text: During the war as well as during Tito's Yugoslavia, various numbers were given for Yugoslavia's overall war casualties. Estimates by Holocaust memorial centers also vary. The historian Jozo Tomasevich said that the exact number of victims in Yugoslavia is impossible to determine. The academic Barbara Jelavich however cites Tomasevich's estimate in writing that as many as 350,000 Serbs were killed during the period of Ustaše rule. The historian Rory Yeomans said that the most conservative estimates state that 200,000 Serbs were killed by Ustaše death squads but the actual number of Serbs who were executed by the Ustaše or perished in Ustaše concentration camps may be as high as 500,000. In a 1992 work, Sabrina P. Ramet cites the figure of 350,000 Serbs who were "liquidated" by "Pavelić and his Ustaše henchmen". In a 2006 work, Ramet estimated that at least 300,000 Serbs were "massacred by the Ustaše". In her 2007 book "The Independent State of Croatia 1941-45", Ramet cites Žerjavić's overall figures for Serb losses in the NDH. Marko Attila Hoare writes that "perhaps nearly 300,000 Serbs" died as a result of the Ustaše genocide and the Nazi policies.


title: Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia

text: Tomislav Dulić stated that Serbs in NDH suffered among the highest casualty rates in Europe during the World War II. American historian Stanley G. Payne stated that direct and indirect executions by NDH regime were an “extraordinary mass crime”, which in proportionate terms exceeded any other European regime beside Hitler's Third Reich. He added the crimes in the NDH were proportionately surpassed only by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and several of the extremely genocidal African regimes. Raphael Israeli wrote that “a large scale genocidal operations, in proportions to its small population, remain almost unique in the annals of wartime Europe.”


text: In Serbia as well as in the eyes of Serbs, the Ustaše atrocities constituted a genocide. Many historians and authors describe the Ustaše regime's mass killings of Serbs as meeting the definition of genocide, including Raphael Lemkin who is known for coining the word "genocide" and initiating the Genocide Convention. Croatian historian Mirjana Kasapović explained that in the most important scientific works on genocide, crimes against Serbs, Jews and Roma in the NDH are unequivocally classified as genocide.


text: Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, stated that “Ustasha carried out a "Serb genocide", exterminating over


text: 500,000, expelling 250,000, and forcing another 250,000 to convert to Catholicism”. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, also, mentioned that leaders of the Independent State of Croatia committed genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Presidents of Croatia, Stjepan Mesić and Ivo Josipović, as well as Bakir Izetbegović and Željko Komšić, Bosniak and Croat member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, also described the persecution of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia as a genocide.


text: In the post-war era, the Serbian Orthodox Church considered the Serbian victims of this genocide to be martys. As a result, the Serbian Orthodox Church commemorates the Saint Martyrs of Jasenovac on 13 September.


text: The Yugoslav communist authorities did not use the Jasenovac camp as was done with other European concentration camps, most likely due to Serb-Croat relations. They recognized that ethnic tensions stemming from the war could had the capacity to destabilize the new communist regime, tried to conceal wartime atrocities and to mask specific ethnic losses. The Tito's government attempted to let the wounds heal and forge "brotherhood and unity" in the peoples. Tito himself was invited to, and passed Jasenovac several times, but never visited the site. The genocide was not properly examined in the aftermath of the war, because the Yugoslav communist government did not encourage independent scholars. Historians Marko Attila Hoare and Mark Biondich stated that Western world historians don't pay enough attention to the genocide committed by Ustaše, while several scholars described it as lesser-known genocide.


text: World War II and especially its ethnic conflicts have been deemed instrumental in the later Yugoslav Wars (1991–95).


text: Mile Budak and a number of other members of the NDH government, such as Nikola Mandić and Julije Makanec, were tried and convicted of high treason and war crimes by the communist authorities of the SFR Yugoslavia. Many of them were executed. Miroslav Filipović, the commandant of the Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška camps, was found guilty for war crimes, sentenced to death and hanged.


text: Many others escaped, including the supreme leader Ante Pavelić, most to Latin America. Some emigrations were prevented by the Operation Gvardijan, in which Ljubo Miloš, the commandant of the Jasenovac camp was captured and executed. Aloysius Stepinac, who served as Archbishop of Zagreb was found guilty of high treason and forced conversion of Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism. However, some claim the trial was "carried out with proper legal procedure".


text: In its judgment in the Hostages Trial, the Nuremberg Military Tribunal concluded that the Independent State of Croatia was not a sovereign entity capable of acting independently of the German military, despite recognition as an independent state by the Axis powers. According to the Tribunal, "Croatia was at all times here involved an occupied country". The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide were not in force at the time. It was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948 and entered into force on 12 January 1951.


text: Andrija Artuković, Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Justice of the NDH who signed a number of racial laws, escaped to the United States after the war and he was extradited to Yugoslavia in 1986, where he was tried in the Zagreb District Court and was found guilty of a number of mass killings in the NDH. Artuković was sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried out due to his age and health. Efraim Zuroff, a Nazi hunter, played a significant role in capturing Dinko Šakić, another the Jasenovac camp commander, during 1990s. After pressure from the international community on the right-wing president Franjo Tuđman, he sought Šakić's extradition and he stood trial in Croatia, aged 78; he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and given the maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment. According to the human rights researchers Eric Stover, Victor Peskin and Alexa Koenig it was "the most important post-Cold War domestic effort to hold criminally accountable a Nazi war crimes suspect in a former Eastern European communist country".


text: With the Partisan liberation of Yugoslavia, many Ustaše leaders fled and took refuge at the college of San Girolamo degli Illirici near the Vatican. Catholic priest and Ustaše Krunoslav Draganović directed the fugitives from San Girolamo. The US State Department and Counter-Intelligence Corps helped war criminals to escape, and assisted Draganović (who later worked for the American intelligence) in sending Ustaše abroad. Many of those responsible for mass killings in NDH took refuge in South America, Portugal, Spain and the United States. Luburić was assassinated in Spain in 1969 by an UDBA agent; Artuković lived in Ireland and California until extradited in 1986 and died of natural causes in prison; Dinko Šakić and his wife Nada lived in Argentina until extradited in 1998, Dinko dying in prison and his wife released. Draganović also arranged Gestapo functionary Klaus Barbie's flight.


text: Among some of the Croat diaspora, the Ustaše became heroes. Ustaše émigré terrorist groups in the diaspora (such as Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood and Croatian National Resistance) carried out assassinations and bombings, and also plane hijackings, throughout the Yugoslav period.


text: Some Croats, including politicians, have attempted to minimise the magnitude of the genocide perpetrated against Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia. Historian Mirjana Kasapović concluded that there are three main strategies of historical revisionism in the part of Croatian historiography: the NDH was a normal counter-insurgency state at the time; no mass crimes were committed in the NDH, especially genocide; the Jasenovac camp was just a labor camp, not an extermination camp.


text: By 1989, the future President of Croatia, Franjo Tuđman had embraced Croatian nationalism and published "", in which he questioned the official number of victims killed by the Ustaše during the Second World War. In his book,Tuđman claimed that between 30,000 and 40,000 died at Jasenovac. Some scholars and observers accused Tuđman of racist statements, “flirting with ideas associated with the Ustaše movement”, appointment of former Ustaše officials to political and military positions, as well as downplaying the number of victims in the Independent State of Croatia.


text: Since 2016, anti-fascist groups, leaders of Croatia's Serb, Roma and Jewish communities and former top Croat officials have boycotted the official state commemoration for the victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp because, as they said, Croatian authorities refused to denounce the Ustaše legacy explicitly and they downplayed and revitalized crimes committed by Ustaše.


text: After Croatia gained independence, about 3,000 monuments dedicated to the anti-fascist resistance and the victims of fascism were destroyed. According to Croatian World War II veterans' association, these destructions were not spontaneous, but a planned activity carried out by the ruling party, the state and the church. The status of the Jasenovac Memorial Site was downgraded to the nature park, and parliament cut its funding. In September 1991, Croatian forces entered the memorial site and vandalized the museum building, while exhibitions and documentation were destroyed, damaged and looted. In 1992, FR Yugoslavia sent a formal protest to the United Nations and UNESCO, warning of the devastation of the memorial complex. The European Community Monitor Mission visited the memorial center and confirmed the damage.


text: Israeli President Moshe Katsav visited Jasenovac in 2003. His successor, Shimon Peres, paid homage to the camp's victims when he visited Jasenovac on 25 July 2010 and laid a wreath at the memorial. Peres dubbed the Ustaše's crimes a "demonstration of sheer sadism".


text: The Jasenovac Memorial Museum reopened in November 2006 with a new exhibition designed by a Croatian architect, Helena Paver Njirić, and an Educational Center, designed by the firm Produkcija. The Memorial Museum features an interior of rubber-clad steel modules, video and projection screens, and glass cases displaying artifacts from the camp. Above the exhibition space, which is quite dark, is a field of glass panels inscribed with the names of the victims.


text: The New York City Parks Department, the Holocaust Park Committee and the Jasenovac Research Institute, with the help of then-Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), established a public monument to the victims of Jasenovac in April 2005 (the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the camps.) The dedication ceremony was attended by ten Yugoslavian Holocaust survivors, as well as diplomats from Serbia, Bosnia and Israel. It remains the only public monument to Jasenovac victims outside the Balkans.


text: Nowadays, оn 22 April, the anniversary of the prisoner breakout from the Jasenovac camp, Serbia marks the National Holocaust, World War II Genocide and other Fascist Crimes Victims Remembrance Day, while Croatia holds an official commemoration at the Jasenovac Memorial Site. Serbia and Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska hold a joint central commemoration at the Donja Gradina Memorial Zone.


