. On February 4,2013, UGO. com was purchased as part of the IGN network of websites acquired by Ziff Davis, and was shut down on February 21,2013
34.
Odysseus
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Odysseus, also known by the Latin name Ulysses, was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homers epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homers Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle. Husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and son of Laërtes and Anticlea, Odysseus is renowned for his brilliance, guile, and versatility and he is most famous for the Odyssey, ten eventful years he took to return home after the decade-long Trojan War. The name has several variants, in Greek the character was called Olysseus, Oulixeus, Oulixes, hence, there may originally have been two separate figures, one called something like Odysseus, the other something like Ulixes, who were combined into one complex personality. The etymology of the name is unknown, ancient authors linked the name to the Greek verbs odussomai to be wroth against, to hate, or to oduromai to lament, bewail. Homer in references and puns, relates it to various forms of this verb and it has also been suggested that the name is of non-Greek origin, probably not even Indo-European, with an unknown etymology, R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. In Book 19 of the Odyssey, where Odysseuss early childhood is recounted, Euryclea tries to guide him to naming the boy Polyaretos, for he has much been prayed for. Autolycus apparently in a sardonic mood, decided to give the child a name that would commemorate his own experience in life. Because I got odium upon myself before coming here, let the childs name be Odysseus to signify this. The pun was prophetic as well as commemorative, Odysseus often receives the patronymic epithet Laertiades, son of Laërtes. In the Iliad and Odyssey there are several epithets used to describe Odysseus and his name and stories were adopted into Etruscan religion under the name Uthuze. Hence, Odysseus was the great-grandson of the Olympian god Hermes, according to the Iliad and Odyssey, his father is Laertes and his mother Anticlea, although there was a non-Homeric tradition that Sisyphus was his true father. The rumor went that Laertes bought Odysseus from the conniving king, Odysseus is said to have a younger sister, Ctimene, who went to Same to be married and is mentioned by the swineherd Eumaeus, whom she grew up alongside, in Book 15 of the Odyssey. Homers Iliad and Odyssey portray Odysseus as a hero, but the Romans. In Virgils Aeneid, written between 29 and 19 BC, he is referred to as cruel Odysseus or deceitful Odysseus. Turnus, in Aeneid ix, reproaches the Trojan Ascanius with images of rugged, forthright Latin virtues, declaring, You shall not find the sons of Atreus here, nor need the frauds of sly Ulysses fear. While the Greeks admired his cunning and deceit, these qualities did not recommend themselves to the Romans, who possessed a rigid sense of honour. His attempts to avoid his sacred oath to defend Menelaus and Helen offended Roman notions of duty, the majority of sources for Odysseus pre-war exploits—principally the mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus—postdate Homer by many centuries
35.
Scheria
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Before leaving Ogygia, Odysseus builds a raft and sails eastwards, instructed by Calypso to navigate using the stars as a celestial reference point. On the eighteenth day appear the shadowy mountains of the land of the Phaeacians, but Poseidon spots his raft and seeking vengeance for his son Polyphemus who was blinded by Odysseus, produces a storm that torments Odysseus. After three days of struggle with the waves, he is washed up on Scheria. The next morning, Nausicaa and her maids go to the seashore, Odysseus, who was exhausted from his adventure and was sleeping nearby, is awakened by the shouts. He covers his nakedness with leaves and goes to ask for help from the team. Upon seeing the unkempt Odysseus in this state, the run away. To excuse the maids, she admits that the Phaeacians are the farthermost of men, Nausicaa, being hospitable, provides clothes, food and drink to Odysseus, and then directs him to the palace of King Alcinous. Following Nausicaas orders, Odysseus sought to enter the palace of King Alcinous and plead for mercy from the queen, Arete, on his way to the palace, Odysseus meets Athena disguised as a local girl. In her disguised state, Athena advises him about how to enter the palace, Athena, knowledgeable that the Phaeacians were hostile towards men from the outlands, cloaked Odysseus in a mist that hid him from the Phaeacians gaze. Under Athenas protection, Odysseus passes through all of the systems of the palace. Odysseus throws his arms around the legs and supplicates her. Naturally, Alcinous and his court are surprised to see a stranger walking into their secured palace, the walls of the palace are made of bronze that shines like the sun and is secured with gates made of gold. Within the walls, there is a magnificent garden with apple, pear, the palace is even equipped with a lighting system comprising golden statues of young men bearing torches. After Odysseus tells Alcinous and his court the story of his adventures after the Trojan War and they were quite different from the penteconters, the ships used during the Trojan War, and they were steered by thought. King Alcinous says that Phaeacians carried Rhadamanthus to Euboea, which is the furthest of any place and he also explains to Odysseus what sort of information the Phaeacian ships require in order to take him home to Ithaca. Tell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape their purpose accordingly, Homer describes the Phaeacian ships as fast as a falcon and gives a vivid description of the ships departure. The ship bounded forward on her way as a four in hand chariot flies over the course when the horses feel the whip and her prow curvetted as it were the neck of a stallion, and a great wave of dark blue water seethed in her wake. She held steadily on her course, and even a falcon, swiftest of all birds, many ancient and modern interpreters favour identification of Scheria with the island of Corfu, which is within 110 km of Ithaca
36.
