title: Nigel Lawson

text: The issue of exchange-rate mechanism membership continued to fester between Lawson and Thatcher and was exacerbated by the re-employment by Thatcher of Alan Walters as personal economic adviser. Lawson's conduct of policy had become a struggle to maintain credibility once the August 1988 trade deficit revealed the strength of the expansion of domestic demand. As orthodox monetarists, Lawson and Thatcher agreed to a steady rise in interest rates to restrain demand, but this had the effect of inflating the headline inflation figure.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: After a further year in office in these circumstances, Lawson felt that public criticism from Walters (who favoured a floating exchange rate), was making his job impossible and he resigned. He was succeeded in the office of Chancellor by John Major.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: Lawson's tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer was longer than that of any of his predecessors since David Lloyd George, who served from 1908 to 1915. This was subsequently passed by Labour's Gordon Brown (1997–2007).


title: Nigel Lawson

text: After retiring from front-bench politics, Lawson decided to tackle his weight problem. He is 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) tall; he lost five stone (70 pounds, 30 kg) from 17 stone, or 238 pounds (108 kg) to 12 stone, or 168 pounds (76 kilograms) – (BMI 34 to 24) in a matter of a few months, dramatically changing his appearance, and went on to publish the best-selling "The Nigel Lawson Diet Book".


title: Nigel Lawson

text: On 1 July 1992, Lawson was given a life peerage as Baron Lawson of Blaby, of Newnham in the County of Northamptonshire.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In 1996, Lawson appeared on the BBC satirical and topical quiz show "Have I Got News For You" and, as a former Chancellor (the position of Chancellor being one of the Great Offices of State) he had held the highest political office of any guest. He occasionally appears as a guest on his daughter Nigella's cookery shows.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In 2013, Lawson advocated Britain leaving the EU. He argued that 'economic gains [from leaving the EU] would substantially outweigh the costs'. In the 2016 EU referendum, he supported Leave and was appointed chairman of the Vote Leave campaign.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: During the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, it was reported that Lawson claimed £16,000 in overnight allowances by registering his farmhouse in Gascony as his main residence.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: Lawson is involved with the climate change denial movement, and believes that the impact of man-made global warming has been exaggerated.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In 2004, along with six others, Lawson wrote a letter to "The Times" opposing the Kyoto Protocol and claiming that there were substantial scientific uncertainties surrounding climate change. In 2005, the House of Lords Economics Affairs Select Committee, with Lawson as a member, undertook an inquiry into climate change. In their report, the Committee recommended the HM Treasury take a more active role in climate policy, questioned the objectivity of the IPCC process, and suggested changes in the UK's contribution to future international climate change negotiations. The report cited a mismatch between the economic costs and benefits of climate policy, and also criticises the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets set in the Kyoto Protocol. In response to the report, Michael Grubb, Chief Economist of the Carbon Trust, wrote an article in "Prospect" magazine, defending the Kyoto Protocol and describing the committee's report as being "strikingly inconsistent". Lawson responded to Grubb's article, describing it as an example of the "intellectual bankruptcy of the [...] climate change establishment". Lawson also said that Kyoto's approach was "wrong-headed" and called on the IPCC to be "shut down".


title: Nigel Lawson

text: At about the same time of the release of the House of Lords report, the UK Government launched the Stern Review, an inquiry undertaken by the HM Treasury and headed by Lord Stern of Brentford. According to the "Stern Review", published in 2006, the potential costs of climate change far exceed the costs of a programme to stabilise the climate. Lawson's lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, published 1 November 2006 opposed the Stern Review and advocated adaptation to changes in global climate, rather than reducing greenhouse gas emissions.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In 2008, Lawson published a book expanding on his 2006 lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies, "". He argues the case that, although global warming is happening, the impact of these changes will be relatively moderate rather than apocalyptic. He criticises those "alarmist" politicians and scientists who predict catastrophe unless urgent action is taken.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In July 2008, the Conservative magazine "Standpoint" published a transcript of a double interview with Lawson and Tory Policy Chief Oliver Letwin, in which Lawson described Letwin's views on global warming as "pie in the sky" and called on him and the Tory frontbench to "get real".


title: Nigel Lawson

text: On 23 November 2009, Lawson became chairman of a new think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a registered education charity, involved in promoting climate change denial.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In 2011, Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute said that the GWPF was "spreading errors" and "the 'facts'" Lawson "repeats are demonstrably inaccurate". Ward also criticised Lawson for repeating in a 2010 BBC radio debate that Antarctic ice volumes were unchanged even after his error was highlighted by his opponent, Professor Kevin Anderson. Ward said that Lawson provided no evidence to back his claim which is contrary to satellite measurements, and Lawson similarly incorrectly implied that the correlation between CO and sea levels was uncertain as well as that sea levels were rising more slowly since 1950 than before it.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: The Charity Commission requires that statements by campaigning charities "must be factually accurate and have a legitimate evidence base". They reviewed the GWPF, which was subsequently split with its campaigning arm renamed the Global Warming Policy Forum without charitable status, while the charitable section retained the original title.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: Lawson's son, Dominic Lawson, is also a climate change sceptic, taking a similar viewpoint as his father in his columns in the "Independent on Sunday".


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In a BBC radio interview in August 2017, Lawson falsely claimed that "official figures" showed "average world temperature has slightly declined" over the preceding decade, and that experts in the IPCC found no increase in extreme weather events. In a follow-up programme on the BBC's presentation of these claims, Peter A. Stott of the UK Met Office said Lawson was wrong on both points.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: Lawson was a critic of David Cameron's coalition government economic policy, describing spending cuts consultation plans as a "PR ploy". In November 2011, he called for the "orderly" dismantling of the euro.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: Lawson was interviewed about the rise of Thatcherism for the 2006 BBC TV documentary series "Tory! Tory! Tory!".


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In 2010, he appeared on the "Analysis" programme to discuss banking reform. Lawson said that an unintended consequence of the 1986 Big Bang saw investment banks merge with high street banks and put their depositors' savings at risk.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In a debate with other former cabinet ministers and prominent journalists, Lawson has argued that political life is more in need of ideas and direction than grand political visions.


title: Nigel Lawson

text: In 2018, Lawson was residing in France, and had applied for leave to remain in France. However, in 2019 he said that he remained a tax resident of the UK and was selling his house in France.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Dracula is a 1958 British gothic horror film directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of the same name. The first in the series of Hammer Horror films starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, the film also features Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing, along with Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh, and John Van Eyssen. In the United States, the film was retitled Horror of Dracula to avoid confusion with the U.S. original by Universal Pictures, 1931's "Dracula".


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Production began at Bray Studios on 17 November 1957 with an investment of £81,000. As Count Dracula, Lee fixed the image of the fanged vampire in popular culture. Christopher Frayling writes, ""Dracula" introduced fangs, red contact lenses, décolletage, ready-prepared wooden stakes and – in the celebrated credits sequence – blood being spattered from off-screen over the Count's coffin." Lee also introduced a dark, brooding sexuality to the character, with Tim Stanley stating, "Lee's sensuality was subversive in that it hinted that women might quite like having their neck chewed on by a stud".


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for "Time Out" magazine saw "Dracula" ranked the 65th best British film ever. "Empire" magazine ranked Lee's portrayal as Count Dracula the 7th Greatest Horror Movie Character of All Time.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: In 1885, Jonathan Harker arrives at the castle of Count Dracula near Klausenburg to take up his post as librarian. Inside, he is startled by a young woman who claims that she is a prisoner and begs for his help. Dracula arrives, greets Harker, and guides him to his room. Alone, Jonathan writes in his diary, revealing his true intentions: he is a vampire hunter and has come to destroy Dracula.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Sometime later, Harker again is confronted by the desperate woman. She reveals herself to be a vampire and bites his neck. Dracula arrives and pulls her away as Harker passes out. When he awakens in his room in daylight, Harker discovers the bite marks on his neck. He realizes he has lost nearly an entire period of daylight. Harker writes a final entry in his journal and hides the book outside the castle. He descends into a crypt to find Dracula and the vampire woman resting in their coffins. Harker foolishly stakes the woman first, a mistake which will cost him his life. She withers to old age and dies. When Harker turns to Dracula's coffin, he finds it empty. Dracula, awakened, closes the door to the crypt, trapping Harker.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Days pass, and Doctor Van Helsing arrives in Klausenburg, looking for Harker. An innkeeper's daughter gives him Harker's journal. When he arrives at Dracula's castle, he finds it deserted, though he comes across the portrait that Harker had of his fiancée Lucy Holmwood, with the photos now gone. Van Helsing finds Harker in Dracula's coffin in the crypt, transformed into a vampire. He stakes Harker before leaving for the town of Karlstadt, where he delivers the veiled news of Harker's death to Arthur Holmwood and his wife Mina, brother and sister-in-law of Lucy, who is ill. When night falls, Lucy opens the doors to her terrace and lays bare her neck—already, it bears the mark of a vampire bite. Soon, Dracula arrives and bites her again.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Mina seeks out Van Helsing's aid in treating Lucy's ailment, but Lucy begs the maid Gerda to remove his prescribed garlic bouquets, and she is found dead the next day. Van Helsing turns over Harker's journal to Arthur. Three days after Lucy is interred, an undead Lucy lures Gerda's daughter Tania to a graveyard, where Arthur has found Lucy's tomb empty. Van Helsing appears and wards Lucy off with a cross. He explains to Arthur that Lucy was targeted to replace the woman Harker killed. Van Helsing suggests using her to lead them to Dracula, but Arthur refuses, and Van Helsing stakes her in her coffin. Arthur takes one final look at Lucy's body and sees her at peace.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Van Helsing and Arthur travel to the border crossing at Ingolstadt to track down Dracula's coffin. Meanwhile, Mina receives a message supposedly from Arthur, telling her to go to the address in Karlstadt, where Dracula waits. The next day, Arthur and Van Helsing visit the undertaker but find Dracula's coffin missing. Later, Arthur tries to give Mina a cross to wear, but it burns her, revealing that she is turning into a vampire herself. During the night, Dracula appears inside the house and bites her. Arthur agrees to give her a blood transfusion administered by Van Helsing. When Arthur asks Gerda to fetch some wine, she tells him that Mina had forbidden her to go down to the cellar. Upon hearing this, Van Helsing bolts downstairs and finds Dracula's coffin, but it is empty. Dracula has escaped into the night with Mina, intent on making her his new vampire bride.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: A chase ensues as Dracula rushes to return to his castle before sunrise. He attempts to bury Mina alive outside the crypt but is interrupted by the arrival of Van Helsing and Arthur. Pursuing Dracula inside the castle, Van Helsing struggles with the vampire before eventually tearing down the curtains to let in the sunlight. Van Helsing forms a cross with two candlesticks, driving Dracula into the sun's rays, and he crumbles into dust as Van Helsing looks on. Mina recovers and the cross-shaped scar fades from her hand while Dracula's ashes blow away in the morning breeze, leaving only his clothes and ring behind.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: As Christopher Lee remarked in an interview in Leonard Wolf's "A Dream of Dracula": "I was always against the whole tie and tails rendition. Surely it is the height of the ridiculous for a vampire to step out of the shadows wearing white tie, tails, patent leather shoes and a full cloak". Lee said that he never watched any other performances of Dracula until well after making his films, and that when he got the first [Dracula] role with little time to prepare he "had to hurry off to read the book...[and] played it fresh, with no knowledge of previous performances."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: In the same interview Lee said the following about Dracula: "He had also to have an erotic element about him (and not because he sank his teeth into women)... It's a mysterious matter and has something to do with the physical appeal of the person who's draining your life. It's like being a sexual blood donor... Women are attracted to men for any of hundreds of reasons. One of them is a response to the demand to give oneself, and what greater evidence of giving is there than your blood flowing literally from your own bloodstream? It's the complete abandonment of a woman to the power of a man".


