title: Invasion of the United States

text: On June 3/4, 1942, the Japanese Navy attacked the Alaska Territory as part of the Aleutian Islands campaign with the bombing of Dutch Harbor in the city of Unalaska, inflicting destruction and killing 43 Americans. Several days later, a force of six to seven thousand Japanese troops landed and occupied the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska; they were driven out between May and August 1943 by American and Canadian forces. The Aleutian Islands campaign in early June 1942 was the only foreign invasion of American soil during World War II and the first significant foreign occupation of American soil since the War of 1812. Japan also conducted air attacks through the use of fire balloons. Six American civilians were killed in such attacks; Japan also launched two manned air attacks on Oregon as well as two incidents of Japanese submarines shelling the U.S. West Coast.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: Although Alaska was the only incorporated territory invaded by Japan, successful invasions of unincorporated territories in the western Pacific shortly after Pearl Harbor included the battles of Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: In December 1944, the Japanese Naval General Staff, led by Vice-Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa, proposed Operation PX, also known as Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night. It called for "Seiran" aircraft to be launched by submarine aircraft carriers upon the West Coast of the United States—specifically, the cities of San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The planes would spread weaponized bubonic plague, cholera, typhus, dengue fever, and other pathogens in a biological terror attack upon the population. The submarine crews would infect themselves and run ashore in a suicide mission. Planning for Operation PX was finalized on March 26, 1945, but shelved shortly thereafter due to the strong opposition of Chief of General Staff Yoshijirō Umezu, who believed the attack would spark "an endless battle of humanity against bacteria" and that it would cause Japan to "earn the derision of the world."


title: Invasion of the United States

text: During the Cold War, the primary threat of an attack on the United States was viewed to be from the Soviet Union and larger Warsaw Pact. In the event of such an attack occurring, the resulting war was universally expected to turn nuclear almost immediately, mainly in the form of intercontinental ballistic missile attacks as well as Soviet Navy launches of SLBMs at US coastal cities.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: The first Cold War strategy against a Soviet attack on the United States was developed in 1948, one year after the declaration of the Truman Doctrine, and was made into an even firmer policy after the first Soviet development of a nuclear weapon in 1949. By 1950, the United States had developed a defense plan to repel a Soviet nuclear bomber force through the use of interceptors and anti-aircraft missiles and to launch its own bomber fleet into Soviet airspace from bases in Alaska and Europe. By the end of the 1950s, both Soviet and US strategy included nuclear submarines and long-range nuclear missiles, both of which could strike in just ten to thirty minutes; bomber forces took as long as four to six hours to reach their targets and were significantly easier to intercept. This resulted in the development and implementation of the nuclear triad policy, under which all three weapons platforms (land-based, submarine, and bomber) were to be coordinated in unison for a devastating first strike, followed by a counterstrike that would be accompanied by "mopping up" missions of nuclear bombers.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: Operation Washtub was a top secret joint operation between the United States Air Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Primarily lead by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and his then-protégé Joseph F. Carroll, the operation was carried out with the primary goal of leaving stay-behind agents in the Alaska Territory for covert intelligence gathering, with a secondary goal of maintaining evasion and escape facilities for US forces.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: On June 22, 1955, a US Navy P2V Neptune with a crew of eleven was attacked by two Soviet Air Forces fighter aircraft along the International Date Line in international waters over the Bering Strait, between the Kamchatka Peninsula and Alaska. The P2V crashed on the northwestern cape of St. Lawrence Island, near the village of Gambell. Villagers rescued the crew, three of whom were wounded by Soviet fire and four of whom were injured in the crash.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: American nuclear warfare planning was nearly put to the test during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The subsequent blockade of Cuba also added a fourth element into American nuclear strategy: surface ships and the possibility of low-yield nuclear attacks against deployed fleets. Indeed, the US had already tested the feasibility of nuclear attacks on ships during Operation Crossroads. Reportedly, one Soviet submarine nearly launched a nuclear torpedo at an American warship, but the three officers required to initiate the launch (the captain, the executive officer Vasily Arkhipov, and the political officer) could not agree to do so.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: By the 1970s, the concept of mutually-assured destruction led to an American nuclear strategy that would remain relatively consistent until the end of the Cold War.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: In of 21st-century warfare, United States strategic planners have been forced to contend with various threats to the United States, including direct attack, terrorism, and unconventional warfare such as a cyberwarfare or economic attack on American investments and financial stability.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: Several modern armies operate nuclear weapons with ranges in the thousands of kilometers. The US is therefore vulnerable to nuclear attack by powers such as the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France,


title: Invasion of the United States

text: and India. However, the UK and France are both members of NATO and longtime US allies, while India is a Major Defense Partner of the United States and a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, meaning an attack on the US by any of these countries is extremely unlikely. It should also be noted that although relations between China and the United States have been consistently tense, both countries are economically intertwined to an extent that full-scale war between them would be highly unprofitable.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: The United States Northern Command and the United States Indo-Pacific Command are the top US military commands overseeing the defense of the Continental US and Hawaii, respectively.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: The risk of cyberattacks on civilian, government, and military computer targets was brought to light after China became suspected of using government-funded hackers to disrupt American banking systems, defense industries, telecommunication systems, power grids, utility controls, air traffic and train traffic control systems, and certain military systems such as C4ISR and ballistic missile launch systems.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: Attacks on the US economy, such as efforts to devalue the dollar or corner trade markets to isolate the United States, are currently considered another method by which a foreign power may seek to attack the country.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: Many experts have considered the US impossible to invade because of its major industries, reliable and fast supply lines, large geographical size, geographic location, population size, and difficult regional features. For example, the deserts in the Southwest and the Great Lakes in the Midwest insulate the country's major population centers from threats of invasion. An invasion from outside North America would require long supply chains across the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans, leading to a dramatic reduction of overall power. Furthermore, no existing nation possesses enough military and economic resources to threaten the contiguous United States. It should also be noted that Canada and Mexico enjoy generally friendly relations with the US, are deeply economically intertwined, and are militarily weak in comparison.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: Military expert Dylan Lehrke noted that an amphibious assault on either the West Coast or the East Coast is simply too insignificant to acquire a beachhead on both coasts. Even if a foreign power somehow managed to prepare such a massive operation, and do so while remaining undetected despite the unrivaled size of the American intelligence apparatus, it still could not build up a force of any significant size before it was pushed back into the sea. In addition, Hawaii is largely protected by the consistently forty thousand-strong US military presence with valuable assets, which acts as a major deterrent to any foreign invasion of the island state and thereby the contiguous US. Thus, any continental invasion with even a remote hope of success would need to come from the land borders through Canada or Mexico. An attack from the latter would probably be more feasible due to the Great Lakes blocking much of the Canadian border, but California and Texas have the largest concentration of defense industries and military bases in the country and thus provide an effective deterrent from any attack, with the Southwestern desert also effectively dividing any invasion into two. An attack launched from Canada on the Midwest or the West would be limited to light infantry and would fail to take over population centers or other important strategic points since there are mostly rural farmland and unpopulated national parks along the border and powerful airbases located hundreds of miles south. That provides US military personnel or militias an advantage to conduct guerrilla warfare. This has resulted in many referring to the US as uninvadable.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: A number of films and other related media have dealt with fictitious portrayals of an attack against the US by a foreign power. One of the more well-known films is "Red Dawn", detailing an attack against the US by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua. A 2012 remake details a similar attack, launched by North Korea and ultranationalists controlling Russia. Other films include "Invasion U.S.A.", "Olympus Has Fallen", and "White House Down". "The Day After" and "By Dawn's Early Light", both of which detail nuclear war between US and Soviet forces. Another film that shows an invasion of the US was the 1999 film "" in which Canadian forces invade the main characters' hometown in Colorado. A bloodless Soviet takeover aftermath is depicted in the 1987 miniseries "Amerika".


title: Invasion of the United States

text: "Invasion U.S.A." is a 1985 American action film made by Cannon Films starring Chuck Norris. It was directed by Joseph Zito. It involves the star fighting off a force of Soviet and Cuban-led guerrillas.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: In Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle", the United States is occupied by both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, which are separated by a neutral zone, after invasions of both the West Coast and the East Coast.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: A terrorist occupation of Washington, D.C. was the subject of a "" cartoon episode, when Serpentor led Cobra forces to occupy the American capital. A terrorist occupation of the capital was also seen in "". In "The Simpsons"' episode "You Only Move Twice," series protagonist Homer Simpson goes to work for what he doesn't know is a terrorist organization, whose leader threatens extreme violence and destruction in the mainland if various demands are not met; in the end, the terrorists seize control of the U.S. East Coast.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: In the video game "", Russia invades several parts of the United States, including Washington, D.C., in retaliation for a supposedly U.S.-assisted terrorist attack on a Russian airport. In "", the battle spreads to New York. The video game "Homefront" depicts an invasion of the U.S. by a unified Korea while "" depicts North Korea invading and occupying the United States. In the real time strategy game "World in Conflict", Soviet forces invade and occupy the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, but are unable to make true gains into the mainland before they are eventually thrown back into the sea, only occupying at most, a third of the state of Washington for a few months. In the game "" is an alternate universe of the Axis Powers winning World War II which results in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan invading the United States in 1953. Bethesda Softworks's "" and "" are set in a world where Germany has won World War II, including a mainland invasion of U.S. after a nuclear bomb hit New York City. Part of "" includes a similar scenario.