text: In 2018, an exhibition named “Jasenovac – The Right to Remembrance” was held in the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City within the marking of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, with the main goal of to foster a culture of remembrance of Serb, Jewish, Roma and anti-fascist victims of the Holocaust and genocide in the Jasenovac camp. On 22 April 2020, the president of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić had an official visit to the memorial park in Sremska Mitrovica, dedicated to the victims of genocide on the territory of Syrmia.


text: Commemoration ceremonies honoring the victims of the Jadovno concentration camp have been organized by the Serb National Council (SNV), the Jewish community in Croatia, and local anti-fascists since 2009, while 24 June has been designated as a "Day of Remembrance of the Jadovno Camp" in Croatia. On 26 August 2010, the 68th anniversary of the partial liberation of the Jastrebarsko children's camp, victims were commemorated in a ceremony at a monument in the Jastrebarsko cemetery. It was attended by only 40 people, mainly members of the Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of the Republic of Croatia. The Republic of Srpska Government holds a commemoration at the memorial site of the victims of the Ustaše massacres in the Drina Valley.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry (from "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definition, and is usually used to refer to an object that is invariant under some transformations; including translation, reflection, rotation or scaling. Although these two meanings of "symmetry" can sometimes be told apart, they are intricately related, and hence are discussed together in this article.


title: Symmetry

text: Mathematical symmetry may be observed with respect to the passage of time; as a spatial relationship; through geometric transformations; through other kinds of functional transformations; and as an aspect of abstract objects, including theoretic models, language, and music.


title: Symmetry

text: This article describes symmetry from three perspectives: in mathematics, including geometry, the most familiar type of symmetry for many people; in science and nature; and in the arts, covering architecture, art and music.


title: Symmetry

text: A geometric shape or object is symmetric if it can be divided into two or more identical pieces that are arranged in an organized fashion. This means that an object is symmetric if there is a transformation that moves individual pieces of the object, but doesn't change the overall shape. The type of symmetry is determined by the way the pieces are organized, or by the type of transformation:


title: Symmetry

text: A dyadic relation "R" = "S" × "S" is symmetric if for all elements "a", "b" in "S", whenever it is true that "Rab", it is also true that "Rba". Thus, the relation "is the same age as" is symmetric, for if Paul is the same age as Mary, then Mary is the same age as Paul.


title: Symmetry

text: In propositional logic, symmetric binary logical connectives include "and" (∧, or &), "or" (∨, or |) and "if and only if" (↔), while the connective "if" (→) is not symmetric. Other symmetric logical connectives include "nand" (not-and, or ⊼), "xor" (not-biconditional, or ⊻), and "nor" (not-or, or ⊽).


title: Symmetry

text: Generalizing from geometrical symmetry in the previous section, one can say that a mathematical object is "symmetric" with respect to a given mathematical operation, if, when applied to the object, this operation preserves some property of the object. The set of operations that preserve a given property of the object form a group.


title: Symmetry

text: In general, every kind of structure in mathematics will have its own kind of symmetry. Examples include even and odd functions in calculus, symmetric groups in abstract algebra, symmetric matrices in linear algebra, and Galois groups in Galois theory. In statistics, symmetry also manifests as symmetric probability distributions, and as skewness—the asymmetry of distributions.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry in physics has been generalized to mean invariance—that is, lack of change—under any kind of transformation, for example arbitrary coordinate transformations. This concept has become one of the most powerful tools of theoretical physics, as it has become evident that practically all laws of nature originate in symmetries. In fact, this role inspired the Nobel laureate PW Anderson to write in his widely read 1972 article "More is Different" that "it is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry." See Noether's theorem (which, in greatly simplified form, states that for every continuous mathematical symmetry, there is a corresponding conserved quantity such as energy or momentum; a conserved current, in Noether's original language); and also, Wigner's classification, which says that the symmetries of the laws of physics determine the properties of the particles found in nature.


title: Symmetry

text: Important symmetries in physics include continuous symmetries and discrete symmetries of spacetime; internal symmetries of particles; and supersymmetry of physical theories.


title: Symmetry

text: In biology, the notion of symmetry is mostly used explicitly to describe body shapes. Bilateral animals, including humans, are more or less symmetric with respect to the sagittal plane which divides the body into left and right halves. Animals that move in one direction necessarily have upper and lower sides, head and tail ends, and therefore a left and a right. The head becomes specialized with a mouth and sense organs, and the body becomes bilaterally symmetric for the purpose of movement, with symmetrical pairs of muscles and skeletal elements, though internal organs often remain asymmetric.


title: Symmetry

text: Plants and sessile (attached) animals such as sea anemones often have radial or rotational symmetry, which suits them because food or threats may arrive from any direction. Fivefold symmetry is found in the echinoderms, the group that includes starfish, sea urchins, and sea lilies.


title: Symmetry

text: In biology, the notion of symmetry is also used as in physics, that is to say to describe the properties of the objects studied, including their interactions. A remarkable property of biological evolution is the changes of symmetry corresponding to the appearance of new parts and dynamics.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry is important to chemistry because it undergirds essentially all "specific" interactions between molecules in nature (i.e., via the interaction of natural and human-made chiral molecules with inherently chiral biological systems). The control of the symmetry of molecules produced in modern chemical synthesis contributes to the ability of scientists to offer therapeutic interventions with minimal side effects. A rigorous understanding of symmetry explains fundamental observations in quantum chemistry, and in the applied areas of spectroscopy and crystallography. The theory and application of symmetry to these areas of physical science draws heavily on the mathematical area of group theory.


title: Symmetry

text: For a human observer, some symmetry types are more salient than others, in particular the most salient is a reflection with a vertical axis, like that present in the human face. Ernst Mach made this observation in his book "The analysis of sensations" (1897), and this implies that perception of symmetry is not a general response to all types of regularities. Both behavioural and neurophysiological studies have confirmed the special sensitivity to reflection symmetry in humans and also in other animals. Early studies within the Gestalt tradition suggested that bilateral symmetry was one of the key factors in perceptual grouping. This is known as the Law of Symmetry. The role of symmetry in grouping and figure/ground organization has been confirmed in many studies. For instance, detection of reflectional symmetry is faster when this is a property of a single object. Studies of human perception and psychophysics have shown that detection of symmetry is fast, efficient and robust to perturbations. For example, symmetry can be detected with presentations between 100 and 150 milliseconds.


title: Symmetry

text: More recent neuroimaging studies have documented which brain regions are active during perception of symmetry. Sasaki et al. used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare responses for patterns with symmetrical or random dots. A strong activity was present in extrastriate regions of the occipital cortex but not in the primary visual cortex. The extrastriate regions included V3A, V4, V7, and the lateral occipital complex (LOC). Electrophysiological studies have found a late posterior negativity that originates from the same areas. In general, a large part of the visual system seems to be involved in processing visual symmetry, and these areas involve similar networks to those responsible for detecting and recognising objects.


title: Symmetry

text: People observe the symmetrical nature, often including asymmetrical balance, of social interactions in a variety of contexts. These include assessments of reciprocity, empathy, sympathy, apology, dialogue, respect, justice, and revenge.


title: Symmetry

text: Reflective equilibrium is the balance that may be attained through deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and specific judgments.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetrical interactions send the moral message "we are all the same" while asymmetrical interactions may send the message "I am special; better than you." Peer relationships, such as can be governed by the golden rule, are based on symmetry, whereas power relationships are based on asymmetry. Symmetrical relationships can to some degree be maintained by simple (game theory) strategies seen in symmetric games such as tit for tat.


title: Symmetry

text: There exists a list of journals and newsletters known to deal, at least in part, with symmetry and the arts.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry finds its ways into architecture at every scale, from the overall external views of buildings such as Gothic cathedrals and The White House, through the layout of the individual floor plans, and down to the design of individual building elements such as tile mosaics. Islamic buildings such as the Taj Mahal and the Lotfollah mosque make elaborate use of symmetry both in their structure and in their ornamentation. Moorish buildings like the Alhambra are ornamented with complex patterns made using translational and reflection symmetries as well as rotations.


title: Symmetry

text: It has been said that only bad architects rely on a "symmetrical layout of blocks, masses and structures"; Modernist architecture, starting with International style, relies instead on "wings and balance of masses".


title: Symmetry

text: Since the earliest uses of pottery wheels to help shape clay vessels, pottery has had a strong relationship to symmetry. Pottery created using a wheel acquires full rotational symmetry in its cross-section, while allowing substantial freedom of shape in the vertical direction. Upon this inherently symmetrical starting point, potters from ancient times onwards have added patterns that modify the rotational symmetry to achieve visual objectives.


title: Symmetry

text: Cast metal vessels lacked the inherent rotational symmetry of wheel-made pottery, but otherwise provided a similar opportunity to decorate their surfaces with patterns pleasing to those who used them. The ancient Chinese, for example, used symmetrical patterns in their bronze castings as early as the 17th century BC. Bronze vessels exhibited both a bilateral main motif and a repetitive translated border design.


title: Symmetry

text: A long tradition of the use of symmetry in carpet and rug patterns spans a variety of cultures. American Navajo Indians used bold diagonals and rectangular motifs. Many Oriental rugs have intricate reflected centers and borders that translate a pattern. Not surprisingly, rectangular rugs have typically the symmetries of a rectangle—that is, motifs that are reflected across both the horizontal and vertical axes (see ).


