title: Finale (Modern Family)

text: The reviews for the episode were generally positive. Diane Gordon of TV Guide was extremely positive, stating that "Like most of its best episodes, the "Modern Family" Finale felt like a warm hug". She went on to say that "The genius of "Modern Family" is that it ended as it began: with the families growing and changing, while maintaining their close bonds and sense of humor. The show that felt like a warm hug each week closed out their run with a well-crafted episode that didn't feel like a permanent goodbye, but instead like a 'see ya later.' One can't help but think about where these families will be in five years. Let's hope we'll get to find out - it's sad to think this is the last time we'll see these lovable characters."


title: Finale (Modern Family)

text: "IndieWire" gave the finale a C+, stating "What the "Modern Family" finale ultimately proves is what we’ve all known for years: The show should’ve ended years ago, when it was better equipped to tie together all these subplots, characters, and themes. Now, we’re left with an ending that doesn’t really want to be an ending. Maybe that’s enough (for) the casual family audience, but I have to believe modern viewers demand more."


title: Finale (Modern Family)

text: The episode received a B+ grade from Kyle Fowle of The A.V. Club, who stated "there’s something that’s satisfying in just how low-key it is. The finale doesn’t necessarily shoot for outsized emotions. Instead, it makes things personal. It’s a finale that suits Modern Family as it is in 2020; a show that’s settled into old age... This is a finale that’s both tidy and unfinished, and that feels just right".


title: The Challenge: Battle of the Exes

text: The Challenge: Battle of the Exes is the 22nd season of the MTV reality game show, "The Challenge". It takes place in the Dominican Republic and Iceland, with former cast members from MTV's "The Real World", "Road Rules", and "The Challenge" competing. A launch special, "The Pre-Game," premiered on January 11, 2012, explaining the previous history of how the couples broke up. The season premiered on January 25, 2012, and concluded on April 4, 2012, with the Reunion special.


title: The Challenge: Battle of the Exes

text: After a seven-year-long absence from "The Challenge", Mike "The Miz" Mizanin returned to the reality show as the host of the "Battle of the Exes" Reunion Special.


title: The Challenge: Battle of the Exes

text: Each team participates in numerous challenges (sometimes called "missions"), which are followed by an elimination round — "The Dome." The winning team of each challenge earns the title of "Power Couple," as well as immunity from entering The Dome, while the last-place finisher is automatically sent to The Dome. The "Power Couple" also earns the right of choosing the team that will face the last-place finisher in The Dome (from Episode 6, the “Power Couple” was also awarded a $2,500 prize, in addition to their immunity and nomination power). The team who wins the elimination round returns to the game and has a shot at a $300,000 prize, while the losing team is eliminated from the game.


title: The Challenge: Battle of the Exes

text: At the end of the season, three teams will compete in the final challenge. The first-place finisher wins $150,000, second-place wins $100,000 and third-place wins $40,000.


title: The Challenge: Battle of the Exes

text: The season concluded with the reunion special on April 4, 2012, which was hosted by Mike "The Miz" Mizanin. The cast members who attended the reunion were: Ty, Emily, Johnny, Camila, Dunbar, Paula, CT, Diem, Rachel, Aneesa, Robin, and Mark.


title: The Challenge: Battle of the Exes

text: During this season of "The Challenge", former "" cast mates Emily Schromm and Ty Ruff were partnered together. During the 7th episode, which aired on March 7, 2012, Schromm appeared in blackface before the entire house of cast mates by smearing her face in Nutella, mocking Ruff, who is African American, directly in front of him. Camila Nakagawa, originally from "Spring Break Challenge", was involved in the incident as well mocking Paula Meronek, Ruff's flirtatious partner on the show. After the show's cast mates were all seen disturbed by Schromm's actions, Schromm would later defend herself by claiming unawareness to blackface as a result of a sheltered childhood; this claim is questionable, however, considering Schromm brought up racism before presenting herself to the rest of the cast mates in blackface, at which point Nagakawa assured her that such actions would not be racist. Schromm is, however, told the action is racist by Ty in the midst of taunting him, before continuing on with it. Despite revelation of its racist history from all the cast mates, Nakagawa is seen complaining to all the cast mates having no sense of humor and being too sensitive. She also stated that Ruff was just offended out of jealousy despite the fact that it was Schromm who was discontented with Ruff's flirtatious relationship with Meronek. After being confronted on the issue by Ruff and Aneesa Ferreira on the season's Reunion special, Schromm made a tearful apology. She also expressed regret for taking advice from Nakagawa, making the point that Nakagawa isn't even from America but Brazil.


title: Pickfair

text: Pickfair is a mansion and estate in the city of Beverly Hills, California with legendary history. The original Pickfair was an 18 acre (7.3 ha) estate designed by architect Horatio Cogswell for attorney Lee Allen Phillips of Berkeley Square as a country home. Phillips sold the property to actor Douglas Fairbanks in 1918. Coined "Pickfair" by the press, it became one of the most celebrated houses in the world. "Life Magazine" described Pickfair as "a gathering place only slightly less important than the White House... and much more fun."


title: Pickfair

text: Located at 1143 Summit Drive in San Ysidro Canyon in Beverly Hills, the property was a hunting lodge when purchased by Fairbanks in 1919 for his bride-to-be, Mary Pickford. In the 1920s, the newlyweds extensively renovated the lodge, transforming it into a four-story, 25-room mansion complete with stables, servants quarters, tennis courts, a large guest wing, and garages.


title: Pickfair

text: Remodeled by Wallace Neff in a mock Tudor style, it took five years to complete. Ceiling frescos, parquet flooring, wood paneled halls of fine mahogany and bleached pine, gold leaf and mirrored decorative niches, all added to the authentic charm of Pickfair. The property was said to have been the first private home in the Los Angeles area to include an in-ground swimming pool, in which Pickford and Fairbanks were famously photographed paddling a canoe.


title: Pickfair

text: Pickfair featured a collection of early 18th-century English and French period furniture, decorative arts and antiques. Notable pieces in the collection included furniture from the Barberini Palace, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts estate in London, and Louis XVI furniture from the Countess Rodezno and Lord Leverhulme collections. The highlight of any visit to Pickfair was a large collection of Chinese objets d'art collected by Fairbanks and Pickford on their many visits to the Orient. The Pickfair art collection was wide and varied and included paintings by Philip Mercier, Guillaume Seignac, George Romney, and Paul de Longpré.


title: Pickfair

text: The mansion also featured an Old West style saloon complete with an ornate burnished mahogany bar obtained from a saloon in Auburn, California, as well as paintings by Frederic Remington. In the 1970 Volume 2, Number 10 issue of "Mankind Magazine" it states there were twelve Remingtons from 1907 purchased from the Cosmopolitan Publishing Company that "were Mary Pickford's gift to her husband, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers". The interior of Pickfair was decorated and updated throughout the years by Marilyn Johnson Tucker, Elsie De Wolfe, Marjorie Requa, Tony Duquette, and Kathryn Crawford.


title: Pickfair

text: During the 1920s the house became a focal point for Hollywood's social activities, and the couple became famous for entertaining there. An invitation to Pickfair was a sign of social acceptance into the closed Hollywood community. In 1928, Will Rogers said "My most important duty as mayor of Beverly Hills is directing people to Mary Pickford's house".


title: Pickfair

text: Dinners at Pickfair became legendary; guests included Charlie Chaplin (who lived next door), the Duke of Windsor and Duchess of Windsor, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Mildred Harris, Greta Garbo, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, Elinor Glyn, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Fritz Kreisler, Tony Duquette, Amelia Earhart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Crawford, Noël Coward, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, Pearl S. Buck, Charles Lindbergh, Max Reinhardt, Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Edison, Gloria Swanson, the Duke and Duchess of Alba, the King and Queen of Siam, Austen Chamberlain, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, the spiritual teacher Meher Baba, and Sir Harry Lauder. Lauder's nephew, Matt Lauder Jr., a professional golfer whose family had a property at Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California, taught Fairbanks to play golf.


title: Pickfair

text: Fairbanks and Pickford divorced in January 1936, but Pickford continued to reside in the mansion with her third husband, actor and musician Charles "Buddy" Rogers, until her death in 1979. Pickford received few visitors in her later years, but continued to open up her grand home for charitable organizations and parties, including an annual Christmas party for blind war veterans, mostly from World War I.


title: Pickfair

text: In 1976, Pickford received a second Academy Award for contribution to American film. The Academy Honorary Award was presented to her in the formal living room of Pickfair, and televised on the 48th Academy Awards. Introduced and narrated by Gene Kelly, it provided the public a very rare glimpse inside the fabled mansion.


title: Pickfair

text: Empty for several years after Pickford's death in 1979, Pickfair was eventually sold to Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss, who continued to care for the home, updating and preserving much of its unique charm. In 1988, it was purchased by actress Pia Zadora and her husband Meshulam Riklis. They announced they were planning renovations to the famous estate, but revealed in 1990 that they had in fact demolished Pickfair and a new larger "Venetian style palazzo" was going to be constructed in its place.


title: Pickfair

text: In 1990, the "Los Angeles Times" reported that all but the guest wing and part of the living room had been razed.


title: Pickfair

text: Faced with harsh criticism from a nostalgic public, including Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Zadora defended her family's actions, stating that the house was allegedly in a poor state of repair and was infested by termites. In the "L.A. Times", Fairbanks, Jr. was quoted as saying, "I regret it very much. I wonder, if they were going to demolish it, why they bought it in the first place."


title: Pickfair

text: In 2012, Pia Zadora claimed on Season 4, Episode 4 of the BIO channel's "Celebrity Ghost Stories" that the real reason she demolished Pickfair was not due to termite infestation but because it was haunted by the laughing ghost of a woman who allegedly died there while having an affair with Douglas Fairbanks. Pia Zadora told her story in the "Celebrity Ghost Stories" on September 15, 2012; Season 4 Episode 12 starring Zadora, Erin Moran and Michael Beach.


title: Pickfair

text: In the interview Zadora stated, "Years ago my husband and I tore down one of the most iconic Hollywood mansions because of termites … but that wasn't the real reason. When we moved into the house it was beautiful, everything was perfect, it was a dream … but weird things started to happen … so my husband and I, after trying to figure out what to do, decided we were going to have the house razed."


title: Pickfair

text: Defending her actions, Zadora explained, "If I had a choice, I never would have torn down this old home. I loved this home, it had a history, it had a very important sense about it and you can deal with termites, and you can deal with plumbing issues, but you can't deal with the supernatural."