Post-structuralism
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Existential phenomenology is a significant influence, Colin Davis has argued that post-structuralists might just as accurately be called post-phenomenologists. Post-structuralist philosophers like Derrida and Foucault did not form a self-conscious group, Structuralism rejected the phenomenological idea that knowledge could be centred on the human knower, and sought what they considered a more secure foundation for knowledge. In phenomenology, this foundation is experience itself, in structuralism, knowledge is founded on the structures that make possible, concepts. By contrast, post-structuralism argues that founding knowledge either on experience or systematic structures is impossible. This impossibility was not meant as a failure or loss, a major theory associated with Structuralism was binary opposition. This theory proposed that there are theoretical and conceptual opposites, often arranged in a hierarchy. Such binary pairs could include Enlightenment/Romantic, male/female, speech/writing, rational/emotional, signifier/signified, the only way to properly understand these meanings is to deconstruct the assumptions and knowledge systems that produce multiplicity, the illusion of singular meaning. It emphasized the logical and scientific nature of its results, post-structuralism offers a way of studying how knowledge is produced and critiques structuralist premises. It argues that history and culture condition the study of underlying structures. A post-structuralist approach argues that to understand an object, it is necessary to both the object itself and the systems of knowledge that produced the object. Post-structuralists generally assert that post-structuralism is historical, and they classify structuralism as descriptive and this terminology relates to Ferdinand de Saussures distinction between the views of historical and descriptive reading. From this basic distinction, post-structuralist studies often emphasize history to analyze descriptive concepts, by studying how cultural concepts have changed over time, post-structuralists seek to understand how those same concepts are understood by readers in the present. For example, Michel Foucaults Madness and Civilization is both a history and an inspection of cultural attitudes about madness, the uncertain distance between structuralism and post-structuralism is further blurred by the fact that scholars rarely label themselves as post-structuralists. Some scholars associated with structuralism, such as Roland Barthes and Foucault, some observers from outside the post-structuralist camp have questioned the rigor and legitimacy of the field. American philosopher John Searle argued in 1990 that The spread of poststructuralist literary theory is perhaps the best known example of a silly, similarly, physicist Alan Sokal in 1997 criticized the postmodernist/poststructuralist gibberish that is now hegemonic in some sectors of the American academy. Has elicited wrong film and literary theory on a grand scale, one can find dozens of books of literary theory bogged down in signifiers and signifieds, but only a handful that refer to Chomsky. Post-structuralism emerged in France during the 1960s as a movement critiquing structuralism, merquior a love–hate relationship with structuralism developed among many leading French thinkers in the 1960s. In a 1966 lecture Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, Jacques Derrida presented a thesis on an apparent rupture in intellectual life, Derrida interpreted this event as a decentering of the former intellectual cosmos
37.
Gramercy Pictures
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Gramercy Pictures is an American film production label of Universal Studios Focus Features division. It was originally launched as a distributor in May 1992 as a joint venture of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. Gramercy was the distributor of PolyGram movies in the United States and Canada, after Seagrams buyout on PolyGram, Gramercy, along with October Films, was merged by Barry Diller, to form USA Films in 1999. As of 2015, Focus Features revived the name as a label for action, horror, Gramercy Pictures was formed in 1992 as a joint venture of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Universal Pictures. Gramercy Pictures released its first film, the Mario Van Peebles western Posse, in January 1996, PolyGram brought the 50% stake owned by Universal, thus assuming full control of Gramercy. The distributor also had box office hits in 1994s Four Weddings, several Gramercy releases of the 1990s have grown in stature to become cult classics in the present day, The Big Lebowski, Dazed and Confused, Clay Pigeons and Mallrats. In addition, 1995s The Usual Suspects won two Oscars, for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor, in 1998 Seagram sold the bulk of its library of PolyGram films released up until March 31,1996 for to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. When Seagram acquired PolyGram in 1999, the merged with. It reacquired Gramercy as it controlled Universal, in turn, Seagram sold Gramercy and another specialty division, October Films, to Barry Dillers USA Networks, and merged both companies into USA Films. USA Films then transformed into Universal Focus and then Focus Features in 2002, in May 2015, Focus Features announced that the Gramercy label has been revived to release action, horror and sci-fi genre films. Its first outing was Insidious, Chapter 3 on June 5,2015, official website Gramercy Pictures at the Internet Movie Database
38.