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Lee believed he had discovered something in the character that hasn't been done before: "And also because I had read the book and I had perhaps discovered something in the character which other people hadn't or hadn't noticed or hadn't decided to present, and that is that the character is heroic, erotic and romantic". He also saw a certain tragedy in Dracula and tried to inject it into playing him: "I've always tried to put an element of sadness, which I've termed the loneliness of evil, into his character. Dracula doesn't want to live, but he's got to! He doesn't want to go on existing as the undead, but he has no choice."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Lee also felt that authenticity to Stoker's novel was important and was frustrated with his Hammer Dracula films: "The stories as I've had them given to me have had almost no relation to the book...which is my reiterated complaint." "My one great regret has always been that I have never been able to present the Count exactly as Bram Stoker described him in every way. This was always due to poor scripts and a lack of imagination on the part of people who never seemed to understand the full potential of the story."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: When Hammer asked for an adaptation of Stoker's novel, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster decided to streamline it to fit it into less than ninety minutes of screen time, and shooting on a low budget within the confines of Bray Studios and its surrounding estate. Working under these limitations, Sangster posited that Jonathan Harker travels to Dracula's castle intending to destroy Dracula (not to complete a real estate transaction, as in the novel) and gets killed, made Arthur Holmwood into Mina's husband and Lucy into Harker's fiancée and Arthur's sister. Such characters as Renfield or Quincey Morris were dropped completely. The subplot of the harrowing voyage of the ship that carries Dracula and his coffins to England was also abandoned and is replaced in the film by a short hearse ride because all of the action takes place in a relatively small area of Central Europe. The character of Van Helsing also differed from the figure in the original novel. Cushing explained the transformation: ""[The Curse of] Frankenstein" became this enormous success, and there I was when I was a younger man, and audiences got used to me looking like that. And I said, 'Now look here, what do we do with Van Helsing? I mean, do you cast a little old man with a beard who speaks Double Dutch or me? It's silly to make me up like that. Why don't you get someone who looks like him?' So we all decided, well, let's forget that and play him as I am, as I was then."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Dracula's ability to transform [into wolf, bat or mist] was dropped for the sake of realism - according to Sangster: "I thought that the idea of being able to change into a bat or a wolf or anything like that made the film seem more like a fairy tale than it needed to be. I tried to ground the script to some extent to reality."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Terence Fisher believed: "My greatest contribution to the Dracula myth was to bring out the underlying sexual element in the story. He [Dracula] is basically sexual. At the moment he bites it is the culmination of a sexual experience". According to Fisher “Dracula preyed upon the sexual frustrations of his woman victims. The (Holmwood) marriage was one in which she [Mina] was not sexually satisfied and that was her weakness as far as Dracula’s approach to her was concerned.“ In the scene where Mina returns after a night with Dracula, Fisher's directions to the actress were frank and unambiguous: "When she arrived back after having been away all night she said it all in one close-up at the door. She'd been done the whole night through, please! I remember Melissa [Stribling] saying 'Terry, how should I play the scene?' So I told her, 'Listen, you should imagine you have had one whale of a sexual night, the one of your whole sexual experience. Give me that in your face!'"


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: According to producer Anthony Hinds when it came to casting Dracula "it never occurred to any of us to use anyone else but Chris Lee". For his role in "Horror of Dracula" Lee earned £750. Speaking of filming and doing his take on the character, Lee recalled that he "tried to make the character all that he was in the book—heroic, romantic, erotic, fascinating, and dynamic."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Shooting began at Bray Studios on 11 November 1957. Principal photography came to an end on Christmas Eve 1957. Special effects work continued, with the film finally wrapping on 3 January 1958.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: The filming of Dracula's destruction included a shot in which Dracula appears to peel away his decaying skin. This was accomplished by putting a layer of red makeup on Lee's face, and then covering his entire face with a thin coating of mortician's wax, which was then made up to conform to his normal skin tone. When he raked his fingers across the wax, it revealed the "raw" marks underneath. This startling sequence was cut out, but was restored for the 2012 Blu-ray release, using footage from a badly damaged Japanese print.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: At the end of the film, Dracula is destroyed on an inlaid Zodiac wheel on the floor, which has several quotes in Latin and Greek. The inner circle in Greek has a quote from Homer's "Odyssey" Book 18.136–7: "τοῖος γὰρ νόος ἐστὶν ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων οἷον ἐπ᾽ ἦμαρ ἄγησι πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε" (or "The mind of men who live on the earth is such as the day the father of gods and men [Zeus] brings upon them.") The outer wheel is written in Latin, and is a quote from Hesiod via Bartolomeo Anglico ("De proprietatibus rerum", Book 8, Chapter 2): "Tellus vero primum siquidem genuit parem sibi coelum stellis ornatum, ut ipsam totam obtegat, utque esset beatis Diis sedes tuta semper." (or "And Earth first bore starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods.") Dracula's ring is left on the glyph of the sign of Aquarius on the Zodiac wheel.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: The film received its world premiere in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States on 8 May 1958 as "Horror of Dracula". It played as a double feature with the Universal-International film "The Thing That Couldn't Die". The film opened at the Gaumont Haymarket in London on 21 May 1958.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: "Dracula" was well received by critics and fans of Stoker's works. The trade journal reviews from 1958 were very positive. "Film Bulletin" noted, "As produced by Anthony Hinds in somber mid-Victorian backgrounds... and directed by Terence Fisher with an immense flair for the blood-curdling shot, this Technicolor nightmare should prove a real treat. The James Bernard score is monumentally sinister and the Jack Asher photography full of foreboding atmosphere." "Variety" called Peter Cushing's performance impressive and wrote that the "serious approach to the macabre theme...adds up to lotsa tension and suspense."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: "Harrison's Reports" was particularly enthusiastic: "Of all the 'Dracula' horror pictures thus far produced, this one, made in Britain and photographed in Technicolor, tops them all. Its shock impact is, in fact, so great that it may well be considered as one of the best horror films ever made. What makes this picture superior is the expert treatment that takes full advantage of the story's shock values."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: Vincent Canby in "Motion Picture Daily" said, "Hammer Films, the same British production unit which last year restored Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" to its rightful place in the screen's chamber of horrors, has now even more successfully brought back the granddaddy of all vampires, Count Dracula. It's chillingly realistic in detail (and at times as gory as the law allows). The physical production is first rate, including the settings, costumes, Eastman Color photography and special effects.".


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: The film holds an approval rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 7.75/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Trading gore for grandeur, "Horror of Dracula" marks an impressive turn for inveterate Christopher Lee as the titular vampire, and a typical Hammer mood that makes aristocracy quite sexy."


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: The film earned around $3.5 million in theatrical rentals worldwide . It had a record ten-day run in Milwaukee in its premiere engagement. It was one of the twelve most popular films at the British box office in 1958.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: The film made its first appearance on DVD in 2002 in a U.S. stand-alone disc and was later re-released on 6 November 2007 in a film pack along with "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave", "Taste the Blood of Dracula", and "Dracula A.D. 1972"; which was part of Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema's "4 Film Favorites" line of DVDs. On 7 September 2010, Turner Classic Movies released the film in a four-pack along with "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave", "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed". The film was released on DVD in the U.K. in October 2002 alongside "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "The Mummy" in a box-set entitled "Hammer Horror Originals".