title: Symmetry

text: As quilts are made from square blocks (usually 9, 16, or 25 pieces to a block) with each smaller piece usually consisting of fabric triangles, the craft lends itself readily to the application of symmetry.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetries appear in the design of objects of all kinds. Examples include beadwork, furniture, sand paintings, knotwork, masks, and musical instruments. Symmetries are central to the art of M.C. Escher and the many applications of tessellation in art and craft forms such as wallpaper, ceramic tilework such as in Islamic geometric decoration, batik, ikat, carpet-making, and many kinds of textile and embroidery patterns.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry is also used in designing logos. By creating a logo on a grid and using the theory of symmetry, designers can organize their work, create a symmetric or asymmetrical design, determine the space between letters, determine how much negative space is required in the design, and how to accentuate parts of the logo to make it stand out.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry is not restricted to the visual arts. Its role in the history of music touches many aspects of the creation and perception of music.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry has been used as a formal constraint by many composers, such as the arch (swell) form (ABCBA) used by Steve Reich, Béla Bartók, and James Tenney. In classical music, Bach used the symmetry concepts of permutation and invariance.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry is also an important consideration in the formation of scales and chords, traditional or tonal music being made up of non-symmetrical groups of pitches, such as the diatonic scale or the major chord. Symmetrical scales or chords, such as the whole tone scale, augmented chord, or diminished seventh chord (diminished-diminished seventh), are said to lack direction or a sense of forward motion, are ambiguous as to the key or tonal center, and have a less specific diatonic functionality. However, composers such as Alban Berg, Béla Bartók, and George Perle have used axes of symmetry and/or interval cycles in an analogous way to keys or non-tonal tonal centers. George Perle explains "C–E, D–F♯, [and] Eb–G, are different instances of the same interval … the other kind of identity. … has to do with axes of symmetry. C–E belongs to a family of symmetrically related dyads as follows:"


title: Symmetry

text: Thus in addition to being part of the interval-4 family, C–E is also a part of the sum-4 family (with C equal to 0).


title: Symmetry

text: Interval cycles are symmetrical and thus non-diatonic. However, a seven pitch segment of C5 (the cycle of fifths, which are enharmonic with the cycle of fourths) will produce the diatonic major scale. Cyclic tonal progressions in the works of Romantic composers such as Gustav Mahler and Richard Wagner form a link with the cyclic pitch successions in the atonal music of Modernists such as Bartók, Alexander Scriabin, Edgard Varèse, and the Vienna school. At the same time, these progressions signal the end of tonality.


title: Symmetry

text: The first extended composition consistently based on symmetrical pitch relations was probably Alban Berg's "Quartet", Op. 3 (1910).


title: Symmetry

text: Tone rows or pitch class sets which are invariant under retrograde are horizontally symmetrical, under inversion vertically. See also Asymmetric rhythm.


title: Symmetry

text: The relationship of symmetry to aesthetics is complex. Humans find bilateral symmetry in faces physically attractive; it indicates health and genetic fitness. Opposed to this is the tendency for excessive symmetry to be perceived as boring or uninteresting. Rudolf Arnheim suggested that people prefer shapes that have some symmetry, and enough complexity to make them interesting.


title: Symmetry

text: Symmetry can be found in various forms in literature, a simple example being the palindrome where a brief text reads the same forwards or backwards. Stories may have a symmetrical structure, such as the rise and fall pattern of "Beowulf".


title: Climate of the United States

text: The climate of the United States varies due to changes in latitude, and a range of geographic features, including mountains and deserts. Generally, on the mainland, the climate of the U.S. becomes warmer the further south one travels, and drier the further west, until one reaches the West Coast.


title: Climate of the United States

text: West of 100°W, much of the U.S. has a cold semi-arid climate in the interior upper western states (Idaho to the Dakotas), to warm to hot desert and semi-arid climates in the southwestern U.S. East of 100°W, the climate is humid continental in northern areas (locations roughly above 40°N, Northern Plains, Midwest, Great Lakes, New England), transitioning into a humid temperate climate from the Southern Plains and lower Midwest east to the Middle Atlantic states (Virginia to southern Connecticut).


title: Climate of the United States

text: A humid subtropical climate is found along and south of a mostly east–west line from the Virginia/Maryland capes (north of the greater Norfolk, Virginia area), westward to approximately northern Oklahoma, north of the greater Oklahoma City area. Along the Atlantic seaboard, the humid subtropical climate zone extends southward into central Florida. A Mediterranean climate prevails along most of the California coast, while southern Florida has a tropical climate, the warmest region on the US mainland. Hawaii and the U.S. territories also have tropical climates.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Higher-elevation areas of the Rocky Mountains, the Wasatch Range, Sierra Nevada, and Cascade Range are alpine. Coastal areas of Oregon and Washington have an oceanic climate. The state of Alaska, on the northwestern corner of the North American continent, is largely dominated by a subarctic climate, but with a subpolar oceanic climate in the southeast (Alaska Panhandle), southwestern peninsula and Aleutian Islands, and a polar climate in the north.


title: Climate of the United States

text: The primary drivers of weather in the contiguous United States are the seasonal change in the solar angle, the migration north–south of the subtropical highs, and the seasonal change in the position of the polar jet stream.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In the Northern Hemisphere summer, the subtropical high pressure systems move northward and closer to the United States mainland. In the Atlantic Ocean, the Bermuda High creates a south-southwest flow of tropical air masses over the southeastern, south-central and central United States – resulting in warm to hot temperatures, high humidity and frequent intense (but usually brief) showers and/or thunderstorms as the heat builds in the afternoon. In the Northern Hemisphere summer, high pressure in the Pacific Ocean builds toward the California coast, resulting in a northwesterly airflow, creating the cool, dry, and stable weather conditions prevalent along the West Coast in summer.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In the Northern Hemisphere winter, the subtropical highs retreat southward. The polar jet stream (and associated conflict zone between cold, dry air masses from Canada and warm, moist air masses from the Gulf of Mexico) drops further southward into the United States – bringing more frequent periods of stormy weather, with rain, ice and snow, and much more variable temperatures, with rapid temperature rises and falls not uncommon. Areas in the southern U.S. (Florida, the Gulf Coast, the Desert Southwest, and southern California) however, often have more stable weather, as the polar jet stream's impact does not usually reach that far south.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Weather systems, be they high-pressure systems (anticyclones), low-pressure systems (cyclones) or fronts (boundaries between air masses of differing temperature, humidity and most commonly, both) are faster-moving and more intense in the winter/colder months than in the summer/warmer months, when the belt of lows and storms generally moves into southern Canada.


title: Climate of the United States

text: The Gulf of Alaska is the origination area of many storms that enter the United States. Such "North Pacific lows" enter the U.S. through the Pacific Northwest, then move eastward across the northern Rocky Mountains, northern Great Plains, upper Midwest, Great Lakes and New England states.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Across the central states from late fall to spring, "Panhandle hook" storms move from the central Rockies into the Oklahoma/Texas panhandle areas, then northeast toward the Great Lakes. They generate unusually large temperature contrasts, and often bring copious Gulf moisture northward, resulting sometimes in cold conditions and possibly-heavy snow or ice north and west of the storm track, and warm conditions, heavy rains and potentially-severe thunderstorms south and east of the storm track – often simultaneously.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Across the northern states in winter usually from Montana eastward, "Alberta clipper" storms track east and bring light to moderate snowfalls from Montana and the Dakotas across the upper Midwest and Great Lakes states to New England, and often, windy and severe Arctic outbreaks behind them. When winter-season Canadian cold air masses drop unusually far southward, "Gulf lows" can develop in or near the Gulf of Mexico, then track eastward or northeastward across the Southern states, or nearby Gulf or South Atlantic waters. They sometimes bring rain, but can bring snow or ice across the South, mostly in interior or northern areas.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In the cold season (generally November to March), most precipitation occurs in conjunction with organized low-pressure systems and associated fronts. In the summer, storms are much more localized, with short-duration thunderstorms common in many areas east of 100°W and south of 40°N.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In the warm season, storm systems affecting a large area are less frequent, and weather conditions are more solar {sun} controlled, with the greatest chance for thunderstorm and severe weather activity during peak heating hours, mostly between 3 PM and 9 PM local time. From May to August especially, often-overnight mesoscale-convective-system (MCS) thunderstorm complexes, usually associated with frontal activity, can deliver significant to flooding rainfall amounts from the Dakotas/Nebraska eastward across Iowa/Minnesota to the Great Lakes states.


title: Climate of the United States

text: From late summer into fall (mostly August to October), tropical cyclones (hurricanes, tropical storms and tropical depressions) sometimes approach or cross the Gulf and Atlantic states, bringing high winds, heavy rainfall, and storm surges (often topped with battering waves) to Gulf and Atlantic lowlands and coastal areas.


title: Climate of the United States

text: The Southwest has a hot desert climate, at lower elevations. Cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Yuma, and Palm Springs have average highs over 100 °F (38 °C) during the summer months and lows in the 70s or even 80s. In winter, daily temperatures in the southwest are cooler with highs in the 50s and 60s F, and lows in the 40s F.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In Phoenix, Las Vegas and similar Southwestern desert areas, on average June is the driest month, after Pacific-originating winter storms have concluded and before the Southwestern summer "monsoon" begins. The Southwest and the Great Basin are affected by said monsoon from the Gulf of California from July–September. This results in some increase in humidity and cloud cover, bringing higher nighttime low temperatures and localized thunderstorms to the region, which can result in flash flooding. Further eastward in the desert Southwest (Tucson, Arizona eastward toward El Paso, Texas), winter-season precipitation decreases, while the summer monsoon increasingly provides a summer precipitation maximum. For example, El Paso and Albuquerque, New Mexico have a pronounced July to September precipitation maximum. Still, drought has been frequent in the region, often lasting for periods of years or longer. Forest fires across the Western United States (especially the southwest) occur many years, and can be severe to extreme in especially hot, dry summer seasons.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Northern Arizona and New Mexico, central and northern Nevada and most of Utah (outside higher mountain areas) have a temperate semi-desert to desert climate, but with colder and snowier winters than in Phoenix and similar areas, and less-hot summers (as at Salt Lake City, Utah). Summer high temperatures often reach the 90s, but low temperatures drop into the low 60s and even 50s. As in other temperate desert climates, the dry air results in large differences (sometimes over 40 degrees) between daytime high and nighttime low temperatures. Precipitation, though scarce, often falls year-round, influenced both by summer thunderstorms brought by the Southwestern monsoon (primarily in southern areas), and by winter-season storms from the Pacific Ocean.