title: Invasion of the United States

text: The 2003 video game "Freedom Fighters" is set in an alternate history where the Soviet Union won the Cold War, conquered most of the world and has invaded the United States from both Alaska and New York City. In the video game "" the Soviet Union launches a massive invasion of the United States, with an emphasis on deploying psychic beacons in order to mind control the population.


title: 2008 in film

text: The year 2008 involved many major film events. "The Dark Knight" was the year's highest-grossing film, while "Slumdog Millionaire" won the Academy Award for Best Picture (out of eight Academy Awards).


title: 2008 in film

text: The entertainment agency website IGN described 2008 as "one of the biggest years ever for movies." It stated, "2008 was the year when the comic book movie genre not only hits its zenith, but also gained critical respectability thanks to "The Dark Knight". Animated films also proved a huge draw for filmgoers, with Pixar's "WALL-E" becoming not only the highest grossing toon but also the most lauded. Things got off on the right foot with the monster movie madness of "Cloverfield". Marvel got down to business laying the groundwork for their superhero team-up "The Avengers" with the blockbuster hit "Iron Man" and their respectable attempt at rebooting "The Incredible Hulk". The games-to-film genre took a hit this year, with only Max Payne proving to be a worthy adaptation of the source material. We also saw the highly anticipated big-screen returns of iconic characters like "Batman", "James Bond", and "Indiana Jones" – some were more successful than others."


title: 2008 in film

text: The film industry and review website IndieWire described 2008 as "a stellar year for movies" that "gave us tons of unforgettable classics" such as "The Wrestler", "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" and "Che".


title: 2008 in film

text: For 2008, the top ten films consisted of three superhero films, three animated films, three action films and one musical film.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco is a city in Collin and Denton counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and about from both Dallas Love Field and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Its population was 200,509 at the 2020 U.S. census.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco was the fastest-growing city in the United States in 2017, and also from 2000 to 2009. In the late 1990s, the northern DFW suburban development tide hit the northern border of Plano and spilled into Frisco, sparking rapid growth into the 2000s. Like many of the cities in Dallas's northern exurbs, Frisco serves as a bedroom community for professionals who work in DFW. Since 2003, Frisco has received the designation Tree City USA from the National Arbor Day Foundation.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: When the Dallas area was being settled by American pioneers, many of the settlers traveled by wagon trains along the Shawnee Trail. This trail became the Preston Trail, and later Preston Road. With all this activity, the community of Lebanon was founded along this trail, and was granted a U.S. post office in 1860.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: In 1902, a line of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway was being built through the area, and periodic watering stops were needed along the route for the steam locomotives. The current settlement of Lebanon was on the Preston Ridge, and was too high in elevation, so the watering stop was placed about 4 miles (6 km) to the west on lower ground. A community grew around this train stop. Some Lebanon residents moved their houses to the new community on logs. The new town was originally named Emerson, but the U.S. Postal Service rejected the name as too similar to another community, Emberson, in Lamar County.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: In 1904, the town's residents chose "Frisco City" in honor of the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway. This name was later shortened to Frisco.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco is within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, partially in Denton and Collin counties, in North Texas. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , of which is land and , or 0.92%, is covered by water.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco is part of the humid subtropical region. The city gets of precipitation per year. On average, 230 days per year are sunny. The July high is ; the January low is . The comfort index, which is based on humidity during the hot months, is a 25 out of 100, where higher is more comfortable.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 200,509 people, 64,151 households, and 48,519 families residing in the city, up from 2010's tabulation of 116,989.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Among the population, the 2019 American Community Survey estimated 51.9% were non-Hispanic or Latino white, 8.4% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 26.0% Asian alone, 0.1% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, 2.7% two or more races, and 10.7% Hispanic and Latino American of any race. By 2020, 48% of the population were non-Hispanic white, 8.82% Black or African American, 0.3% Native American, 26.27% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.52% some other race, 4.55% multiracial, and 11.48% Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: According to a 2010 American Community Survey estimate, the median income for a household in the city was $100,868, the median income for a family was $109,086. The per capita income for the city was $38,048. About 2.2% of families and 5.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.5% of those under age 18 and 2.4% of those age 65 or over. The median price for a new home was $252,000. By 2019, its median income grew to $116,884.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco has many retail properties, including Stonebriar Centre, a 165-store regional mall; IKEA, a furniture store with an area of ; and The Star, the headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys. Retail establishments and restaurants line Preston Road, one of the city's major north–south traffic arteries.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco took a different economic track than many surrounding cities, electing to use a fractional percent of local sales tax to fund the Frisco Economic Development Corporation (FEDC) rather than Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), the regional transportation body. The effectiveness of the FEDC, whose primary purpose is to reallocate such tax dollars to commercial ventures, is a matter of public debate.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco Square, a mixed-use development, became the new downtown along with the city hall. Frisco Square has about 250 rental residential units, seven restaurants, about of commercial office space, and a few personal-service locations. The major development in the project is the new city hall, main library, and public commons. A Cinemark theater opened in 2010. In 2012, a hospital, Medical City Plano-Frisco, was built north of the theater.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco hosts the Museum of the American Railroad, which is based out of the Frisco Heritage Museum while construction on a separate museum complex continues. The nearby Discovery Center features an art gallery, a black-box theater, and the National Videogame Museum.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco Square hosts a variety of events throughout the year including Arts in the Square, Music in the Square, and the annual Christmas in the Square holiday light show (the largest choreographed lights and music show in North Texas). The city hall also hosts a Music in the Chamber concert series in the city council chamber.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco is home to several sporting venues, many major sports teams headquarters, and an NCAA Division I conference headquarters. In April 2011, "Men's Journal" named Frisco the Best Place to Raise an Athlete.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Ford Center at the Star is a 12,000-seat indoor stadium. The 91-acre Dallas Cowboys project "The Star" includes the team's headquarters and training facilities, including the Ford Center, where the Cowboys practice and Frisco ISD high school teams practice and play on a rotating basis. It is on Gaylord Parkway, one block west of the Dallas North Tollway. Multiple professional teams have made their home at the Ford Center, including the Texas Revolution of Champions Indoor Football and the Dallas Rattlers of Major League Lacrosse.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Riders Field, a 10,316-seat baseball stadium, hosted its first baseball game on April 3, 2003. BaseballParks.com named it the best new ballpark that year, and it received the 2003 "Texas Construction" award for Best Architectural Design.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Toyota Stadium, which opened in 2005 as "Pizza Hut Park", is a 20,500-seat stadium. It is primarily used as a soccer stadium by FC Dallas, but also hosts concerts and high school and college football games, including the NCAA Division I-AA (FCS) college football championship starting in 2010 and the NCAA Division I (FBS) Frisco Bowl starting in 2017.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Comerica Center (formerly Dr Pepper Arena), a combination hockey and basketball venue, is the home of the Texas Legends of the NBA G League and the Frisco Fighters of the Indoor Football League, and a practice facility for the Dallas Stars of the NHL.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL) moved their corporate headquarters to "The Star" in Frisco in time for the 2016 NFL football season; the complex opened in June 2016. Built in partnership with Frisco ISD, which contributed $30 million to building the Ford Center at the Star in lieu of a dedicated third football stadium, Frisco ISD has held high school football games at the Ford Center since it opened.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Multiple professional indoor football teams have previously been based in Frisco, including the Frisco Thunder of the Intense Football League and the Texas Revolution of Champions Indoor Football.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: In 2020 a new Indoor Football League expansion franchise, the Frisco Fighters, debuted with home games to be played at Comerica Center. After the Fighters' 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team played its inaugural home opener on June 5, 2021. In their first year of operation, the Fighters clinched a playoff berth, advancing as far as the IFL semifinal game against the eventual 2021 United Bowl champion Massachusetts Pirates.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Dallas Stars National Hockey League team is headquartered in Frisco, and practices at the Comerica Center. The Texas Tornado of the North American Hockey League had been based in Frisco since the fall of 2003, and shortly afterward the league moved its main offices to Frisco. In the 2013 off-season, the Texas Tornado relocated to North Richland Hills, Texas. The league relocated its offices in 2018.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: FC Dallas (formerly the Dallas Burn), a Major League Soccer team, moved its home to Pizza Hut Park (now Toyota Stadium) near the corner of the Dallas North Tollway and Main Street in August 2005. A major international youth soccer tournament, the Dallas Cup, is hosted in Frisco each year and draws teams from around the world. The National Soccer Hall of Fame is co-located with Toyota Stadium.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Frisco RoughRiders, the Double-A Minor League Baseball affiliate of the Texas Rangers in the South Division of the Texas League, play in Frisco at Riders Field.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Texas Legends, affiliated with the Dallas Mavericks, are members of the NBA G League and play at Comerica Center.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: On November 16, 2017, Major League Lacrosse announced it would be moving the Rochester Rattlers franchise to The Ford Center at the Star in Frisco for the 2018 season as the Dallas Rattlers. The Rattlers folded after the 2019 season.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Southland Conference, an NCAA Division I athletics organization, relocated its headquarters to Frisco in 2006. On February 26, 2010, Pizza Hut Park (now Toyota Stadium) was announced as the host of the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly NCAA Division I-AA) championship game, formerly held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Huntington, West Virginia. The first matchup, hosted by the Southland Conference, was played January 7, 2011.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco also has an Olympic-sized, state-of-the-art natatorium. The Frisco Baseball and Softball Association was established in 1984. The Frisco Football League is an organized recreational league that allows children to play football before entering football in the school district. The Flagfootball4fun Flag Football League (FF4FUN) is an organized recreational youth flag football league. The sports entertainment conglomerate Dude Perfect is in Frisco.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Frisco Athletic Center features of indoor aquatics elements and about of outdoor aquatic features. It features exercise equipment, basketball courts, and group exercise classes.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco is a "home rule" city. Frisco voters adopted its initial "home rule" charter in 1987. Frisco residents have voted to amend the charter three times since 1987:


title: Frisco, Texas

text: In May 2014, the Charter Review Commission recommended an additional 14 propositions, but these were never placed on the ballots.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The form of government adopted by Frisco is the council-manager, which consists of a mayor and six city council members elected at-large and a city manager. Council members' duties include enacting local legislation (ordinances), adopting budgets, determining policies, and appointing the city manager. The mayor and city council members each serve three year terms, with term limits of three terms. There have only been two city managers in Frisco history: George Purefoy served for over 34 years before his retirement in 2022, when he was replaced by current city manager Wes Pierson.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: According to the city's 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the city's various funds had $227.2 million in revenues, $184.4 million in expenditures, $1.647 billion in total assets, $753.1 million in total liabilities, and $159.3 million in cash and investments.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The city of Frisco is a voluntary member of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, the purpose of which is to coordinate individual and collective local governments and facilitate regional solutions, eliminate unnecessary duplication, and enable joint decisions.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: After the 2021 state and federal redistricting, Frisco contains most or parts of Texas State House of Representatives districts 57, 61, 66 and 106. Frisco contains parts of Texas State Senate districts 8 and 30.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: After the 2021 state and federal redistricting, Frisco contains parts of United States Congressional districts 3, 4, and 26.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Most of Frisco is in the Frisco Independent School District (Frisco ISD), with some parts of the city extending into the Lewisville Independent School District, Little Elm Independent School District, and Prosper Independent School District. Lewisville ISD operates one elementary campus in the city while Prosper ISD operates an elementary school, a middle school, and Rock Hill High School, a high school within the Frisco city limits.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: Frisco ISD has 11 high schools (with a 12th set to open in August 2022), 17 middle schools and 42 elementary schools, and 3 special programs centers. Most Frisco ISD schools are within the Frisco city limits, but some are in adjacent suburbs, such as Plano. All Frisco high schools compete in UIL Class 5A, with the exception of soon-to-open Panther Creek High School, which will compete in Class 4A.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Frisco ISD Early Childhood School is available for children ages three and four who meet eligibility requirements for Headstart, Prekindergarten, or Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: At the Frisco ISD Career and Technical Education Center, high school students can experience and try different careers, from veterinary work to advertising and graphic design.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The Texas Legislature designated Collin College as the community college for the municipality of Frisco as well as all of Collin County. The Preston Ridge campus of the community college district opened on Wade Boulevard in Frisco in 1995. Amberton University has a local campus on Parkwood Boulevard north of Warren Parkway. In 2008, Frisco ISD opened the Career and Technology Education Center.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: The University of Dallas moved its Carrollton campus to Frisco. UT Arlington has a professional MBA campus in Frisco. The University of North Texas core MBA courses can be taken at the Frisco campus.


title: Frisco, Texas

text: In 1978, the first season of "Dallas" was filmed at Frisco's Cloyce Box Ranch (now the Brinkmann Ranch), where the house on site was used as the Ewing family home. This house burned down during renovations in 1987, and the steel skeleton of the house still stands on today's Brinkmann Ranch, now the largest family-owned estate in Frisco.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: The Theatre of the Absurd ( ) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of theatre the plays represent. The plays focus largely on ideas of existentialism and express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down. The structure of the plays is typically a round shape, with the finishing point the same as the starting point. Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and to the ultimate conclusion—silence.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay "The Theatre of the Absurd", which begins by focusing on the playwrights Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugène Ionesco. Esslin says that their plays have a common denominator — the "absurd", a word that Esslin defines with a quotation from Ionesco: "absurd is that which has not purpose, or goal, or objective." The French philosopher Albert Camus, in his 1942 essay "Myth of Sisyphus", describes the human situation as meaningless and absurd.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man's reaction to a world apparently without meaning, or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. This style of writing was first popularized by the Eugène Ionesco play "The Bald Soprano" (1950). Although the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play".


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: In his introduction to the book "Absurd Drama" (1965), Esslin wrote:The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: In the first edition of "The Theatre of the Absurd", Esslin quotes the French philosopher Albert Camus's essay "Myth of Sisyphus", as it uses the word "absurdity" to describe the human situation: "In a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger. … This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of Absurdity."


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Esslin presents the four defining playwrights of the movement as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet, and in subsequent editions he added a fifth playwright, Harold Pinter. Other writers associated with this group by Esslin and other critics include Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Fernando Arrabal, Edward Albee, Boris Vian, and Jean Tardieu.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: The mode of most "absurdist" plays is tragicomedy. As Nell says in "Endgame", "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness … it's the most comical thing in the world". Esslin cites William Shakespeare as an influence on this aspect of the "Absurd drama". Shakespeare's influence is acknowledged directly in the titles of Ionesco's "Macbett" and Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". Friedrich Dürrenmatt says in his essay "Problems of the Theatre", "Comedy alone is suitable for us … But the tragic is still possible even if pure tragedy is not. We can achieve the tragic out of comedy. We can bring it forth as a frightening moment, as an abyss that opens suddenly; indeed, many of Shakespeare's tragedies are already really comedies out of which the tragic arises."


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Though layered with a significant amount of tragedy, Theatre of the Absurd echoes other great forms of comedic performance, according to Esslin, from Commedia dell'arte to vaudeville. Similarly, Esslin cites early film comedians and music hall artists such as Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Cops and Buster Keaton as direct influences. (Keaton even starred in Beckett's "Film" in 1965.)


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: As an experimental form of theatre, many Theatre of the Absurd playwrights employ techniques borrowed from earlier innovators. Writers and techniques frequently mentioned in relation to the Theatre of the Absurd include the 19th-century nonsense poets, such as Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear; Polish playwright Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz; the Russians Daniil Kharms, Nikolai Erdman, and others; Bertolt Brecht's distancing techniques in his "Epic theatre"; and the "dream plays" of August Strindberg.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: One commonly cited precursor is Luigi Pirandello, especially "Six Characters in Search of an Author". Pirandello was a highly regarded theatrical experimentalist who wanted to bring down the fourth wall presupposed by the realism of playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen. According to W. B. Worthen, "Six Characters" and other Pirandello plays use "Metatheatre—roleplaying, plays-within-plays, and a flexible sense of the limits of stage and illusion—to examine a highly-theatricalized vision of identity".


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Another influential playwright was Guillaume Apollinaire whose "The Breasts of Tiresias" was the first work to be called "surreal".


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: A precursor is Alfred Jarry whose "Ubu" plays scandalized Paris in the 1890s. Likewise, the concept of 'pataphysics—"the science of imaginary solutions"—first presented in Jarry's "Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien" ("Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician") was inspirational to many later Absurdists, some of whom joined the Collège de 'pataphysique, founded in honor of Jarry in 1948 (Ionesco, Arrabal, and Vian were given the title Transcendent Satrape of the Collège de 'pataphysique). The Theatre Alfred Jarry, founded by Antonin Artaud and Roger Vitrac, housed several Absurdist plays, including ones by Ionesco and Adamov.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Artaud's "The Theatre of Cruelty" (presented in "The Theatre and Its Double") was a particularly important philosophical treatise. Artaud claimed theatre's reliance on literature was inadequate and that the true power of theatre was in its visceral impact. Artaud was a Surrealist, and many other members of the Surrealist group were significant influences on the Absurdists.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Absurdism is also frequently compared to Surrealism's predecessor, Dadaism (for example, the Dadaist plays by Tristan Tzara performed at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich). Many of the Absurdists had direct connections with the Dadaists and Surrealists. Ionesco, Adamov, and Arrabal for example, were friends with Surrealists still living in Paris at the time including Paul Eluard and André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, and Beckett translated many Surrealist poems by Breton and others from French into English.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Many of the Absurdists were contemporaries with Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosophical spokesman for existentialism in Paris, but few Absurdists actually committed to Sartre's own existentialist philosophy, as expressed in "Being and Nothingness", and many of the Absurdists had a complicated relationship with him. Sartre praised Genet's plays, stating that for Genet, "Good is only an illusion. Evil is a Nothingness which arises upon the ruins of Good".


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Ionesco, however, hated Sartre bitterly. Ionesco accused Sartre of supporting Communism but ignoring the atrocities committed by Communists; he wrote "Rhinoceros" as a criticism of blind conformity, whether it be to Nazism or Communism; at the end of the play, one man remains on Earth resisting transformation into a rhinoceros. Sartre criticized "Rhinoceros" by questioning: "Why is there one man who resists? At least we could learn why, but no, we learn not even that. He resists because he is there". Sartre's criticism highlights a primary difference between the Theatre of the Absurd and existentialism: the Theatre of the Absurd shows the failure of man without recommending a solution. In a 1966 interview, , comparing the Absurdists to Sartre and Camus, said to Ionesco, "It seems to me that Beckett, Adamov and yourself started out less from philosophical reflections or a return to classical sources, than from first-hand experience and a desire to find a new theatrical expression that would enable you to render this experience in all its acuteness and also its immediacy. If Sartre and Camus thought out these themes, you expressed them in a far more vital contemporary fashion". Ionesco replied, "I have the feeling that these writers – who are serious and important – were talking about absurdity and death, but that they never really lived these themes, that they did not feel them within themselves in an almost irrational, visceral way, that all this was not deeply inscribed in their language. With them it was still rhetoric, eloquence. With Adamov and Beckett it really is a very naked reality that is conveyed through the apparent dislocation of language".