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: The film was digitally restored and re-released in the U.K. by the BFI in 2007. When the film was originally released in the U.K., the BBFC gave it an X rating, being cut, while the 2007 uncut re-release was given a 12A.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: For many years historians pointed to the fact that an even longer, more explicit, version of the film played in Japanese and European cinemas in 1958. Efforts to locate the legendary "Japanese version" of "Dracula" had been fruitless.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: In September 2011, Hammer announced that part of the Japanese release had been found by writer and cartoonist Simon Rowson in the National Film Center at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. The first five reels of the film held by the center were destroyed in a fire in 1984, but the last four reels were recovered. The recovered reels include the last 36 minutes of the film and includes two extended scenes, one of which is the discovery of a nearly-complete version of the film's iconic disintegration scene. Some experts rightly note that there is still footage missing from the disintegration scene, as evidenced by stills and the memories of those who had seen the sequence decades before. The announcement mentioned a HD telecine transfer of all four reels with a view for a future U.K. release.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: On 29 December 2012, Hammer announced that the restored film would be released on a three-disc, double play Blu-ray Disc set in the U.K. on 18 March 2013. This release contains the 2007 BFI restoration, along with the 2012 high-definition Hammer restoration, which includes footage which was previously believed to be lost. The set contains both Blu-ray Disc and DVD copies of the film, as well as several bonus documentaries covering the film's production, censorship and restoration processes.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: A further digital restoration was done by the current domestic rights holder, Warner Bros. Pictures, in association with the BFI, for release in December 2018 on DVD and Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection. This version is different from 2002 and 2007 U.S. DVD releases as the original Universal-International name and logo are restored and the opening credits bear the original "Dracula" title rather than "Horror of Dracula". It also does not contain any of the additional footage that Hammer previously restored.


title: Dracula (1958 film)

text: After the success of "Dracula", Hammer went on to produce eight sequels, six of which feature Lee reprising the titular role, and four of which feature Cushing reprising the role of Van Helsing.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: The park has seven themed areas: the World Bazaar; the four traditional Disney lands: Adventureland, Westernland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland; and two mini-lands: Critter Country and Toontown. Many of these areas mirror those in the original Disneyland as they are based on American Disney films and fantasies. Fantasyland includes Peter Pan's Flight, Snow White's Scary Adventures, and Dumbo the Flying Elephant, based on Disney films and characters. The park is noted for its extensive open spaces to accommodate the large crowds that visit the park. As of 2019, Tokyo Disneyland is the most visited theme park in Japan and the third-most visited theme park in the world behind Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and Disneyland Park at the Disneyland Resort.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: The idea of a Japanese Disneyland dates back to the late 1950s, when Japanese businessman Kunizo Matsuo approached Walt Disney with the idea of a Disney park in Nara. While it is rumored Walt initially agreed to the idea, he later dropped out of it. Matsuo, still determined to open his Disney-themed park, opened Nara Dreamland in 1961, a near replica of Disneyland except without Disney characters or intellectual property. This park would continue to operate until 2006.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: Masatomo Takahashi approached Walt Disney Productions with the idea of Tokyo Disneyland in August 1978. The idea seemed good, considering the success of the recently opened Disney World in Florida. Due to this success, Disney and Takahashi negotiated, and the initial contract for the construction of Disneyland in Chiba Prefecture was signed in April 1979. Japanese engineers and architects visited California to tour Disneyland and prepare to construct the new park. The construction of the park began a year later and was covered by hundreds of reporters as an indication of the high expectations for the park in the future. The final cost of Tokyo Disneyland was 180 billion yen rather than the projected 100 billion yen.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: On February 28, 2020, Disney announced a temporary closure of Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea from February 29 to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure, originally slated to expire in mid-March, was later extended twice, with the latest extension being until July 1, 2020.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: With a few exceptions, Tokyo Disneyland features the same attractions found in Disneyland and Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: World Bazaar is the main entry corridor and primary shopping area of Tokyo Disneyland. Despite the use of the word "World" in its name, the general look and theme of World Bazaar is that of early 20th-century America, matching the "Main Street, U.S.A." areas of other Magic Kingdom-style parks. World Bazaar consists of two intersecting "streets": Main Street (the primary corridor running from the main entrance toward Cinderella Castle), and Center Street, which forms a perpendicular line with Main Street and leads to Adventureland in one direction and Tomorrowland in the other. World Bazaar has a permanent canopy covering the Main Street and Center Street areas, designed to protect guests from the elements.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: Adventureland consists of two distinct yet complementary areas: A New Orleans-themed area and a "jungle"-themed area. It borrows stylistic and architectural features from the New Orleans Square and Adventureland areas found in Disneyland Park in the United States.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: Westernland is an "old west" themed area, the counterpart of Frontierland in other Magic Kingdom-style parks. The landscape of Westernland is dominated by Big Thunder Mountain, a Monument Valley-style mountain surrounding a mine train roller coaster, and the Rivers of America, a man-made waterway that is home to the Mark Twain Riverboat, Tom Sawyer Island, and numerous live and Audio-Animatronic animals.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: Like other Magic Kingdom theme parks, Fantasyland's central entryway is a castle, in this case Cinderella Castle, a near exact copy of the one in Florida's Magic Kingdom. Lacking any "thrill rides," Fantasyland's attractions are generally dark rides that take visitors through scenes from Disney films such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Peter Pan", and "Pinocchio".


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: A new "Beauty and the Beast" sub-section opened in September 2020 as part of the theme park's largest expansion. A dark ride named Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast is housed in the new Beauty and the Beast Castle with Maurice's Cottage and Gaston's Fountain at its entrance. The new section also houses Belle's Village which includes the La Taverne de Gaston eatery, and Village Shoppes selling souvenirs and gifts.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: A new stage show venue named Fantasyland Forest Theatre is also part of the expansion. With a capacity of 1,500 people, the venue will introduce a 25-minute Mickey's Magical Music World show.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: Like its counterparts in other Disney theme parks, Toontown (called "Mickey's Toontown" at other Disney parks) is heavily inspired by the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Appropriately, the major attraction here is Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: A new attraction named Minnie's Style Studio opened in September 2020 as part of the theme park's largest expansion. As a character greeting area, it allows guests to take photos with Minnie who will be wearing a rotating selection of seasonal outfits.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: As is the case with other modern-day Disney theme parks, Tokyo Disneyland's Tomorrowland forgoes a realism-based vision of the future and instead features science-fiction fantasy themes. Architecturally it borrows much from the 1971–1993 version of Florida's Tomorrowland. Rides include Space Mountain, Star Tours – The Adventures Continue, and Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: A rotating car ride named The Happy Ride with Baymax opened in September 2020 as part of the theme park's largest expansion. The ride is the first Disney attraction to be themed based on the movie "Big Hero 6". A new specialty space-themed popcorn shop named The Big Pop also opened on the same day.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: Since the park opened in 1983, Tokyo Disney Resort has regularly been one of the most profitable Disney Resorts. By 1994, over 149 million people had entered through the gates of Tokyo Disneyland, more than Japan's entire population of 127.6 million at the time. In 1996, it employed 12,390 people, making Tokyo Disneyland the biggest workplace in Japan's diversionary outings at that time. Many speculate that Tokyo Disneyland is such an economic success due to timing and location; the theme park lies in a metropolitan area with a population of 30 million and opened at the height of a booming economy where hard-working citizens desired an escape from reality.


title: Tokyo Disneyland

text: Tokyo Disneyland states that one of its main aims is to improve the park and diversify from the limits of the domestic Disney parks. Tokyo Disneyland has recently been adding a national identity within the parks by adding attractions with distinctly Japanese qualities. Cinderella Castle displays the Disney character and story plot yet presents the story through the eyes of the Japanese. Once dominated by Disney Legends, Masatomo Takahashi, the former president of The Oriental Land Company, states this growth and development as one of its primary goals: "We must not just repeat what we receive from Disney. I am convinced that we must contribute to the cultural exchange between Japan and U.S.A."