title: Climate of the United States

text: The coast of California has a Mediterranean climate. Daily high temperatures range from 70 to 80 °F (21 to 27 °C) in the summer to 50 to 65 °F (10 to 16 °C) in winter, with low temperatures from the 60 °F (16 °C)s in summer to the mid 40s F in winter. Like most Mediterranean climates, much of coastal California has a wet winter and dry summer. Early summers can often bring cool, overcast weather (fog and low stratus clouds) to coastal California. As such, the warmest summer weather is delayed until August, even September in many areas of the California coast; on average, September is the warmest month in San Francisco. Upwelling of cold Pacific waters also contributes to the frequent cool spring and early summer weather in coastal California. In California's inland river valleys (Bakersfield, Sacramento areas), the wet-winter, dry-summer pattern remains, but winters are cooler and more prone to occasional frost or freeze, while summers are much hotter, with blazing sunshine and daytime high temperatures not uncommonly in the 90s to over 100 °F (38 °C).


title: Climate of the United States

text: The Gulf and South Atlantic states have a humid subtropical climate with mostly mild winters and hot, humid summers. Most of the Florida peninsula including Tampa and Jacksonville, along with other coastal cities like Houston, New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston and Wilmington all have average summer highs from near 90 to the lower 90s F, and lows generally from 70 to 75 °F (21 to 24 °C); combined with moist tropical air, this creates the sultry summer weather conditions that prevail here.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In the interior South, in cities like Raleigh, Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville and Jackson, average summer highs and lows are similar to coastal areas, while some areas of interior eastern and central Texas (i.e. Dallas, Austin and San Antonio areas) have average daily highs in the mid to upper 90s F. In winter, average daily high temperatures range from the 40 °F (4 °C)s (upper South: northern Arkansas, Kentucky and Virginia), to the 60 °F (16 °C)s along the Gulf Coast and South Atlantic coast (Charleston southward), with 70 °F (21 °C)s in central Florida and far southern Texas. Average daily lows in winter range from 20 °F (−7 °C)s north to 40 °F (4 °C)s along the Gulf and far South Atlantic coasts, with 50 °F (10 °C)s in Florida and coastal south Texas, both regions bordering the tropical climate zone.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Much of the interior South (Tennessee, Kentucky and the northern Gulf states) has a winter or spring maximum in precipitation, with December, March or April typically the wettest month, and August to October the driest months – for example, at Birmingham, Huntsville, Tupelo and Memphis. From November to April, these areas commonly experience sharp conflicts between cold, dry air from Canada and warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. These air-mass clashes often bring heavy winter and spring precipitation to the Mid-South. Given the tropical air masses, summer-season thunderstorms can occur throughout the South, but they are heavier and more frequent along the Gulf Coast, South Atlantic coast (Norfolk, Virginia area southward), and in peninsular Florida. Along most of the Gulf coast (i.e. New Orleans, Mobile and Pensacola areas), and in South Atlantic coastal and sandhills areas (i.e. Columbia, Fayetteville, Raleigh, Wilmington, and Norfolk), July and August are usually the wettest months, and precipitation is fairly evenly distributed the rest of the year. Primarily from August to early October, the coastal Gulf and South Atlantic states are susceptible to being struck by tropical weather systems (tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes). Even in winter, most precipitation falls as rain. However, occasionally frozen precipitation (snow, sleet and/or freezing rain) can occur (more commonly in interior and northern areas) when southerly-tracking storms throw Gulf or Atlantic moisture over cold air at ground level.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Southern Florida has a tropical climate, with all months having a mean temperature of higher than 65 °F (18 °C), a wet season from May through October, and a dry season from November through April. In cities like Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Key West, Naples, and Palm Beach average daily highs range from the mid 70 °F (21 °C)s in winter to near 90 °F (32-33 °C) in summer. Average overnight lows range from the upper 50 °F (10 °C)s in winter to the mid and upper 70 °F (21 °C)s in summer. Southern Florida is the warmest region of the U.S. mainland in winter.


title: Climate of the United States

text: The region from the southern Plains, to the lower Midwest, eastward to the central East Coast (the New York City/coastal Connecticut region southward to Virginia) has a humid temperate climate, transitional between the humid continental and humid subtropical climate zones, becoming semi-arid in the western plains. This region has cool to cold winters and hot, humid summers. Daytime highs range from in summer to in winter. Lows range from the s in summer to in winter. Cities in this region include Louisville, Kentucky, Wichita, Kansas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Missouri, Springfield, Illinois, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia, New York City, New Haven, Connecticut, and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Precipitation is spread fairly evenly throughout the year, though as one travels from Indiana westward there is an increasingly prominent early-summer concentration, with a May maximum in northern Texas and Oklahoma, and a June maximum increasingly evident from (central/northern) Indiana westward to Kansas. As one travels from east to west across Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, average annual precipitation steadily decreases. Far western Texas (El Paso area) is desert, and average annual precipitation is less than in westernmost Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle, where the climate qualifies as semi-arid.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In the lower Midwest (and southern Plains states, especially), temperatures can rise or drop rapidly; winds can be extreme; and clashing air masses, including hot, dry air of Mexican and/or Southwestern origin, warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cold, dry air from Canada can spawn severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, particularly from April to June. The "dryline", separating hot, dry air of Mexican/Southwestern U.S. origin from warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, often causes severe, occasionally violent, thunderstorms to fire in central and eastern Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas; these sometimes contribute toward the hailstorms and tornado outbreaks that the Southern Plains are well known for. Reflecting these air-mass conflicts, central Oklahoma, including the Oklahoma City and Moore–Norman areas, has the highest frequency of tornadoes per unit land area on planet Earth, with May the highest-risk month for tornadoes throughout "Tornado Alley", from northern Texas north-northeastward toward western and central Iowa.


title: Climate of the United States

text: The northern half of the Great Plains (Nebraska northward), Midwest, Great Lakes, and New England states have a variety of humid continental climates, and the western plains have a semi-arid climate. Here there are four distinct seasons, with warm to hot summers, and cold and often-snowy winters. Average daily high temperatures range from 10 °F (−12 °C)s (in North Dakota, and central and northern Minnesota) to 30 °F (−1 °C)s in winter to 70 to 80 °F (21 to 27 °C)s in summer, while overnight lows range from below 0 °F (−18 °C) in winter (in North Dakota and much of Minnesota) to 50 to 60 °F (10 to 16 °C)s in summer. In the New England states, precipitation is evenly distributed around the year, with a slight late fall-early winter (November–December) maximum along the New England coast from Boston northward due to intense early-winter storms. In the Great Lakes states, cold Arctic air in winter crossing the relatively warmer lake waters can result in frequent and sometimes very heavy lake-effect snow, especially on the eastern and southern shores of the Great Lakes (for example, in western Michigan's Lower Peninsula and in the Buffalo, New York area). Cities in this area include Minneapolis, Omaha, Sioux Falls, Fargo, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany, Boston, Concord and Augusta. As one travels from east to west across Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota, average annual precipitation steadily decreases, and the westernmost counties of these states have a semi-arid climate, with about or just over 15 inches of precipitation per year, on average (see climate data for Williston, North Dakota, Rapid City, South Dakota and Scottsbluff, Nebraska).


title: Climate of the United States

text: In the upper Midwest and northern Plains states, temperatures may rise or fall rapidly, and winds (from warm-season thunderstorms or larger-scale low-pressure systems) can be strong to extreme. Here, air-mass conflicts primarily involve warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, clashing with cool to cold, dry air from Canada, with only occasional intrusions of hot, dry air from the southwest. The conflicts between Canadian and Gulf air commonly produce severe thunderstorms (including hailstorms, especially on the western Plains) and tornadoes, particularly in May and June. In the northern Plains and North Central states generally, June is the year's wettest month on average, owing to maximum shower and thunderstorm activity. Also, June is the highest-risk month for severe weather throughout North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and northern Illinois.


title: Climate of the United States

text: The Pacific Northwest has an oceanic climate. The climate is wet and cool in autumn, winter, and spring, and stable and dry in the summer months, especially July and August. On average, the wettest month is typically November or December; the driest, July. In the summer months, average highs in cities like Seattle and Portland are from 70 to 75 °F (21 to 26 °C) with lows from 50 to 59 °F (10 to 15 °C), while in winter daily highs are from 40 to 45 °F (4 to 9 °C) and overnight lows from 30 to 38 °F (−1 to 4 °C).


title: Climate of the United States

text: In winter, the Pacific Northwest (especially coastal districts and other areas west, i.e. on the prevailing windward side, of the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges), experiences a mostly overcast, wet and cool climate, but without severe cold like that found in the interior northern U.S. (i.e. Minnesota/North Dakota). At lower elevations, winter precipitation falls mostly as rain. However, snow does occur even at the lowest elevations, primarily when Pacific moisture interacts with cold air intruding into the Pacific Northwest from western Canada (i.e. Alberta and interior British Columbia). Summers in the Pacific Northwest are generally cool, especially along the coastline. The Great Basin and Columbia Plateau (the Intermontane Plateaus) are arid or semiarid regions, with high summer temperatures in the 90s to occasionally over 100 at lower elevations (e.g. at Boise, Idaho), with annual precipitation averaging less than 15 inches (380 mm) as a result of the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada and Cascades. Both coastal and interior areas of Oregon and Washington, and southern Idaho, have a wet-winter, dry-summer precipitation pattern, but traveling eastward into Montana and Wyoming, this transitions progressively (for example, at Missoula, Montana) toward relatively drier winters and a May and eventually June precipitation maximum, the latter characteristic of the Northern Plains and much of the upper Midwest (i.e. both Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota).