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: In comparison to Sartre's concepts of the function of literature, Samuel Beckett's primary focus was on the "failure" of man to overcome "absurdity" - or the repetition of life even though the end result will be the same no matter what and everything is essentially pointless - as James Knowlson says in "Damned to Fame", Beckett's work focuses, "on poverty, failure, exile and loss — as he put it, on man as a 'non-knower' and as a 'non-can-er' ." Beckett's own relationship with Sartre was complicated by a mistake made in the publication of one of his stories in Sartre's journal "Les Temps Modernes". Beckett said, though he liked "Nausea", he generally found the writing style of Sartre and Heidegger to be "too philosophical" and he considered himself "not a philosopher".


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: The "Absurd" or "New Theater" movement was originally a Paris-based (and a Rive Gauche) avant-garde phenomenon tied to extremely small theaters in the Quartier Latin. Some of the Absurdists, such as Jean Genet, Jean Tardieu, and Boris Vian., were born in France. Many other Absurdists were born elsewhere but lived in France, writing often in French: Samuel Beckett from Ireland; Eugène Ionesco from Romania; Arthur Adamov from Russia; Alejandro Jodorowsky from Chile and Fernando Arrabal from Spain. As the influence of the Absurdists grew, the style spread to other countries—with playwrights either directly influenced by Absurdists in Paris or playwrights labelled Absurdist by critics. In England, some of those whom Esslin considered practitioners of the Theatre of the Absurd include Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, N. F. Simpson, James Saunders, and David Campton; in the United States, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, Jack Gelber, and John Guare; in Poland, Tadeusz Różewicz; Sławomir Mrożek, and Tadeusz Kantor; in Italy, Dino Buzzati; and in Germany, Peter Weiss, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, and Günter Grass. In India, both Mohit Chattopadhyay and Mahesh Elkunchwar have also been labeled Absurdists. Other international Absurdist playwrights include Tawfiq el-Hakim from Egypt; Hanoch Levin from Israel; Miguel Mihura from Spain; José de Almada Negreiros from Portugal; Mikhail Volokhov from Russia; Yordan Radichkov from Bulgaria; and playwright and former Czech President Václav Havel.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Plays within this group are absurd in that they focus not on logical acts, realistic occurrences, or traditional character development; they, instead, focus on human beings trapped in an incomprehensible world subject to any occurrence, no matter how illogical. The theme of incomprehensibility is coupled with the inadequacy of language to form meaningful human connections. According to Martin Esslin, Absurdism is "the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose" Absurdist drama asks its viewer to "draw his own conclusions, make his own errors". Though Theatre of the Absurd may be seen as nonsense, they have something to say and can be understood". Esslin makes a distinction between the dictionary definition of absurd ("out of harmony" in the musical sense) and drama's understanding of the Absurd: "Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless".


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: The characters in Absurdist drama are lost and floating in an incomprehensible universe and they abandon rational devices and discursive thought because these approaches are inadequate. Many characters appear as automatons stuck in routines speaking only in cliché (Ionesco called the Old Man and Old Woman in "The Chairs" "übermarionettes"). Characters are frequently stereotypical, archetypal, or flat character types as in Commedia dell'arte.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: The more complex characters are in crisis because the world around them is incomprehensible. Many of Pinter's plays, for example, feature characters trapped in an enclosed space menaced by some force the character can't understand. Pinter's first play was "The Room" – in which the main character, Rose, is menaced by Riley who invades her safe space though the actual source of menace remains a mystery – and this theme of characters in a safe space menaced by an outside force is repeated in many of his later works (perhaps most famously in "The Birthday Party"). In Friedrich Dürrenmatt's "The Visit," the main character, Alfred, is menaced by Claire Zachanassian; Claire, richest woman in the world with a decaying body and multiple husbands throughout the play, has guaranteed a payout for anyone in the town willing to kill Alfred. Characters in Absurdist drama may also face the chaos of a world that science and logic have abandoned. Ionesco's recurring character Berenger, for example, faces a killer without motivation in "The Killer", and Berenger's logical arguments fail to convince the killer that killing is wrong. In "Rhinocéros", Berenger remains the only human on Earth who hasn't turned into a rhinoceros and must decide whether or not to conform. Characters may find themselves trapped in a routine, or in a metafictional conceit, trapped in a story; the title characters in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead", for example, find themselves in a story ("Hamlet") in which the outcome has already been written.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: The plots of many Absurdist plays feature characters in interdependent pairs, commonly either two males or a male and a female. Some Beckett scholars call this the "pseudocouple". The two characters may be roughly equal or have a begrudging interdependence (like Vladimir and Estragon in "Waiting for Godot" or the two main characters in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"); one character may be clearly dominant and may torture the passive character (like Pozzo and Lucky in "Waiting for Godot" or Hamm and Clov in "Endgame"); the relationship of the characters may shift dramatically throughout the play (as in Ionesco's "The Lesson" or in many of Albee's plays, "The Zoo Story" for example).


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Despite its reputation for nonsense language, much of the dialogue in Absurdist plays is naturalistic. The moments when characters resort to nonsense language or clichés—when words appear to have lost their denotative function, thus creating misunderstanding among the characters—make the Theatre of the Absurd distinctive. Language frequently gains a certain phonetic, rhythmical, almost musical quality, opening up a wide range of often comedic playfulness. Jean Tardieu, for example, in the series of short pieces "Theatre de Chambre" arranged the language as one arranges music. Distinctively Absurdist language ranges from meaningless clichés to vaudeville-style word play to meaningless nonsense. "The Bald Soprano", for example, was inspired by a language book in which characters would exchange empty clichés that never ultimately amounted to true communication or true connection. Likewise, the characters in "The Bald Soprano"—like many other Absurdist characters—go through routine dialogue full of clichés without actually communicating anything substantive or making a human connection. In other cases, the dialogue is purposefully elliptical; the language of Absurdist Theater becomes secondary to the poetry of the concrete and objectified images of the stage. Many of Beckett's plays devalue language for the sake of the striking tableau. Harold Pinter—famous for his "Pinter pause"—presents more subtly elliptical dialogue; often the primary things characters should address are replaced by ellipsis or dashes. The following exchange between Aston and Davies in "The Caretaker" is typical of Pinter:


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Much of the dialogue in Absurdist drama (especially in Beckett's and Albee's plays, for example) reflects this kind of evasiveness and inability to make a connection. When language that is apparently nonsensical appears, it also demonstrates this disconnection. It can be used for comic effect, as in Lucky's long speech in "Godot" when Pozzo says Lucky is demonstrating a talent for "thinking" as other characters comically attempt to stop him:


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Nonsense may also be used abusively, as in Pinter's "The Birthday Party" when Goldberg and McCann torture Stanley with apparently nonsensical questions and non-sequiturs:


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: As in the above examples, nonsense in Absurdist theatre may be also used to demonstrate the limits of language while questioning or parodying the determinism of science and the knowability of truth. In Ionesco's "The Lesson", a professor tries to force a pupil to understand his nonsensical philology lesson:


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Traditional plot structures are rarely a consideration in the Theatre of the Absurd. Plots can consist of the absurd repetition of cliché and routine, as in "Godot" or "The Bald Soprano". Often there is a menacing outside force that remains a mystery; in "The Birthday Party", for example, Goldberg and McCann confront Stanley, torture him with absurd questions, and drag him off at the end, but it is never revealed why. In later Pinter plays, such as "The Caretaker" and "The Homecoming", the menace is no longer entering from the outside but exists within the confined space. Other Absurdists use this kind of plot, as in Edward Albee's "A Delicate Balance": Harry and Edna take refuge at the home of their friends Agnes and Tobias because they suddenly become frightened. They have difficulty explaining what has frightened them:


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Absence, emptiness, nothingness, and unresolved mysteries are central features in many Absurdist plots: for example, in "The Chairs", an old couple welcomes a large number of guests to their home, but these guests are invisible, so all we see are empty chairs, a representation of their absence. Likewise, the action of "Godot" is centered around the absence of a man named Godot, for whom the characters perpetually wait. In many of Beckett's later plays, most features are stripped away and what's left is a minimalistic tableau: a woman walking slowly back and forth in "Footfalls", for example, or in "Breath" only a junk heap on stage and the sounds of breathing.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: The plot may also revolve around an unexplained metamorphosis, a supernatural change, or a shift in the laws of physics. For example, in Ionesco's "Amédée, or How to Get Rid of It", a couple must deal with a corpse that is steadily growing larger and larger; Ionesco never fully reveals the identity of the corpse, how this person died, or why it's continually growing, but the corpse ultimately – and, again, without explanation – floats away. In Jean Tardieu's "The Keyhole" a lover watches a woman through a keyhole as she removes her clothes and then her flesh.