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Piranha II: The Spawning (released internationally as Piranha II: Flying Killers) is a 1982 American independent horror film directed by James Cameron in his feature directorial debut. It is written by Charles H. Eglee (under the pseudonym H.A. Milton) and stars Tricia O'Neil and Lance Henriksen, who would later star in Cameron's "The Terminator" and "Aliens". Part of the "Piranha" film series, it is the sequel to "Piranha" (1978) directed by Joe Dante.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Cameron, previously a special effects artist for Roger Corman, was hired as director after executive producer Ovidio G. Assonitis fired his predecessor. The production was fraught with difficulties arising from Assonitis' exerting an unusual amount of creative control, hiring an Italian crew that didn't speak English and preventing Cameron from viewing any footage during the editing process. The exact degree of creative control Cameron had has been disputed by multiple sources, with some claims arising that Assonitis fired Cameron after two weeks and directed the film on his own while others maintain that Cameron was present for the entirety of principal photography.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: After its release, Cameron largely disowned "Piranha II" for many years, but has since acknowledged the film as his directorial debut. A director's cut exists only on Laserdisc and VHS. In 2003, Sony Pictures released the film on Region A DVD in a full-frame format. In other regions, the DVD was released in a widescreen format. In 2018, Scream Factory released Piranha II on Region A Blu-ray in an improved widescreen transfer.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: A Caribbean coastal resort, Hotel Elysium, is menaced by a series of vicious marine animal attacks originating from a nearby sunken shipwreck. Diving instructor Anne Kimbrough's student is one of the victims, but her estranged police officer husband Steve refuses to let her see the corpse. Soon after, two women and a man are killed by piranha which has developed the ability to fly.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Concerned, Anne finds that she is being frequently bothered by tourist Tyler Sherman, and decides to take him with her to the morgue to get a look at the body. A nurse comes in and kicks them out, unaware that a piranha was hiding in the body. It kills the nurse and escapes through a window.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: In her hurry, Anne left her credit card behind at the scene. Anne and Tyler have a one-night stand. In the morning she begins to study the pictures of the corpse, and is horrified by what she discovers. Steve arrives, throwing the card at her, angry that she went to the morgue and that she has a man in her bed. She tries to warn him of what she has discovered, but he ignores her.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Anne then tries to cancel the diving sessions, leading to her getting fired by her manager. Attempting to capture one as proof of the incoming threat, she is intercepted by Tyler, who informs her that he is a biochemist and member of a team which has developed the ultimate weapon: a specimen of genetically modified piranha, capable of flying. He explains that his team lost a cylinder full of these fish in the water earlier.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Gabby provides the proof Anne needs to Steve, showing him that they are a serious danger, as they are now eating each other. At a meeting, Anne tries her best to reason with the manager, to no avail. Steve provides a piranha wing as evidence. Steve tells her that she cannot trust Tyler, because the army says he is crazy.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Later, a piranha attacks Gabby's son and kills him, leaving Gabby to vow revenge. Anne tries to dissuade him, but fails. Having ignored Anne's advice, the manager, Raoul, hosts a nighttime fish party to capture grunion. Unfortunately for the residents, the piranha join the hunt. Anne gets a man named Aaron to patrol the beach but he is lured to the sea where the piranha kill him. During the fishing party promoted by the resort, the piranhas fly out of the water and attack the guests. Anne leads the survivors into the hotel, where they shut the doors and windows. Gabby tries to attack the flying piranha, but they easily overwhelm and kill him.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: In the morning, the piranha leave as they do not like the light. Tyler and Anne decide to undertake Gabby's plan, and blow up the ship to kill the predators. Meanwhile, Anne and Steve's son Chris has been hired, against their wishes, by a local ship 'Captain' Dumont and his daughter Allison. They sail away and strand themselves on an island. They get lost at sea and try to set sail again, heading straight toward the wreck.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: When Chris and Allison are stranded in a raft above the shipwreck, Anne and Tyler arrive in a motorboat and dive down to the wreck to plant the timer charges that Gabby left behind. With only 10 minutes to get out of the wreck before the bomb explodes, Anne and Tyler are trapped in one of the sunken ships rooms by the murderous piranha who all return to the wreck. Steve, piloting a police helicopter, ditches the chopper and swims to Anne and Tyler's motorboat where Chris and Allison are. Steve powers up the boat and takes off. Down in the wreck, Tyler gets stuck and is eaten by the piranhas. Anne escapes out of a porthole, then grabs the anchor, allowing herself to be pulled away by the motorboat on the surface. The bomb detonates, destroying the sunken ship and all the piranha with it. With all the piranhas dead, Anne swims to the surface and is picked up by Steve, Chris, and Allison in their boat.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: After the release and financial success of Joe Dante's "Piranha", producers Jeff Schechtman and Chako van Leuwen immediately began work on a sequel film. Roger Corman, the head of New World Pictures which had produced and released the first film, did not share either person's interest, instead focusing on his own "underwater horror" film "Humanoids from the Deep". Schechtman and van Leuwen purchased the sequel rights from Corman, first setting up an independent production company before developing a script with writers Charles H. Eglee and Channing Gibson, based on a treatment by New World producer Martin B. Cohen.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Because Dante was already attached to direct "The Howling" for New World, the producers approached Dante's former colleague Miller Drake as prospective director. Drake had worked alongside Dante in New World's trailer department and had essayed the role of "First Mutant" in Dante's directorial debut, "Hollywood Boulevard"before becoming Corman's de facto head of post-production. With a tentative director in place, the producers' sought financing and eventually struck a deal with Ovidio G. Assonitis, a Greco-Italian filmmaker who had produced and directed several successful low-budget "cash-in" films aimed at the American import market. Drake set to work developing a script with Eglee, who would later collaborate with James Cameron on the TV show "Dark Angel". Drake's intention was that "Piranha II" should hinge upon Kevin McCarthy's scientist from Piranha, even though he had seemingly perished in the first movie.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: "I pitched this idea of bringing Kevin McCarthy back, all chewed up and mutilated from the previous movie," says Drake. "He was on an abandoned oil rig and he was developing these flying piranhas out there to get revenge, or whatever. I think we were going to bring Barbara Steele back and have him kill her by smashing her head through a fish tank."


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Plans changed as neither McCarthy nor Steele were available, and the script was eventually re-written as a standalone story without returning characters. James Cameron, another New World alumnus, was hired as the special effects director. Some time before principal photography started, Miller Drake was fired by Assonitis and Cameron was promoted to director. "Piranha II" would be his feature directorial debut.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: The primary location for the film was the Mallards Beach-Hyatt Hotel (later renamed to Moon Palace Jamaica resort), in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, which served as the film's fictional Club Elysium resort. Most of the underwater scenes were filmed off Grand Cayman. Interior scenes were filmed on a sound stage in Rome.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Due to budget limitations the crew was composed essentially of Italians, none of whom spoke English. Some however did have prior experience on horror/fantasy movies so they were, to some extent, able to satisfy Cameron's requirements. Among the crew was veteran horror cinematographer Roberto D'Ettorre Piazzoli (whose name is misspelled "Roberto D'Ettore Piazzoli" in the opening credits). The special effects were designed and supervised by Giannetto De Rossi, who had previously worked on Lucio Fulci's "Zombi 2" and "The Beyond".


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: After the first week of shooting, the set harmony was disturbed by some discussions about the work between the director and the producers (Assonitis, asked to verify the day-to-day activities, arguing with most of Cameron's choices), so while Cameron was only responsible for the shooting, most of the decisions were under Assonitis' authority.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: As in the first film, which was one of many horror films inspired by the success of Steven Spielberg's film "Jaws" (1975), piranhas act as the antagonist monsters harming human life, and have developed the ability to fly, which they did not have in the first film. On the "" commentary track, Cameron jokingly defended the film, tongue firmly in cheek, as "the finest flying killer fish horror/comedy ever made". He would later employ some of the same mechanisms used to make the piranhas fly in the facehugger animatronics for "Aliens".


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: According to "Dreaming Aloud", a biography of Cameron by Christopher Heard, Cameron was not allowed to see his footage and was not involved in editing. He broke into the editing room in Rome and cut his own version while the film's producers were at Cannes, but was caught and Assonitis recut it again.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: In a 2008 interview on "The Hour", Cameron jokingly denied breaking into the editing room, then recounted the story as a "hypothetical scenario", and told host George Stroumboulopoulos how he "would've broken into the office" if he actually did it.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Cameron was able to make a deal with a distributor, who agreed to buy his footage and allow him to re-score and re-cut the picture-basically restructure it to what was originally intended-before release, so his alternative vision eventually came out on home video in some regions, which made a profit for the distributor.


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: Some critics called the film "", others opined that "the piranhas...look as though they had been remaindered from a joke shop" and that they resembled "haddock with dentures". According to Tim Healey in "The World's Worst Movies" (1986) the film is "a strong contender...for anyone's list of all-time horror turkeys". The film holds a 6% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 17 reviews. It was a box-office bomb. On Metacritic, the film has a 15/100 based on 5 reviews, meaning "overwhelming dislike".


title: Piranha II: The Spawning

text: James Cameron refers to "The Terminator" as his first feature-length film, despite the fact that it was made in 1984, two years after "Piranha II: The Spawning". However, Cameron acknowledged the film in a "60 Minutes" segment with interviewer Morley Safer in 2010, referring to "Piranha II" as "the best flying piranha film ever made".


title: Macaroon

text: A macaroon ( ) is a small cake or biscuit, typically made from ground almonds (the original main ingredient), coconut or other nuts (or even potato), with sugar and sometimes flavourings (e.g. honey, vanilla, spices), food colouring, glacé cherries, jam or a chocolate coating; or a combination of these or other ingredients. Some recipes use sweetened condensed milk. Macaroons are sometimes baked on edible rice paper placed on a baking tray.


title: Macaroon

text: The name "macaroon" comes from the Italian "maccarone" or "maccherone" meaning "paste", referring to the original almond paste ingredient; this word itself derives from "ammaccare", meaning "to crush".


title: Macaroon

text: Culinary historians write that macaroons can be traced to an Italian monastery of the 8th or 9th century. The monks came to France in 1533, joined by the pastry chefs of Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II. Later, two Benedictine nuns, Sister Marguerite and Sister Marie-Elisabeth, came to Nancy seeking asylum during the French Revolution. The two women paid for their housing by baking and selling macaroons, and thus became known as the "Macaroon Sisters".


title: Macaroon

text: Italian Jews later adopted macaroons because it has no flour or leavening (macaroons are leavened by egg whites) and can be eaten during the eight-day observation of Passover. It was introduced to other European Jews, and became popular as a year-round sweet.


title: Macaroon

text: Recipes for macaroons appear in recipe books at least as early as 1725 (Robert Smith's "Court Cookery, or the Complete English Cook"), and use egg whites and almond paste. "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management" includes a typical traditional recipe. Over time, coconut was added to the ground almonds and, in certain recipes, replaced them. Potato starch is also sometimes included in the recipe, to give the macaroons more body.


title: Macaroon

text: There are many regional variations of French macaroon. The coconut macaroon is known as the "", or ""le rocher à la noix de coco"".


title: Macaroon

text: "Mandelhörnchen" (Almond crescents) are a common treat in Germany. Made of a similar flour to the macaroon's, they are formed to resemble a crescent, then covered in sliced almonds and dipped in chocolate.


title: Macaroon

text: Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu and Mangaluru in Karnataka have their own varieties of macaroon made with cashews and egg whites, adapted from those introduced in colonial times.