title: Climate of the United States

text: The climate in Juneau and the southeast panhandle is a mid-latitude oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb). The climate in the extreme north of Alaska is what would be expected for an area north of the Arctic Circle — it is an Arctic climate (Köppen ET) with long, very cold winters and short, cool summers. Akclimate.org says the following: "The altitude above sea level influences the climate of a given area [in Alaska]. Lower elevations in interior Alaska, such as the Yukon Flats and the Tanana Valley experience extreme cold in the winter as well as high summertime temperatures."


title: Climate of the United States

text: Hawaii has 11 different climate zones, influenced by altitude and topographical effect on wind and rainfall. These include tropical at sea level, arid, semi-arid, temperate, and alpine at the highest elevations. Snow sometimes occurs in high mountain areas.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Puerto Rico has different climatic zones, all tropical. The northeastern part of the territory is very wet, with a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen "Af)." This supports rainforests like El Yunque. The southern part is drier, mostly a savanna climate (Köppen "Aw)" with small locations on the southern coast dry enough to have a hot-semi arid climate (Koppen "BSh)."


title: Climate of the United States

text: The U.S. Virgin Islands have a tropical savanna climate, with warm, dry winters, and rainy summers (Köppen "Aw"), typical of the Caribbean. The wet season is from May to October.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico are the areas of the U.S. most vulnerable to climate change.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands both have a trade-wind tropical rainforest climate (Köppen "Af)." The dry season is from January to May, and the wet season from July to November.


title: Climate of the United States

text: American Samoa is south of the equator, and therefore its wet/dry seasons are reversed. The wet season is from December–March, and the dry season is from April–September. Rainmaker Mountain on Tutuila traps trade-wind rainclouds, leading to very high rainfall and a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen "Af)."


title: Climate of the United States

text: Precipitation (whether by annual amount, annual distribution or characteristic[s]) varies significantly across the United States and its possessions. Late summer and fall extratropical cyclones bring a majority of the precipitation which falls across western, southern, and southeast Alaska annually. During the fall, winter, and spring, Pacific storm systems bring most of Hawaii and the western United States much of their precipitation. Most of Florida has a subtropical monsoon rainfall pattern (wet summer and dry winter).


title: Climate of the United States

text: In the central and upper eastern United States, precipitation is evenly distributed throughout the year, although summer rainfall increases as one moves southeastward. Lake-effect snows add to precipitation potential downwind of the Great Lakes, as well as Great Salt Lake and the Finger Lakes during the cold season. The average snow to liquid ratio across the contiguous United States is 13:1, meaning of snow melts down to of water. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation affects the precipitation distribution, by altering rainfall patterns across the West, Midwest, the Southeast, and throughout the tropics.


title: Climate of the United States

text: During the summer, the Southwest monsoon combined with Gulf of California and Gulf of Mexico moisture moving around the subtropical ridge in the Atlantic Ocean bring the promise of afternoon and evening thunderstorms to the southern tier of the country as well as the Great Plains. Equatorward of the subtropical ridge, tropical cyclones enhance precipitation (mostly from August to October) across southern and eastern sections of the country, as well as Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. Over the top of the ridge, the jet stream brings a summer precipitation maximum to the Great Lakes. Large thunderstorm areas known as mesoscale convective complexes move through the Plains, Midwest, and Great Lakes during the warm season, contributing up to 10% of the annual precipitation to the region.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In northern Alaska, tundra and arctic conditions predominate, and the temperature has fallen as low as . On the other end of the spectrum, Death Valley, California once reached , officially the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.


title: Climate of the United States

text: On average, the mountains of the western states receive the highest levels of snowfall on Earth. The greatest annual snowfall level is at Mount Rainier in Washington, at ; the record there was in the winter of 1971–72. This record was broken by the Mt. Baker Ski Area in northwestern Washington which reported of snowfall for the 1998–99 snowfall season. Other places with significant snowfall outside the Cascade Range are the Wasatch Range, near the Great Salt Lake and the Sierra Nevada, near Lake Tahoe.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Along the coastal mountain ranges in the Pacific Northwest, rainfall is greater than anywhere else in the continental U.S., with Quinault Ranger Station in Washington having an average of . Hawaii receives even more, with measured annually, on average, at the Big Bog, in Maui. Pago Pago Harbor in American Samoa is the rainiest harbor in the world (because of the 523 meter Rainmaker Mountain). The Sonoran Desert in the southwest is home to the driest locale in the US. Yuma, Arizona, has an average of of precipitation each year.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Because of contrasting air masses, the Great Plains, the Midwest, and the southern United States have frequent severe thunderstorms and tornado outbreaks during both the spring and the summer. In central portions of the U.S., tornadoes are more common than anywhere else in the world. They usually can touch down during the spring and the summer. The strip of land from north Texas north to Nebraska and east into Southern Michigan is known as Tornado Alley, where many houses have tornado shelters and where many towns have tornado sirens. Stretching across Mississippi and Alabama, Dixie Alley has experienced both tornadoes and violent thunderstorms, with peak tornado season coming on as early as February and waning by May. Florida also reports many tornadoes, but these rarely are very strong. The southern US has a second tornado season during the autumn. Generally, the area at greatest risk for tornadoes migrates northward from February to June, peaking in the Gulf States in February and March, the Ohio Valley and lower Midwest in April, southern and central Plains and central Midwest in May, and Northern Plains and upper Midwest (Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) in June. Eastern and Gulf Coastal states suffer from frequent Hurricanes and tropical storms from late summer into autumn.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Both the Appalachian region and the Midwest experience the worst floods. Widespread severe flooding is rare. Some exceptions include the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the Great Flood of 1993, and widespread flooding and mudslides caused by the 1982–83 El Niño event in the western United States. Localized flooding can, however, occur anywhere. Mudslides from heavy rain can even cause problems in any mountainous areas, particularly in the Southwest. The narrow canyons of many mountain areas in the west and severe thunderstorm activity during the monsoon season in summer leads to sometimes devastating flash floods as well. On the other hand, Nor'easter snowstorms can bring activity to a halt in both the New England and Great Lakes regions.


title: Climate of the United States

text: The Southwest has the worst droughts; one is thought to have lasted over 500 years and to have decimated the Anasazi people. Large stretches of desert shrub in the west can fuel the spreads of wildfires. Although severe drought is rare, it has occasionally caused some major problems, such as those during the Dust Bowl (1931–1942), which coincided with the Great Depression. Farmland failed throughout the Plains, entire regions were virtually depopulated, and dust storms ravaged the land. More recently, the western US experienced widespread drought from 1999 to 2004.


title: Climate of the United States

text: In terms of deaths from heat waves, 7,415 losses occurred between 1999 and 2010, a mean of 618 per year. A disproportionate number of men, a full 68% of deaths, versus women have been affected. The highest yearly total of heat-related deaths during that time frame was in 1999. The lowest was in 2004. In terms of deaths caused by cold waves, the same gender inequality exists; 66% of hypothermia-related deaths in 2002 were of males. From 1979 to 2002, 16,555 deaths occurred due to exposure to excessive cold temperatures, a mean of 689 per year.


title: Climate of the United States

text: Approximately 43 people die by lightning strike each year in the United States, and 90 percent of those struck will survive. Americans have a one in 15,300 chance of being struck by lightning in their lifetime.


title: Nadia Ali (actress)

text: Onai Malik (born Onaza Malik; ), known professionally as Nadia Ali, is a Pakistani-born American former pornographic actress, who worked as an adult actress from 2015 to 2016.


title: Nadia Ali (actress)

text: Ali was born in Pakistan in 1991 or 1992 as Onaza Malik. She emigrated to the United States as a child and was raised in New Jersey. She now uses the name Onai Malik. She felt isolated by her family's conservatism although she did not wear a hijab. She was raised as a Muslim and in an interview in July 2016 with "Refinery29", she stated that still identified herself as a practicing Muslim. She prays two to three times a day, and said "I kind of have an internal conflict sometimes. One of the biggest main sins it’s hard to be forgiven for is adultery — having sex without marriage is a sin and doing it multiple times a day as an escort is one of the major sins that you will not be forgiven for, and I am fully aware of that, but yeah, I still pray."


title: Nadia Ali (actress)

text: In 2013, 21-year-old Ali was working as an eyebrow threader in San Francisco when a friend recommended that she accompany her as a stripper; she made $500 that night and worked as a dancer and escort in 2014.


title: Nadia Ali (actress)

text: She was encouraged to wear a hijab in pornography due to sexual taboo and to increase her opportunities. One of her films, titled "Women of the Middle East", involves a domestic violence scene followed by a sex scene, when the man becomes aroused. Its advertising blurb reads: "They may look suppressed, but given an opportunity to express themselves freely, their wild, untamable natural sexuality is released." She blames culture, rather than religion, for patriarchy in Pakistan and has said she wanted to make solo and lesbian scenes to "show the world that Middle Eastern girls of Pakistani descent really do get horny." She has said that she has been "banned" from Pakistan for performing in pornography in a hijab, and also has received online death-threats for performing.


title: Nadia Ali (actress)

text: In 2016, she left the pornographic industry after making twenty scenes, when her mother discovered she was doing porn and became depressed. She also stated that she found the idea of her 21st film, of a man resembling Donald Trump having sex with a Muslim woman, to be degrading. Her bookings to perform in Florida after the 2016 Pulse Orlando shooting were canceled for fear of backlash.


title: Nadia Ali (actress)

text: Ali now works as a cosmetologist. In July 2018, she opened her beauty bar, "Onai Here 2 Slay", in Los Angeles, California.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Post is the second studio album by Icelandic singer Björk. It was released on 7 June 1995 by One Little Indian Records. Continuing the style developed on her first album "Debut" (1993), Bjork conceived "Post" as a bolder and more extroverted set of songs than its precedessor, featuring an eclectic mixture of electronic and dance styles such as techno, trip hop, IDM, and house, but also ambient, jazz, industrial, and experimental music. Björk produced "Post" herself with co-producers including Nellee Hooper, 808 State's Graham Massey, and former Massive Attack member Tricky. She wrote most of the songs after moving to London, and intended the album to reflect her new life in the city.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: The album reached number one in Iceland, number two in the United Kingdom and number 32 in the United States. It was certified gold in New Zealand and Sweden, and platinum in Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK. Six singles were released: "Army of Me", "Isobel", "It's Oh So Quiet", "Hyperballad", "Possibly Maybe", and "I Miss You", with three reaching the UK top 10. Their accompanying music videos were noted for their surrealism, themes of nature and technology, and artistic development of the medium. A remix album titled "Telegram" was released in 1996.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: During the album's commercial peak, Björk was affected by media attention and "Post"'s promotional tour. She survived a murder attempt, and caused controversy by assaulting a reporter. Björk would relocate to Spain away from the press and produce her next album, "Homogenic" (1997). Considered an important exponent of art pop, "Post" has been praised by critics for its ambition and timelessness. It was named one of the greatest albums of 1995 by numerous publications, and has since been named one of the greatest albums of all time by publications including "Entertainment Weekly" and "Rolling Stone."