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Like Pirandello, many Absurdists use meta-theatrical techniques to explore role fulfillment, fate, and the theatricality of theatre. This is true for many of Genet's plays: for example, in "The Maids", two maids pretend to be their mistress; in "The Balcony" brothel patrons take on elevated positions in role-playing games, but the line between theatre and reality starts to blur. Another complex example of this is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead": it's a play about two minor characters in "Hamlet"; these characters, in turn, have various encounters with the players who perform "The Mousetrap", the play-within-the-play in "Hamlet". In Stoppard's "Travesties", James Joyce and Tristan Tzara slip in and out of the plot of "The Importance of Being Earnest".


title: Theatre of the Absurd

text: Plots are frequently cyclical: for example, "Endgame" begins where the play ended – at the beginning of the play, Clov says, "Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished" – and themes of cycle, routine, and repetition are explored throughout.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: Jordan Elizabeth Ladd is an American actress. The daughter of actress Cheryl Ladd and producer David Ladd, she initially worked with her mother in several made-for-television films, before making her big screen debut at 19, in the vampire film "Embrace of the Vampire" (1994). She subsequently appeared in the drama "Nowhere" (1997) and the comedy "Never Been Kissed" (1999). Ladd became known as a scream queen, having appeared in several successful horror films, including "Cabin Fever" (2002), "Club Dread" (2004), "Death Proof" (2007), and "Grace" (2009). Ladd is also known for work with director David Lynch appearing in his films "Darkened Room" (2002) and "Inland Empire" (2006).


title: Jordan Ladd

text: Ladd was born in Hollywood, California, the daughter of "Charlie's Angels" star Cheryl Ladd (née Stoppelmoor) and David Ladd, a producer and former actor. Her parents divorced in 1980. Her paternal grandfather was Alan Ladd, an actor and producer of British descent, and her paternal grandmother was Sue Carol (née Evelyn Lederer), a Hollywood talent agent and actress of Jewish descent. She has a step-sister Lindsay Russell an aspiring actress.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: She graduated from high school in 1993, managing to lead a normal life despite her family's fame; she once remarked: "When I was in high school I used to go to the clubs, and of course that's exciting [...] You want to drink before you can and get into places you can't. But once I started acting professionally, I really didn't want to do the Hollywood nightlife thing." She attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: She married her longtime boyfriend, documentary film editor Conor O'Neill, in 2001. The couple divorced in July 2005.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: At the age of two, Ladd began appearing in commercials. Her first commercial was for Polaroid. She began acting in film and television while in school, working with her mother in made-for-television films such as "The Girl Who Came Between Them" (1990) and "Broken Promises: Taking Emily Back" (1993). After graduating high school, she took up acting professionally.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: In 1994, she guest-starred in an episode of the NBC series "" and made her big screen debut with a supporting appearance as a campus slut, opposite Alyssa Milano, in the vampire film "Embrace of the Vampire". She spent the majority of the 1990s appearing in a variety of independent films, including "Inside Out", "Nowhere", "Stand-ins" (all 1997), and "Taking the Plunge" (1999). In 1999, she landed her first high-profile role as a popular teenager who tortures an insecure copy editor in the teen comedy "Never Been Kissed", alongside Drew Barrymore. The film was a commercial success, grossing US$84.5 million globally, and gave her an initial wide exposure with audiences.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: Ladd appeared in "The Specials" (2000), a comedy about a group of superheroes on their day off; in the film she played a neurotic named Nightbird. By 2000, she also had starred as an actress who vying for an Academy Award in E! first original film "Best Actress", and appeared in the critically acclaimed anthology film "Boys Life 3".


title: Jordan Ladd

text: Ladd starred as a college graduate and the victim to a flesh-eating virus in Eli Roth's directorial debut, the horror film "Cabin Fever" (2002). Ladd described as "insane" to work on the film, which began shooting just a month after 9/11. She remarked: "We shut down, we got up and running, and then we shut down again. We just hoped to finish the movie and hoped people would really understand and appreciate it. We had a blast doing it, even the tougher stuff. I'd rather work that way than on a big-budget fancy thing where you are completely separate from the process." It was with this film that her career would begin focusing on horror genre, as she had a "real education on that way of storytelling" with Roth and the film. "Cabin Fever" was largely praised by critics, and made US$30.5 million on a budget of US$1.5 million. She played a crying woman in David Lynch's Japanese-style horror short "Darkened Room" (also 2002).


title: Jordan Ladd

text: In 2004, Ladd took on the role of a suspect in a recent string of murders on a vacationing island in the horror comedy "Club Dread", and starred as a mental health facility nurse in the horror "Madhouse". Her topless scene in "Club Dread" ranked 14th in "Complex" magazine's "15 Best Topless Moments In Mainstream Horror Movies". In 2005, she appeared opposite Anna Faris, Ryan Reynolds and Justin Long in the independent romantic comedy "Waiting...", and in 2006, she briefly appeared in David Lynch's film "Inland Empire", which also starred her mother.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: Quentin Tarantino cast her as a wild, partying Texan and the victim of a killer stuntman in "Death Proof", his high-speed segment of the double–feature exploitation horror "Grindhouse" (2007), alongside Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Zoë Bell, and Kurt Russell. The film flopped at the box office, but attracted significant media buzz and critical acclaim. Director Eli Roth, in his contribution to "Grindhouse", worked again with Ladd in a fake promo called "Thanksgiving", which she shot "on the fly over" in Prague, where "" was being filmed; in the horror sequel, she played the girlfriend of the sole survivor of the first film.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: In her next film, the horror "Grace" (2009), Ladd portrayed a woman, who after a car accident, decides to carry her unborn baby to term anyway. The film was screened on the film festival circuit in North America, to critical acclaim. John Anderson of "Variety" felt that Ladd played her role with "tongue planted firmly in cheek", in what he described as "a satirical creepfest that mines modern motherhood for all its latent terrors". In 2009, she also starred in the made-for-television film "The Wishing Well", as a journalist from New York City who gets sent to a small town in Illinois to report on a legendary wishing well.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: Ladd filmed a comedic short film entitled "First Dates", exploring the dating scene of several single people. The production premiered at the AFI screening room in Los Angeles on January 8, 2011. She starred in the fantasy romance film "Awaken" (2012), which premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival, as a mysterious woman who changes the mundane life of a man. In 2012, she also appeared in the direct-to-DVD disaster film "Air Collision", as a stewardess, and in the thriller "Murder on the 13th Floor", as a wife who discovers her husband is having an affair with the live-in nanny and decides to seek revenge.


title: Jordan Ladd

text: In 2015, Ladd guest-starred in an episode of the YouTube horror anthology series "Scary Endings", directed by John Fitzpatrick. In 2016, she reunited with Fitzpatrick for the short thriller film "Brentwood Strangler", in which she played a lonely woman goes on a blind date with a man who, unbeknownst to her, was replaced by an active and notorious serial killer, opposite Adam J. Yeend and Annika Marks. She was cast in her role, following an introduction from "Skypemare" actress Cerina Vincent, who Ladd worked with on "Cabin Fever". The 19-minute production premiered on film festival circuits in North America and Australia, to a positive critical response. "Gruesome Magazine" found Ladd to be a "delight" as an "emotionally strong woman who lets her guard down and exposes her vulnerability".


title: Jordan Ladd

text: In 2017, Ladd starred in the made-for-television thriller "Stage Fright", as an opera soprano facing a series of dangers, and in the independent drama "Blue Line", as a woman who, along with her best friend, go on a crime spree to rob her abusive husband and escape her marriage.


title: American cockroach

text: The american cockroach ("Periplaneta americana") is the largest species of common cockroach, and often considered a pest. In certain regions of the U.S. it is colloquially known as the waterbug, though it is not a true waterbug since it is not aquatic. It is also known as the ship cockroach, kakerlac, and Bombay canary. It is often misidentified as a palmetto bug.


title: American cockroach

text: Despite their name, American cockroaches are native to Africa and the Middle East. They are believed to have been introduced to the Americas only from the 17th century AD onward as a result of human commercial patterns, including the Atlantic slave trade.


title: American cockroach

text: Despite the name, none of the "Periplaneta" species is native to the Americas; "P. americana" was introduced to what is now the United States from Africa as early as 1625. They are now common in tropical climates because human activity has extended the insects' range of habitation, and are virtually cosmopolitan in distribution as a result of global commerce.


title: American cockroach

text: Of all common cockroach species, the American cockroach has the largest body size; molts 6–14 times (mostly 13 times) before metamorphosis; and has the longest life cycle, up to about 700 days.


title: American cockroach

text: It has an average length around and is about tall. They are reddish brown and have a yellowish margin on the pronotum, the body region behind the head. Immature cockroaches resemble adults except they are wingless.


title: American cockroach

text: The cockroach is divided into three sections; the body is flattened and broadly oval, with a shield-like pronotum covering its head. A pronotum is a plate-like structure that covers all or part of the dorsal surface of the thorax of certain insects. They also have chewing mouth parts, long, segmented antennae, and leathery fore wings with delicate hind wings. The third section of the cockroach is the abdomen.


title: American cockroach

text: The insect can travel quickly, often darting out of sight when a threat is perceived, and can fit into small cracks and under doors despite its fairly large size. It is considered one of the fastest running insects.


title: American cockroach

text: In an experiment, a "P. americana" registered a record speed of , about 50 body lengths per second, which would be comparable to a human running at .


title: American cockroach

text: It has a pair of large compound eyes, each having over 3500 individual lenses (ommatidia, hexagonal apertures which provide a kind of vision known as the mosaic vision with more sensitivity but less resolution, being common during night, hence called nocturnal vision.) It is a very active night insect that shuns light.