Osama bin Laden
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He was a Saudi Arabian, a member of the wealthy bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite. Bin Laden was born to the family of billionaire Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden in Saudi Arabia and he studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan and he was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until U. S. pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigations lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, from 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, as the FBI placed a $25 million bounty on him in their search for him. S. There is no accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English, however. The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency, as well as other U. S. governmental agencies, have used either Usama bin Laden or Usama bin Ladin, less common renderings include Ussamah bin Ladin and, in the French-language media, Oussama ben Laden. Other spellings include Binladen or, as used by his family in the West, the decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames, the nasab bin means son of. The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, Osama bin Ladens full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden. The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as Osama or Osama bin Laden, not bin Laden alone, as bin Laden is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Ladens son Omar bin Laden, the familys surname is al-Qahtani. Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah Abū Abdāllāh and his admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the Prince or Emir, the Sheik, the Jihadist Sheik or Sheik al-Mujahid, Hajj, and the Director. The word usāmah means lion, earning him the nicknames Lion and Lion Sheik, in a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10,1957. Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born, Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the élite secular Al-Thager Model School and he studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in engineering in 1979
39.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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The series premiered on March 10,1997, on The WB and concluded on May 20,2003, on UPN. The series narrative follows Buffy Summers, the latest in a line of women known as Vampire Slayers. In the story, Slayers are called to battle against vampires, demons, like previous Slayers, Buffy is aided by a Watcher, who guides, teaches, and trains her. Unlike her predecessors, Buffy surrounds herself with a circle of friends who become known as the Scooby Gang. The series received critical and popular acclaim, frequently being listed as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, although such ratings are lower than successful shows on the big four networks, they were a success for the relatively new and smaller WB Television Network. Buffys success has led to hundreds of products, including novels, comics. The series has received attention in fandom, parody, and academia, Buffy Summers is the Slayer, one in a long line of young women chosen by fate to battle evil forces. Buffy receives guidance from her Watcher, Rupert Giles, Giles, rarely referred to by his first name, is a member of the Watchers Council, whose job is to train and guide the Slayers. Giles researches the supernatural creatures that Buffy must face, offers insights into their origins and advice on how to defeat them, Buffy is also helped by friends she meets at Sunnydale High, Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris. Willow is originally a wallflower who excels at academics, providing a contrast to Buffys outgoing personality and they share the social isolation that comes with being different, and especially from being exceptional young women. As the series progresses, Willow becomes a more assertive character and a powerful witch, in contrast, Xander, with no supernatural skills but very athletic, provides comic relief and a grounded perspective. It is Xander who often provides the heart to the series, Buffy and Willow are the only characters who appear in all 144 episodes, Xander is missing in only one. The cast of characters grew over the course of the series, Buffy first arrives in Sunnydale with her mother, Joyce Summers, who functions as an anchor of normality in the Summers lives even after she learns of Buffys role in the supernatural world. Buffys younger sister Dawn Summers is introduced in season five, a vampire with a soul, Angel, is Buffys love interest throughout the first three seasons. He leaves Buffy as he believes he isnt good enough for her and he goes on to make amends for his sins and to search for redemption in his own spin-off, Angel. He makes several guest appearances in the seasons, including the last episode. At Sunnydale High, Buffy meets several other students besides Willow and Xander willing to join her fight for good, Cordelia Chase, the archetypal shallow cheerleader, reluctantly becomes involved. Daniel Oz Osbourne, a student, rock guitarist and werewolf
40.
Link 80
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Link 80 was a punk rock/ska punk band from San Franciscos East Bay. Link 80 started in the summer 1993 in the East Bay of California, in the beginning, original members played around town as Drano, The Rag-Tags, and Mr. Slave-Unit, before settling on Link 80. The name came from the interstate highway I-80 which they used to get to the garage for band practice and connected the band members homes, members lived in Oakland, Berkeley. In May 1995, Nick Traina joined the band after meeting Adam at a show in San Franciscos Mission District. Nicks passion and voice combined with the rest of the band to make different from most ska bands. Far more punk than ska and with an energy and a sense of lacking in pop-oriented ska bands. As Asian Man Records describes them, they are a blend of ska, punk rock. Recorded in 1996, Link 80 had released their first full-length album titled 17 Reasons, the album consisted of 17 fast and energetic punk rock and skacore songs. It was also the first album recorded for Asian Man Records and their only official music video was off this album for the song Verbal Kint. The video was filmed at 924 Gilman Street and directed by Scott Pourroy. In 1996, with all the members still in high school, on this tour, the band created their own crew, known as ATRC, or Against the Rest Crew. The core line-up for these years was Nick Traina, Joey Bustos, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Adam Pereira. Though he was not present on the recording of 17 Reasons, Jason Lechner joined the band in time to support it at shows and this line-up would release the first and second of their three albums. Unlike many bands, each member of Link 80 were a part of the songwriting team. With Aaron in charge of the lines, Joey, Adam and Matt were behind most songs core-music, while Nick. In addition, everyone participated in background vocals, occasionally singing lead. For example, Adam sings a majority of Termination and Slap, the following year Link 80 was on to its second US tour. Beginning in Oregon on June 14, the tour was cut short after a show at the Globe in Milwaukee, the following morning the band went their separate ways, with some members flying home, some driving, and some taking a train
41.
17 Reasons
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17 Reasons is the first full album by the ska punk band Link 80. It was released on CD and 12 vinyl by Asian Man Records in 1997, the record was the first original release for Asian Man Records. It was recorded during two sessions, one at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA with Steve Fontano and one at Art of Ears with Andy Ernst. The cover photo was taken March 17,1996 at Ann Kongs Bleach Bottle Pig Farm in Berkeley, California, Verbal Kint Nothing Left Enough Pretty Girls Jeff Acree Screwed Termination Turn It Around What Can I Do. Up To The Top Dime Store Hoods Slap Dance Floor Looking Back Nowhere Fast Jenifers Cafe Burning Down Who Killed Marilyn and this track starts exactly 8 minutes after the end of Burning Down. Burning Down samples Pretty In Pink at the songs end, the sample before What Can I Do. is New Kids on the Block. The bridge during Dime Store Hoods is partially from an Earth Crisis song, Jeff Acree is cover of Teenage Fuckup by Ratt Patrol. The band shot their only music video for Verbal Kint. Directed by Scott Pourroy, the video was shot at two consecutive Link 80 shows, January 17,1997 at 924 Gilman Street and January 18th,1997 at the Arcata Community Center. Nick Traina – lead vocals Matt Bettinelli-Olpin – guitar, vocals Adam Pereira – bass, vocals Aaron Nagel – trumpet Joey Bustos – drums Brian Beggs – trombone Paul McCarthy – saxophone
42.
Fight Club
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Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher, and stars Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, referred to as the narrator, who is discontented with his white-collar job. He forms a club with soap maker Tyler Durden, played by Pitt. The narrator becomes embroiled in a relationship with Durden and a woman, Marla Singer. Palahniuks novel was optioned by 20th Century Fox producer Laura Ziskin, Fincher was one of four directors the producers considered, and was selected because of his enthusiasm for the film. Fincher developed the script with Uhls and sought screenwriting advice from the cast, the director and the cast compared the film to Rebel Without a Cause and The Graduate. They said its theme was the conflict between a generation of people and the value system of advertising. The director copied the homoerotic overtones from Palahniuks novel to make audiences uncomfortable, studio executives did not like the film and restructured Finchers intended marketing campaign to try to reduce anticipated losses. It was cited as one of the most controversial and talked-about films of 1999, the film later found critical and commercial success with its DVD release, which established Fight Club as a cult film. The unnamed Narrator is a traveling automobile recall specialist who suffers from insomnia, the group assumes that he, too, is affected like they are, and he spontaneously weeps into the nurturing arms of another man, finding a freedom from the catharsis that relieves his insomnia. He decides to participate in groups of various kinds, always allowing the groups to assume that he suffers what they do. However, he begins to notice another impostor, Marla Singer, whose presence reminds him that he is attending these groups dishonestly, the two negotiate to avoid their attending the same groups, but, before going their separate ways, Marla gives him her phone number. On a flight home from a trip, the Narrator meets Tyler Durden. After the flight, the Narrator returns home to find that his apartment has been destroyed by an explosion, with no one else to contact, he calls Tyler, and they meet at a bar. After a conversation about consumerism, outside the bar, Tyler chastises the Narrator for his timidity about needing a place to stay, Tyler requests that the Narrator hit him, which leads the two to engage in a fistfight. The Narrator moves into Tylers home, a dilapidated house in an industrial area of their city. They have further fights outside the bar on subsequent nights, the fighting eventually moves to the bars basement where the men form a club which routinely meets only to provide an opportunity for the men to fight recreationally. Marla overdoses on pills and telephones the Narrator for help, he ignores her, leaving his phone receiver