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Björk released her previous studio album "Debut" in 1993. At that time, she had moved to London. The production of "Debut" was "long and laborious", as Björk sought to fully realise her compositional ideas from the past. After its release, she was free to concentrate on her present life for new musical clues for her following album. She contacted producer Nellee Hooper who had worked with her on her previous album. He refused initially, encouraging her to produce the album herself, but agreed when she insisted. However, Björk agreed to co-produce along with other enlisted producers; "to make it stay fresh, she had to think about other people being involved". With Hooper's confirmation, Björk commenced work on the album in late 1994 at the Compass Point Studios in Nassau. The picturesque locale inspired Björk to meld the recording process with the exotic natural environment. Biographer Mark Pytlik writes: "The tales surrounding these recording sessions are appropriately evocative". For example, "Rolling Stone" wrote that for her vocals: "Björk extended her mic cord to a beach so she could sing to the sea". Additionally, the first version of "Cover Me" was recorded entirely from a nearby cave.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: For this record, Björk incorporated shelved songs she wrote in Manchester with 808 State's Graham Massey, which had preceded the recording sessions for "Debut". These included "Army of Me" and "The Modern Things", which had become live staples over the summer, and did not need to undergo extensive transformations at Compass Point. Björk explained her decision to include "Army of Me" in "Post" rather than "Debut": "I was gonna make it as a part of "Debut" but for me [that album] was a more gentle energy and "Post" was more raw, more brutal. And maybe you can say that "Debut"was London but "Post" was more a little bit Manchester, a little bit Scotland, a little bit Bristol. So it was not so sleek. At that time, anything that came from London was a little bit sleek, and people from Scotland and Manchester and Bristol looked down at all things sleek, they wanted things to be raw. When I use the word 'sleek' I actually don't use it as a bad word, I think it worked really well on "Debut", to kinda glue everything together. But I think on "Post" I was like: 'okay, I've put aside this raw energy, now I want to bring it in." Massey stated: "With 'Army of Me' we wanted to try something that was quite hard and techno-y. I'm not sure how she wrote those lyrics so fast but I remember that song being almost instantaneous. [...] We kind of knocked that off in one day and then started on 'The Modern Things' the same day and finished that the next".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Although the album was supposed to be delivered the day after she returned from the Bahamas, Björk felt it was not yet complete and decided to continue its production back in London. She enlisted a new team of engineers and programmers, and spent the next months "tweaking, rearranging, and sometimes completely rerecording her pre-existing tracks". Ultimately, it was the inclusion of more "real" instruments that "resuscitated "Post" for Björk". Björk continued to compose songs such as "Isobel", which was created while she was visiting Reykjavík for Christmas, before bringing it back to Hooper's studio. The song's lyrics were written in collaboration with Icelandic poet Sjón, which was his first songwriting experience. Sjón would become a frequent collaborator throughout Björk's career. She also enlisted trip hop artist Tricky to assist in producing the album, on the condition that he would work on two tracks on her album and she would contribute two vocals for his album. Their collaboration resulted in the "Post" songs "Enjoy" and "Headphones"—in addition to "Keep Your Mouth Shut" and "Yoga", which appeared on Tricky's 1996 studio album, "Nearly God".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: The track that underwent the most extensive change was "I Miss You", an old song from the "Debut" era. Howie Bernstein gave the song its "Latin-tinged [rhythm]". Back in London, Björk contacted "old standby" Talvin Singh to record additional percussion parts for it. Fellow former Sugarcubes member Einar Örn Benediktsson was also contacted to play the trumpet on "Enjoy". English sessionist Gary Barnacle was enlisted to play the saxophone. Although he had not been involved in music for a long time, Brazilian composer Eumir Deodato immediately agreed to participate on the album at Björk's request. Björk decided to contact him after being impressed by his arrangements of a rare Milton Nascimento song called "Travessia". Deodato's presence as composer and conductor "immediately bolstered" "Hyperballad", "You've Been Flirting Again" and "Isobel". This addition of strings, brass and percussion elements gave "Post" the balance Björk felt her original recordings had lacked. "It's Oh So Quiet" was the last track to be recorded. By the time the album was finished in April 1995, the list of co-producers included Björk, Hooper, Bernstein, Massey, and Tricky. Björk has said: "The people I collaborated with were all people I was hanging out with in clubs in London. I had known them all for a while before we ended up working together."


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Björk's website described "Post" as "a bit of a bolder side of [Björk], who now had ventured all the way from Iceland to England, and was exploring the faster pace and big city life that this new country brought. This album became influenced of that and became more adventurous and club-friendly as a contrast to the shy first album, "Debut."" Likewise, "The Guardian" wrote in 2011 that ""Post" tapped into the vortex of multicultural energy that was mid-90s London where she had relocated, and where strange hybrids such as jungle and trip-hop were bubbling". Noted for its eclectic nature, Björk described "Post" as "musically promiscuous" and "spastic". Peter Tabakis of "Pretty Much Amazing" said that it has a protean form and "wide emotional palette". While the album is recognised as an experimental work, it is also characterised by its accessibility and pop framework. "Post" has been described as art pop, experimental pop, and avant-pop.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Post" touches on various musical styles, including industrial music, big-band jazz, trip hop, chillout, and experimental music. Jim Farber, reviewing the album in 1995 for "Entertainment Weekly", considered "Post" to be a "connecting point between industrial-disco, ambient-trance, and catchy synth pop". When asked if this variety of genres was intentional, Björk replied: "Yes, I'm very aware of that. I've got very many sides to me." She recognises "Post" as darker and more aggressive than "Debut", and has identified independence, strength, and instinct as its lyrical themes. The balance between synthetic and organic elements in the album—generated through the combination of electronic and "real" instruments—is a recurring characteristic of Björk's output. In 1999, "Vibe" stated: "Fusing techno, industrial, ambient, punk, and the rarefied yet tuneful spheres of art rock, Björk explores a jungle of tones, supported by her eternally buoyant voice from Mars." Part of the album's innovation was Björk's further embrace of electronic instrumentation, an interest established on "Debut". While IDM and trip hop influences were present on "Debut", "Post" is characterised by Björk's fuller incorporation of these genres.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: The "Rolling Stone" review stated that Björk "[foraged] for inspiration in the soundscapes of orchestral jazz, ambient techno and classical". Influences of jazz fusion were also noted by a contemporary review by "The New York Times". In 1996, when asked about the album's musical influences, Björk stated: "I'm influenced by everything. By books, by the weather, by the water, by my shoes, if they're comfortable or not. Everything."


title: Post (Björk album)