title: American cockroach

text: The American cockroach shows a characteristic insect morphology with its body bearing divisions as head, trunk, and abdomen. The trunk, or thorax, is divisible into prothorax, mesothorax and metathorax. Each thoracic segment gives rise to a pair of walking appendages (known as cursorial legs). The organism bears two pairs of wings. The fore wings, known as tegmina, arise from mesothorax and are dark and opaque. The hind wings arise from the metathorax and are used in flight, though cockroaches rarely resort to flight. The abdomen is divisible into 10 segments, each of which is surrounded by chitinous exoskeleton plates called sclerites, including dorsal tergites, ventral sternites, and lateral pleurites.


title: American cockroach

text: American cockroaches have three developmental stages: egg, nymph, and adult. Females produce an egg case (ootheca) which protrudes from the tip of the abdomen. On average, females produce 9–10 oothecae, although they can sometimes produce as many as 90. After about two days, the egg cases are placed on a surface in a safe location. Egg cases are about long, brown, and purse-shaped. Immature cockroaches emerge from egg cases in 6–8 weeks and require 6–12 months to mature. After hatching, the nymphs feed and undergo a series of 13 moultings (or ecdysis). Adult cockroaches can live up to an additional year, during which females produce an average of 150 young. The American cockroach reproductive cycle can last up to 600 days.


title: American cockroach

text: When female American cockroaches are housed in groups, this close association promotes facultative parthenogenic reproduction. The oothecae are produced asexually, without fertilization. The process by which the eggs are produced is automixis; during automixis, meiosis occurs, but instead of giving rise to haploid gametes as ordinarily happens, diploid gametes are produced (probably by terminal fusion of meiotic products) that can then develop into female cockroaches. Eggs produced by parthenogenesis have lower viability than eggs produced by sexual reproduction.


title: American cockroach

text: The American cockroach genome is the second-largest insect genome on record, after "Locusta migratoria". Around 60% of its genome is composed of repeat elements. Around 90% of the genome can be found in other members of Blattodea. The genome codes for a large number of chemoreceptor families, including 522 taste receptors and 154 olfactory receptors. The 522 taste receptors comprise the largest number found among insects for which genomes have been sequenced. About 329 of the taste receptors are involved in bitter taste perception. These traits, along with enlarged groups of genes relating to detoxification, the immune system, and growth and reproduction, are believed to be part of the reasons behind the cockroach's ability to adapt to human living spaces.


title: American cockroach

text: American cockroaches are omnivorous and opportunistic feeders that eat materials such as cheese, beer, tea, leather, bakery products, starch in book bindings, manuscripts, glue, hair, flakes of dried skin, dead animals, plant materials, soiled clothing, and glossy paper with starch sizing. They are particularly fond of fermenting foods. They have also been observed to feed upon dead or wounded cockroaches of their own or other species.


title: American cockroach

text: In the immature (nymph) stage, American cockroaches are wingless and incapable of flight. Adults have useful wings and can fly for short distances. If they start from a high place, such as a tree, they can glide for some distance. However, despite their ability to do so, American cockroaches aren't regular fliers. They can run very fast and, when frightened, these insects more commonly scatter on foot.


title: American cockroach

text: American cockroaches generally live in moist areas but can survive in dry areas if they have access to water. They prefer high temperatures around and do not tolerate low temperatures. These cockroaches are common in basements, crawl spaces, cracks and crevices of porches, foundations, and walkways adjacent to buildings. In residential areas outside the tropics, these cockroaches live in basements and sewers and may move outdoors into yards during warm weather.


title: American cockroach

text: The odorous secretions produced by American cockroaches can alter the flavor of food. Also, if populations of cockroaches are high, a strong concentration of this odorous secretion can be present. Cockroaches can pick up disease-causing bacteria, such as "Salmonella", on their legs and later deposit them on foods and cause food poisoning or infection if they walk on the food. House dust containing cockroach feces and body parts can trigger allergic reactions and asthma in certain individuals.


title: American cockroach

text: At least 22 species of pathogenic human bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoans, as well as five species of helminthic worms, have been isolated from field-collected "P. americana" (L.)


title: American cockroach

text: In cold climates, these cockroaches may move indoors, seeking warmer environments and food. Cockroaches may enter houses through sewer connections, under doors, or around plumbing, air ducts, or other openings in the foundation. Cockroach populations may be controlled through the use of insecticides. Covering any cracks or crevices through which cockroaches may enter and cleaning any spills or messes that have been made is beneficial, so cockroaches are not able to enter and are not attracted to the food source. Another way to prevent an infestation of cockroaches is to thoroughly check any material brought inside. Cockroaches and egg cases can be hidden inside or on furniture, in boxes, suitcases, grocery bags, etc.


title: American cockroach

text: The American cockroach has been used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, with references to its usage in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" and "Shennong Ben Cao Jing". In China, an ethanol extract of the American cockroach, "kang fu xin ye", is used as a prescribed drug for wound healing and tissue repair.


title: OK gesture

text: The OK gesture or OK sign or ring gesture (symbol/emoji: "👌") is performed by connecting the thumb and index into a circle, and holding the other fingers straight or relaxed away from the palm. Commonly used by divers, it signifies "I am OK" or "Are you OK?" when underwater. In most English-speaking countries it denotes approval, agreement, and that all is well or "okay". In other contexts or cultures, similar gestures may have different meanings or connotations including those that are negative, offensive, financial, numerical, devotional, political, or purely linguistic.


title: OK gesture

text: Ring gestures, formed by forefinger and thumb with remaining digits extended, appear in Greece at least as early as the fifth century BCE, and can be seen on painted vases as an expression of love, with thumb and forefinger mimicking kissing lips. When proffered by one person toward another in Ancient Greece, the gesture was of one professing their love for another, and the sentiment was conveyed more in the touching of fingertips than in the ring that they formed. As an expression of assent and approval, the gesture can be traced back to first century Rome where the rhetorician Quintilian is recorded as having used it. Quintilian's "chironomy" prescribed variations in context for the gesture's use during specific points of a speech: to open, give warning or praise or accusation, and then to close a declamation.


title: OK gesture

text: Contemporaneously the sign appeared throughout the Buddhist and Hindu diasporas as a symbol of inner perfection. Ethologist Desmond Morris posits that the joined thumb-and-forefinger communicates precision in grasping something literally or figuratively, and that the shape formed by their union represents the epitome of perfection—a circle—hence the gesture's transcultural message that things are "exactly right" or "perfect".


title: OK gesture

text: In Naples the gesture has been long used to symbolize love and matrimony, as was custom in neighboring Greece, but specifically with the palm upturned, while the gesture made with a downturned palm represents a hand holding the scales of justice. Across Italy the gesture remained in use as one for making points in conversation when moved about to express discursive precision, but when held still in an upright position with fingers jutting skyward, it became an emblem of perfection.


title: OK gesture

text: Early records of the sign's usage in the English-speaking world date to British physician-philosopher John Bulwer's 1644 "Chirologia", "The naturall language of the hand composed of the speaking motions, and discoursing gestures thereof." Among the many hand gestures detailed by Bulwer, he described one as "The top of the fore-finger moved to joyne with the naile of the Thumbe that's next to it, the other fingers in remitter," and said that it was "opportune for those who relate, distinguish, or approve".


title: OK gesture

text: By the early 19th century in the United States, the gesture was affiliated with the letters "O" (formed by the circle) and "K" (derived from the extended fingers). While it is not known exactly how the OK gesture and the corresponding verbal expression coalesced, the English professor Allen Walker Read dates the expression's rise in usage to an 1839 humor piece in the "Boston Morning Post" describing the expression "o.k." as meaning "all correct", suggesting comically misspelled initials, at a time when acronyms for misspelled words were in vogue. Several other broadsheets in Boston, New York and Philadelphia ran with the expression in their own columns, some with misspellings of "all correct" such as "oll korrect", bringing the phrase into the vernacular of American English.


title: OK gesture

text: The following year Democrats took to using the phrase and its accompanying gesture in support of president Martin Van Buren's campaign for reelection. A native of Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren was widely known by his nickname, "Old Kinderhook", whose initials, "O.K.", were steadily gaining traction as an expression of approval. In New York City, fans of Van Buren formed the O.K. Democratic Club and used the gesture as its sign, with the slogan of "O.K." bearing the double meaning in the club's catchphrase, "Old Kinderhook is all correct." Both phrase and gesture made their way into newspapers around the country via political cartoons, thus further spreading the expression. After Van Buren's defeat to William Henry Harrison, O.K. was briefly satirized as meaning "Owful Kalamity" or "Owful Katastrophe".


title: OK gesture

text: Despite Van Buren's loss and the subsequent dissolution of the O.K. Democratic Club, the gesture has since been widely used since to mean "all is well" or "good" in the United States. As a gesture, its connotation is more positive than the word "OK", which may mean a thing is merely mediocre, satisfactory at only the most basic level, as in, "The food was OK." The gesture is commonly understood as a signal of approval, and is sometimes used synonymously with the Western "thumbs up" gesture.


title: OK gesture

text: As it moved into its third century of use in politics, in the 21st century the sign was used by president Barack H. Obama.


title: OK gesture

text: In the communication used by scuba divers, the OK sign is specific in its meaning that "everything is OK" as regulated by the Recreational Scuba Training Council. Divers are taught to always use this sign and not the thumbs up gesture because the latter means that a diver needs to ascend. The gesture is also used as a means of checking in, with one diver using it to ask another, "Everything OK?" and the response meaning, "Yes, everything is OK."


title: OK gesture

text: At distances where the standard OK gesture may be hard to see, divers use larger signals as an alternative, either with one hand atop the head and the elbow bent out to the side, or with both hands touching above the head so that the arms form an "O" for "OK". This full-body gesture is also used as "OK" in Japan where the single-handed gesture connotes monetary transactions instead of meaning "OK". This two-armed OK gesture was added to Unicode in 2010 under the name "Face With OK Gesture" (U+1F646 "🙆") and became part of Emoji 1.0 in 2015.


title: OK gesture

text: In Japan, the one-handed ring gesture is used to symbolize money, and in this context the fingers' circular shape represents a coin. Sometimes the sign is used to avoid the verbal awkwardness in talking about or asking for money. In other contexts, it can be used to imply a bribe or other illicit financial transactions, or signal an invitation to enter into business negotiations.


title: OK gesture

text: In other parts of the world the gesture can also express money, financial transactions, wealth or the priciness of an item. Records of the gesture being used to remark on a person's wealth or status are documented as practiced in Mexico during the late nineteenth century.


title: OK gesture

text: In yoga the gesture is known as "chin mudra" ("the seal of consciousness") when the palm is face down, or "jnana mudra" ("the seal of wisdom") when the palm is face up or held in other positions, such as in front of the heart. Some schools of yoga use "chin" and "jnana mudra" interchangeably, while others claim that "the former produces a subtle feeling of rootedness, the latter a sense of lightness," or that "jnana" "the passive receiving position" while "chin" "is an actively giving position". In these mudras the middle, ring, and little fingers represent the three gunas of "rajas", "tamas", and "sattva" which, when in harmony, unite "ātman" and "brahman", or the individual soul and universal soul. The pressing together of the thumb and forefinger represents that union—or "yoga"—of consciousness. In Buddhism the gesture is called vitarka mudra ("the seal of discussion") and is used to emphasize the meaning of words.


title: OK gesture

text: Most sign languages combine hand shapes, movement, and position in relation to the rest of body, as well as additional body language and facial expression. As with other hand signs, the OK gesture may be combined with other elements to convey numerous meanings across multiple sign languages.


title: OK gesture

text: Dating back to the tenth century in Europe, the gesture of thumb and forefinger forming a ring with the remaining fingers extended was used in a set of standardized ecclesiastical signs employed by Christian monks under vows of silence to represent numerous religious rites and objects. For example, when held out in front of oneself the gesture represented an oblation to God. When touched to the mouth it meant taking a meal. When added to the open-palmed sign for "book" it specified a hymnal, and the sign's O-shape represented the signing of an "O" that began many hymns. If the thumb and forefinger took hold of a specific part of one's own clothing or body such as the hood of a cowl, a lock of hair, or skin on the left hand, the gesture could stand for things as diverse as "monk" or "horse" or "parchment".


title: OK gesture

text: In North American Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), the gesture signifies the Sun when held up in front of the face or moved in an arc following the Sun's track. When held up to the sky and peered through, it is the sign for high noon. A PISL primer printed in an 1888 issue of the Canadian residential school newspaper "Our Forest Children" specifies that the left hand be used to indicate sunrise and the right for sunset. A more complicated series of movements with hands held in the gesture as if drawing a thread or stretching an elastic can signify death, or more specifically, "After a long time, you die."


title: OK gesture

text: In modern-day American Sign Language (ASL) the gesture can mean many different things depending on how it is applied. The pinching action of the thumb-and-forefinger frequently represents something small. For example, the sign for "housefly" is made by making the gesture mimic a fly buzzing around. In ASL the gesture can also communicate a selection of some sort: When moved from one side to the other as if picking something up and placing it down, it means "appoint". When the joined thumb and forefinger of the gesture are placed into a hole made by the opposite hand, it means "vote". The sign for "elect" is formed by making the signs for "vote" and "appoint" in succession.


title: OK gesture

text: In deaf culture, the sign of joined thumb and forefinger takes on various letters in different systems of fingerspelling. The American manual alphabet reserves it for the letter F, while in both Irish and French Sign Language it is the letter G. In fingerspellings that represent Cyrillic alphabetical systems, such as the Ukrainian manual alphabet, the gesture represents the vowel O and reflects that letter's shape. Similarly, the Korean manual alphabet uses the gesture for the Hangul letter "ㅇ", romanized as "ng" to reflect its pronunciation in spoken Korean. In "yubimoji" (指文字 ), Japan's manual syllabary whose 45 signs and four diacritics represent the phonemes of the Japanese language, the gesture is the syllable ""me"" (め in hiragana, メ in katakana). Various fingerspelling systems may call for other specific features of the gesture beyond its joined thumb-and-forefinger with remaining fingers entended. For example, the ring in yubimoji's "me" gesture is slightly tapered rather than rounded.


title: OK gesture

text: In American Sign Language the OK gesture represents the number 9 when held in a stationary position with the palm facing away from the signer. This ASL numerical sign is the last in a sequence of single-digit integers where quantities of fingers denote the numbers 1 through 5, and then the thumb touches each finger in turn to denote "6" (pinky finger), "7" (ring finger), "8" (middle finger), and finally "9" (index finger). When shaken from left to right, the sign for the number 9 becomes the number 19.


title: OK gesture

text: In Plains Indian Sign Language, the gesture signifies the number 3 when held a bit lower than the signs used to represent the sun. Regional forms of finger counting used in China also employ the raised middle, ring and pinky fingers to express the number 3, either with thumb and index fingers joined as they are in the OK gesture or in a similar configuration. This number gesture is primarily used in China's southern provinces, while in the north, "3" may also be expressed by the raised index, middle, and ring fingers as it is in English-speaking countries. Both methods are distinct from having the thumb, index and middle fingers extended as is used to denote "3" in much of mainland Europe, because this represents the number 8 in both Taiwan and parts of mainland China.


title: OK gesture

text: Greco-Roman "chironomia" also included a counting system in which the ring gesture stood for either "10", "30", "100", or "300", the exact number being determined by which hand was used and the exact point of contact between thumb and forefinger.


title: OK gesture

text: The gesture was given prominence in the 1967 British television series "The Prisoner", in which a number of unnamed characters are held captive in a village. Whenever these imprisoned villagers took leave of each other, they did so with the phrase "Be seeing you", accompanied by the gesture held up in front of their own eye as a reminder that despite any pretenses of freedom, they were all prisoners. The gesture is also used as a greeting in the show without the "be seeing you" phrase. The series' lead actor Patrick McGoohan stated that the show had adopted the gesture from the sign of the fish used by early Christians.


title: OK gesture

text: In 2010, South Indian film director Upendra Rao made a cinematic comeback with a film that fans called "Super", but whose actual title was "👌". Rao himself starred in his film as a non-resident Indian who returns to his homeland to turn the nation into a utopian society. In depicting the film's title only as a hand symbol, Rao's intent was for the audience to name it, thinking that they might call it "Zero" or "Three", or associate it with Vitarka Mudra or the symbol for "om" (ॐ). During the film's opening credit sequence, the Vitarka Mudra title transforms into a hand pointing at the viewer announcing the name of the director as "U".


title: OK gesture

text: In Europe's Balkan region, the OK gesture is known as the "United Macedonia Salute" in its association with irredentist campaigns for a united Macedonia. For Macedonian nationalists the two fingers forming the "O" stand for the Macedonian word "Обединета" ("Obedineta", meaning "United"), and the other three fingers symbolize the regions of Aegean Macedonia in northern Greece, Pirin Macedonia in southwestern Bulgaria, and the region of Vardar Macedonia that roughly corresponds to the Republic of North Macedonia's borders. Taken together, the United Macedonia Salute also resembles the Vergina Sun that was the royal symbol of Ancient Macedonia. Both sun and salute became popular among Macedonian Greeks in the 1980s, and the sun appeared on the Macedonian flag after the Republic of Macedonia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. Three years later Macedonia changed its flag under economic pressure from Greece, which saw the use of the Vergina Sun as a threat against Greek sovereignty. The United Macedonia Salute remains controversial among many people in the Balkan region, especially those living within parts of Greece or Bulgaria that Macedonian nationalists wish to claim as provinces for their country.


title: OK gesture

text: In 2017, users on the message-board site 4chan aimed to convince the media and other people that the OK gesture was being used as a white power symbol, as a joke. According to "The Boston Globe", users on 4chan's /pol/ ("Politically Incorrect") board were instructed in February 2017 to "flood Twitter and other social media websites...claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy," as part of a campaign dubbed "Operation O-KKK".The satirical association of the gesture with white supremacy derived from the assertion that the three upheld fingers resemble a 'W' and the circle made with the thumb and forefinger resemble the head of a 'P', together standing for "White Power." While some members of the alt-right used the symbol after the launch of the 4chan campaign, it initially remained ambiguous whether or not it was being used to communicate genuine adherence to white supremacy, or with deliberately ironic motives.


title: OK gesture

text: In September 2019 the ADL revised their earlier position and added the OK gesture to its "Hate on Display" database. The listing notes that the usage of the OK hand gesture is sometimes benign, but that it is intended as a symbol of hate in some contexts, as some white supremacists have begun using the OK symbol "as a sincere expression of White Supremacy". White supremacists have acknowledged using the symbol as a gesture of White Power. As a result of white supremacists' co-opting the symbol, some people have been accused of genuine use of the sign in support for white-supremacist ideology:


title: OK gesture

text: The gesture is used by doctors to test functionality of the anterior interosseous nerve and seek indications of median nerve palsy in the hands. When performing the test, a patient makes the OK gesture with both hands. If the circle formed by one hand appears more pinched or less round than the other, it may indicate weakness in the nerve.


title: OK gesture

text: A similar medical test, known as Froment's sign, is used to test for palsy on the ulnar nerve. To perform the test, a patient holds a piece of paper between their forefinger and thumb, and the examiner attempts to pull it out of the patient's grip. If ulnar nerve palsy is present, the patient will have difficulty maintaining their hold and may compensate by flexing the thumb to add more pressure.


title: OK gesture

text: The gesture has been used as a design element in several corporate and organizational logos. These include the Piramal Group, Bharat Petroleum, and Adlabs Studios, all headquartered in India. It is also used as a branding logo of Okamoto Industries line of condoms.


title: OK gesture

text: The chef's kiss is a sign that means "perfection" in the context of food. It is a hand gesture from the mouth, sometimes with the thumb and forefingers. Other times the chef's kiss is merely communicated with an OK sign near the face.


title: OK gesture

text: Andy's man club, a club for men to talk, use the symbol as their logo and also to mean "it's okay to talk".


title: OK gesture

text: Since the 1970s, the OK gesture has been the key feature of the popular school prank, "the circle game". Someone who initiates the game makes the gesture palm-inward below their own waistline and tries to trick an opponent into looking at it. If the person looks at it, the maker of the gesture punches the opponent in the arm. Variations exist where a player who can insert their own index finger into the circle without looking at it may punch the circle-maker. In a much earlier version (1950s), the circle was placed over the maker's elbow, or any body part.


title: OK gesture

text: While widespread use of the OK gesture has granted it an international connotation of assent, it also bears negative, vulgar, or offensive meanings in many regions of the world. In contrast to Japan's use of the expression to represent coins and wealth, the gesture's "O" shape stands for "zero" meaning "worth nothing" in France and Tunisia. In many Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, and Greece, as well as in the Middle East, parts of Germany, and many parts of Latin America, the gesture may be interpreted as a vulgar expression resembling a human anus, referring to sex, either as an insult ("You are an asshole"), or a homophobic reaction to a symbol of homosexuality and the act of sodomy. In Brazil it can be synonymous with giving someone the middle finger.


title: OK gesture

text: In Kuwait and other similar parts of the Arab world, the shaking of this sign represents the evil eye and is used as a curse or a threat, sometimes in conjunction with verbal condemnation.


title: OK gesture

text: In some regions of the world, both the positive "OK" and the negative forms are practiced, which can lead to confusion over which meaning is intended. In regions and cultures where the gesture has a historically negative connotation, its use as an "OK sign" is often the result of its appearance in media and tends to be used more by younger people. In France, where widespread use has seeped in through American culture, the gesture's positive "OK" sentiment became popular in the north of the country while its negative connotation as "worthless" remained in the south. To avoid confusion, French communicators have become accustomed to using additional context clues, such as posture or facial expression, to clarify meaning. In other circumstances, the gesture's varied meanings are less easily reconciled, as was the case in 1950s Brazil when United States Vice President Richard Nixon emerged from his airplane displaying the sign with each hand. While Nixon's intent was to communicate goodwill to the people of São Paulo, the crowd received it with offense.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Joseph Abraham Gottlieb (February 3, 1918 – October 17, 2007), known professionally as Joey Bishop, was an American entertainer who appeared on television as early as 1948 and eventually starred in his own weekly comedy series playing a talk/variety show host, then later hosted a late-night talk show with Regis Philbin as his young sidekick on ABC. He also was a member of the "Rat Pack" with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. He is listed as 96th entry on Comedy Central's list of 100 greatest comedians.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Bishop, the youngest of five children, was born in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants Anna (née Siegel) and Jacob Gottlieb. His father was a bicycle repairman. Bishop was raised in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Bishop was drafted into the US Army during World War II, and he rose to the rank of sergeant in the Special Services, serving at Fort Sam Houston in Texas.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Bishop began his career as part of a stand-up comedy act with his elder brother, Maury. He appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on May 28, 1950, "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" on April 19, 1957, and many other variety programs in the early days of television. He guest-hosted "The Tonight Show" substituting for Jack Paar, and then guest-hosted "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" at least 175 times in the 1960s, and from 1971 to 1976 more than anyone else until that time (Jay Leno and Joan Rivers later surpassed his record). He also frequently appeared on Steve Allen's and Jack Paar's previous versions of "The Tonight Show". He later had his own late-night show.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Bishop starred in the situation comedy "The Joey Bishop Show" that premiered on September 20, 1961, and ran for 123 episodes over four seasons, first on NBC and later CBS. Bishop played Joey Barnes, at first a publicity agent and then later a talk show host. Abby Dalton joined the cast in 1962 as his wife.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Bishop later hosted a 90-minute late-night talk show, also titled "The Joey Bishop Show", that was launched by ABC on April 17, 1967, as competition to Carson's "Tonight Show" and ran until December 26, 1969. His sidekick was then-newcomer Regis Philbin.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Bishop was among the stars of the original "Ocean's 11" film about military veterans who reunite in a plot to rob five Las Vegas casinos on New Year's Eve. He co-starred with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Peter Lawford of the so-called Rat Pack, although the five of them did not publicly acknowledge that name. During filming, the five entertainers performed together onstage in Vegas at the Sands Hotel. Bishop did only a little singing and dancing, but he told jokes and wrote most of the act's material. He later appeared with Sinatra, Martin, Davis, and Lawford in the military adventure "Sergeants 3" (1962), a loose remake of "Gunga Din" (1939), and with Martin in the Western comedy "Texas Across the River" (1966), in which he portrayed an Indian.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Bishop was the only member of the Rat Pack to work with members of a younger group of actors dubbed the Brat Pack, appearing (as a ghost) in the film "Betsy's Wedding" (1990) with Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy. His final appearance in a film was a non-speaking role in "Mad Dog Time" (1996), written and directed by his son, Larry. His character was named Gottlieb, which was his real surname. The film was panned by critics.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Bishop wed Sylvia Ruzga in 1941, and they were married for 58 years until her death from lung cancer in 1999. They had one son, Larry Bishop, a film director and actor.


title: Joey Bishop

text: Thereafter, Bishop had a longtime companion, Nora Garibotti. In failing health for some time, Bishop died at age 89 of multiple organ failure on October 17, 2007, in his home on Lido Isle, a man-made island in the harbor of Newport Beach, California, as the last surviving Rat Pack member. Per Bishop's wishes, his remains were cremated and scattered in the Pacific Ocean near his home. He had two grandsons, Kirk and Scott.


title: Gaboon viper

text: The Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica), also called the Gaboon adder, is a viper species found in the rainforests and savannas of sub-Saharan Africa. Like all other vipers, it is venomous. It is the largest member of the genus "Bitis", and it has the longest fangs of any venomous snake – up to 2 inches (5 cm) in length – and the highest venom yield of any snake. No subspecies are recognized.


title: Gaboon viper

text: Lenk "et al." (1999) discovered genetic differences between the two conventionally recognized subspecies of "B. g. gabonica" and "B. g. rhinoceros". According to their research, these two subspecies are as genetically different from each other as they are from "B. nasicornis". Consequently, they regard the western form as a separate species, "B. rhinoceros".


title: Gaboon viper

text: The snake's common names include Gaboon viper, butterfly adder, forest puff adder, whisper, swampjack, and Gaboon adder.


title: Gaboon viper

text: Originally a name given by the Portuguese, "Gabon" ("Gabão") refers to the estuary on which the town of Libreville was built, in Gabon, and to a narrow strip of territory on either bank of this arm of the sea. As of 1909, "Gaboon" referred to the northern portion of French Congo, south of the equator and lying between the Atlantic Ocean and 12°E longitude.


title: Gaboon viper

text: Adults are typically 125–155 cm (4 to 5 ft) in total length (body and tail) with a maximum total length of 205 cm (81 in) for a specimen collected in Sierra Leone. The sexes may be distinguished by the length of the tail in relation to the total length of the body: around 12% for males and 6% for females. Adults, especially females, are very heavy and stout. One female had these dimensions:


title: Gaboon viper

text: In their description of "B. gabonica", Spawls "et al." (2004) give a total length of 80–130 cm (32.0 to 51.5 in), with a maximum total length of 175 cm (69.3 in), saying the species may possibly grow larger still. They acknowledge reports of specimens over 1.8 m (6 ft), or even over 2 m (6.5 ft) in total length, but claim no evidence supports this. A large specimen of total length, caught in 1973, was found to have weighed with an empty stomach. It is the heaviest venomous snake in Africa.


title: Gaboon viper

text: The head is large and triangular, while the neck is greatly narrowed, only about one-third the width of the head. A pair of "horns" is present between the raised nostrils—tiny in "B. gabonica". The eyes are large and moveable, set well forward, and surrounded by 15–21 circumorbital scales. The species has 12–16 interocular scales across the top of the head. Four or five scale rows separate the suboculars and the supralabials, with 13–18 supralabials and 16–22 sublabials. The fangs may reach a length of , the longest of any venomous snake.


title: Gaboon viper

text: Midbody, the 28–46 dorsal scale rows are strongly keeled except for the outer rows on each side. The lateral scales are slightly oblique. The ventral scales number 124–140, rarely more than 132 in males, rarely less than 132 in females. With 17–33 paired subcaudal scales, males have no fewer than 25, and females no more than 23. The anal scale is single.