title: Pickfair

text: Remaining artifacts from the original Pickfair include the gates to the estate, the kidney-shaped pool and pool house, remnants of the living room, as well as the two-bedroom guest wing that played host to visiting royalty and notable film celebrities for over half a century. The guest wing was once used as a honeymoon suite for Lord Louis and Lady Mountbatten.


title: Pickfair

text: Located at 1143 Summit Drive in Beverly Hills, UNICOM Global bought the mansion on April 19, 2005, for $15,000,000. The property included a gym, disco room, and sits on . UNICOM Global now uses it for meetings, conferences and events.


title: Pickfair

text: Zadora's purchase and subsequent demolition of Pickfair is referenced in Deborah Harry and Iggy Pop's version of "Well, Did You Evah!". Pop claims he was invited to Pia Zadora's house but didn't go, later saying "I hear they dismantled Pickfair... wasn't elegant enough", to which Harry replies "probably full of termites".


title: Pickfair

text: Lucille Ball stated that she and husband Desi Arnaz were inspired by the combination of names in Pickfair to name their own estate (and later studio) Desilu.


title: Special forces of Israel

text: Special forces units in the Israel Defense Forces encompass a broad definition of specialist units. Such units are usually a regiment or a battalion in strength.


title: Special forces of Israel

text: Sayeret (, pl.: "sayarot"), or "reconnaissance" units in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) nomenclature, specialize in intelligence gathering and surveillance. In practice, these units specialize in commando and other special forces roles, in addition to reconnaissance (the degree of specialization varies by units and current needs).


title: Special forces of Israel

text: Mista'arvim (, "lit." Arabized; , "Musta'arabin"), also spelled as mistaravim, are counter-terrorism units in whose members are specifically trained to operate undercover, in enemy territory, in order to assassinate or capture wanted targets.


title: Special forces of Israel

text: Commando Unit 101, the founding Israeli special forces unit, was established and commanded by Ariel Sharon on orders from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in August 1953. They were armed with non-standard weapons and tasked with carrying out retribution operations across the state's borders – in particular, establishing small unit maneuvers, activation and tactical insertion and exit tactics.


title: Special forces of Israel

text: Members of the unit were recruited only from agricultural Kibbutzim and Moshavim. Membership in the unit was by invitation only, and any new member had to be voted on by all existing members before they were accepted.


title: Special forces of Israel

text: The unit was merged into the 890th Paratroop Battalion during January 1954, on orders of General Dayan, Chief of Staff, because he wanted their experience and spirit to be spread among all infantry units of IDF starting with the paratroopers. They are considered to have had a significant influence on the development of subsequent Israeli special forces units.


title: Special forces of Israel

text: All combat brigades in the IDF have a unit with improved weaponry and training used for reconnaissance and special forces missions, trained to use advanced weapons and reconnaissance technology, as well as hand-to-hand combat. Historically the brigades used to only have one company-sized unit outfitted to do this job, known as Palsar (Hebrew contraction of: פלוגת-סיור, "Plugat Siyur" (singular) / "Plugot Siyur" (plural), "Reconnaissance Company"). Although the "Palsar" are mostly oriented at battlefield support (which is their "raison d'être"), many have participated in special operations during recent years. All infantry units as well as some armored units have "Palsar".


title: Special forces of Israel

text: While in the past there were differences between the "Siyur" units, due to the experiences of the past decades the IDF is now consolidating them into larger units with many different capabilities: battalion-sized units called Gadsar (contraction of "Gdud Siyur", "Reconnaissance battalion"). Each "Gadsar" is made up of three specialized "Plugot" (companies): demolitions and combat engineering ("Plugat Habalah Handasit", or Palhan), reconnaissance ("Plugat Siyur", Palsar) and anti-tank ("Pluga Neged Tankim", or Palnat).


title: Special forces of Israel

text: Other SF units or "Sayaret" are larger units, operating directly under the General Staff. They are tasked with the most sensitive missions but they also support other conventional and SF units, if needed. Those units are Sayeret Matkal, Shayetet 13 and Shaldag.


title: Special forces of Israel

text: These are the most well-known reconnaissance units. Their operators are proficient in long range solo navigation, as opposed to other special forces units in the IDF where long range navigation is done with a minimum of 2 operators.


title: Special forces of Israel

text: The regular five infantry brigades (Golani, Givati, Nahal, Kfir and the Paratroopers) operate their own "Palsars", today joint with "Pal'nat" and "Pal'han" to form a ""Gad'sar/G'dud Siur"", or Reconnaissance Battalion. Each unit is subordinate to a specific brigade command, though they are not restricted to it.


title: Today's Webtoon

text: Today's Webtoon () is a South Korean television series starring Kim Se-jeong, Choi Daniel, and Nam Yoon-su. It is a remake of a Japanese drama, which was based on the manga series "Jūhan Shuttai!". It aired from July 29 to September 17, 2022 on SBS TV's Fridays and Saturdays at 22:00 (KST) time slot for 16 episodes.


title: Today's Webtoon

text: "Today's Webtoon" tells the story of On Ma-eum (Kim Se-jeong), a former judo athlete, who struggles to adapt to her new job as webtoon editor after retiring as an athlete due to an injury.


title: Jonathan Daviss

text: Jonathan Daviss (born February 28, 1999) is an American actor. He is known for his starring role as Pope Heyward in the Netflix drama series "Outer Banks."


title: Jonathan Daviss

text: Daviss was raised in Conroe, Texas, and attended Conroe High School where he played football. He has a younger sister, his mother sold their house and they moved to California for him to pursue an acting career.


title: Manhole

text: A manhole (utility hole, maintenance hole, or sewer hole) is an opening to a confined space such as a shaft, utility vault, or large vessel. Manholes are often used as an access point for an underground public utility, allowing inspection, maintenance, and system upgrades. The majority of underground services have manholes, including water, sewers, telephone, electricity, storm drains, district heating, and gas.


title: Manhole

text: Manholes are generally found in urban areas, in streets and occasionally under sidewalks. In rural and undeveloped areas, services such as telephone and electricity are usually carried on utility poles or even pylons rather than underground.


title: Manhole

text: In Australia, "manhole" also commonly refers to an access hatch used to get access from a room or hallway into the ceiling cavity of a building. These manholes are typically around square.


title: Manhole

text: Manhole closings are protected by a grating or manhole cover, a flat plug designed to prevent accidental or unauthorized access to the manhole. These covers are traditionally made of metal, but may be constructed from precast concrete, glass reinforced plastic or other composite materials (especially where cover theft is of concern). Because of legislation restricting acceptable manual handling weights, Europe has seen a move toward lighter-weight composite manhole cover materials, which also have the benefits of greater slip resistance and electrical insulating properties.


title: Manhole

text: Manholes are usually outfitted with metal, polypropylene, or fiberglass steps installed in the inner side of the wall to allow easy descent into the utility space.


title: Manhole

text: Manholes are usually round, primarily because roundness is the best shape to resist the compression of the earth; covers are round because they are easier to manufacture than square or rectangular shapes, they are easier to move by rolling, and they can't fall into the opening. But in the United Kingdom they are nearly always square, or rectangular, in shape, at least at street level. Manholes can also be found in a triangular shape (e.g. in Cambridge, UK, and surrounding villages).


title: Manhole

text: Composite (fiberglass) manholes are commonly used in applications where infiltration, exfiltration, or corrosion by hydrogen sulfide (from sewer gas) are a concern, or where structures need to be factory integrated into a manhole before placement. In these manholes, the entire underground enclosure is constructed of some composite material, in addition to the cover.


title: Manhole

text: In urban areas, stray voltage issues have become a significant concern for utilities. On January 16, 2004, Jodie S. Lane was electrocuted after stepping on a metal manhole cover, while walking her dog in New York City.


title: Life in Hell

text: Life in Hell is a comic strip by Matt Groening, creator of "The Simpsons", "Futurama", and "Disenchantment", which was published weekly from 1977 to 2012. The strip features anthropomorphic rabbits and a gay couple. The comic covers a wide range of subjects, such as love, sex, work, and death, and explores themes of angst, social alienation, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom.


title: Life in Hell

text: "Life in Hell" started in 1977 as a self-published comic book Groening used to describe life in Los Angeles to his friends. It was inspired by his move to the city that year; in an interview with "Playboy", Groening commented on his arrival: "I got [to Los Angeles] on a Friday night in August; it was about a hundred and two degrees; my car broke down in the fast lane of the Hollywood Freeway while I was listening to a drunken DJ who was giving his last program on a local rock station and bitterly denouncing the station's management. And then I had a series of lousy jobs." In the comic book, Groening attacked what many young adults found repellent: school, work, and love. He described it as "every ex-campus protester's, every Boomer idealist's, conception of what adult existence in the '80s had turned out to be."


title: Life in Hell

text: Groening photocopied and distributed the magazines to friends, and also sold them for two dollars a copy at the punk corner of the record store in which he worked, Licorice Pizza on Sunset Boulevard. These magazines contained comic strips, comedy sketches, letters, and photo collages. The magazine covers were humorous as well: the first issue saw Binky, a rabbit-humanoid character, standing in a cloud of smog and declaring, "What you see is what you breathe." Groening also worked real photos into the covers, such as drawings from Jules Verne's books or a picture of his family's living room.


title: Life in Hell

text: An editor from "Wet" magazine bought one of the magazines and liked it, and offered Groening a spot in the magazine; soon after, in 1978, "Life in Hell" debuted as a comic strip in the avant-garde "Wet", to which Groening made his first professional cartoon sale. The first strip, entitled "Forbidden Words", appeared in the September/October issue. Popular in the underground, "Life in Hell" was picked up by the "Los Angeles Reader" (an alternative weekly newspaper where Groening also worked as a typesetter, editor, paste-up artist and music critic) in 1980, where it began appearing weekly. Then-publisher of the "Reader" Jane Levine said Groening arrived at editor-in-chief James Vowell's office one day, showing him his "silly cartoons with the rabbit with one ear." After Groening left, Vowell came out of his office saying, "This guy is gonna be famous someday."


title: Life in Hell

text: The character designs of Akbar and Jeff were, in fact, failed attempts by Groening to draw Charlie Brown. In a 1999 interview, Groening said that he added Akbar and Jeff to the comic to appease his girlfriend (who was not yet Deborah Caplan). Early on in the comic, Groening used Binky and his wife to mirror the arguments Groening himself had with this girlfriend. However, she grew irritated with Groening because she felt he was portraying her unfairly. The addition of the twin-like Akbar and Jeff was meant to act as a mask of anonymity to hide who was who in such arguments. According to Groening, however, she still told him, "You think you're Akbar, but you’re really Jeff."


title: Life in Hell

text: In a 1991 interview about "The Simpsons", Groening said that "Life in Hell" was done entirely by himself, describing the comic as "Matt Groening pure and simple," and explained that the strips were often weird or entirely different every week because of however he was feeling at the time of a strip's creation.


title: Life in Hell

text: In November 1984, Groening's then-girlfriend (and co-worker at the "Reader"), Deborah Caplan, decided to publish a compilation of Groening's cartoons as a book entitled "Love is Hell". The book was an underground success, selling 22,000 copies in its first two printings. Caplan had already left her career in advertising sales at the "Reader" to manage the Life in Hell Co./Acme Features Syndicate full time, which managed syndication and merchandising for Groening's "Life in Hell" cartoons. The gift line included t-shirts, mugs, calendars, and greeting cards. With Deborah's management and promotional talents his cartoon went from being published in 11 free weeklies to over 250 papers nationwide. In 1986, after Matt and Deborah had married, they published Work is Hell plus two calendars, one with cartoonist Lynda Barry. Matt's books soon drew the attention of Pantheon/Randomhouse, which obtained the rights to distribute the books and in 1989 Life in Hell Cartoon Co/Acme closed its doors.


title: Life in Hell

text: "Life in Hell" reached the attention of Hollywood producer James L. Brooks, who received one strip—"The Los Angeles Way of Death" from 1982—as a gift from fellow producer Polly Platt. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of developing a series of short animated skits, called "bumpers", for "The Tracey Ullman Show". Originally, Brooks had wanted Groening to adapt his "Life in Hell" characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights to his characters, Groening instead created an entirely new batch of characters: the Simpsons.


title: Life in Hell

text: As television began to place more demands on his time, however, Groening came to almost exclusively feature single-panel strips or 16-panel grids in which Akbar and Jeff exchange terse jabs. This later period also saw the increase of autobiographical strips, perhaps because Groening was influenced by this burgeoning trend in alternative comics.


title: Life in Hell

text: Television has also made the strip "safe enough for a number of newspapers to print", according to Groening, who says he has not "toned the strip down at all, other than no longer using profanity" as a concession to daily papers that carry the strip.


title: Life in Hell

text: On December 7, 1998, Groening registered the domain mattgroening.com to publish "Life in Hell" online; however, the website has remained in its "under construction" state since then, although Groening insists he will "get around to it ... [when he is] ready to wade in on a regular basis." As of May 20, 2021, the domain leads to sponsored ad listings with a "This page is under construction - Coming soon!" message in the top right corner below the Network Solutions banner.


title: Life in Hell

text: Groening decided in 2007, in the wake of the 2006 United States elections, to write "Life Is Swell" above the comic instead of "Life in Hell". Though Groening had previously stated that he would never give up the comic strip, in 2009 he indicated that due to troubling times for print newspapers and constant involvement with "The Simpsons" and "Futurama", he would likely one day drop the strip. Three years later, Groening announced the strip's conclusion and the final new strip ran on June 16, 2012. The final strip shows Akbar or Jeff dancing naked, while the other tells him to stop. At the end of the strip he gives up and dances along with him, saying "Well, I tried."


title: Life in Hell

text: The strip was published in a perfect square, unlike most Sunday strips which are published in rectangles. He had different types of format. He would make 4 rows of boxes, each row with 4 in it, when Akbar and Jeff were discussing love. He did 3 boxes by 3, very rarely did he use 4 boxes. Single boxes were often quick and comedic, and 4 x 4 boxes often had a storyline. This is based on the way Lynda Barry made comics when they were in college, and the way it was published originally in the "Reader". Atop each strip, he quickly writes out "Life in Hell" and Copyright Matt Groening and the year it was made. Sometimes though, he changed the way he wrote the title on top. Instead of being quickly written, sometimes it would be in balloons, or bubble letters, or fireworks, old English handwriting, etc., he also wrote "This is your" above the "Life in Hell." He also sometimes changed the way he wrote his name and date but not very often. In one strip "Why men growl" from 1982, he wrote his name as Matt Grrrrroening. In another strip, "Are you Easily Provoked?" He misspelled his name 3 times until getting it right and writing "godamnit" underneath. If he gets help from another cartoonist, he writes their names underneath his. Sometimes a message such as "My back feels better, thank you" would appear. He sometimes put where he was when he was making the strip; he'd write Chicago or Portland underneath his name.


title: Life in Hell

text: After the success of "Love Is Hell", Deborah Caplan, now his wife, published "Work Is Hell" and two calendars, one in collaboration with cartoonist Lynda Barry. The books caught the attention of Pantheon/Randomhouse who wanted to expand the market for his books to include bookstores nationwide. The Life in Hell Cartoon Co. reserved the right to continue to sell the books to hip novelty and comic book stores along with the line of novelty items the couple had produced over the previous 5 years.


title: Life in Hell

text: In addition to the books, the comic also spawned T-shirts, sweatshirts, greeting cards, posters, coffee mugs, and a short-lived newsletter called the "Life in Hell Times".


title: Life in Hell

text: In the late 1980s, Groening drew several print advertisements for Apple Computer in the form of "Life in Hell" comic strips.


title: Life in Hell

text: In 1989, after the birth of their first son, Deborah Caplan Groening and Matt decided to end their business because Deborah wanted to focus on motherhood and Matt was launching his career in television.


title: Life in Hell

text: At the 2005 Comic-Con in San Diego, a series of deluxe "Life in Hell" vinyl figurines manufactured by CritterBox Toys was announced.


title: Life in Hell

text: Binky and Bongo appear as background and enemy characters in the Simpsons arcade video game (coin-op).


title: Athlone

text: Athlone (; ) is a town on the border of County Roscommon and County Westmeath, Ireland. It is located on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree. It is the second most populous town in the Midlands Region with a population of 21,349 in the 2016 census.


title: Athlone

text: Most of the town lies on the east bank of the river, within the townland of the same name; however, by the terms of the Local Government Act of 1898, six townlands on the west bank of the Shannon, formerly in County Roscommon, were incorporated into the town, and consequently, into the county of Westmeath.


title: Athlone

text: Around 100 km west of Dublin, Athlone is near the geographical centre of Ireland, which is north-northwest of the town, in the area of Carnagh East in County Roscommon.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone Castle, situated on the western bank of the River Shannon, is the geographical and historical centre of Athlone. Throughout its early history, the ford of Athlone was strategically important, as south of Athlone the Shannon is impassable until Clonmacnoise, where the Esker Riada meets the Shannon, while to the north the Shannon flows into Lough Ree. In 1001 Brian Bóru sailed his army up river from Kincora and through Lough Derg to attend a gathering in Athlone. The following year, Brian met the High King of Ireland Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill at Athlone, intending to engage him in a battle for the High Kingship – only to have Máel Sechnaill, abandoned by his kinsmen of the Northern Uí Néill, submit to Brian without a fight.


title: Athlone

text: A bridge was built across the river in the 12th century, approximately south of the current structure. In 1129, to protect the bridge, the High King Turloch Mór Ó Conor constructed a fort on the river's west bank, within Athlone. On a number of occasions both the fort and bridge were subject to attacks, and towards the end of the 12th century the Anglo-Normans constructed a motte-and-bailey fortification there. This earthen fort was followed by a stone structure built in 1210 by Justiciar John de Gray. The 12-sided donjon, or tower, dates from this time; however, the rest of the original castle was largely destroyed during the 1691 Siege of Athlone and subsequently rebuilt and enlarged.


title: Athlone

text: Throughout the wars that wracked Ireland in the 17th century, Athlone contained the vital, main bridge over the River Shannon into Connacht. During the Irish Confederate Wars (1641–53), the town was held by Irish Confederate troops until it was taken in late 1650 by Charles Coote, who attacked the town from the west, having crossed into Connacht at Sligo.


title: Athlone

text: Forty years later, during the pan-European War of the Grand Alliance (1688–97), the town was again of key strategic importance. In the Irish phase of the conflict (the Williamite War in Ireland of 1688–1691), Athlone was one of the Jacobite strongholds that defended the river-crossings into the Jacobite-held Province of Connacht following the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690. That same year, Colonel Richard Grace's Jacobite forces in Athlone repelled an attack by 10,000 men led by Commander Douglas. In the following year's campaign, the Siege of Athlone saw a further assault by a larger allied force, during which the invading troops of King William and Queen Mary eventually overran the entire city. The defenders were forced to flee further west, toward the River Suck, at such speed that eyewitness accounts record that they "flung their cannons into the morass" as they fled. The most recently discovered account of the Siege of Athlone, written after the attack, on 5 July 1691, was found in 2004 in an archive in the Netherlands. The account was penned by the victorious commanding officer from the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, general lieutenant Godard van Reede, in letters written to his family in mainland Europe. In the account, the commanding allied officer reported that half of Athlone's defenders retreated westward, towards the rest of their army, leaving almost 2,000 dead within the city walls and more than 100 taken prisoner, including dozens of officers.


title: Athlone

text: In the 1970s the Republican Éire Nua programme proposed making Athlone the capital of a federal United Ireland.


title: Athlone

text: The part of the town that lies east of the Shannon is in the province of Leinster, the county of Westmeath, the barony of Brawny, and the civil parish of St Mary's. Unusually, the barony is coterminous with a single civil parish. In terms of ecclesiastical boundaries, the eastern part of the town is in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise and the parish of St Mary's. There are several other churches in the town including a Church of Ireland (St. Mary's, Anglican), the St. Peter and St. Pauls, a Franciscan friary and a chapel of the Society of Saint Pius X.


title: Athlone

text: However, seven townlands, or sections of the town, lie west of the Shannon: Athlone and Big Meadow, Bellaugh, Bogganfin, Canal and Banks, Doovoge, part of Monksland, and Ranelagh. Although surrounded by County Roscommon in the province of Connacht, they are designated as part of County Westmeath to preserve the integrity of the town. These townlands lie in St Peter's civil parish in the barony of Athlone South. In terms of ecclesiastical boundaries, the townlands west of the Shannon are part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Elphin and the parish of Saints Peter and Paul.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone is a popular stop for pleasure craft along the River Shannon. Lough Ree, the largest lake on the Shannon, is a short distance upstream from Athlone, and many boat companies are based out of the town. For craft to pass through Athlone, it is necessary to use a lock in the river, which is beside the weir and downstream of the current road bridge. The lock, weir, and bridge were all constructed by the Shannon navigation commissioners in the 1840s. Before then, boats used a canal, about a mile and a half long, to the west of the river. The canal was built by Thomas Omer for the Commissioners of Inland Navigation. Work started in 1757 and involved the work of over 300 men. Omer built a single lock, 120' X 19' with a rise of 4.5', but there was also a guard lock, further upstream, with a single set of gates to protect the canal against floods. There were also two lay-bys, or harbours, one above the lock and another at the upstream end. The old canal is no longer navigable.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone railway station opened on 3 October 1859, with Irish Rail services travelling eastwards to Portarlington, Kildare and Dublin Heuston and westwards to the Westport/Ballina lines as well as to Athenry, Oranmore and Galway.


title: Athlone

text: Connections from Athlone via a train transfer at Athenry railway station extend to Ennis and Limerick, while a transfer at Portarlington connects Limerick Junction and Limerick. There are trains from Portarlington to Mallow, and from Mallow to Cork, Killarney, Farranfore and Tralee. Travel between Athlone and Killdare enables connections to Carlow, Kilkenny and Waterford.


title: Athlone

text: For many years state-owned bus operator Bus Éireann provided hourly services to Dublin and Galway from its bus station in Athlone located beside the railway station, but in July 2021 these routes, 20 and X20 Expressway, were cancelled indefinitely. The company cited "continuing losses [..] resulting from the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic" as the reason. Bus Éireann services between Dublin and Belfast, Cork and Limerick were also cut following a "viability review" of 18 routes in September 2020. It was noted that from July 2021 onwards, bus journeys between Athlone and Galway, Ballinasloe, Moate, Dublin city or Dublin airport would be operated by private companies only, with passengers being dropped off or picked up at the Arcadia Retail Park and Athlone Institute of Technology rather than the bus station. Such private bus companies that stop in Athlone include Citylink and a new Aircoach bus route (Galway-Athlone-Dublin) which was established soon after Bus Éireann's decision, to cope with the demand.


title: Athlone

text: There are also services to Limerick, Dundalk, Waterford, Cavan, Belfast, Longford and Roscommon. The town is also home to a number of privately operated services, including the Flagline bus company, which operates local bus routes as well as service to Tullamore.


title: Athlone

text: Bus Éireann continues to operate a local Athlone bus service in and around the town. The local services are as follows: Route A1: Bus Station, Willow Park (Norwood Court) via Golden Island Shopping Centre, Dublin Road and Athlone Institute of Technology; and Route A2: Monksland (River Village); Garrycastle (Moydrum Road) via Galway Road, St. Peter's Avenue, Saint Anne's Terrace, the Batteries, Connaught Street, Northgate Street, Bus Station, Golden Island Shopping Centre, Dublin Road and Athlone Institute of Technology.


title: Athlone

text: The town is located alongside the N6 dual carriageway, which is effectively a section of the M6 motorway connecting Galway to Dublin. The N6 passes along the northern side of the town, crossing the River Shannon into County Roscommon. A number of national secondary roads connect Athlone with other towns and regions, namely the N55 to Ballymahon and Cavan, the N61 to Roscommon and the N62 to Birr, Roscrea, and Southern Ireland.


title: Athlone

text: RTÉ All-Ireland Drama Festival takes place annually in Athlone, bringing together nine amateur drama groups from across Ireland. The festival is supported by an active fringe which involves street theatre, art exhibitions, workshops and events for young people.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone Literary Festival is an annual event which began in 1999, originally as a weekend celebration of the life and works of John Broderick, but which now features a great variety of speakers and debaters.


title: Athlone

text: Count John McCormack was born in Athlone, and for many years, an annual festival held in the town has celebrated this world-renowned tenor.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone School of Music opened in 2005 and is a grant-aided project aimed at developing music education and services in the Midlands region.


title: Athlone

text: Abbey Road Artists' Studios launched in 2011 in a unique building constructed in 1841. The studios offer a dedicated space in Athlone for local and visiting artists. The artists' studios consist of four individual artists' studios as well as a large multi-purpose upstairs space suitable for a variety of community cultural events, including exhibitions, performances, workshops and seminars. The Abbey Road artists' studios work closely with the Luan Art Gallery.


title: Athlone

text: In 1954, Athlone became the first branch of the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland and the town had a large part in the organisation's creation.


title: Athlone

text: American crime writer James M. Cain refers to Athlone in his 1937 book, "Serenade", in a passage where two characters discuss tenor John McCormack:


title: Athlone

text: "It's a fine brogue, but it's not brogue. It's the English language as it was spoken before all the other countries of the world forgot how to speak it. There are two things a singer can't buy, beg or steal, and that no teacher, coach or conductor can give him. One is his voice, the other is the language that was born in his mouth. When McCormack was singing Handel he was singing English, and he sings it as no American and no Englishman will ever sing English".


title: Athlone

text: The Irish poet Aubrey Thomas de Vere wrote a poem "The Ballad of Athlone" which is an account of an incident in the 1691 siege.


title: Athlone

text: The promenade on the River Shannon is popular among anglers, birdwatchers and swimmers. The lakeshore is accessed from Coosan Point and Hodson Bay. The town is also home to Lough Ree Yacht Club.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone is a major retail destination within the Midlands region of Ireland. The town centre extends from Church Street in the west to Seán Costello Street in the east. Located centrally is the Athlone Town Centre, a shopping centre built in 2007, containing 54 shops, cafés and a four-star hotel.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone has a number of hotels, including chains such the Radisson Blu and Sheraton hotels, as well as a number of locally owned ones.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone Regional Sports Centre, developed by the former Town Council in 2002, is located on the outskirts of the town. The facility contains a swimming pool, gym and AstroTurf pitches.


title: Athlone

text: Sean's Bar, located on the west bank of the river, is certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest pub in Ireland.


title: Athlone

text: The Luan Gallery was opened in 2012. It is the first purpose-built, modern visual art gallery in the Midlands. It was designed by Keith Williams, who also designed the Athlone Town Civic Centre. The gallery was opened by Jimmy Deenihan, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The Luan Gallery opened with an exhibition from the Irish Museum of Modern Art, featuring the work of several national and international artists.


title: Athlone

text: Other attractions include the Glendeer Open Farm and the Viking Cruise of the Shannon. Baysports, a boat training and watersports centre with the world's largest floating inflatable water slide, is located a ten-minute drive from the town. There is a tourist office on Church Street.


title: Athlone

text: There are many fine golf courses within easy reach of Athlone including Athlone Golf Club, Glasson Golf & Country Club and Mount Temple Golf Club.


title: Athlone

text: The Old Rail Trail greenway runs for 42 kilometres from Athlone to Mullingar, along the disused Athlone-Mullingar Railway. It will eventually form part of the Dublin-Galway Greenway. A new cycle and pedestrian bridge over the River Shannon is planned to be built beside the Luan Gallery.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone's major employers include Alkermes, a pharmaceutical company that succeeded Elan in Athlone; Bioclin Laboratories, another pharmaceutical company; Ericsson, a telecommunications business; Tyco Healthcare, a medical equipment supplier; Utah Medical, another medical equipment supplier; Pharmaplaz, another pharmaceutical company; Alienware, a computer hardware business; ICT Eurotel, a contact centre; and Athlone Extrusions, a polymer supplier.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone is the regional centre for a large number of state-run and semi-state-run organisations. The Department of Education, State Examinations Commission, Revenue Commissioners, FÁS Midlands Region, Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland all have bases in the town. Athlone is also a major Irish military centre, as the Custume Barracks, which lie on the west bank of the Shannon in the town, is the headquarters of the Western Command of the Irish Army.


title: Athlone

text: The Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT) is a constituent institute of the , (TUS). Athlone forms part of the Midlands Gateway, an in-progress infrastructure initiative, along with Mullingar and Tullamore. The AIT has a campus size of 44 acres, and has new, purpose-built facilities include the Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Studies building, built in 2003; the Nursing and Health Science building, built in 2005; the Midlands Innovation and Research Centre, also built in 2005; the Engineering and Informatics building, built in 2010; and the Postgraduate Research Hub, also built in 2010. RTÉ's Midlands studio and office are located at AIT.


title: Athlone

text: The Athlone Institute of Technology has memorandum of understanding with the Rio de Janeiro State University, one of the largest universities in the Brazilian city. AIT also has agreements with the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, one of the largest Brazilian private universities. The institute also founded agreements with two leading Beijing universities, the Capital University of Economics and Business and the Beijing Union University. The agreements were signed by the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland and university representatives. Other agreements exist between the AIT and TVTC, in Saudi Arabia, and a memorandum of understanding exists with the Georgia Institute of Technology. Further agreements exist with the Bharati Vidyapeeth, one of the largest universities in India.


title: Athlone

text: There are four major secondary schools in the Athlone area, the Athlone Community College, a coeducational school; Our Lady's Bower School, a girls' school; Marist College, a boys' school; Coláiste Chiaráin, the new secondary school resulting from the amalgamation of St. Aloysius' College and St Joseph's College, Summerhill.


title: Athlone

text: In June 2010, Taoiseach Brian Cowen announced his support of a proposed European and Chinese training hub in Athlone. In May 2012, the project was granted permission by An Bord Pleanála. It was planned to comprise a total of nine exhibition halls, nine smaller independent exhibition buildings, one temporary exhibition space, several offices, administrative services, some living quarters, hotels, shops, restaurants, pubs, a school and railway station. It was never built.


title: Athlone

text: Between 1931 and 1975 the main radio transmission centre for Irish radio was located at Moydrum, Athlone (). The original call sign was 2RN, a wordplay on the song "Come back to Erin". The station subsequently became known as "Radio Athlone" and could clearly be heard throughout Europe, and as far away as Moscow. This changed as bandwidth allocations were accorded at the Helsinki Declaration.


title: Athlone

text: The station originally operated at a power of 60 kW, which during the 1950s, was increased to 100 kW. For an antenna, a T-antenna was and is still used, which spins between two 100-metre tall guyed masts with square cross-sections and which are insulated against ground. Many old radio sets in Europe had the "Athlone" dial position marked near the end of their tuning scales.


title: Athlone

text: In the late 1970s the station reopened on a new dial position of 612 kHz for "Radio 2", later known as RTÉ 2fm. Moydrum was also the location of Ireland's short-lived Shortwave international radio service, which was closed down in 1948 due to lack of money. Today, RTÉ's Midlands studios are located in Athlone, at St. Mary's Square. The local radio station is Midlands 103. Many also tune into the Shannonside station.


title: Athlone

text: A radio station, i102-104FM, was launched in 2008, geared to the 15–34 age group of the Midlands and Northeast.


title: Athlone

text: The Athlone Community Taskforce and several members of the Roscommon community radio station, RosFM, have begun broadcasting from the Athlone area under the banner of Athlone Community Radio. Their first broadcast was on 15 March 2008 and the broadcasts were originally set to run every Saturday and Sunday for the following 15 weeks, until their temporary licence expired. They received a 10-year licence on 14 January 2011 from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, and they currently broadcast on the frequency of 88.4 FM.


title: Athlone

text: Local newspapers include the "Westmeath Independent" located on Sean Costello Street which was established in 1846 and the "Athlone Topic".


title: Athlone

text: In addition to being home to the Athlone Regional Sports Centre, the town has a variety of sporting organisations. Namely, there is the Athlone Town Football Club, who play their home games at Athlone Town Stadium in Lissywollen, an arena with a 5,000 person capacity. The Athlone Town Football Club won the League of Ireland Championship in 1981 and 1983, as well as the FAI Cup in 1924. The team also qualified for the 1975–76 UEFA Cup, where they played 0–0 against AC Milan.


title: Athlone

text: The newly opened, ten million Euro, Athlone IT International Arena, is now Ireland's first world-class indoor athletics arena, boasting a floor space of nearly 10,000 square metres. The arena was opened by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, and has been admired by sporting legends such as Sonia O'Sullivan. It has also hailed by Senator Eamonn Coghlan as the "best news story in Irish athletics history". The stadium hosts the annual AIT Grand Prix event, broadcast by TG4 on the Island of Ireland and internationally via Vinco and Runnerspace.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone hosted the European Triathlon Championships in 2010 when approximately 5,000 athletes participated in the event. Alistair Brownlee of Great Britain won the event. Two years later he won a gold medal in the triathlon at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone is home to several Gaelic football teams, including Tubberclair GAA, Garrycastle GAA, and Athlone GAA, with St. Brigids (Roscommon) GAA and Clann na nGael GAA being located outside Athlone itself. Garrycastle GAA qualified for the 2012 All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship for the first time in the club's history by beating Connacht Champions, St. Brigids GAA, in an all-Athlone semi-final. Garrycastle eventually lost the final to Crossmaglen Rangers in a replay of the final, the first match having ended in a draw by a scoreline of 1–12 to 0–15.


title: Athlone

text: Athlone is also home to Buccaneers RFC, whose club's grounds are at Dubarry Park. Dubarry Park, with a 10,000 person capacity, is also home to the Connacht Eagles, the team that represents Connacht in the British and Irish Cup and in the All Ireland Inter-provincial Championship.


title: Accessory fruit

text: An accessory fruit is a fruit in which some of the flesh is derived not from the floral ovary but from some adjacent tissue exterior to the carpel. Accessory fruits are usually indehiscent.


title: Accessory fruit

text: Alternative terms for accessory fruit are false fruit, spurious fruit, pseudofruit, or pseudocarp. These are older terms for accessory fruit that have been criticized as "inapt", and are not used by some botanists today.


title: Accessory fruit

text: The following are examples of accessory fruits listed by the plant organ from which the accessory tissue is derived:


title: Accessory fruit

text: Fruit with fleshy seeds, such as pomegranate or mamoncillo, are not considered to be accessory fruits.


title: Accessory fruit

text: Current research has proposed that a single class of genes may be responsible for regulating accessory fruit formation and ripening. A study using strawberries concluded that hormone signaling pathways involving gibberellic acid and auxin affect gene expression, and contribute to the initiation of accessory fruit development. Metabolic modifications in different developing accessory fruit tissues are due to the varied distributions of compounds such as triterpenoids and steroids.


title: Spider angioma

text: A spider angioma or spider naevus (plural: spider naevi), also nevus araneus, is a type of telangiectasis (swollen, spider-like blood vessels on the skin) found slightly beneath the skin's surface, often containing a central red spot and deep reddish extensions (see Blood color) which radiate outwards like a spider's web or a spider's legs. They are common and often benign, presenting in around 10–15% of healthy adults and young children. However, having more than three spider angiomas is likely to be abnormal and may be a sign of liver disease and/or hepatitis C (HCV virus); it also suggests the probability of esophageal varices.


title: Spider angioma

text: Spider angiomas are found only in the distribution of the superior vena cava, and are thus commonly found on the face, neck, upper part of the torso, and arms.


title: Spider angioma

text: Spider angiomas form due to failure of the sphincteric muscle surrounding a cutaneous arteriole. The central red dot is the dilated arteriole and the red "spider legs" are small capillaries carrying away the freely flowing blood. If momentary pressure is applied, it is possible to see the emptied capillaries refilling from the center. No other angiomas show this phenomenon.


title: Spider angioma

text: The dilation, in turn, is caused by increased estrogen levels in the blood. Many pregnant women and women using hormonal contraception have spider angiomas, which is due to high estrogen levels in their blood. Individuals with significant liver disease also show many spider angiomas, as their liver cannot metabolize circulating estrogens, specifically estrone, which derives from the androgen androstenedione. About 33% of patients with cirrhosis have spider angiomas.


title: Spider angioma

text: Hepatitis C is an infection that can lead to irreversible liver damage. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) spreads through contaminated blood, and people are often infected by sharing drug paraphernalia or unsanitized tattoo guns and needles, piercing equipment, or manicure tools. To make matters worse, symptoms of the HCV virus can take years to appear, and this is likely why most of those infected with hepatitis C do not even realize that they are infected, and can continue to spread the virus unknowingly.


title: Spider angioma

text: Unfortunately, many symptoms do not start to appear until some damage to the liver has been done. Unlike in the past when hepatitis C was not curable and continued to worsen as years passed, today most positive hepatitis C (HCV virus) cases (95-98%) are now curable by taking a fairly newer treatment in the form of a prescribed daily oral medication for the full duration of 12 weeks. This treatment is usually well tolerated, with little to no side effects whatsoever.


title: Spider angioma

text: Spider angiomas (spider-like blood vessels on the skin) are one of the main symptoms caused by a hepatitis C (HCV virus) infection. Discovering an infected patient with hepatitis C early on in the infection phase increases the chances of the virus being successfully treated and cured by oral medication. Some patients can be infected with hepatitis C for decades without knowing, and without experiencing any signs or symptoms of the virus. While hepatitis A and B have a protective vaccine available, there are no vaccines available to protect against the HCV virus (hepatitis C), Once contracted, if left untreated, hepatitis C can cause the liver to swell or become inflamed, making it difficult to function adequately in order to properly filter out chemicals and toxins. When the hepatits C (HCV) infection turns chronic, it can cause full-blown cirrhosis of the liver (scarring of the liver), making it difficult for the liver to filter out waste and to store nutrients. This can also lead to liver cancer and eventually will lead to liver failure.


title: Spider angioma

text: Diagnosis is by clinical examination. Spider naevi are most commonly seen by general practitioners, or dermatologists. Whilst a lesion can be identified as a spider naevus, this is not a diagnosis in itself. The clinical picture should be indicative of whether there is underlying disease that should be investigated.


title: Spider angioma

text: Spider angiomas are asymptomatic and usually resolve spontaneously. This is common in the case of children, although they may take several years to disappear. If the spider angiomas are associated with pregnancy, they may resolve after childbirth. In women taking oral contraceptives, they may resolve after stopping these contraceptives.


title: Spider angioma

text: For spider angiomas on the face, techniques such as electrodesiccation and laser treatment can be used to remove the lesion. There is a small risk of a scar, however it usually leaves nothing.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The Banu Qurayza (, ; alternate spellings include Quraiza, Qurayzah, Quraytha, and the archaic Koreiza) were a Jewish tribe which lived in northern Arabia, at the oasis of Yathrib (now known as Medina).


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Jewish tribes reportedly arrived in Hijaz in the wake of the Jewish-Roman wars and introduced agriculture, putting them in a culturally, economically and politically dominant position. However, in the 5th century, the Banu Aws and the Banu Khazraj, two Arab tribes that had arrived from Yemen, gained dominance. When these two tribes became embroiled in conflict with each other, the Jewish tribes, now clients or allies of the Arabs, fought on different sides, the Qurayza siding with the Aws.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: In 622, the Islamic prophet Muhammad arrived at Yathrib from Mecca and reportedly established a pact between the conflicting parties. While the city found itself at war with Muhammad's native Meccan tribe of the Quraysh, tensions between the growing numbers of Muslims and the Jewish communities mounted.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: In 627, when the Quraysh and their allies besieged the city in the Battle of the Trench, the Qurayza initially tried to remain neutral but eventually entered into negotiations with the besieging army, violating the pact they had agreed to years earlier. Subsequently, the tribe was charged with treason and besieged by the Muslims commanded by Muhammad. The Banu Qurayza eventually surrendered and their men were beheaded.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The historicity of this incident has been questioned by Islamic scholars of the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies and by some western specialists.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Extant sources provide no conclusive evidence whether the Banu Qurayza were ethnically Jewish or Arab converts to Judaism. Just like the other Jews of Yathrib, the Qurayza claimed to be of Israelite descent and observed the commandments of Judaism, but adopted many Arab customs and intermarried with Arabs.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: They were dubbed the "priestly tribe" ("kahinan" in Arabic from the Hebrew kohanim). Ibn Ishaq, the author of the traditional Muslim biography of Muhammad, traces their genealogy to Aaron and further to Abraham but gives only eight intermediaries between Aaron and the purported founder of the Qurayza tribe.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: In the 5th century CE, the Qurayza lived in Yathrib together with two other major Jewish tribes, the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir. Al-Isfahani writes in his 10th century collection of Arabic poetry that Jews arrived in Hijaz in the wake of the Jewish-Roman wars; the Qurayza settled in Mahzur, a wadi in Al Harrah. The 15th century Muslim scholar Al-Samhudi lists a dozen other Jewish clans living in the town of which the most important one was Banu Hadl, closely aligned with the Banu Qurayza. The Jews introduced agriculture to Yathrib, growing date palms and cereals, and this cultural and economic advantage enabled the Jews to dominate the local Arabs politically. Al-Waqidi wrote that the Banu Qurayza were people of high lineage and of properties, "whereas we were but an Arab tribe who did not possess any palm trees nor vineyards, being people of only sheep and camels." Ibn Khordadbeh later reported that during the Persian domination in Hijaz, the Banu Qurayza served as tax collectors for the shah.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Ibn Ishaq tells of a conflict between the last Yemenite king of Himyar and the residents of Yathrib. When the king was passing by the oasis, the residents killed his son, and the Yemenite ruler threatened to exterminate the people and cut down the palms. According to Ibn Ishaq, he was stopped from doing so by two rabbis from the Banu Qurayza, who implored the king to spare the oasis because it was the place "to which a prophet of the Quraysh would migrate in time to come, and it would be his home and resting-place". The Yemenite king thus did not destroy the town and converted to Judaism. He took the rabbis with him, and in Mecca they reportedly recognized the Kaaba as a temple built by Abraham and advised the king "to do what the people of Mecca did: to circumambulate the temple, to venerate and honor it, to shave his head and to behave with all humility until he had left its precincts." On approaching Yemen, tells Ibn Ishaq, the rabbis demonstrated to the local people a miracle by coming out of a fire unscathed and the Yemenites accepted Judaism.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The situation changed after two Arab tribes named Banu Aws and Banu Khazraj arrived to Yathrib from Yemen. At first, these tribes were clients of the Jews, but toward the end of the 5th century CE, they revolted and became independent. Most modern historians accept the claim of the Muslim sources that after the revolt, the Jewish tribes became clients of the Aws and the Khazraj. William Montgomery Watt however considers this clientship to be unhistorical prior to 627 and maintains that the Jews retained a measure of political independence after the Arab revolt.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Eventually, the Aws and the Khazraj became hostile to each other. They had been fighting possibly for around a hundred years before 620 and at least since 570s. The Banu Nadir and the Banu Qurayza were allied with the Aws, while the Banu Qaynuqa sided with the Khazraj. There are reports of the constant conflict between Banu Qurayza and Banu Nadir, the two allies of Aws, yet the sources often refer to these two tribes as “brothers”. Aws and Khazraj and their Jewish allies fought a total of four wars. The last and bloodiest altercation was the Battle of Bu'ath, the outcome of which was inconclusive.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The Qurayza appear as a tribe of considerable military importance: they possessed large numbers of weaponry, as upon their surrender 1,500 swords, 2,000 lances, 300 suits of armor, and 500 shields were later seized by the Muslims. Meir J. Kister notes that these quantities are "disproportionate relative to the number of fighting men" and conjectures that the "Qurayza used to sell (or lend) some of the weapons kept in their storehouses". He also mentions that the Qurayza were addressed as "Ahlu al-halqa" ("people of the weapons") by the Quraysh and notes that these weapons "strengthened their position and prestige in the tribal society".


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The continuing feud between the Aws and the Khazraj was probably the chief cause for several emissaries to invite Muhammad to Yathrib in order to adjudicate in disputed cases. Ibn Ishaq recorded that after his arrival in 622, Muhammad established a compact, the Constitution of Medina, which committed the Jewish and Muslim tribes to mutual cooperation. The nature of this document as recorded by Ibn Ishaq and transmitted by Ibn Hisham is the subject of dispute among modern historians, many of whom maintain that this "treaty" is possibly a collage of agreements, of different dates, and that it is not clear when they were made. Watt holds that the Qurayza and Nadir were probably mentioned in an earlier version of the Constitution requiring the parties not to support an enemy against each other.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Aside from the general agreements, the chronicles by Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi contain a report that after his arrival, Muhammad signed a special treaty with the Qurayza chief Ka'b ibn Asad. Ibn Ishaq gives no sources, while al-Waqidi refers to Ka’b ibn Malik of Salima, a clan hostile to the Jews, and Mummad ibn Ka’b, the son of a Qurayza boy who was sold into slavery in the aftermath of the siege and subsequently became a Muslim. The sources are suspect of being against the Qurayza and therefore the historicity of this agreement between Muhammad and the Banu Qurayza is open to grave doubt. Among modern historians, R. B. Serjeant supports the historicity of this document and suggests that the Jews knew "of the penalty for breaking faith with Muhammad". On the other hand, Norman Stillman argues that the Muslim historians had invented this agreement in order to justify the subsequent treatment of the Qurayza. Watt also rejects the existence of such a special agreement but notes that the Jews were bound by the aforementioned general agreement and by their alliance to the two Arab tribes not to support an enemy against Muhammad. Serjeant agrees with this and opines that the Qurayza were aware of the two parts of a pact made between Muhammad and the Jewish tribes in the confederation according to which "Jews having their religion and the Muslims having their religion excepting anyone who acts wrongfully and commits crime/acts treacherously/breaks an agreement, for he but slays himself and the people of his house."


title: Banu Qurayza

text: During the first few months after Muhammad's arrival in Medina, the Banu Qurayza were involved in a dispute with the Banu Nadir: The more powerful Nadir rigorously applied "lex talionis" against the Qurayza while not allowing it being enforced against themselves. Further, the blood money paid for killing a man of the Qurayza was only half of the blood-money required for killing a man of the Nadir, placing the Qurayza in a socially inferior position. The Qurayza called on Muhammad as arbitrator, who delivered the surah and judged that the Nadir and Qurayza should be treated alike in the application of lex talionis and raised the assessment of the Qurayza to the full amount of blood money.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Tensions quickly mounted between the growing numbers of Muslims and Jewish tribes, while Muhammad found himself at war with his native Meccan tribe of the Quraysh. In 624, after his victory over the Meccans in the Battle of Badr, Banu Qaynuqa threatened Muhammad's political position and assaulted a Muslim woman which led to their expulsion from Medina for breaking the peace treaty of Constitution of Medina. The Qurayza remained passive during the whole Qaynuqa affair, apparently because the Qaynuqa were historically allied with the Khazraj, while the Qurayza were the allies of the Aws.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Soon afterwards, Muhammad came into conflict with the Banu Nadir. He had one of the Banu Nadir's chiefs, the poet Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, assassinated and after the Battle of Uhud accused the tribe of treachery and plotting against his life and expelled them from the city. The Qurayza remained passive during this conflict, according to R. B. Serjeant because of the blood money issue related above.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: In 627, the Meccans, accompanied by tribal allies as well as the Banu Nadir - who had been very active in supporting the Meccans - marched against Medina - the Muslim stronghold - and laid siege to it. It is unclear whether their treaty with Muhammad obliged the Qurayza to help him defend Medina, or merely to remain neutral, according to Ramadan, they had signed an agreement of mutual assistance with Muhammad. The Qurayza did not participate in the fighting - according to David Norcliffe, because they were offended by attacks against Jews in Muhammad's preaching - but lent tools to the town's defenders. According to Al-Waqidi, the Banu Qurayza helped the defense effort of Medina by supplying spades, picks, and baskets for the excavation of the defensive trench the defenders of Medina had dug in preparation. According to Watt, the Banu Qurayza "seem to have tried to remain neutral" in the battle but later changed their attitude when a Jew from Khaybar persuaded them that Muhammad was sure to be overwhelmed and though they did not commit any act overtly hostile to Muhammad, according to Watt, they entered into negotiations with the invading army.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Ibn Ishaq writes that during the siege, the Qurayza readmitted Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the chief of the Banu Nadir whom Muhammad had exiled and who had instigated the alliance of his tribe with the besieging Quraysh and Ghatafan tribes. According to Ibn Ishaq, Huyayy persuaded the Qurayza chief Ka'b ibn Asad to help the Meccans conquer Medina. Ka'b was, according to Al-Waqidi's account, initially reluctant to break the contract and argued that Muhammad never broke any contract with them or exposed them to any shame, but decided to support the Meccans after Huyayy had promised to join the Qurayza in Medina if the besieging army would return to Mecca without having killed Muhammad. Ibn Kathir and al-Waqidi report that Huyayy tore into pieces the agreement between Ka'b and Muhammad.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Rumors of this one-sided renunciation of the pact spread and were confirmed by Muhammad's emissaries, Sa'd ibn Mua'dh and Sa'd ibn Ubadah, leading men of the Aws and Khazraj respectively. Sa'd ibn Mua'dh reportedly issued threats against the Qurayza but was restrained by his colleague. As this would have allowed the besiegers to access the city and thus meant the collapse of the defenders' strategy, Muhammad "became anxious about their conduct and sent some of the leading Muslims to talk to them; the result was disquieting." According to Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad sent Nuaym ibn Masud, a well-respected elder of the Ghatafan who had secretly converted to Islam, to go to Muhammad's enemies and sow discord among them. Nuaym went to the Qurayza and advised them to join the hostilities against Muhammad only if the besiegers provide hostages from among their chiefs. He then hurried to the invaders and warned them that if the Qurayza asked for hostages, it is because they intended to turn them over to the Medinan defenders. When the representatives of the Quraysh and the Ghatafan came to the Qurayza, asking for support in the planned decisive battle with Muhammad, the Qurayza indeed demanded hostages. The representatives of the besiegers refused, breaking down negotiations and resulting in the Banu Qurayza becoming extremely distrustful of the besieging army. The Qurayza did not take any actions to support them until the besieging forces retreated. Thus the threat of a second front against the defenders never materialised.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: After the Meccans' withdrawal, Muhammad then led his forces against the Banu Qurayza neighborhood. According to Ibn Ishaq, he had been asked to do so by the angel Gabriel. The Banu Qurayza retreated into their stronghold and endured the siege for 25 days. As their morale waned, Ka'b ibn Asad suggested three alternative ways out of their predicament: embrace Islam; kill their own children and women, then rush out for a charge to either win or die; or make a surprise attack on the Sabbath. The Banu Qurayza accepted none of these alternatives. Instead they asked to confer with Abu Lubaba, one of their allies from the Aws. According to Ibn Ishaq, Abu Lubaba felt pity for the women and children of the tribe who were crying and when asked whether the Qurayza should surrender to Muhammad, advised them to do so. However he also "made a sign with his hand toward his throat, indicating that [their fate] at the hands of the Prophet would be slaughter". The next morning, the Banu Qurayza surrendered and the Muslims seized their stronghold and their stores. The men - Ibn Ishaq numbers between 400 and 900 - were bound and placed under the custody of one Muhammad ibn Maslamah, who had killed Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, while the women and children - numbering about 1,000 - were placed under Abdullah ibn Sallam, a former rabbi who had converted to Islam.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The circumstances of the Qurayza's demise have been related by Ibn Ishaq and other Muslim historians who relied upon his account. According to Watt, Peters and Stillman, the Qurayza surrendered to Muhammad's judgement - a move Watt classifies as unconditional. The Aws, who wanted to honor their old alliance with the Qurayza, asked Muhammad to treat the Qurayza leniently as he had previously treated the Qaynuqa for the sake of Ibn Ubayy. (Arab custom required support of an ally, independent of the ally's conduct to a third party.) Muhammad then suggested to bring the case before an arbitrator chosen from the Aws, to which both the Aws and the Qurayza agreed to. Muhammad then appointed Sa'd ibn Mua'dh to decide the fate of the Jewish tribe.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: According to Hashmi, Buchanan and Moore, the tribe agreed to surrender on the condition of a Muslim arbitrator of their choosing. According to Khadduri (also cited by Abu-Nimer), "both parties agreed to submit their dispute to a person chosen by them" in accordance with the Arabian tradition of arbitration. Muir holds that the Qurayza surrendered on the condition that "their fate was decided by their allies, the Bani Aws".


title: Banu Qurayza

text: In all accounts, the appointed arbitrator was Sa'd ibn Mua'dh, a leading man among the Aws. During the Battle of the Trench, he had been one of Muhammad's emissaries to the Qurayza (see above) and now was dying from a wound he had received later in the battle. When Sa'd arrived, his fellow Aws pleaded for leniency towards the Qurayza and on his request pledged that they would abide by his decision. He then decreed that "the men should be killed, the property divided, and the women and children taken as captives". Muhammad approved of the ruling, calling it similar to God's judgment. Chiragh Ali argued that this statement may have referred to "king" or "ruler" rather than God.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Sa'd dismissed the pleas of the Aws, according to Watt because being close to death and concerned with his afterlife, he put what he considered "his duty to God and the Muslim community" before tribal allegiance. Tariq Ramadan argues that Muhammad deviated from his earlier, more lenient treatment of prisoners as this was seen "as sign of weakness if not madness", Peterson concurs that the Muslims wanted to deter future treachery by setting an example with severe punishment. Lings reports that Sa'ad feared that if expelled, the Qurayza would join the Nadir in the fight against the Muslims.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: According to Stillman, Muhammad chose Sa'd so as not to pronounce the judgment himself, after the precedents he had set with the Banu Qaynuqa and the Banu Nadir: "Sa`d took the hint and condemned the adult males to death and the hapless women and children to slavery." Furthermore, Stillman infers from Abu Lubaba's gesture that Muhammad had decided the fate of the Qurayza even before their surrender.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Several accounts note Muhammad's companions as executioners, Ali and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam in particular, and that each clan of the Aws was also charged with killing a group of Qurayza men. Subhash Inamdar argues that this was done in order to avoid the risk of further conflicts between Muhammad and the Aws. According to Inamdar, Muhammad wanted to distance himself from the events and, had he been involved, he would have risked alienating some of the Aws.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: It is also reported that one woman, who had thrown a millstone from the battlements during the siege and killed one of the Muslim besiegers, was also beheaded along with the men. Ibn Asakir writes in his "History of Damascus" that the Banu Kilab, a clan of Arab clients of the Banu Qurayza, were killed alongside the Jewish tribe.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Three boys of the clan of Hadl, who had been with Qurayza in the strongholds, slipped out before the surrender and converted to Islam. The son of one of them, Muhammad ibn Ka'b al-Qurazi, gained distinction as a scholar. One or two other men also escaped.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The spoils of battle, including the enslaved women and children of the tribe, were divided up among the Islamic warriors that had participated in the siege and among the emigrees from Mecca (who had hitherto depended on the help of the Muslims native to Medina.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Mohammad collected one-fifth of the booty, which was then redistributed to the Muslims in need, as was customary. As part of his share of the spoils, Muhammad selected one of the women, Rayhana, for himself and took her as part of his booty. Muhammad offered to free and marry her and according to some sources she accepted his proposal. She is said to have later become a Muslim.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Some of the women and children of the Banu Qurayza who were enslaved by the Muslims were later bought by Jews, in particular the Banu Nadir. Peterson argues that this is because the Nadir felt responsible for the Qurayza's fate due to the role of their chieftain in the events.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: According to Islamic traditions, the Qur'an briefly refers to the incident in Surah . Muslim jurists have looked upon Surah as a justification of the treatment of the Banu Qurayza, arguing that the Qurayza broke their pact with Muhammad, and thus Muhammad was justified in repudiating his side of the pact and killing the Qurayza en masse.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Arab Muslim theologians and historians have either viewed the incident as "the punishment of the Medina Jews, who were invited to convert and refused, perfectly exemplify the Quran's tales of what happened to those who rejected the prophets of old" or offered a political, rather than religious, explanation.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: In the 8th and early 9th century many Muslim jurists, such as Ash-Shafii, based their judgments and decrees supporting collective punishment for treachery on the accounts of the demise of the Qurayza, with which they were well acquainted. However, the proceedings of Muhammad with regard to the Banu Nadir and the Banu Qurayza were not taken as a model for the relationship of Muslim states toward its Jewish subjects.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: In his 1861 biography of Muhammad Sir William Muir argued that the massacre cannot be justified by political necessity and "casts an odious blot upon the prophet's name". Leone Caetani argued that the judgement was in fact dictated by Muhammad, making him responsible for the massacre. Francesco Gabrieli commented that "we can only record the fact... that this God or at least this aspect of Him, is not ours".


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Paret and Watt say that the Banu Qurayza were killed not because of their faith but for "treasonable activities against the Medinan community". Watt relates that "no important clan of Jews was left in Medina" but he and Paret also note that Muhammad did not clear all Jews out of Medina.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Aiming at placing the events in their historical context, Watt points to the "harsh political circumstances of that era" and argues that the treatment of Qurayza was regular Arab practice ("but on a larger scale than usual"). Similar statements are made by Stillman, Paret, Lewis and Rodinson. On the other hand, Michael Lecker and Irving Zeitlin consider the events "unprecedented in the Arab peninsula - a novelty" and state that "prior to Islam, the annihilation of an adversary was never an aim of war." Similar statements are made by Hirschberg and Baron.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Some authors assert that the judgement of Sa'd ibn Mua'dh was conducted according to laws of Torah. Muhammad Hamidullah goes further and says that Sa'd "applied to them their own Biblical law [...] and their own practice." No contemporaneous source says explicitly that Sa'd based his judgment on the Torah. Moreover, the respective verses of the Torah make no mention of treason or breach of faith, and the Jewish law as it existed at the time and as it is still understood today applies these Torah verses only to the situation of the conquest of Canaan under Joshua, and not to any other period of history.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Walid N. Arafat and Barakat Ahmad have disputed that the Banu Qurayza were killed on quite such a large scale. Arafat disputes large-scale killings and argued that Ibn Ishaq gathered information from descendants of the Qurayza Jews, who embellished or manufactured the details of the incident. Arafat relates the testimony of Ibn Hajar, who denounced this and other accounts as "odd tales" and quoted Malik ibn Anas, a contemporary of Ibn Ishaq, whom he rejected as a "liar", an "impostor" and for seeking out the Jewish descendants for gathering information about Muhammad's campaign with their forefathers. Ahmad argues that only some of the tribe were killed, while some of the fighters were merely enslaved. Watt finds Arafat's arguments "not entirely convincing", while Meir J. Kister has contradicted the arguments of Arafat and Ahmad.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The historicity of this event has been put into question by western scholars such as Hans Jansen, Fred Donner, Patricia Crone & Michael Cook.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: Most Jewish tribes that remained loyal towards the prophet always held a friendly status and were called allies of the Muslims. Taking the tribe of Banu al-Harith as an example that were concluded in the 31 Points of the Constitution of Medina and honored as allies to the Muslims being as "one nation", but retaining their Jewish religion. They were given the same rights as Banu Awf and entered into mutual protection pacts with the Muslim tribes.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: In the Constitution of Medina, Jews were given equality to Muslims in exchange for political loyalty and were allowed to practice their own culture and religion. A significant narrative symbolising the inter-faith harmony between early Muslims and Jews is that of the Rabbi Mukhayriq. The Rabbi was from Banu Nadir and fought alongside Muslims at the Battle of Uhud and bequeathed his entire wealth to Muhammad in the case of his death. He was subsequently called ″the best of the Jews″ by Muhammad.


title: Banu Qurayza

text: The fate of the Banu Qurayza became the subject of Shaul Tchernichovsky's Hebrew poem "Ha-aharon li-Venei Kuraita" ("The Last of the Banu Qurayza").


title: Kix (band)

text: Kix (sometimes stylized as KIX) is an American glam metal and hard rock band that achieved popularity during the 1980s. Led by frontman Steve Whiteman and bassist Donnie Purnell, the band's classic lineup was rounded out by drummer Jimmy "Chocolate" Chalfant and guitarists Ronnie "10/10" Younkins and Brian "Damage" Forsythe. Kix covered AC/DC, Aerosmith, April Wine, Led Zeppelin, and others before signing with Atlantic Records in 1981. Since peaking in the late-1980s, band members have continued to intermittently record and tour, including the Rocklahoma festival in 2008 in Oklahoma. In addition, they are a consistent presence at the annual M3 Rock Festival in the band's home state of Maryland.


title: Kix (band)

text: Initially calling themselves Shooze, followed by a stint as The Generators, Kix formed with Ronnie "10/10" Younkins and Donnie Purnell in December 1977 in Hagerstown, Maryland, and Frederick, Maryland. Guitarist Brian "Damage" Forsythe, frontman Steve Whiteman, and drummer Jimmy "Chocolate" Chalfant soon came on board, completing what would become the band's classic lineup. The band got a contract with Time Warner affiliate Atlantic Records. In 1981, they released their self-titled debut album, "Kix," which featured favorites from their live shows like "Atomic Bombs," "The Itch," and "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah." With a unique ad-lib performance by lead vocalist Whiteman, the latter became one of the band's most popular concert songs. Another track, "Love at First Sight," also became a concert favorite. The album established the tongue-in-cheek rock and roll style of Kix.


title: Kix (band)

text: Their 1983 follow-up, "Cool Kids", showcased a more commercial side of the band and included three cover songs. Spearheaded by the single "Body Talk", a cover of a 1981 Nick Gilder song, rumors circulated that the song was covered to appease the band's label, who was eager to capture radio airplay. Other songs like "Restless Blood" and "Mighty Mouth" fared a little better. This album was also the only Kix record to feature guitarist Brad Divens, who replaced Younkins for what would ultimately be a brief departure.


title: Kix (band)

text: Eager to recapture the harder rock vibe of their earlier work, and with Younkins having returned to the line-up, Kix partnered with then Ratt and future Warrant producer Beau Hill and hit songwriter Bob Halligan Jr., releasing "Midnite Dynamite" in 1985. The album spawned two singles: "Midnite Dynamite" reached No. 18, followed by "Cold Shower," which reached No. 23, both on the Hot Mainstream Rock chart. Other notable tracks receiving airplay included "Sex" and "Bang Bang (Balls of Fire)".


title: Kix (band)

text: After "Midnite Dynamite", Kix went back into the studio to record their follow-up. In 1988, they released "Blow My Fuse", which went platinum. The Bob Halligan Jr. co-written power ballad "Don't Close Your Eyes" peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album also featured the singles "Cold Blood" (the first of Purnell's many co-writes with Taylor Rhodes) and the title track, "Blow My Fuse", along with videos showing the band in concert at Hammerjack's. In 1989, the band released "Blow My Fuse: The Videos", featuring their official video releases and behind-the-scenes footage. The success of "Blow My Fuse" enabled the band to begin performing in arenas.


title: Kix (band)

text: The album "Hot Wire" arrived in 1991, with the single "Girl Money". In 1993, guitarist Jimi K. Bones replaced Brian "Damage" Forsythe. While on tour in 1992, they made a live album, titled "Live", showcasing a recent performance at the University of Maryland, College Park. This album, internally referred to as "Contractual Obligation Live", was released in 1993. In 1994, Atlantic dropped the band from the label. In 1995, the band released their next album, "$how Bu$ine$$", on CMC International.


title: Kix (band)

text: In 1996, Whiteman formed a band called Funny Money. In 1998, Brian "Damage" Forsythe teamed up with ex-White Sister and Tattoo Rodeo drummer Rich Wright, and erstwhile Rhino Bucket members rhythm guitarist/lead vocalist Georg Dolivo (George Dolivo) and bassist Reeve Downes to forge Deep Six Holiday. In 2001, Forsythe himself would join Rhino Bucket, later performing lead guitar on the group's 2005 release "And Then It Got Ugly"..


title: Kix (band)

text: Meanwhile, Ronnie "10/10" Younkins relocated to Baltimore City, and would be part of the rock 'n' roll act Jeremy and the Suicides. Younkins later moved to L.A., then wrote, recorded, and released the album "The Slimmer Twins: Lack of Luxury", as a collaboration with vocalist Jeremy L. White in 2000. Back on the East Coast, he founded the Blues Vultures in 2002, maturing into the lead vocalist and primary songwriter, and in 2005, released the album "The Blues Vultures: Cheap Guitars & Honky Tonk Bars".


title: Kix (band)

text: Jimmy "Chocolate" Chalfant joined Whiteman in Funny Money as their drummer in 2003, ultimately sowing the seeds for a Kix reunion.


title: Kix (band)

text: Kix reformed in late 2003 without songwriter and band leader Donnie Purnell. Kix then lined-up shows for September 2004, the line-up consisting of Whiteman (lead vocals), Younkins (guitars), Brian "Damage" Forsythe (guitars), Jimmy "Chocolate" Chalfant (drums, backing vocals), and Funny Money bassist/vocalist/songwriter Mark Schenker in place of Donnie Purnell.


title: Kix (band)

text: On August 7, 2012, Frontiers Records announced that it had signed Kix; the band subsequently released a live CD/DVD, titled "Live in Baltimore", in September, with a new studio album to follow in 2013.


title: Kix (band)

text: On April 16, 2014, it was announced that the band had signed with Loud & Proud Records to release the band's first studio album in 19 years. On June 18, 2014, it was announced that the band would release this album - their seventh studio album - titled "Rock Your Face Off", on August 5. Upon release, it debuted at No. 49 on the Billboard Top 200 (the band's second highest-charting record after 1988's "Blow My Fuse"), while debuting at No. 1 on Amazon Hard Rock, remaining there for more than three weeks. It was well-received by fans and critics alike. The hard rock webzine "Sleaze Roxx" published that "Rock Your Face Off" was awarded No. 1 in the Top Ten Albums of 2014 by editors and staff as well as No. 1 in Top Ten Albums of 2014 in the "Sleaze Roxx" Reader's Poll. The first time in the web site's history that an album has taken the top spot in both categories. "Stereogum.com" chose "Rock Your Face Off" as Album of the Week with high praise saying "...all of it is delirious and catchy, and it proudly flaunts its out-of-fashion party-hard spirit. It’s glittering trash, made by guys in their fifties who probably hold down day jobs these days and who have no business making this vigorous and fun anymore. Its mere existence is an inspirational thing, and it’s a reminder that sometimes exploring new musical space isn’t the most important thing. Sometimes, songs are the most important thing."


title: Kix (band)

text: In February 2017, it was announced that Kix would headline the first night at Rockingham Festival 2017, which was held at Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom.


title: Kix (band)

text: Original Shooze drummer Donnie Spence died at the age of 64 on January 19, 2018 in Hagerstown, Maryland.


title: Kix (band)

text: On September 21, 2018 a 2 CD anniversary edition set named "Fuse 30 Reblown – 30th Anniversary Special Edition" has been published. Producer Beau Hill who previously worked with Kix on their 1985 album, "Midnite Dynamite" remixed the original 24 track recordings. "Fuse 30 Reblown" is the original concept of current guitarist Schenker, who with help from record executive Madelyn Scarpulla, was able to obtain digital transfers from the original analog master recording reels. Schenker was also instrumental in rescuing the original 8-track demo reels and to digitally enhance and rescue the original 2-track demos. The website "Metalnation.com" reported "Hill does a masterful job on Fuse 30, bringing the album into the new millennium without taking away from eclectic elements and raucous energy that made the original so memorable. Jay Frigoletto came in to master the album. The second disc contains the 10 demo recordings for each one of the album tracks." In 2020 the previous album Midnight Dynamite was remixed and re-released. It's called Midnight Dynamite Re-Lit, only available as a digital download.


title: Kix (band)

text: In May 2021, it was announced guitarist Ronnie Younkins would be unable to perform with the band for the foreseeable future and was temporarily replaced by Bob Paré for upcoming live shows. A month later, it was revealed that the reason for Younkins' absence was because he had been placed under house arrest after repeatedly getting in trouble with the police.


title: Kix (band)

text: On November 18, 2022, drummer Jimmy Chalfant suffered an apparent severe cardiac event while on stage at the Tally Ho Theater in Leesburg, Va.


title: Kix (band)

text: In 2018, bassist Mark Schenker formed the Rush tribute band Sun Dogs handling lead vocals, bass, keyboards and bass pedals.


title: Kix (band)

text: The 2017 horror comedy Dead Ant covers songs by Kix, presented as songs by Sonic Grave, a fictional has-been glam metal band.


title: Mark Finchem

text: Mark William Finchem (born April 24, 1957) is an American far-right politician serving as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives representing District 11 since January 5, 2015. He is the Arizona coordinator for the Coalition of Western States, an organization that opposes the activities of the Bureau of Land Management and supported the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016.


title: Mark Finchem

text: Finchem is a member of the militia group Oath Keepers. He was the unsuccessful Republican nominee in the 2022 election for Secretary of State of Arizona.


title: Mark Finchem

text: Finchem was originally from the Detroit, Michigan area. After graduating high school, he joined the Kalamazoo, Michigan department of public safety, working first as a firefighter and then as a police officer. While a police officer, he also worked as a rancher. He received an associate of applied science degree from Kalamazoo Valley Community College. Finchem retired from the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety in 1999; personnel records included the note "poor rating, would not rehire".


title: Mark Finchem

text: Finchem moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1999, and became a real estate agent. He later became vice president of Clean Power Technologies LLC, an Idaho-based company that claimed to generate and distribute sustainable energy "without wires, anywhere around the world". He allowed his real estate license to expire in 2021.


title: Mark Finchem

text: Finchem received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in public policy from Grand Canyon University in 2019 and later a Master of Legal Studies (MLS) from the University of Arizona (UA). In a 2021 paper that he issued through his nonprofit, Finchem falsely claimed to be a "legislative fellow in residence" at UA's James E. Rogers College of Law; Finchem does not hold a fellowship at the law school.


title: Mark Finchem

text: Finchem was first elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2014, finishing second in the Republican primary behind Vince Leach before advancing to the general election in Arizona's top-two nominating process. Finchem and Leach ran successfully in the general election. Finchem came in first with 36,732 votes, ahead of Leach and Democratic challenger Holly Lyon.


title: Mark Finchem

text: Finchem and Leach defeated Democrats Corin Hammond and Barry McCain (write-in candidate) in the 2016 general election.


title: Mark Finchem

text: As a member of the state House, Finchem was known for promotion of extreme ideas. In 2016, Finchem introduced legislation that would prohibit Arizona from implementing presidential executive orders, directives issued by federal agencies, and U.S. Supreme Court rulings. In 2019 he introduced a bill to create a code of ethics for teachers which consisted primarily of text from a report published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also sponsored in 2019 a bill that would seek to transfer management of federal lands in Arizona to the state government.


title: Mark Finchem

text: In 2020, Finchem ran for speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, challenging incumbent Republican Russell Bowers. Finchem said that if elected he would prioritize the development of viral content. He lost the speaker's election, receiving the support of less than one-third of the House Republican caucus.


title: Mark Finchem

text: Posting on Twitter in 2021, Finchem compared the cancellation of a fundraiser for Josh Hawley to the Holocaust. In the tweet, Finchem criticised Loews Hotels for cancelling the fundraiser, saying "This is what Hitler and Stalin did. What's next Camps? Ovens?"


title: Mark Finchem

text: As of 2021, Finchem is a member of the House of Representatives' committees on the Judiciary, on Military Affairs & Public Safety, and on Natural Resources, Energy & Water. He was granted a committee chairmanship only a single time in his eight years in the state House. He led the "Liberty Caucus" group of far-right Republican state House members. Republican state senator T. J. Shope described Finchem as a "political gadfly"'; another Republican state senator, Paul Boyer, described him as "one of the dumbest" members of the Arizona House of Representatives. (Finchem responded by calling Boyer an "utter disgrace"). Finchem's rise to prominence reflected a broader rightward shift within the Arizona Republican Party; in the late 2010s and 2020s, the strength of the wing of the party aligned with John McCain diminished, and the party apparatus became increasingly dominated by the far right.