text: The album opens with "Army of Me", an aggressive song with industrial rock, and trip hop influences. It incorporates a looped drum sample of Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks". Dedicated to Björk's younger brother, the song's lyrics are, according to Björk herself, "about telling someone who is full of self-pity and doesn't have anything together to get a life and stand up"; as she sings: "And if you complain once more/You'll meet an army of me!" "Hyperballad", which incorporates a spectrum of electronic and orchestral styles, has been described as "a love song penned by Aphex Twin". "NME" wrote that its music "altered from gentle folktronica to drum and bass-tinted acid house"; an attempt to reflect the song's lyrics, which are about "the art of not forgetting about yourself". In them, Björk describes living at the top of a mountain and going to a cliff at sunrise. She throws objects off the cliff while pondering her own suicide. The ritual allows her to exorcise darker thoughts and return to her partner. The track is followed by "The Modern Things", a song that, in a magical realist tone, "playfully posits the theory that technology has always existed, waiting in mountains for humans to catch up". "Interview" described it in 1995 as a "spooky tune", noting "the odd scratchings at the end" of the track. In a startling shift in style, the big band track "It's Oh So Quiet" covers a German composition made famous by Betty Hutton. It has been described as "a palate-cleanser during the course of the record". Björk included the song "just to make it absolutely certain that the album would be as schizophrenic as possible, that every song would be a shock".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: The following track, "Enjoy", a song concerning the links between sex and fear, has been considered "decidedly trippy", and ""Post"s most abrasive track". "NME" described it in its 1995 review as, "a dark and deranged techno thing". Over military drums and "squalls of noise", Björk sings about "her hedonistic tendencies". The orchestral interlude "You've Been Flirting Again", like the previous track "Enjoy", features "mysterious or open-ended lyrics". They are an attempt to describe the ambiguous nature of flirting. "Isobel" is a string-laden, orchestral trip hop song, Craig McLean of "The Face" called the track "Broadway on breakbeats". Conceived by Björk as "part autobiography part storytelling", its lyrics concern Isobel, a woman magically born in a forest who finds people in the city "a bit too clever for her", eventually retreating back to nature and sending them a message of instinct through trained moths. Inspired by South American literature—particularly Gabriel García Márquez—the track's lyrics discuss "the duality between reason and emotions, between intuition and intellect"; in Björk's words, "asking how 20th century civilisation clashes with nature and, in places like Iceland and Thailand, people really believe they can have a TV remote control in one hand and a ghost sitting beside them".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Possibly Maybe" is an ambient dub track that fuses trip-hop and chill-out music. Björk has said that it was the first unhappy song she wrote, stating in 1997: "That was very hard for me. [...] I was ashamed writing a song that was not giving hope". Its lyrics document the various stages of Björk's ill-fated relationship with Stéphane Sednaoui. With the track, De Vries "create[d] a vinyl-crackling ambience, full of glissando strings and leaden, muted bass. The slide guitar heard in the background of the song was originally intended to be its focal point, as Björk initially strived for an "ambient country" sound inspired by Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game". "I Miss You" was described in 1997 as an "amalgam of styles, with electronic drums melding into African bongos mixed with jazzy horn playing". A house music number, its "horn-infused Afro-Cuban strains [...] reflect the romantic whimsy of [its] lyrics". Björk wrote "Cover Me", one of the quieter moments on the album, to her co-producer Nellee Hooper after he agreed to participate in the making of "Post". She has said: "I guess I was trying to make fun of myself, how dangerous I manage sometimes to make album making. And trying to lure him into it. But it is also thing from me to him". The album ends with the experimental "Headphones", an ambient track. Featuring "just-for-headphones studio tricks", it has been described as "a chiming, somnolent dip into Björk's heavy-lidded pre-dream state". Its lyrics were written as a thank you to Graham Massey, who would make compilation cassettes for Björk. She also stated: "But, of course, it is also a love letter to sound. The sound of sound. Resonances, frequencies, silences and such... a music-worship thing".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Björk chose the title "Post" for two reasons. Firstly, it refers to the fact that all the songs on the album were written after her move to England, while the songs on "Debut" were songs she had written during the previous ten years of her life in Iceland. In a 1996 interview, Björk said: "I always knew it would be two albums and that's why I called them "Debut" and "Post". Before and after". Secondly, the title was inspired by Björk's desire to communicate with friends and family back in Iceland, giving "Post" the additional meaning of "mail".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: The album cover was photographed by Stephane Sednaoui. It shows Björk standing in a London street, her pale skin and dark hair contrasting with the vivid colours of the Japanese-inspired signs behind her. Designer Paul White of Me Company—who had been a frequent collaborator since the Sugarcubes—"surrounded her with giant postcards to represent communication with friends and family". Björk also said that "my musical heart was scattered at the time and I wanted the [cover] to show that". Me Company designed the artwork, while Martin Gardiner modeled the lotus flower used in the album's booklet and packaging. The jacket Björk wears, shown on the cover, was inspired by Royal Mail airmail envelopes, referencing the album's title. It was specially crafted from envelope paper called Tyvek by designer Hussein Chalayan. The jacket is displayed under glass at Hard Rock Reykjavík, and was part of a 2015 MoMA retrospective on Björk, "Björk". "Vice" has identified the airmail jacket look as one of the "ultimate fashion moments" of Björk's career.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: A shot of Björk surrounded by silver balls was planned as the cover, but it was scrapped in favour of something "more poppy". The photo would later appear in a 1995 article for "The Face".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Post" was released on 7 June 1995, as a 12" record, CD, and compact cassette. It was issued on One Little Indian Records in the United Kingdom and Elektra Records in the United States and Canada; Polydor Records issued "Post" in Australia and Japan, also releasing the European edition of the album. In September 1995, Björk and poet Sjón released "Post", a paperback book meant to be a "pictorial and verbal record of the making of that album". It contained interviews with Björk and also focused on the European leg of the tour. The Post Tour was her first proper North American tour as a solo artist, with Aphex Twin as her opening act. While in the United States, she also appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman"; this tour "helped maintain "Post"s momentum and keep Björk in the public eye", since airings of "Army of Me" and "Isobel" had been relegated primarily to after-hours alternative music shows in MTV. In the United Kingdom, Björk also performed on "Top of the Pops" on several occasions. In 1996, Björk took part in Arnold Schoenberg's "Pierrot lunaire", conducted by Kent Nagano and the Opera orchestra of Lyon. In addition, Björk also appeared in several music magazines.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: In November 1996, Björk released the "often-delayed" remix project "Telegram", which contained reworkings of several songs from "Post", with her voice re-recorded. "Telegram" has been described as "effectively a completely new album". Author Mark Pytlik writes, "Promises of a "Post" remix album had been circulating since the release of "Army of Me" in April 1995. To compensate, Björk announced the release of a string of 12″ remixes beginning in June, limited to only 1,000 copies each. Producers and musicians featured on "Telegram" include: Dillinja, Eumir Deodato, LFO, and Graham Massey, among others; Björk only remixed "You've Been Flirting Again" herself. The album also contains a new composition, "My Spine", a collaboration with British percussionist Evelyn Glennie. "Telegram" spent five weeks on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, peaking at number 66. In the UK, it peaked at number 59, spending two weeks on the albums chart.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: In 2005, the UNICEF charity record "" was released; it is a collection of seventeen eclectic remixes of "Army of Me". All profits went directly to the charity, to assist the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. "Live at Shepherds Bush Empire" was released as a VHS in November 1998, containing the last performance of the Post Tour, which took place at Shepherd's Bush Empire in February 1997. "Post Live", a live album consisting of songs recorded during the Post Tour, was included in the 2003 box set "Live Box". The 2002 box set "Family Tree" includes demos and alternate versions of various tracks off the album. "Post" has been reissued several times, adapting to different formats such as colored records, 180g vinyl, and DualDisc. A remastered version of the album in surround sound was included in the box set "Surrounded", which was released in 2006 on Elektra Records. In 2012, Universal Japan issued a limited edition of "Debut" and "Post" together as one compilation . All of "Post"s music videos were included on the 1998 video release "Volumen", and its 2002 reissue "Volumen Plus". They also appear on "Greatest Hits – Volumen 1993–2003", a release that includes the videos featured on "Volumen" and "Volumen Plus". They are also featured on video compilations of its directors, including "" and "", all of them from 2003.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Army of Me" was released as the lead single from "Post" on 24 April 1995, shortly after the album's production concluded. It was released in the United Kingdom as two different CD releases, with "Cover Me", "You've Been Flirting Again", "Sweet Intuition", and various remixes as its B-sides. A commercial success, it peaked atop the Íslenski Listinn Topp 40, as well as at numbers five and ten in Finland and the United Kingdom, respectively. In the United States, it peaked at number 21 on the Alternative Airplay chart. Michel Gondry directed the video for "Army of Me", which takes place in a cyberpunk environment. In the video, Björk is seen driving a massive truck, which has been described as "alternately [looking] like an overgrown SUV and a science fiction tank" as she quests to rescue her loved one from an art museum.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Isobel" was released as the second single on 7 August, with B-sides "Charlene", "I Go Humble", "Venus as a Boy", and several remixes. Although the record company was against the idea of releasing "Isobel", Björk insisted because she "felt intuitively that this was the right choice". However, "Isobel" did not replicate the success of "Army of Me", peaking at number two in Iceland and number 23 in the UK. The music video for "Isobel", directed by Gondry "Isobel" represents the story of the title character Björk envisioned with Sjón. It tells the story of "a wild child discovering urban culture through installations of toy fighter planes", over lush superimposed imagery. Like in the lyrics, where Björk takes the role of narrator and protagonist, she plays two different parts in the music video: Björk is seen as the Isobel who "weaves and composes this world and this story on her organ", and as the Isobel who inhabits this primal world.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "It's Oh So Quiet" was released as the third single on 13 November. Its B-sides included "You've Been Flirting Again", "Hyperballad", "Sweet Sweet Intuition" (a rework of "Sweet Intuition"), and "My Spine". The music video for "It's Oh So Quiet" became one of the most played clips on MTV, and the song became Björk's most successful single, peaking at number one in Iceland and within the top ten in Australia, Finland, Ireland, Scotland and the UK, while peaking at number nine on the US "Billboard" Hot 100's extension Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart. The single was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipments of 400,000 units in the UK. Spike Jonze directed the music video for "It's Oh So Quiet", a homage to Hollywood's Technicolor musicals that drew inspiration from Busby Berkeley and Jacques Demy's "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg". Like Demy, Jonze "mines the magical from the mundane," as he transforms a drab auto shop into the location where Björk dances and sings with a full dance company, an attempt to reflect the "exuberance" of her vocal performance.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Hyperballad" was released as the fourth single on 12 February 1996. The single—consisting of two separate CDs—also included remixes of the song, "Isobel" and "Cover Me". Some regions also included a double A-side single with the song "Enjoy", although it only received a number of promo remixes. It peaked at number eight on the UK Singles Chart and atop the US Dance Club Songs. The music video for "Hyperballad", also directed by Gondry, has been described as "a techno-dream visual story full of flashing lights, buzzing static, and holograms." It shows Björk as "a character running through a landscape that simulates that of a computer game, only to throw herself off a cliff." The clip is an attempt to reflect the song's story, so Gondry depicted Björk lying down as a dead body, with a holographic image of her singing superimposed on her.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Possibly Maybe" was released as the fifth single on 28 October via several 12-inch records and three different CD releases. A limited-edition 12-inch double A-side with remixes of "Possibly Maybe" and "Enjoy" (by Mark Bell and Dom T., respectively) was also released. "Possibly Maybe" peaked at number 13 on the UK Singles Chart. Sednaoui directed the music video for "Possibly Maybe", despite the song being about his failed relationship with Björk. Björk and Sednaoui had previously worked together in the music video for "Big Time Sensuality". In the clip, she appears "as a goddess, floating out from a numinous light-streaked background." Sednaoui is known for having a particularly filmic technique for each of his clips; in "Possibly Maybe", the use of blacklighting "makes Björk glow sensuously and perversely". It was conceived in a theatrical way: nearly all of the scenes were filmed in the same space, which is transformed with changes in the "mise-en-scène". The style of "Possibly Maybe"'s scenery and Björk's wardrobe reference East Asian imagery, and a Japanese traditional doll is featured as Björk's only accompaniment; as a silent witness, it is the object on which the protagonist casts reflections on her own identity. Regarding the video, Sednaoui said: "Her song and my video were a way of saying things to each other that we couldn't say otherwise."