title: Macaroon

text: A macaroon chocolate bar is made by Wilton Candy in County Kildare. The description on the packaging is "macaroon pieces in Irish milk chocolate." It was first made in 1937. Cleeve's Irish Confectionery also make a macaroon chocolate bar, with ingredients including cocoa butter, milk powder and desiccated coconut.


title: Macaroon

text: Ricciarelli are a soft almond variety originating from Siena. Amaretti di Saronno are a usually crunchy variety from Saronno.


title: Macaroon

text: Philippine coconut macaroons are uniquely cake-like in texture. They are slightly crunchy on the outside and soft, moist and chewy on the inside. They are usually baked into small, colourful cupcake wrappers and topped with a raisin. They are popular during holidays and special occasions.


title: Macaroon

text: In Puerto Rico, coconut macaroons are called "besitos de coco" (little coconut kisses). A few variations of "besitos de coco" can be found on the island, the most popular ones including lemon zest and vanilla as additional ingredients.


title: Macaroon

text: The "carajito" is a macaroon variant made with hazelnuts and honey from the town of Salas, Asturias in northern Spain. A larger size version is commonly known as "sultana" or "suspiros del moro".


title: Macaroon

text: Acıbadem kurabiyesi is a traditional Turkish variety made of almonds, sugar and egg whites. The traditional recipes include a small amount of bitter almonds, which gives this macaroon its name. Because bitter almonds are not readily available, almond extract is typically used as a substitute. These are part of the stock-in trade of almost every bakery in Turkey, as they are seldom made at home.


title: Macaroon

text: In the UK generally, the traditional almond macaroon often includes almond essence to strengthen the flavour, and is topped with an almond flake. Coconut macaroons are also popular.


title: Macaroon

text: In Scotland, the Scottish macaroon has a dense, sugary centre and is covered in chocolate and roasted coconut. Traditionally they were made with cold leftovers of mashed potatoes and sugar loaf. When the macaroon bar became commercial the recipe no longer used mashed potato because of shelf life limitations. The modern macaroon is made from a combination (depending on producer) of sugar, glucose, water and egg white. These ingredients make a fondant centre. This recipe was reportedly discovered by accident in Coatbridge in 1931, when confectioner John Justice Lees was said to have botched the formula for making a chocolate fondant bar and threw coconut over it in disgust, producing the first macaroon bar.


title: Macaroon

text: Macaroon chocolate bars are also popular in Scotland. Buchanan's make a macaroon with Belgian chocolate and toasted coconut. They are a long-established family business based in Greenock. Scottish macaroon is made with a paste of potato and sugar.


title: Macaroon

text: Coconut macaroons are common in America. Commercially made coconut macaroons are generally dense, moist and sweet; they are available in a few flavors, and often dipped in chocolate. Homemade macaroons and varieties produced by smaller bakeries are commonly light and fluffy. Macaroons made with coconuts are often piped with a star shaped tip, whereas macaroons made with nuts are more likely shaped individually due to the stiffness of the dough.


title: Macaroon

text: Mass produced commercial macaroons in the United States are each about half an ounce, or 14 grams, in weight. They are not a highly processed product, containing only coconut, sweetener, starch, egg whites, and flavoring (if any). At about 60-70 calories each, however, they contain about 3-4 grams of saturated fat due to the coconut, and 3-4 grams of added sugar, depending on the particular flavor. They are vegetarian (not vegan as they contain egg whites), and contain no gluten, dairy, cholesterol, or sulfites.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: Eleanor Jessie Coppola ("née" Neil; born May 4, 1936) is an American documentary filmmaker, artist, and writer. She is married to director Francis Ford Coppola. She is most known for her 1991 documentary film "" as well as other documentaries chronicling the films of her husband and children. Coppola lives on her family's winery in Napa Valley, California.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: Eleanor Coppola was born Eleanor Jessie Neil, on May 4, 1936, in Los Angeles, California. Her father was a political cartoonist for the Los Angeles Examiner who died when she was 10 years old. She and her brothers were raised by their mother, Delphine Neil (née Lougheed) in Sunset Beach, California. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in applied design and was a member of the women's fraternity Alpha Chi Omega (Alpha Psi chapter).


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: While working on the set of the 1962 horror film "Dementia 13", she met her future husband Francis Ford Coppola. Her position was assistant art director, while Coppola was making his directorial debut with the film. The couple had been dating for several months when Eleanor discovered in 1963 that she was pregnant. Initially Eleanor considered giving the baby up for adoption, but was convinced otherwise by Francis Ford Coppola. The couple married in Las Vegas on February 2, 1963, and gave birth to their first son Gian-Carlo Coppola. Years later, Eleanor gave birth to Roman and Sofia Coppola.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: Eleanor has been a constant presence on films directed by her famous family members. Her film contribution consists of mainly documentaries in which she has acted as director, cinematographer, videographer, and writer.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: Many of her documentaries consist of behind-the-scenes looks at such films as "Marie Antoinette", which was directed by her daughter Sofia Coppola. In her documentaries, Eleanor captures the struggles that have endangered her family's films even before they made it onto the big screen. Through her film work, Eleanor Coppola is able to illustrate not only what goes into a film financially, but also capture the emotional toll filmmaking has on the individuals on and off the camera.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: For her early film career, Eleanor Coppola spent much of her time accompanying her husband on his film shoots. In 1976, she began documenting the making of Coppola's war film "Apocalypse Now". Her recordings of the hectic film process were later released in her memoir "Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now" in 1979. The book chronicled such events as the near destruction of the film's production as well as the stress that both cast and crew were suffering from at the time. This would not be the only documentation of the making of Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" as she decided to film a documentary based on the same movie.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: The documentary film "" was co-directed by Eleanor Coppola, Fax Bahr, and George Hickenlooper. In the film, Eleanor narrates the trials and difficulties surrounding the production of the award-winning film as not only problems arose with the studio but also the cast and crew working at the time. Such events caught on camera include the nervous breakdown of the film's lead Martin Sheen as well as the trouble facing Francis Ford Coppola when an expensive set was destroyed.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: The documentary film was released in 1991, which went on to win several awards such as the Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement – Informational Programming – Directing". The film was also nominated for a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Documentary Award in 1991.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: Coppola made her feature film directorial debut with the 2016 romantic comedy "Paris Can Wait" starring Diane Lane as a wealthy film producer's wife and Arnaud Viard as a charming Frenchman who drives her from Cannes to Paris. The film premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: In 2020, Coppola released her second feature film, "Love Is Love Is Love", a set of intertwined love stories about three couples.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: Eleanor Coppola has written two successful books. Her first book, "Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now", recorded the film's journey from 1976 to 1979. Her detailed note-taking continued in other areas of her life as she collected and wrote about her life's major events. With notes covering a thirty-year time span, Eleanor would go on to write the book "Notes on a Life".


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: The memoir "Notes on a Life" follows thirty years of Eleanor Coppola's life as she juggles raising children and being there for Francis as he directs films that move the family from place to place. The book consists of short passages from each day beginning with the death of her oldest son Gian-Carlo Coppola at the age of 22 and the birth of her granddaughter Gia just months later. The death of Gian-Carlo Coppola serves as a constant refrain throughout the entire book.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: The book is told through her own point of view and although she mentions certain events concerning those around her, such as the controversy surrounding Francis' decision to cast Sofia in "The Godfather Part III", her memoir chronicles the inner struggles and problems the family faced at the time.


title: Eleanor Coppola

text: The organization Circle of Memory was founded by Eleanor Coppola and other artists to commemorate missing and lost loved ones. Her artwork has been featured in museums and galleries around the world. Eleanor Coppola founded the project in memory of her late son Gian-Carlo Coppola. Eleanor Coppola has also designed costumes for the Oberlin Dance Company. She also manages the Rubicon Estate Winery that her family owns.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: Ravindra Kaushik (11 April 1952 – November 2001) was a Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) operative, also named as Black Tiger, who is believed to be one of India's best spies.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: Kaushik served the R&AW from 1979 to 1983 in Pakistan. He was able to penetrate the Pakistan Army and was recruited as an officer of them.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: Ravindra Kaushik was born in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan on 11 April 1952 in a Brahmin family. His father, JM Kaushik, was an Indian Air Force officer; his mother Amla Devi passed away in 2006. He did his graduation from SD Bihani PG College, Sri Ganganagar, earning a BCom and was involved with theatre acting while in college when he was recruited by the R&AW.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: Kaushik was trained in Delhi for two years to be an undercover Operative in Pakistan. He was also trained to live the life of a Muslim and was trained for Urdu language. Being from Sri Ganganagar, a city near Rajasthan's border with Punjab, he was well versed in Punjabi, which is widely understood in Punjab (India) and Pakistan as well. In 1975, at the age of 23, he was sent to Pakistan as an undercover R&AW operative.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: Kaushik converted to Islam, underwent circumcision and was given the cover name "Nabi Ahmed Shakir" and entered Pakistan in 1975. After successfully getting admission in Karachi University, he also completed his LLB. He joined Pakistan Army as a commissioned officer and was eventually promoted to the rank of major. He married a local girl named Amanat, the daughter of a tailor in one of the army units, and fathered a boy who died in 2012–2013.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: From 1979 to 1983, Kaushik worked as a Pakistani army officer. As trained at R&AW, he was sending valuable information to R&AW which was of great help to India. He was given the title of 'Black Tiger' by the Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: In September 1983, R&AW sent a low-level operative, Inyat Masih, to get in touch with Kaushik. But, Masih was exposed by Joint Counterintelligence Bureau of Pakistan's ISI and blew Kaushik's cover. Kaushik was also captured, tortured for two years at an interrogation center in Sialkot. He was given the death sentence in 1985. His sentence was later commuted to a life term by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He was kept in various jails in various cities, including Sialkot, Kot Lakhpat and in Mianwali jail for 16 years. He managed to secretly send letters to his family in India, which revealed his poor health condition and the trauma faced by him in Pakistani jails. In one of his letters, he wrote:


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: In November 2001, he succumbed to pulmonary tuberculosis and heart disease in Central Jail Mianwali in Pakistan.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: According to Ravindra's family, Indian government had refused to recognise him and had made no effort to help him.


title: Ravindra Kaushik

text: Ravindra's family claimed that the storyline of the famous Bollywood flick "Ek Tha Tiger" released in the year 2012 was based on the life of Ravindra and asked for credit in the movie titles for Ravindra. But the director Kabir Khan denied their claim. "Romeo Akbar Walter", a 2019 Indian film written and directed by Robbie Grewal is loosely based on his activities in Pakistan, John Abraham plays the role of Ravindra Kaushik in the film.


title: Kenneth Lofton Jr.

text: Kenneth Wayne Lofton Jr. (born August 14, 2002) is an American professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA), on a two-way contract with the Memphis Hustle of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs. He is a two-time all-conference selection in Conference USA, including first-team honors as a sophomore in 2022.


title: Kenneth Lofton Jr.

text: Lofton played basketball for Memorial High School in Port Arthur, Texas. He was initially a guard and became a post player following a growth spurt. He won a 5A state title in his sophomore season. As a senior, he averaged 17 points, 10 rebounds, and three assists per game, leading his team to a share of the 21–5A district title. Lofton earned 5A All-State honors and was a McDonald's All-American nominee. He signed a National Letter of Intent to play college basketball for Louisiana Tech.


title: Kenneth Lofton Jr.

text: On March 28, 2021, Lofton recorded a freshman season-high 27 points and 13 rebounds, making a game-winning shot with 0.3 seconds left, in a 76–74 win over Colorado State at the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) third place game. He was an All-Tournament Team selection. As a freshman, Lofton averaged 12.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game, earning Third Team All-Conference USA and Freshman of the Year honors. He was named Conference USA Freshman of the Week nine times, tied for the third-most in league history. Lofton was the first Louisiana Tech freshman to lead the team in rebounding since Paul Millsap in 2003–04.


title: Kenneth Lofton Jr.

text: As a sophomore, Lofton was named to the First Team All-Conference USA. He averaged 16.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game. On March 22, 2022, Lofton declared for the 2022 NBA draft. He did not sign with an agent, allowing him the flexibility to return to Louisiana Tech.


title: Kenneth Lofton Jr.

text: After going undrafted in the 2022 NBA draft, Lofton signed a two-way contract with the Memphis Grizzlies.


title: Kenneth Lofton Jr.

text: Lofton represented the United States at the 2021 FIBA Under-19 World Cup in Latvia. He averaged 13.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, helping his team win the gold medal. Lofton scored 16 points, including 15 in the second half, in an 83–81 win against France in the final.


title: Kenneth Lofton Jr.

text: Lofton's father, also named Kenneth, served in the United States Army, worked in the United States Postal Service for 18 years and was elected to the Port Arthur Independent School District board of trustees. His older sister, Kennedi, played college basketball for Southern. His grandfather, Gene "Rock" Duhon, was a track and field athlete at Southern University, where he was named to the Track Hall of Fame, and competed at United States Olympic Trials.


title: Lead glass

text: Lead glass, commonly called crystal, is a variety of glass in which lead replaces the calcium content of a typical potash glass. Lead glass contains typically 18–40% (by weight) lead(II) oxide (PbO), while modern lead crystal, historically also known as flint glass due to the original silica source, contains a minimum of 24% PbO. Lead glass is often desirable for a variety of uses due to its clarity.


title: Lead glass

text: The term "lead crystal" is, technically, not an accurate term to describe lead glass, because glass lacks a crystalline structure and is instead an amorphous solid. The use of the term "lead crystal" or just "crystal" remains popular for historical and commercial reasons, and because "lead" sounds toxic to consumers. It is retained from the Venetian word "cristallo" to describe the rock crystal imitated by Murano glassmakers. This naming convention has been maintained to the present day to describe decorative hollow-ware.


title: Lead glass

text: Lead crystal glassware was formerly used to store and serve drinks, but due to the health risks of lead, this has become rare. One alternative material is crystal glass, in which barium oxide, zinc oxide, or potassium oxide are employed instead of lead oxide.


title: Lead glass

text: In the European Union, labeling of "crystal" products is regulated by Council Directive 69/493/EEC, which defines four categories, depending on the chemical composition and properties of the material. Only glass products containing at least 24% of lead oxide may be referred to as "lead crystal". Products with less lead oxide, or glass products with other metal oxides used in place of lead oxide, must be labeled "crystalline" or "crystal glass".


title: Lead glass

text: The addition of lead oxide to glass raises its refractive index and lowers its working temperature and viscosity. The attractive optical properties of lead glass result from the high content of the heavy metal lead. The high atomic number of lead also raises the density of the material, since lead has a very high atomic weight of 207.2, versus 40.08 for calcium. The density of soda glass is or below, while typical lead crystal has a density of around and high-lead glass can be over or even up to .


title: Lead glass

text: The brilliance of lead crystal relies on the high refractive index caused by the lead content. Ordinary glass has a refractive ("n") of 1.5, while the addition of lead produces a range up to 1.7 or 1.8. This heightened refractive index also correlates with increased dispersion, which measures the degree to which a medium separates light into its component wavelengths, thus producing a spectrum, just as a prism does. Crystal cutting techniques exploit these properties to create a brilliant, sparkling effect as each cut facet in cut glass reflects and transmits light through the object. The high refractive index is useful for lens making, since a given focal length can be achieved with a thinner lens. However, the dispersion must be corrected by other components of the lens system if it is to be achromatic.


title: Lead glass

text: The addition of lead oxide to potash glass also reduces its viscosity, rendering it more fluid than ordinary soda glass above softening temperature (about ), with a working point of . The viscosity of glass varies radically with temperature, but that of lead glass is roughly two orders of magnitude lower than that of ordinary soda glasses across working temperature ranges (up to ). From the glassmaker's perspective, this results in two practical developments. First, lead glass may be worked at a lower temperature, leading to its use in enamelling, and second, clear vessels may be made without trapped air bubbles with less difficulty than ordinary glasses, allowing the manufacture of perfectly clear, flawless objects.


title: Lead glass

text: When tapped, lead crystal makes a ringing sound, unlike ordinary glasses. Consumers still rely on this property to distinguish it from cheaper glasses. Since the potassium ions are bound more tightly in a lead-silica matrix than in a soda–lime glass, the former absorbs more energy when struck. This causes the lead crystal to oscillate, thereby producing its characteristic sound. Lead also increases the solubility of tin, copper, and antimony, leading to its use in colored enamels and glazes. The low viscosity of lead glass melt is the reason for typically high lead oxide content in the glass solders.


title: Lead glass

text: The presence of lead is used in glasses absorbing gamma radiation and X-rays, used in radiation shielding as a form of lead shielding (e.g. in cathode ray tubes, thus lowering the exposure of the viewer to soft X-rays). In particle physics, the combination of the low radiation length resulting from the high density and presence of heavy nuclei with the high refractive index which leads to both pronounced Cherenkov radiation and containment of the Cherenkov light by total internal reflection makes lead glass one of the prominent tools for photon detection by means of electromagnetic showers.


title: Lead glass

text: The high ionic radius of the Pb ion renders it highly immobile in the matrix and hinders the movement of other ions; lead glasses therefore have high electrical resistance, about two orders of magnitude higher than soda–lime glass (10 vs 10 Ohm·cm, DC at ). Lead-containing glass is frequently used in light fixtures.


title: Lead glass

text: Lead may be introduced into glass either as an ingredient of the primary melt or added to preformed leadless glass or frit. The lead oxide used in lead glass could be obtained from a variety of sources. In Europe, galena, lead sulfide, was widely available, which could be smelted to produce metallic lead. The lead metal would be calcined to form lead oxide by roasting it and scraping off the litharge. In the medieval period lead metal could be obtained through recycling from abandoned Roman sites and plumbing, even from church roofs. Metallic lead was demanded in quantity for silver cupellation, and the resulting litharge could be used directly by glassmakers. Lead was also used for ceramic lead glazes. This material interdependence suggests a close working relationship between potters, glassmakers, and metalworkers.


title: Lead glass

text: Glasses with lead oxide content first appeared in Mesopotamia, the birthplace of the glass industry. The earliest known example is a blue glass fragment from Nippur dated to 1400 BC containing 3.66% PbO. Glass is mentioned in clay tablets from the reign of Assurbanipal (668–631 BC), and a recipe for lead glaze appears in a Babylonian tablet of 1700 BC. A red sealing-wax cake found in the Burnt Palace at Nimrud, from the early 6th century BC, contains 10% PbO. These low values suggest that lead oxide may not have been consciously added, and was certainly not used as the primary fluxing agent in ancient glasses.


title: Lead glass

text: Lead glass also occurs in Han-period China (206 BC – 220 AD). There, it was cast to imitate jade, both for ritual objects such as big and small figures, as well as jewellery and a limited range of vessels. Since glass first occurs at such a late date in China, it is thought that the technology was brought along the Silk Road by glassworkers from the Middle East. The fundamental compositional difference between Western silica-natron glass and the unique Chinese lead glass, however, may indicate an autonomous development.


title: Lead glass

text: In medieval and early modern Europe, lead glass was used as a base in coloured glasses, specifically in mosaic tesserae, enamels, stained-glass painting, and "bijouterie", where it was used to imitate precious stones. Several textual sources describing lead glass survive. In the late 11th-early 12th century, "Schedula Diversarum Artium" ("List of Sundry Crafts"), the author known as "Theophilus Presbyter" describes its use as imitation gemstone, and the title of a lost chapter of the work mentions the use of lead in glass. The 12–13th century pseudonymous "Heraclius" details the manufacture of lead enamel and its use for window painting in his "De coloribus et artibus Romanorum" ("Of Hues and Crafts of the Romans"). This refers to lead glass as "Jewish glass", perhaps indicating its transmission to Europe. A manuscript preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, describes the use of lead oxide in enamels and includes recipes for calcining lead to form the oxide. Lead glass was ideally suited for enamelling vessels and windows owing to its lower working temperature than the forest glass of the body.


title: Lead glass

text: Antonio Neri devoted book four of his "L’Arte Vetraria" ("The Art of Glass-making", 1612) to lead glass. In this first systematic treatise on glass, he again refers to the use of lead glass in enamels, glassware, and for the imitation of precious stones. Christopher Merrett translated this into English in 1662 ("The Art of Glass"), paving the way for the production of English lead crystal glass by George Ravenscroft.


title: Lead glass

text: George Ravenscroft (1618–1681) was the first to produce clear lead crystal glassware on an industrial scale. The son of a merchant with close ties to Venice, Ravenscroft had the cultural and financial resources necessary to revolutionise the glass trade, setting the basis from which England overtook Venice and Bohemia as the centre of the glass industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the aid of Venetian glassmakers, especially da Costa, and under the auspices of the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers of London, Ravenscroft sought to find an alternative to Venetian cristallo. His use of flint as the silica source has led to the term flint glass to describe these crystal glasses, despite his later switch to sand. At first, his glasses tended to crizzle, developing a network of small cracks destroying its transparency, which was eventually overcome by replacing some of the potash flux with lead oxide to the melt, up to 30%. Crizzling results from the destruction of the glass network by an excess of alkali, and may be caused by excess humidity as well as inherent defects in glass composition. He was granted a protective patent in 1673, where production moved from his glasshouse in the precinct of the Savoy, London, to the seclusion of Henley-on-Thames. In 1676, having apparently overcome the crizzling problem, Ravenscroft was granted the use of a raven's head seal as a guaranty of quality. In 1681, the year of his death, the patent expired and operations quickly developed among several firms, where by 1696 twenty-seven of the eighty-eight glasshouses in England, especially at London and Bristol, were producing flint glass containing 30–35% PbO.


title: Lead glass

text: At this period, glass was sold by weight, and the typical forms were rather heavy and solid with minimal decoration. Such was its success on the international market, however, that in 1746, the British Government imposed a lucrative tax by weight. Rather than drastically reduce the lead content of their glass, manufacturers responded by creating highly decorated, smaller, more delicate forms, often with hollow stems, known to collectors today as "Excise glasses". In 1780, the government granted Ireland free trade in glass without taxation. English labour and capital then shifted to Dublin and Belfast, and new glassworks specialising in cut glass were installed in Cork and Waterford. In 1825, the tax was renewed, and gradually the industry declined until the mid-nineteenth century, when the tax was finally repealed.


title: Lead glass

text: From the 18th century, English lead glass became popular throughout Europe, and was ideally suited to the new taste for wheel-cut glass decoration perfected on the Continent owing to its relatively soft properties. In Holland, local engraving masters such as David Wolff and Frans Greenwood stippled imported English glassware, a style that remained popular through the eighteenth century. Such was its popularity in Holland that the first Continental production of lead-crystal glass began there, probably as the result of imported English workers. Imitating lead-crystal "à la façon d’Angleterre" presented technical difficulties, as the best results were obtained with covered pots in a coal-fired furnace, a particularly English process requiring specialised cone-furnaces. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, lead-crystal glass was being produced in France, Hungary, Germany, and Norway. By 1800, Irish lead crystal had overtaken lime-potash glasses on the Continent, and traditional glassmaking centres in Bohemia began to focus on colored glasses rather than compete directly against it.


title: Lead glass

text: The development of lead glass continued through the twentieth century, when in 1932 scientists at the Corning Glassworks, New York State, developed a new lead glass of high optical clarity. This became the focus of Steuben Glass Works, a division of Corning, which produced decorative vases, bowls, and glasses in Art Deco style. Lead-crystal continues to be used in industrial and decorative applications.


title: Lead glass

text: The fluxing and refractive properties valued for lead glass also make it attractive as a pottery or ceramic glaze. Lead glazes first appear in first century BC to first century AD Roman wares, and occur nearly simultaneously in China. They were very high in lead, 45–60% PbO, with a very low alkali content, less than 2%. From the Roman period, they remained popular through the Byzantine and Islamic periods in the Near East, on pottery vessels and tiles throughout medieval Europe, and up to the present day. In China, similar glazes were used from the twelfth century for colored enamels on stoneware, and on porcelain from the fourteenth century.


title: Lead glass

text: These could be applied in three different ways. Lead could be added directly to a ceramic body in the form of a lead compound in suspension, either from galena (PbS), red lead (PbO), white lead (2PbCO·Pb(OH)), or lead oxide (PbO). The second method involves mixing the lead compound with silica, which is then placed in suspension and applied directly. The third method involves fritting the lead compound with silica, powdering the mixture, and suspending and applying it. The method used on a particular vessel may be deduced by analysing the interaction layer between the glaze and the ceramic body microscopically.


title: Lead glass

text: Tin-opacified glazes appear in Iraq in the eighth century AD. Originally containing 1–2% PbO; by the eleventh century high-lead glazes had developed, typically containing 20–40% PbO and 5–12% alkali. These were used throughout Europe and the Near East, especially in Iznik ware, and continue to be used today. Glazes with even-higher lead content occur in Spanish and Italian maiolica, with up to 55% PbO and as low as 3% alkali. Adding lead to the melt allows the formation of tin oxide more readily than in an alkali glaze: tin oxide precipitates into crystals in the glaze as it cools, creating its opacity.


title: Lead glass

text: The use of lead glaze has several advantages over alkali glazes in addition to their greater optical refractivity. Lead compounds in suspension may be added directly to the ceramic body. Alkali glazes must first be mixed with silica and fritted prior to use, since they are soluble in water, requiring additional labor. A successful glaze must not "crawl", or peel away from the pottery surface upon cooling, leaving areas of unglazed ceramic. Lead reduces this risk by reducing the surface tension of the glaze. It must not craze, forming a network of cracks, caused when the thermal contraction of the glaze and the ceramic body do not match properly. Ideally, the glaze contraction should be 5–15% less than the body contraction, as glazes are stronger under compression than under tension. A high-lead glaze has a linear expansion coefficient of between 5 and 7×10/°C, compared to 9 to 10×10/°C for alkali glazes. Those of earthenware ceramics vary between 3 and 5×10/°C for non-calcareous bodies and 5 to 7×10/°C for calcareous clays, or those containing 15–25% CaO. Therefore, the thermal contraction of lead glaze matches that of the ceramic more closely than an alkali glaze, rendering it less prone to crazing. A glaze should also have a low enough viscosity to prevent the formation of pinholes as trapped gasses escape during firing, typically between 900 and 1100 °C, but not so low as to run off. The relatively low viscosity of lead glaze mitigates this issue. It may also have been cheaper to produce than alkali glazes.


title: Lead glass

text: Lead glass and glazes have a long and complex history, and continue to play new roles in industry and technology today.


title: Lead glass

text: Lead oxide added to the molten glass gives lead crystal a much higher index of refraction than normal glass, and consequently much greater "sparkle" by increasing specular reflection and the range of angles of total internal reflection. Ordinary glass has a refractive index of "n" = 1.5; the addition of lead produces an index of refraction of up to 1.7. This higher refractive index also raises the correlated dispersion, the degree to which the glass separates light into its colors, as in a prism. The increases in refractive index and dispersion significantly increase the amount of reflected light and thus the "fire" in the glass.


title: Lead glass

text: In cut glass, which has been hand- or machine-cut with facets, the presence of lead also makes the glass softer and easier to cut. Crystal can consist of up to 35% lead, at which point it has the most sparkle.


title: Lead glass

text: There is no safe level of lead intake. The WHO officially withdrew its previous safe levels in 2011 after reviewing the available research. Studies on lead safety and lead migration from leaded glass into food from before 2011 will often cite lead tolerable intake levels (PTWI, or provisional tolerable daily intake) greater than zero. Those intake levels are obsolete and should not be treated as health advice.


title: Lead glass

text: Several studies have demonstrated that storing food or drink in lead glassware can cause lead to leach into the contents. The amount of lead released increases with the acidity of the substance being stored. Vinegar has been shown to cause more rapid leaching compared to white wine, as vinegar is more acidic. Citrus juices and other acidic drinks leach lead from crystal as effectively as alcoholic beverages.


title: Lead glass

text: The amount of lead released into the food or drink increases with the amount of time the vessel is used for storage. In a study performed at North Carolina State University, the amount of lead migration was measured for port wine stored in lead crystal decanters. After two days, lead levels were 89 µg/L (micrograms per liter). After four months, lead levels were between 2,000 and 5,000 µg/L. White wine doubled its lead content within an hour of storage and tripled it within four hours. Some brandy stored in lead crystal for over five years had lead levels around 20,000 µg/L.


title: Lead glass

text: Lead leaching "decreases" with repeated use of a decanter. This finding is "consistent with ceramic chemistry theory, which predicts that leaching of lead from crystal is self-limiting exponentially as a function of increasing distance from the crystal-liquid interface." Daily usage of lead crystalware (without longer-term storage) was found to add up to 14.5 μg of lead from drinking a 350ml cola beverage.


title: Lead glass

text: It has been proposed that the historic association of gout with the upper classes in Europe and America was, in part, caused by their extensive use of lead crystal decanters to store fortified wines and whisky. Lin "et al." have statistical evidence linking gout to lead poisoning.


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: Norman Joel Greenbaum (born November 20, 1942) is an American singer-songwriter. He is primarily known for his 1969 song "Spirit in the Sky".


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: Greenbaum was born in Malden, Massachusetts. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household and attended Hebrew school at Congregation Beth Israel. His initial interest in music was sparked by Southern blues music and the folk music that was popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He performed with various bands in high school and studied music at Boston University for two years. In college he performed at local coffeehouses but eventually dropped out and moved to Los Angeles in 1965.


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: In the late 1960s Norman Greenbaum was the leader and composer for Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band, which recorded the novelty hit "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago". The group's psychedelic approach was too eccentric for mainstream show business; the group's name suggested a novelty or comedy act incorporating music.


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: Greenbaum went solo as a folk artist and submitted an original song, "Spirit in the Sky", to Reprise Records. His demonstration recording was a simple folk rendition, with Greenbaum accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Reprise handed Greenbaum to staff producer Erik Jacobsen, who radically rearranged the song for a new recording session. The updated version now had pulsing electric guitar, synthesized effects, gospel-styled backup singers, and an insistent rhythm accompanying Greenbaum, whose vocal was now double-tracked. Reprise released the record in late 1969, and it skyrocketed to #1 in almost all worldwide markets. It sold two million copies in 1969 and 1970, and received a gold disc from the RIAA. It has subsequently been used in many films, advertisements, and television shows.


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: Although "Spirit in the Sky" has a clear Christian theme, Greenbaum was and remains an observant Jew. Greenbaum says he was inspired to write the song after watching country singers singing a song on television. In an interview Greenbaum stated that Western movies were the real inspiration for "Spirit in the Sky":


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: Norman Greenbaum: If you ask me what I based "Spirit in the Sky" on ... what did we grow up watching? Westerns! These mean and nasty varmints get shot and they wanted to die with their boots on. So to me that was spiritual, they wanted to die with their boots on.


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: Norman Greenbaum: Yes. The song itself was simple, when you're writing a song you keep it simple of course. It wasn't like a Christian song of praise it was just a simple song. I had to use Christianity because I had to use something. But more important it wasn't the Jesus part, it was the spirit in the sky. Funny enough ... I wanted to die with my boots on.


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: All of the accoutrements added to "Spirit in the Sky" in the recording studio made it impossible for Greenbaum to replicate the recording in live performances. His televised appearance on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" compelled the singer to synchronize his performance to a playback of the hit record.


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: Though Norman Greenbaum is generally regarded as a one-hit wonder, he actually had two hits: the upbeat "Canned Ham" followed in 1970, and the record reached number 46 on the American charts and number 26 in the Canadian charts.


title: Norman Greenbaum

text: Greenbaum has been a long-time resident of Santa Rosa, California. He was critically injured when a car, in which he was a passenger, made a left turn in the path of a motorcycle on Occidental Road on March 28, 2015, killing the motorcyclist and injuring the motorcycle passenger. Greenbaum has since gone back to performing.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Naomi A. Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, left-wing politics and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism and capitalism. As of 2021 she is Associate Professor, and Professor of Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia, co-directing a Centre for Climate Justice.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Klein first became known internationally for her alter-globalization book "No Logo" (1999). "The Take" (2004), a documentary film about Argentina's occupied factories, written by her and directed by her husband Avi Lewis, further increased her profile, while "The Shock Doctrine" (2007), a critical analysis of the history of neoliberal economics, solidified her standing as a prominent activist on the international stage. "The Shock Doctrine" was adapted into a six-minute companion film by Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón, as well as a feature-length documentary by Michael Winterbottom. Klein's "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate" (2014) was a "New York Times" non-fiction bestseller and the winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.


title: Naomi Klein

text: In 2016, Klein was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for her activism on climate justice. Klein frequently appears on global and national lists of top influential thinkers, including the 2014 Thought Leaders ranking compiled by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, "Prospect" magazine's world thinkers 2014 poll, and Maclean's 2014 Power List. She was formerly a member of the board of directors of the climate activist group 350.org.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Naomi Klein was born in Montreal, Quebec, and brought up in a Jewish family with a history of peace activism. Her parents were self-described hippies who emigrated from the United States in 1967 as war resisters to the Vietnam War. Her mother, documentary film-maker Bonnie Sherr Klein, is best known for her anti-pornography film "". Her father, Michael Klein, is a physician and a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her brother, Seth Klein, is an author and the former director of the British Columbia office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Before World War II, her paternal grandparents were communists, but they began to turn against the Soviet Union after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. In 1942, her grandfather, an animator at Disney, was fired after the 1941 strike, and had to switch to working in a shipyard instead. By 1956 they had abandoned communism. Klein's father grew up surrounded by ideas of social justice and racial equality, but found it "difficult and frightening to be the child of Communists", a so-called red diaper baby.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Klein's husband, Avi Lewis, was born into a political and journalistic family. His grandfather, David Lewis, was an architect and leader of the federal New Democratic Party, while his father, Stephen Lewis, was a leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party. Avi Lewis works as a TV journalist and documentary filmmaker. The couple's only child, son Toma, was born on June 13, 2012.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Klein spent much of her teenage years in shopping malls, obsessed with designer labels. As a child and teenager, she found it "very oppressive to have a very public feminist mother" and she rejected politics, instead embracing "full-on consumerism".


title: Naomi Klein

text: She has attributed her change in worldview to two catalysts. One was when she was 17 and preparing for the University of Toronto, her mother had a stroke and became severely disabled. Naomi, her father, and her brother took care of Bonnie through the period in hospital and at home, making educational sacrifices to do so. That year off prevented her "from being such a brat". The next year, after beginning her studies at the University of Toronto, the second catalyst occurred: the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre of female engineering students, which proved to be a wake-up call to feminism.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Klein's writing career began with contributions to "The Varsity", a student newspaper, where she served as editor-in-chief. After her third year at the University of Toronto, she dropped out of university to take a job at "The Globe and Mail", followed by an editorship at "This Magazine". In 1995, she returned to the University of Toronto with the intention of finishing her degree but left University to pursue an internship in journalism before acquiring the final credits required to complete her degree.


title: Naomi Klein

text: In 1999 Klein published the book "No Logo", which for many became a manifesto of the anti-globalization movement. In it, she attacks brand-oriented consumer culture and the operations of large corporations. She also accuses several such corporations of unethically exploiting workers in the world's poorest countries in pursuit of greater profits. In this book, Klein criticized Nike so severely that Nike published a point-by-point response. "No Logo" became an international bestseller, selling over one million copies in over 28 languages.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Klein's "Fences and Windows" (2002) is a collection of her articles and speeches written on behalf of the anti-globalization movement (all proceeds from the book go to benefit activist organizations through The Fences and Windows Fund).


title: Naomi Klein

text: "The Take" (2004), a documentary film collaboration by Klein and Lewis, concerns factory workers in Argentina who took over a closed plant and resumed production, operating as a collective. The first African screening was in the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the South African city of Durban, where the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement began.


title: Naomi Klein

text: An article in "Z Communications" criticized "The Take" for its portrayal of the Argentine general and politician Juan Domingo Perón arguing that he was falsely portrayed as a social democrat.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Klein's third book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", was published on September 4, 2007. The book argues that the free market policies of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics have risen to prominence in countries such as Chile, under Pinochet, Poland, Russia, under Yeltsin. The book also argues that policy initiatives (for instance, the privatization of Iraq's economy under the Coalition Provisional Authority) were rushed through while the citizens of these countries were in shock from disasters, upheavals, or invasion. The book became an international and "New York Times" bestseller and was translated into 28 languages.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Central to the book's thesis is the contention that those who wish to implement unpopular free market policies now routinely do so by taking advantage of certain features of the aftermath of major disasters, be they economic, political, military or natural. The suggestion is that when a society experiences a major 'shock' there is a widespread desire for a rapid and decisive response to correct the situation; this desire for bold and immediate action provides an opportunity for unscrupulous actors to implement policies which go far beyond a legitimate response to disaster. The book suggests that when the rush to act means the specifics of a response will go unscrutinized, that is the moment when unpopular and unrelated policies will intentionally be rushed into effect. The book appears to claim that these shocks are in some cases intentionally encouraged or even manufactured.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Klein identifies the "shock doctrine", elaborating on Joseph Schumpeter, as the latest in capitalism's phases of "creative destruction".


title: Naomi Klein

text: "The Shock Doctrine" was adapted into a short film of the same name, released onto YouTube. The original is no longer available on the site, however, a duplicate was published in 2008. The film was directed by Jonás Cuarón, produced and co-written by his father Alfonso Cuarón. The original video was viewed over one million times.


title: Naomi Klein

text: The publication of "The Shock Doctrine" increased Klein's prominence, with "The New Yorker" judging her "the most visible and influential figure on the American left—what Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky were thirty years ago." On February 24, 2009, the book was awarded the inaugural Warwick Prize for Writing from the University of Warwick in England. The prize carried a cash award of £50,000.


title: Naomi Klein

text: Klein's fourth book, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate" was published in September 2014. The book puts forth the argument that the hegemony of neoliberal market fundamentalism is blocking any serious reforms to halt climate change and protect the environment. Questioned about Klein's claim that capitalism and controlling climate change were incompatible, Benoit Blarel, manager of the Environment and Natural Resources global practice at the World Bank, said that the write-off of fossil fuels necessary to control climate change "will have a huge impact all over" and that the World Bank was "starting work on this". The book won the 2014 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, and was a shortlisted nominee for the 2015 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.