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "I Miss You" was released as the sixth and final single on 17 February 1997. Although it became Björk's third US Dance Club Songs number-one single, it was the least successful single from "Post" in Europe, as it peaked only at number 36 on the UK Singles Chart. The animation of its music video was produced by John Kricfalusi and directed by Erik Weiss. It was promptly censored on MTV because of its nudity and violence towards the end.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Upon its release, "Post" received universal acclaim from music critics. Lorraine Ali of "Rolling Stone" praised the album for differentiating from the alternative rock offerings of the early 1990s, and for successfully merging disparate styles. She concluded: "When "Post" comes to an end, it feels like getting back from a good vacation: the last thing you want to do is re-enter the real world". Writing for "Entertainment Weekly", Jim Farber stated that despite "Post"s "bizarre" combination of diverse genres, the conviction of Björk's delivery and assuring hooks "[made] her most surreal passages as relatable as moon-June standards". He felt that Björk "[reinvented] that tradition, constructing standards for the cyber age".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Joy Press, who reviewed the album for "The New York Times", praised the album for not being a "play-safe sequel" to "Debut", pointing out that Björk, "[had] followed her most wonderfully wayward impulses". "Los Angeles Times" critic Richard Cromelin felt that "Post" was "an often heady mix of trendiness and nostalgia" that was capable of transcending Björk's self-consciousness. Greg Kot of the "Chicago Tribune" found the album's backing tracks to be "even more varied and unusual" than on "Debut", describing Björk as "an extra-terrestrial voice rummaging around in a sonic toybox". "Spin"s Barry Walters felt the album was an improvement over its predecessor, stating its songs were "stronger, more developed, and less reliant on Björk's wide-eyed delivery". He concluded that: "After years of (no) alternative fascist grunge domination, it's heartening that Björk and producer-co-songwriter Nellee Hooper stayed true to themselves and created another highly personal album that has a chance of interrupting the airwave flow of whiny rockers with little imagination".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Writing for MTV Online, Lou Stathis wrote that, "[it's mostly] Björk's wacky, mind-altered perspective that makes "Post" modern pop music at once both baffling and engaging". He believed that the album was a rewarding experience for both the casual consumer, as well as the serious listener, also pointing out that, "it not only sounds good while you're listening to it, but it leaves you feeling good when it's over, too". Robert Christgau, reviewing the album for "The Village Voice", was less enthusiastic. He found that the album's "eccentric instrumentation" and "electronic timbres" failed to compensate for its lack of "groove" and was unmoved by Björk's lyrics, which he said "might hit home harder if she'd grown up speaking the English she'll die singing, but probably wouldn't".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: "Post" reached the top ten of several countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. "Post" also peaked at number two on the European Top 100 Albums chart. The album peaked at number 32 in the "Billboard" 200, almost 30 places higher than the peak position of its predecessor "Debut". It also received an enthuastic reception from college radios. "Post" also reached top 40 in Hungary and Japan. The album was certified platinum in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe; and gold in Sweden and New Zealand. In 2007, "The Washington Post" reported that "Post" had sold 810,000 units in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan; it had sold 36,000 additional copies by 2015.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: The music video for "Army of Me" was removed from MTV's playlist before it aired because its ending depicted Björk bombing an art museum; the Oklahoma City bombing happened at this time. Author Mark Pytlik wrote that this "foreshadowed a string of unlucky events that would further hinder "Post"s unveiling".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: An unsourced sample by Robin Rimbaud, prominently heard throughout "Possibly Maybe", resulted in a lawsuit demanding a co-songwriter credit. After Rimbaud's label New Electronica refused a sample clearance compensation of £1,000 from One Little Indian founder Derek Birkett, Björk and Birkett resolved to destroy over 100,000 copies of the album to create a new version without the sample. However, at the request of Rimbaud, New Electronica gave Björk permission use the sample.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Musician Simon Fisher sued Hooper and Björk over writing credits in "Debut" (1993), but these charges were cleared by judge Robin Jacob. According to Pytlik, these events resulted in "the strangest promotional tour anyone could have ever envisioned: in the week since "Post" had been released, Björk had seen her album deleted, her video banned, and two separate lawsuits brought against her". One Little Indian were also better prepared to promote the album, scheduling a string of European and American tour dates from the beginning of July into late August.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: During the "Post" era, the extensive media attention and a world tour of 105 dates began to affect Björk. She repeatedly complained about the intrusiveness of tabloids and reporters. On tour in February 1996, Björk arrived at Bangkok International Airport with her son Sindri after a long flight. While the pair walked through the arrival terminals, reporter Julie Kaufman approached them and said, "Welcome to Bangkok!" Björk charged at Kaufman and wrestled her to the ground. It was later reported Kaufman had been bothering Björk and Sindri for days prior. The incident was reported around the world.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: On 12 September, an obsessed American fan, Ricardo López, sent a letter bomb rigged with sulfuric acid to Björk's residence in London, returned home and filmed his suicide. Police contacted Scotland Yard, who intercepted the package without incident. To record in privacy away from the unwanted interest of the press, Björk's tour drummer Trevor Morais offered her his studio in Málaga, Spain, to record her next album, "Homogenic".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Nick Coleman of "The Independent" considered "Post" to be an important release of the art pop genre, Retrospectively, "Slant Magazine"s Eric Henderson argued that "Post" "will likely always remain the Björk album that most successfully sustains her winning balance of experimental whimsy and solid pop magic", while Heather Phares of AllMusic wrote that the record was "not simply "Debut" redux" and concluded: "The work of a constantly changing artist, "Post" proves that as Björk moves toward more ambitious, complex music, she always surpasses herself". Celebrating the album's 20th anniversary, the British magazine "NME" described it as, "a masterful matching of hard, up-to-the-minute beats with complex, personal lyrics about the rush and rage of being a modern urban woman". American writer Tom Moon included "Post" in his 2008 reference book "1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: The album's influence has been identified as being increasingly palpable on the contemporary music landscape, and later reviews of the album also make note of the timeless aspect of the music. Writing for "The Daily Review", James Rose wrote in 2015: ""Post" is where mainstream music could have gone. While modern chart music hasn't gone there entirely[,] she undoubtedly helped broaden the playing field. [The album] stands today as a body of work that still informs the more marginal artistic fringes of modern music and reminds us how narrow and staid our world would be without outliers like Björk. Also in 2015, Andrew Shaw of Nerdist felt that "Post" "chose to ignore expectation, market restrictions, and contemporary trends", and that Björk "pushed her vocal performances into new places, where no other vocalists could dare to sing". He compared the album's impact on audiences to that of Jimi Hendrix's 1967 album, "Are You Experienced", writing it "set the benchmark for what was possible when you take tradition and set it on fire". Raymond Ang of "The Wall Street Journal" considered "Post" to be "Björk's last stab at the pop game… she would dig deeper into her increasingly avant-garde interests and, in the years to come, thrill and challenge her audience".


title: Post (Björk album)

text: David Longstreth of Dirty Projectors is an admirer of the record, stating he was influenced by Björk's deconstruction of classic melodies. American singer-songwriter Amy Lee has said "Post" is "one of the biggest records in [her] life". DJ Shadow sampled "Possibly Maybe" in "Mutual Slump", a track off his 1996 album, "Endtroducing...". The Vitamin String Quartet—known for its series of tribute albums to rock and pop acts—covered "Army of Me" and "You've Been Flirting Again" in the 2001 album, "Ice: The String Tribute to Björk". In 2008, "Stereogum" released a compilation of cover versions in homage to the album, titled "". It features: Dirty Projectors, Liars, Xiu Xiu, High Places and Atlas Sound, among other artists.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: Much of "Post"'s six music videos have gone on to become classics—most notably "It's Oh So Quiet" and "Army of Me". At the time of its release, music videos were beginning to be used as an art form, and Björk's visual output during this period—and her career in general—have become a clear example of the medium's artistic legitimation. Spanish writer Estíbaliz Pérez Asperilla has identified recurring motifs and themes through Björk's videography; these include nature and a magnified depiction of Björk. Surrealism and technology have also been identified as recurring features in Björk's visual output of this period. David Ehrlich of "Time Out" considered her "one of the first artists to meaningfully explore the aesthetic and semiotic value of CG and its relationship to the [videos]." Writing for "Paste", Alexa Carrasco felt, "Björk has created some of the most beautiful and weird videos to ever play on MTV." The popularity of the music video for "It's Oh So Quiet" made the song one of Björk's most ubiquitous tracks, and was considered her first breakthrough on MTV. The music videos—and the pink boots Björk wears in "Hyperballad" (the work of Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck)—were displayed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, as part of the 2015 "Björk" exhibition. They were also featured in the 2016 exhibition, "Björk Digital", which premiered at Carriageworks as part of the Vivid Sydney festival.


title: Post (Björk album)

text: In 2008, when asked how she felt about the album in retrospect, Björk reflected: "I was kinda surprised how the odd spastic thing of the album had actually aged well."


title: Post (Björk album)

text: By the end of 1995, "Post" appeared on the year-end lists of several publications. In "The Village Voice"s Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1995, the album placed at number seven. At the 1995 Icelandic Music Awards, "Post" received the award for Album of the Year; Björk was also awarded Artist of the Year, Female Singer of the Year, Composer of the Year, and was nominated for Songwriter of the Year. Additionally, "Army of Me" received the Song of the Year award, with "Isobel" also being nominated. She also received the Best Female award at the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards,