title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett earned a reputation as "the thinking man's talk show host" and received favorable reviews from critics. As a talk show host, Cavett has been noted for his ability to listen to his guests and engage them in intellectual conversation. Clive James described Cavett "as a true sophisticate with a daunting intellectual range" and "the most distinguished talk-show host in America." He is also known for his ability to remain calm and mediate between contentious guests as well as his resonant voice.


title: Dick Cavett

text: His show often focused on controversial people or subjects, often pairing guests with opposing views on social or political issues, such as Jim Brown and Lester Maddox.


title: Dick Cavett

text: On February 11, 1970, Cavett hosted a tribute to the life and works of Sir Noël Coward, who had just been knighted in December 1969. Along with Coward, the other guests were Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, and Tammy Grimes, and Brian Bedford (who were enjoying a successful run on Broadway in the revival of Coward's play, "Private Lives"). In reviewing the show for "The New York Times", television critic Jack Gould said "The age of youth? Balder dash! The over‐70 set walked off yesterday morning with a television program that combined the engaging qualities of lightly recalled nostalgia, the sophisticated stiletto, and a demonstration of genuine affection that had more substance than adolescent wails on how love will save the world. Sir Noel Coward, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, friends of a lifetime, met on Dick Cavett's show on the American Broadcasting Company network. They exchanged quips, pleasantries and thoughts about the theater with the beguiling charm of talented luminaries. Mr. Cavett was clearly overawed, and for once, the ad libs frequently went over his head. It was an enchanting show ... and the badinage was warm and delightful ... a fun night, and to take out of context a line or here or there could not convey the whole. To go to bed with a chuckle provided by gifted and nice people, onstage as off, is review enough."


title: Dick Cavett

text: One show from June 1971 featured a debate between future senator and presidential candidate John Kerry and fellow veteran John O'Neill over the Vietnam War. O'Neill had been approached by the Nixon administration to work through the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace to counter Kerry's influence on the public. The debate went poorly for the pro-war side, so angering President Nixon that he is heard discussing the incident on the Watergate tapes, saying, "Well, is there any way we can screw him [Cavett]? That's what I mean. There must be ways." H.R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff, answered, "We've been trying to." Cavett's name comes up a total of 26 times on the tapes, as he repeatedly highlighted the wrongdoings of the Nixon administration on his show.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett hosted many popular musicians, both in interview and performance, such as David Bowie, Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Several of his Emmy Award nominations and one Emmy Award were for Outstanding Musical or Variety Series, and in 2005 Shout Factory released a selection of performances and interviews on a three-DVD set, "The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons", showcasing interviews of and performances by musicians who appeared on the Dick Cavett show from 1969 to 1974.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Clips from his TV shows (actual or enacted for the occasion) have been used in films, for example "Annie Hall" (1977), "Forrest Gump" (1994), "Apollo 13" (1995), and "Frequency" (2000). Cavett was surprised at footage from his TV show appearing in "Apollo 13". He said at the time of the film's release, "I'm happily enjoying a movie, and suddenly I'm in it."


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett has appeared as himself in various other television shows, such as "The Odd Couple" as well as serving as a host for "Saturday Night Live" in 1976. He also had a cameo role in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" (1977) and he played himself in the movie "Power Play" (1977).


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett appeared in "Kate & Allie" (1986), "Cheers" (1983), and in Robert Altman's "Health" (1980). In a cameo in "" (1987), as part of a dream sequence, he turned into Freddy Krueger and slashed his guest, Zsa Zsa Gabor, halfway through the interview. In Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" (1988), he played a rare cameo as a character (Delia's agent) other than himself. Cavett often appeared on television quiz and game shows, including "What's My Line?", "To Tell the Truth", "Password", and the "$25,000 Pyramid".


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett narrated the HBO documentary series "Time Was". Each episode covered a decade, ranging from the 1920s to the 1970s. The show originally aired in November 1979 and ran for six months. Cavett hosted a documentary series for HBO in the early 1980s titled "Remember When . . ." that examined changes in American culture over time and he hosted HBO's monthly review series "HBO Magazine".


title: Dick Cavett

text: In April 1981, Cavett traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, to interview pop group ABBA on the occasion of their tenth anniversary as a group. The special, titled "Dick Cavett Meets ABBA", was taped by the Swedish TV network SVT and was broadcast mainly in Europe. In the mid-1980s, Cavett took over for Jack Carney as host of "The Comedy Show", syndicated from KMOX in St. Louis.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 1988, Cavett made a special appearance on "Wheel of Fortune" during their week of shows at Radio City Music Hall, walking on stage after someone solved the puzzle "Dick Cavett." In 1974, Cavett's company, Daphne Productions, co-produced with Don Lipp Productions a short-lived ABC game show, "The Money Maze", although Cavett's name did not appear on the credits.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 1995, Cavett lent his voice for "The Simpsons" episode "Homie the Clown". He also appeared in footage from "The Dick Cavett Show" in Robert Zemeckis' "Forrest Gump" (1994), and Ron Howard's "Apollo 13" (1995).


title: Dick Cavett

text: From November 2000 to January 2002, he played the narrator in a Broadway revival of "The Rocky Horror Show". He also had a brief stint as the narrator/old man in the Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's "Into The Woods".


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett is featured in the 2003 documentary "" about the fire that destroyed his home in Montauk, New York and his effort to rebuild it.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett's signature tune has long been a trumpet version of the vocalise "Glitter and Be Gay" from Leonard Bernstein's "Candide". The tune was first played at the midpoint of his ABC show, and later became the theme of his PBS show. The tune is also played as he walks on stage during guest appearances on other talk shows.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett was present when actor Marlon Brando broke the jaw of paparazzo photographer Ron Galella on June 12, 1973. Galella had followed Cavett and Brando to a restaurant after the taping of "The Dick Cavett Show" in New York City.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 2008, Cavett entered an Iraq war dispute with a "The New York Times" blog entry criticizing General David Petraeus, stating "I can't look at Petraeus—his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals, and ribbons—without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance." Cavett went on to recall Sahl's expressed contempt of General Westmoreland's display of medals, and criticized Petraeus for not speaking in plain language.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 2011, Cavett appeared as a talking head in the Robert Weide two-part documentary series "Woody Allen: A Documentary" for "American Masters" which aired on PBS.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In December 2012, for their annual birthday celebration to "The Master", The Noel Coward Society invited Cavett as the guest celebrity to lay flowers in front of Coward's statue at New York's Gershwin Theatre, commemorating the 113th birthday of Sir Noel. Coward had made an appearance on Cavett's ABC late-night television show in 1970 after having been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in December 1969.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett starred in "Hellman v. McCarthy (Literary Legends Declare War!)" in New York City's Abingdon Theatre. Cavett re-enacted his show of January 25, 1980, when literary critic Mary McCarthy appeared as a guest, and declared every word playwright Lillian Hellman wrote was "a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." Hellman later sued McCarthy for libel. The suit spanned more than four years. Cavett's off-Broadway play opened March 14, 2014, and closed April 13, 2014, in its limited run. He subsequently came to Los Angeles to appear in a production at Theatre 40, and delighted audiences by remaining onstage after the performance and doing a 10-minute monologue.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 2017, Cavett celebrated his 80th birthday at a private event in New York City, where guests included Woody Allen, Bob Balaban, Blythe Danner, Joy Behar, Carl Bernstein, Alec Baldwin, Katie Couric, and Steve Buscemi.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In January 2020, Cavett appeared on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" promoting the new HBO special, "Ali and Cavett: The Tales of the Tapes". There he talked about his career as a comedian, and talk show host as well as his relationship with Muhammad Ali.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In January 2020, when Cavett appeared as a guest on "Late Show with Stephen Colbert", Colbert stated that he was a huge admirer of Cavett, and had seen all of his talk shows. Colbert also stated, "People ask me who my influences are, and of course Johnny Carson, and of course David Letterman, but the one people don't automatically know is what a huge influence you were on me, the way you interviewed people was so honest, you had such interesting and unusual guests and asked such interesting and deep questions".


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett has co-authored two books with Christopher Porterfield: "Cavett" (1974), his autobiography, and "Eye on Cavett" (1983). Cavett has also written a blog, published by "The New York Times", entitled "Talk Show: Dick Cavett Speaks Again".


title: Dick Cavett

text: While taking a class at Yale School of Drama as an undergraduate, Cavett met his future wife, Caroline Nye McGeoy (known professionally as Carrie Nye), a native of Greenwood, Mississippi. After graduation, the two acted in summer theater in Williamstown, Massachusetts; and Cavett worked for two weeks in a local lumberyard to be able to buy an engagement ring. On June 4, 1964, they were married in New York. They remained married until Nye's death in 2006. In 2010, Cavett married author Martha Rogers in New Orleans, Louisiana. From this marriage, Cavett has two step-children. Rogers and Cavett have lived in Montauk, New York, but as of 2019, reside in Ridgefield, Connecticut.


title: Dick Cavett

text: Cavett has openly discussed his bouts of clinical depression, an illness that first affected him during his freshman year at Yale. According to an interview published in a 1992 issue of "People" magazine, Cavett contacted Dr. Nathan Kline in 1975 seeking treatment. Kline prescribed antidepressant medication, which according to Cavett was successful in treating his depression.


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 1980, Cavett experienced what he characterized as his "biggest depressive episode". While onboard a Concorde before takeoff, Cavett broke out into a sweat and became agitated. After he was removed from the plane, Cavett was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, where he later underwent electroconvulsive therapy. Regarding this method of treatment, Cavett is quoted as saying, "In my case, ECT was miraculous. My wife was dubious, but when she came into my room afterward, I sat up and said, 'Look who's back among the living.' It was like a magic wand."


title: Dick Cavett

text: He was also the subject of a 1993 video produced by the Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association called "A Patient's Perspective".


title: Dick Cavett

text: In 1997, Cavett was sued by producer James Moskovitz for breach of contract after failing to show up for a nationally syndicated radio program (also called "The Dick Cavett Show"). Cavett's lawyer, Melvyn Leventhal, asserted at the time that Cavett left because of a manic-depressive episode. The case was later dropped.


title: Blanche Monnier

text: Blanche Monnier (; 1 March 1849 – 13 October 1913), often known in France as la Séquestrée de Poitiers (roughly, "The Confined Woman of Poitiers"), was a woman from Poitiers, France, who was secretly kept locked in a small room by her aristocratic mother and brother for 25 years. She was eventually found by police, then middle-aged and in an emaciated and filthy condition; according to officials, Monnier had not seen any sunlight for her entire captivity.


title: Blanche Monnier

text: Monnier was a French socialite from a well-respected, conservative bourgeois family in Poitiers of old noble origins. She was renowned for her beauty and attracted many potential suitors for marriage. In 1876, at the age of 25, she desired to marry an older lawyer who was not to her mother Louise's liking; she argued that her daughter could not marry a "penniless lawyer". Her disapproving mother, angered by her daughter's defiance, locked her in a tiny, dark room in the attic of their home, where she kept her secluded for 25 years. Louise Monnier and Blanche's brother, Marcel, continued on with their daily lives, pretending to mourn Blanche's disappearance. None of her friends knew where she was and the lawyer whom she wished to marry died unexpectedly in 1885. On 23 May 1901, the "Paris Attorney General" received an anonymous letter, the author of which is still unknown, that revealed the incarceration:


title: Blanche Monnier

text: Monnier was rescued by police from appalling conditions, covered in old food and feces, with bugs all around the bed and floor, weighing barely .


title: Blanche Monnier

text: Her mother was arrested, became ill shortly afterwards and died 15 days later after seeing an angry mob gather in front of her house. Her brother, Marcel Monnier, appeared in court and was initially convicted, but later was acquitted on appeal; he was deemed mentally incapacitated, and, although the judges criticised his choices, they found that a "duty to rescue" did not exist in the penal code at that time with sufficient rule to convict him.


title: Blanche Monnier

text: After she was released from the room, Monnier continued to have mental health problems. She was diagnosed with various disorders, including anorexia nervosa, schizophrenia, exhibitionism and coprophilia. This soon led to her admission to a psychiatric hospital in Blois, where she died in 1913 in apparent obscurity.


title: Blanche Monnier

text: In 1930, André Gide published a book about the incident, named "La Séquestrée de Poitiers", changing little but the names of the protagonists.


title: Rhubarb

text: Rhubarb is the fleshy, edible stalks (petioles) of species and hybrids (culinary rhubarb) of "Rheum" in the family Polygonaceae, which are cooked and used for food. The whole plant – a herbaceous perennial growing from short, thick rhizomes – is also called rhubarb. Historically, different plants have been called "rhubarb" in English. The large, triangular leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and anthrone glycosides, making them inedible. The small flowers are grouped in large compound leafy greenish-white to rose-red inflorescences.


title: Rhubarb

text: The precise origin of culinary rhubarb is unknown. The species "Rheum rhabarbarum" (syn. "R. undulatum") and "R. rhaponticum" were grown in Europe before the 18th century and used for medicinal purposes. By the early 18th century, these two species and a possible hybrid of unknown origin, "R." × "hybridum", were grown as vegetable crops in England and Scandinavia. They readily hybridize, and culinary rhubarb was developed by selecting open-pollinated seed, so its precise origin is almost impossible to determine. In appearance, samples of culinary rhubarb vary on a continuum between "R. rhaponticum" and "R. rhabarbarum". However, modern rhubarb cultivars are tetraploids with 2"n" = 44, in contrast to 2"n" = 22 for the wild species.


title: Rhubarb

text: Although rhubarb is a vegetable, it is often put to the same culinary uses as fruits. The leaf stalks can be used raw, when they have a crisp texture (similar to celery, although it is in a different family), but are most commonly cooked with sugar and used in pies, crumbles and other desserts. They have a strong, tart taste. Many cultivars have been developed for human consumption, most of which are recognised as "Rheum" × "hybridum" by the Royal Horticultural Society.


title: Rhubarb

text: The word "rhubarb" is likely to have derived in the 14th century from the Old French , which came from the Latin and Greek , meaning 'foreign rhubarb'. The Greek physician Dioscorides used the Greek word (), whereas Galen later used (), Latin . These in turn derive from a Persian name for species of "Rheum". The specific epithet "rhaponticum", applying to one of the presumed parents of the cultivated plant, means 'rha from the region of the Black Sea' or the river Volga, Rha being its ancient name.


title: Rhubarb

text: Rhubarb is grown widely, and with greenhouse production it is available throughout much of the year. It needs rainfall and an annual cold period of up to 7-9 weeks at 3°C (37°F), known as ‘cold units’, to grow well. The plant develops a substantial underground storage organ (rhubarb crowns) and this can be used for early production by transferring field-grown crowns to warm conditions. Rhubarb grown in hothouses (heated greenhouses) is called "hothouse rhubarb", and is typically made available at consumer markets in early spring, before outdoor cultivated rhubarb is available. Hothouse rhubarb is usually brighter red, tenderer and sweeter-tasting than outdoor rhubarb. After forcing for commercial production, the crowns are usually discarded. In temperate climates, rhubarb is one of the first food plants harvested, usually in mid- to late spring (April or May in the Northern Hemisphere, October or November in the Southern Hemisphere), and the season for field-grown plants lasts until the end of summer.


title: Rhubarb

text: In the United Kingdom, the first rhubarb of the year is harvested by candlelight in forcing sheds where all other light is excluded, a practice that produces a sweeter, more tender stalk. These sheds are dotted around the "Rhubarb Triangle" between Wakefield, Leeds, and Morley.


title: Rhubarb

text: In the United states rhubarb is primarily produced in the states of Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin with approximately 1,200 acres in production of which 175 are covered in hothouses. In the northwestern US states of Oregon and Washington, there are typically two harvests, from late April to May and from late June into July; half of all US commercial production is in Pierce County, Washington. Rhubarb is ready to consume as soon as harvested, and freshly cut stalks are firm and glossy.


title: Rhubarb

text: Rhubarb damaged by severe cold should not be eaten, as it may be high in oxalic acid, which migrates from the leaves and can cause illness.


title: Rhubarb

text: The colour of rhubarb stalks can vary from the commonly associated crimson red, through speckled light pink, to simply light green. Rhubarb stalks are poetically described as "crimson stalks". The colour results from the presence of anthocyanins, and varies according to both rhubarb variety and production technique. The colour is not related to its suitability for cooking.


title: Rhubarb

text: The Chinese call rhubarb "the great yellow" ( ), and have used rhubarb root for medicinal purposes. It appears in "The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic", which is thought to have been compiled about 1,800 years ago. Though Dioscurides' description of or indicates that a medicinal root brought to Greece from beyond the Bosphorus may have been rhubarb, commerce in the plant did not become securely established until Islamic times. During Islamic times, it was imported along the Silk Road, reaching Europe in the 14th century through the ports of Aleppo and Smyrna, where it became known as "Turkish rhubarb". Later, it also started arriving via the new maritime routes, or overland through Russia. The "Russian rhubarb" was the most valued, probably because of the rhubarb-specific quality control system maintained by the Russian Empire.


title: Rhubarb

text: The cost of transportation across Asia made rhubarb expensive in medieval Europe. It was several times the price of other valuable herbs and spices such as cinnamon, opium, and saffron. The merchant explorer Marco Polo therefore searched for the place where the plant was grown and harvested, discovering that it was cultivated in the mountains of Tangut province. The value of rhubarb can be seen in Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo's report of his embassy in 1403–1405 to Timur in Samarkand: "The best of all merchandise coming to Samarkand was from China: especially silks, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls, and rhubarb..."


title: Rhubarb

text: The high price, as well as the increasing demand from apothecaries, stimulated efforts to cultivate the different species of rhubarb on European soil. Certain species came to be grown in England to produce the roots. The local availability of the plants grown for medicinal purposes, together with the increasing abundance and decreasing price of sugar in the 18th century, galvanised its culinary adoption. Grieve claims a date of 1820 in England. Rhubarb was harvested in Scotland from at least 1786, having been introduced to the Botanical Garden in Edinburgh by the traveller Bruce of Kinnaird in 1774. He brought the seeds from Abyssinia and they produced 3000 plants.


title: Rhubarb

text: Though it is often asserted that rhubarb first came to the United States in the 1820s, John Bartram was growing medicinal and culinary rhubarbs in Philadelphia from the 1730s, planting seeds sent to him by Peter Collinson. From the first, the familiar garden rhubarb was not the only "Rheum" in American gardens: Thomas Jefferson planted "R. undulatum" at Monticello in 1809 and 1811, observing that it was "Esculent rhubarb, the leaves excellent as Spinach."


title: Rhubarb

text: The advocate of organic gardening Lawrence D. Hills listed his favourite rhubarb varieties for flavour as 'Hawke's Champagne', 'Victoria', 'Timperley Early', and 'Early Albert', also recommending 'Gaskin's Perpetual' for having the lowest level of oxalic acid, allowing it to be harvested over a much longer period of the growing season without developing excessive sourness.


title: Rhubarb

text: The Royal Horticultural Society has the UK's national collection of rhubarb that comprises 103 varieties. In 2021–2022 this was moved from southern England to the more northern garden RHS Bridgewater where winter cold and rainfall are better suited for rhubarb. The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit:


title: Rhubarb

text: Rhubarb is grown primarily for its fleshy leafstalks, technically known as petioles. The use of rhubarb stalks as food is a relatively recent innovation. This usage was first recorded in 18th- to 19th-century England after affordable sugar became more widely available.


title: Rhubarb

text: Commonly, it is stewed with sugar or used in pies and desserts, but it can also be put into savoury dishes or pickled. Rhubarb can be dehydrated and infused with fruit juice. In the United States, it is usually infused with strawberry juice to mimic the popular strawberry rhubarb pie.


title: Rhubarb

text: In Northern Europe and North America, the stalks are commonly cut into pieces and stewed with added sugar until soft. The resulting compote, sometimes thickened with corn starch, can then be used in pies, tarts and crumbles. Alternatively, greater quantities of sugar can be added with pectin to make jams. A paired spice used is ginger, although cinnamon and nutmeg are also common additions. In the United Kingdom, as well as being used in the typical pies, tarts and crumbles, rhubarb compote is also combined with whipped cream or custard to make rhubarb fool. In the United States, the common usage of rhubarb in pies has led to it being nicknamed "pie plant", by which it is referred to in 19th-century cookbooks. Rhubarb in the US is also often paired with strawberries to make strawberry-rhubarb pie, though some rhubarb purists jokingly consider this "a rather unhappy marriage".


title: Rhubarb

text: Rhubarb can also be used to make alcoholic drinks, such as fruit wines or Finnish rhubarb sima (mead). It is also used to make Kompot.


title: Rhubarb

text: Raw rhubarb is 94% water, 5% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). In a reference amount, raw rhubarb supplies of food energy, and is a rich source of vitamin K (28% of the Daily Value, DV), a moderate source of vitamin C (10% DV), and contains no other micronutrients in significant amounts (table).


title: Rhubarb

text: In traditional Chinese medicine, rhubarb roots of several species were used as a laxative for several millennia, although there is no clinical evidence to indicate such use is effective.


title: Rhubarb

text: The roots and stems contain anthraquinones, such as emodin and rhein. The anthraquinones have been separated from powdered rhubarb root for purposes in traditional medicine, although long-term consumption of the plant has been associated with acute kidney failure.


title: Rhubarb

text: The rhizomes contain stilbenoid compounds (including rhaponticin), and the flavanol glucosides (+)-catechin-5-O-glucoside and (−)-catechin-7-O-glucoside.


title: Rhubarb

text: Rhubarb leaves contain poisonous substances, including oxalic acid, a nephrotoxin. The long term consumption of oxalic acid leads to kidney stone formation in humans. Humans have been poisoned after ingesting the leaves, a particular problem during World War I when the leaves were mistakenly recommended as a food source in Britain. The toxic rhubarb leaves have been used in flavouring extracts, after the oxalic acid is removed by treatment with precipitated chalk (i.e., calcium carbonate).


title: Rhubarb

text: The (median lethal dose) for pure oxalic acid in rats is about 375 mg/kg body weight, or about 25 grams for a human. Other sources give a much higher oral LD (lowest published lethal dose) of 600 mg/kg. While the oxalic acid content of rhubarb leaves can vary, a typical value is about 0.5%, meaning a 65 kg adult would need to eat 4 to 8 kg (9 to 18 lbs) to obtain a lethal dose, depending on which lethal dose is assumed. Cooking the leaves with baking soda can make them more poisonous by producing soluble oxalates. The leaves are believed to also contain an additional, unidentified toxin, which might be an anthraquinone glycoside (also known as senna glycosides).


title: Rhubarb

text: In the petioles (leaf stalks), the proportion of oxalic acid is about 10% of the total 2–2.5% acidity, which derives mainly from malic acid. Serious cases of rhubarb poisoning are not well documented. Both fatal and non-fatal cases of rhubarb poisoning may be caused not by oxalates, but rather by toxic anthraquinone glycosides.


title: Rhubarb

text: The rhubarb curculio, "Lixus concavus", is a weevil. Rhubarb is a host, damage being visible mainly on the leaves and stalks, with gummosis, and oval or circular feeding and/or egg-laying sites.


title: Rhubarb

text: Hungry wildlife may dig up and eat rhubarb roots in the spring, as stored starches are turned to sugars for new foliage growth.


title: Rhubarb

text: According to certain Middle Persian Zoroastrian texts dealing with the creation of humankind, Mashya and Mashyana, the first human couple, first manifested on the earth as conjoined homunculi growing attached to a (ghostly) rhubarb plant. When Gayomart, the prototype of humanity, finally died as a result of the machinations of Ahriman the principle of evil and Jeh the demonic whore, he fell onto his left side and ejaculated onto the ground. The sun's rays gradually purified his semen, two parts being cared for by the messenger deity Neryosang and one part by Spendarmad, Amesha Spenta of the Earth. After the passage of forty years, Spendarmad's portion gave rise to the rhubarb plant bearing the human couple, who were then animated by the supreme deity Ohrmazd by means of the Farr ('kingly glory').


title: Rhubarb

text: 6. [On the completion of forty years,] Mashye and Mashyane grew up from the earth in the astral body of a "rivas" (= rhubarb) plant having one stem of fifteen leaves, in such wise that their hands rested behind over their shoulders, and they were joined to each other, of the same height, and of the same product.


title: Rhubarb

text: 7. Betwixt them both light came up; and they were of such uniform height that it [was] not evident which was the male and which the female, and [with] which [of them] was the light [given by] Ohrmazd, [that is, the light onto which the seed of the mortal being was affixed.]...


title: Rhubarb

text: 9. Then both of them changed from the astral body of a plant in to the astral body of a man, and that light, which is the soul, entered spiritually into them, that is, verily, they had grown up in the semblance of a tree, whose fruit was the ten races of mankind.


title: Rhubarb

text:
Iranian or Greater "Bundahishn" ( 8th–9th century CE )
 selected verses from Chapter 14: 'Concerning Humankind'
( extract from the English translation by Behramgore Tehmuras Anklesaria ).


title: Abortion law

text: Abortion laws vary widely among countries and territories, and have changed over time. Such laws range from abortion being freely available on request, to regulation or restrictions of various kinds, to outright prohibition in all circumstances. Many countries and territories that allow abortion have gestational limits for the procedure depending on the reason; with the majority being up to 12 weeks for abortion on request, up to 24 weeks for rape, incest, or socioeconomic reasons, and more for fetal impairment or risk to the woman's health or life. As of 2022, countries that legally allow abortion on request or for socioeconomic reasons comprise about 60% of the world's population.


title: Abortion law

text: Abortion continues to be a controversial subject in many societies on religious, moral, ethical, practical, and political grounds. Though it has been banned and otherwise limited by law in many jurisdictions, abortions continue to be common in many areas, even where they are illegal. According to a 2007 study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization, abortion rates are similar in countries where the procedure is legal and in countries where it is not, due to unavailability of modern contraceptives in areas where abortion is illegal. Also according to the study, the number of abortions worldwide is declining due to increased access to contraception.


title: Abortion law

text: Abortion has existed since ancient times, with natural abortifacients being found amongst a wide variety of tribal people and in most written sources. The earliest known records of abortion techniques and general reproductive regulation date as far back as 2700 BC in China, and 1550 BC in Egypt. Early texts contain little mention of abortion or abortion law. When it does appear, it is entailed in concerns about male property rights, preservation of social order, and the duty to produce fit citizens for the state or community. The harshest penalties were generally reserved for a woman who procured an abortion against her husband's wishes, and for slaves who produced abortion in a woman of high status. Religious texts often contained severe condemnations of abortion, recommending penance but seldom enforcing secular punishment. As a matter of common law in England and the United States, abortion was illegal anytime after quickening—when the movements of the fetus could first be felt by the woman. Under the born alive rule, the fetus was not considered a "reasonable being" "in rerum natura"; and abortion was not treated as murder in English law.


title: Abortion law

text: In the 19th century, many Western countries began to codify abortion laws or place further restrictions on the practice. Anti-abortion movements, also referred to as "pro-life" movements, were led by a combination of groups opposed to abortion on moral grounds, and by medical professionals who were concerned about the danger presented by the procedure and the regular involvement of non-medical personnel in performing abortions. Nevertheless, it became clear that illegal abortions continued to take place in large numbers even where abortions were rigorously restricted. It was difficult to obtain sufficient evidence to prosecute the women and abortion doctors, and judges and juries were often reluctant to convict. For example, Henry Morgentaler, a Canadian pro-choice advocate, was never convicted by a jury. He was acquitted by a jury in the 1973 court case, but the acquittal was overturned by five judges on the Quebec Court of Appeal in 1974. He went to prison, appealed, and was again acquitted. In total, he served 10 months, suffering a heart attack while in solitary confinement. Many were also outraged at the invasion of privacy and the medical problems resulting from abortions taking place illegally in medically dangerous circumstances. Political movements soon coalesced around the legalization of abortion and liberalization of existing laws.


title: Abortion law

text: By the first half of the 20th century, many countries had begun to liberalize abortion laws, at least when performed to protect the woman's life and in some cases on the woman's request. Under Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union became the first modern state in legalizing abortions on request—the law was first introduced in the Russian SFSR in 1920, in the Ukrainian SSR in July 1921, and then in the whole country. The Bolsheviks saw abortion as a social evil created by the capitalist system, which left women without the economic means to raise children, forcing them to perform abortions. The Soviet state initially preserved the tsarist ban on abortion, which treated the practice as premeditated murder. However, abortion had been practiced by Russian women for decades and its incidence skyrocketed further as a result of the Russian Civil War, which had left the country economically devastated and made it extremely difficult for many people to have children. The Soviet state recognized that banning abortion would not stop the practice because women would continue using the services of private abortionists. In rural areas, these were often old women who had no medical training, which made their services very dangerous to women's health. In November 1920 the Soviet regime legalized abortion in state hospitals. The state considered abortion as a temporary necessary evil, which would disappear in the future communist society, which would be able to provide for all the children conceived. In 1936, Joseph Stalin placed prohibitions on abortions, which restricted them to medically recommended cases only, in order to increase population growth after the enormous loss of life in World War I and the Russian Civil War. In the 1930s, several countries (Poland, Turkey, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Mexico) legalized abortion in some special cases (pregnancy from rape, threat to mother's health, fetal malformation). In Japan, abortion was legalized in 1948 by the Eugenic Protection Law, amended in May 1949 to allow abortions for economic reasons. Abortion was legalized in 1952 in Yugoslavia (on a limited basis), and again in 1955 in the Soviet Union on request. Some Soviet allies (Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania) legalized abortion in the late 1950s under pressure from the Soviets.


title: Abortion law

text: In the United Kingdom, the Abortion Act of 1967 clarified and prescribed abortions as legal up to 28 weeks (later reduced to 24 weeks). Other countries soon followed, including Canada (1969), the United States (1973 in most states, pursuant to "Roe v. Wade"—the U.S. Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion nationwide), Tunisia and Denmark (1973), Austria (1974), France and Sweden (1975), New Zealand (1977), Italy (1978), the Netherlands (1984), and Belgium (1990). However, these countries vary greatly in the circumstances under which abortion was to be permitted. In 1975, the West German Supreme Court struck down a law legalizing abortion, holding that they contradict the constitution's human rights guarantees. In 1976, a law was adopted which enabled abortions up to 12 weeks. After Germany's reunification, despite the legal status of abortion in former East Germany, a compromise was reached which deemed most abortions up to 12 weeks legal, but this law was struck down by the Federal Constitutional Court and amended to only remove the punishment in such cases, without any statement to legality. In jurisdictions governed under sharia law, abortion after the 120th day from conception (19 weeks from LMP) is illegal, especially for those who follow the recommendations of the Hanafi legal school, while most jurists of the Maliki legal school "believe that ensoulment occurs at the moment of conception, and they tend to forbid abortion at any point [similar to the Roman Catholic Church]. The other schools hold intermediate positions. [...] The penalty prescribed for an illegal abortion varies according to particular circumstances involved. According to sharia, it should be limited to a fine that is paid to the father or heirs of the fetus."


title: Abortion law

text: The table below lists in chronological order the United Nations member states that have legalized abortion on request in at least some initial part of the pregnancy, or that have fully decriminalized abortion. As of October 2022, 66 countries have legalized or decriminalized abortion on request.


title: Abortion law

text: Where a country has legalized abortion on request, prohibited it, and legalized it again (e.g., former Soviet Union, Romania), only the later year is included. Countries that result from the merger of states where abortion on request was legal at the moment of unification show the year when it became legal across the whole national territory (e.g., Germany, Vietnam). Similarly, countries where not all subnational jurisdictions have legalized abortion on request are not included (e.g., leading to the exclusion of Australia, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States). Countries are counted even if they were not yet independent at the time. The year refers to when the relevant law or judicial decision came into force, which may be different from the year when it was approved.


title: Abortion law

text: There are no international or multinational treaties that deal directly with abortion but human rights law and International criminal law touch on the issues.


title: Abortion law

text: The Nuremberg Military Tribunal decided the case of "United States v Greifelt and Others" (1948) on the basis that abortion was a crime within its jurisdiction according to the law defining crimes against humanity and thus within its definition of murder and extermination.


title: Abortion law

text: The Catholic Church remains highly influential in Latin America, and opposes the legalisation of abortion. The American Convention on Human Rights, which in 2013 had 23 Latin American parties, declares human life as commencing with conception. In Latin America, abortion on request is only legal in Cuba (1965), Uruguay (2012), Argentina (2021), Colombia (2022) and in parts of Mexico. Abortions are completely banned in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, and only allowed in certain restricted circumstances in most other Latin American nations.


title: Abortion law

text: In the 2010 case of "A, B and C v Ireland", the European Court of Human Rights found that the European Convention on Human Rights did not include a right to an abortion.


title: Abortion law

text: In 2005, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UN HRC) ordered Peru to compensate a woman (known as K.L.) for denying her a medically indicated abortion; this was the first time a United Nations Committee had held any country accountable for not ensuring access to safe, legal abortion, and the first time the committee affirmed that abortion is a human right. K.L. received the compensation in 2016. In the 2016 case of "Mellet v Ireland", the UN HRC found Ireland's abortion laws violated International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights because Irish law banned abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities.


title: Abortion law

text: While abortions are legal at least under certain conditions in almost all countries, these conditions vary widely. According to a United Nations (UN) report with data gathered up to 2019, abortion is allowed in 98% of countries in order to save a woman's life. Other commonly-accepted reasons are preserving physical (72%) or mental health (69%), in cases of rape or incest (61%), and in cases of fetal impairment (61%). Performing an abortion because of economic or social reasons is accepted in 37% of countries. Performing abortion only on the basis of a woman's request is allowed in 34% of countries, including in Canada, most European countries and China.


title: Abortion law

text: The exact scope of each legal ground also varies. For example, the laws of some countries cite health risks and fetal impairment as general grounds for abortion and allow a broad interpretation of such terms in practice, while other countries restrict them to a specific list of medical conditions or subcategories. Many countries that allow abortion have gestational limits for the procedure depending on the reason; with the majority being up to 12 weeks for abortion on request, up to 24 weeks for social, economic, rape, or incest reasons, and more for fetal impairment or threats to the woman's health or life.


title: Abortion law

text: In some countries, additional procedures must be followed before the abortion can be carried out even if the basic grounds for it are met. For example, in Finland, where abortions are not granted based merely on a woman's request, approval for each abortion must be obtained from two doctors (or one in special circumstances). The vast majority, 90% of abortions in Finland are performed for socio-economic reasons. How strictly all of the procedures dictated in the legislation are followed in practice is another matter. For example, in the United Kingdom, a Care Quality Commission's report in 2012 found that several NHS clinics were circumventing the law, using forms pre-signed by one doctor, thus allowing abortions to patients who only met with one doctor.


title: Abortion law

text: The table below summarizes the legal grounds for abortion in all United Nations member states and United Nations General Assembly observer states and some countries with limited recognition. This table is mostly based on data compiled by the United Nations up to 2019, with some updates, additions and clarifications citing other sources.


title: Abortion law

text: The table below summarizes the legal grounds for abortion in autonomous jurisdictions not included in the previous table.


title: Abortion law

text: Legal limits may not be directly comparable. Limits may be expressed in trimesters, months, weeks of pregnancy (implantation), weeks from fertilization, or weeks from last menstrual period (LMP).


title: Abortion law

text: According to a report by Women on Waves, approximately 25% of the world's population lives in countries with "highly restrictive abortion laws"—that is, laws which either completely ban abortion, or allow it only to save the mother's life. This category includes several countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region, as well as Malta in Europe. The Center for Reproductive Rights report that "[t]he inability to access safe and legal abortion care impacts 700 million women of reproductive age."


title: Abortion law

text: Some of the countries of Central America, notably El Salvador, have also come to international attention due to very forceful enforcement of the laws, including the incarceration of a gang-rape victim for homicide when she gave birth to a stillborn son and was accused of attempting an illegal abortion.


title: Abortion law

text: Controversy over the beginning of pregnancy occurs in different contexts, particularly in a legal context, and is particularly discussed within the abortion debate from the point of measuring the gestational age of the pregnancy. Pregnancy can be measured from a number of convenient points, including the day of last menstruation, ovulation, fertilization, implantation and chemical detection. A common medical way to calculate gestational age is to measure pregnancy from the first day of the last menstrual cycle. However, not all legal systems use this measure for the purpose of abortion law; for example countries such as Belgium, France, and Luxembourg use the term "pregnancy" in the abortion law to refer to the time elapsed from the sexual act that led to conception, which is presumed to be 2 weeks after the end of the last menstrual period.


title: Abortion law

text: Exceptions in abortion laws occur either in countries where abortion is as a general rule illegal or in countries that have abortion on request with gestational limits. For example, if a country allows abortion on request until 12 weeks, it may create exceptions to this general gestation limit for later abortions in specific circumstances.


title: Abortion law

text: There are a few exceptions commonly found in abortion laws. Legal domains which do not have abortion on demand will often allow it when the health of the mother is at stake. "Health of the mother" may mean something different in different areas: for example, prior to December 2018, the Republic of Ireland allowed abortion only to save the mother's life, whereas abortion opponents in the United States argue health exceptions are used so broadly as to render a ban essentially meaningless.


title: Abortion law

text: Laws allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest often differ. For example, before "Roe v. Wade", thirteen U.S. states allowed abortion in the case of either rape or incest, but only Mississippi permitted abortion of pregnancies due to rape, and no state permitted it for just incest.


title: Abortion law

text: Many countries allow abortion only through the first or second trimester, and some may allow abortion in cases of fetal defects, e.g., Down syndrome, or where the pregnancy is the result of a sexual crime.


title: Abortion law

text: Laws in some countries with liberal abortion laws protect access to abortion services. Such legislation often seeks to guard abortion clinics against obstruction, vandalism, picketing, and other actions, or to protect patients and employees of such facilities from threats and harassment.


title: Abortion law

text: Other laws create a perimeter around a facility, known variously as a "buffer zone", "bubble zone", or "access zone", where demonstrations opposing abortion are not permitted. Protests and other displays are restricted to a certain distance from the building, which varies depending on the law. Similar zones have also been created to protect the homes of abortion providers and clinic staff. Bubble zone laws are divided into "fixed" and "floating" categories. Fixed bubble zone laws apply to the static area around the facility itself, and floating laws to objects in transit, such as people or cars. Because of conflicts between anti-abortion activists on one side and women seeking abortion and medical staff who provides abortion on the other side, some laws are quite strict: in South Africa for instance, any person who prevents the lawful termination of a pregnancy or obstructs access to a facility for the termination of a pregnancy faces up to 10 years in prison (section 10.1 (c) of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act).


title: Abortion law

text: On 3 November 2020, an association of 20 Kenyan charities urged the government of Kenya to withdraw from the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), a US-led international accord that sought to limit access to abortion for girls and women around the world. GCD was signed by 33 nations, on 22 October 2020.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: William Royce "Boz" Scaggs (born June 8, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. An early bandmate of Steve Miller in The Ardells and the Steve Miller Band, he began his solo career in 1969, though he lacked a major hit until his 1976 album "Silk Degrees" peaked at number 2 on the "Billboard" 200, and produced the hit singles "Lido Shuffle" and "Lowdown". Scaggs produced two more platinum-certified albums in "Down Two Then Left" and "Middle Man", the latter of which produced two top-40 singles "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo". After a hiatus for most of the 1980s, he returned to recording and touring in 1988, joining The New York Rock and Soul Revue and opening the nightclub Slim's, a popular San Francisco music venue until it closed in 2020. He has continued to record and tour throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, with his most recent album being 2018's "Out of the Blues".


title: Boz Scaggs

text: Scaggs is credited for helping the formation of Toto. For his 1976 album, "Silk Degrees", he hand picked musicians after taking suggestions from several people. These musicians were David Paich, David Hungate, and Jeff Porcaro. The three were already friends and had frequently performed together on other albums, such as Steely Dan's "Pretzel Logic." By going on tour with Scaggs, it solidified the prospect of starting a band. Columbia picked up on this talent by offering the new group a contract "without audition". Steve Porcaro described this as "a record deal thrown in our laps". Paich stated "I'm not sure if Toto would have happened as soon, or quite the same way, without "Silk Degrees"." Their friendship has continued throughout the decades shown by the varying collaborations and concerts performed together. Paich teamed up once more for Scaggs' 2001 album, "Dig", where he contributed to 6 out of the 11 songs.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: Scaggs was born in Canton, Ohio, the eldest child to Royce and Helen Scaggs. His father was a traveling salesman who had flown in the Air Force during World War II. Their family moved to McAlester, Oklahoma, then to Plano, Texas (at that time a farm town), just north of Dallas. He learnt his first instrument, the cello, at age 9. He received a scholarship to attend a private school in Dallas, St. Mark's School of Texas.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: At St. Mark's he met Steve Miller, who helped him to learn the guitar at age 12. A classmate wanted to give Scaggs a "weird" nickname. This started out as "Bosley", then "Boswell" and "Bosworth". The name was later shortened to Boz. In 1959, he became the vocalist for Miller's band, The Marksmen. After graduation in 1962, the pair later attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison together, playing in blues bands like the Ardells and the Fabulous Knight Trains.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: Leaving school due to his love for music in 1963, Scaggs signed up for the army reserves and formed a new band, The Wigs. By 1965, the band joined the burgeoning R&B scene in London. However, success never materialized and the group disbanded within a few months. Scaggs then travelled throughout Europe, earning money from busking. He arrived in Stockholm, Sweden where he recorded his first solo debut album, "Boz", in 1965 with the "Karusell Grammofon AB" label, which failed commercially. He also had a brief stint with the band the Other Side with Mac MacLeod and Jack Downing.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: Returning to the U.S., Scaggs promptly headed for the booming psychedelic music center of San Francisco in 1967 after receiving a postcard invitation from Steve Miller to join his band. Scaggs travelled to the U.S. via India & Nepal. Linking up with Steve Miller again, he appeared on the Steve Miller Band's first two albums, "Children of the Future" and "Sailor" in 1968. He left the band due to different music tastes and upset between himself and Miller at the time. Scaggs secured a solo contract with Atlantic Records in 1968, releasing his second album, "Boz Scaggs", featuring the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and session guitarist Duane Allman, in 1969. Despite good reviews, this release achieved only moderate sales. He then briefly hooked up with Bay Area band Mother Earth in a supporting role on their second album "Make a Joyful Noise" on guitar and backup vocals.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: Scaggs next signed with Columbia Records releasing the albums "Moments" in 1971 and "My Time" in 1972. His first two Columbia albums were modest sellers and seeking a new more soulful direction his record company brought in former Motown producer Johnny Bristol for 1974's "Slow Dancer" album. Although the album only made No. 81 on the US Billboard Album Chart, it subsequently attained gold status, no doubt getting a boost from the huge success of Scaggs's next album "Silk Degrees".


title: Boz Scaggs

text: In 1976, using session musicians who later formed Toto, he recorded "Silk Degrees", with Joe Wissert on producing duties. The album, which received a Grammy nomination for album of the year and a further nomination for Wissert as Producer of the Year, reached No. 2 on the US "Billboard" 200, and No. 1 in a number of other countries, spawning four hit singles: "It's Over", "Lowdown", "What Can I Say", and "Lido Shuffle", as well as the poignant ballad "We're All Alone", later recorded by Rita Coolidge (who had performed backing vocals in an earlier Scaggs album) and Frankie Valli. "Lowdown" sold over one million copies in the US and won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song, which was shared by Scaggs and David Paich. In "Saturday Night Fever", John Travolta choreographed his dance to "Lowdown". In an interview, Travolta states "The Bee Gees weren’t even involved in the movie in the beginning, I was dancing to Stevie Wonder and Boz Scaggs." However, Columbia denied the song's use as there was another disco movie using "Lowdown" ("Looking for Mr. Goodbar").


title: Boz Scaggs

text: A sellout world tour followed. Scaggs was performing at Avery Fisher Hall in New York's Lincoln Center during the infamous July 13th New York City blackout in 1977. He was around 15 minutes into the concert when the power went out. Scaggs told the audience to save their ticket stubs as he would do a repeat concert on the Friday night, a few days after. Scaggs performed with Fleetwood Mac for a few concerts between 1976 and 1977.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: His follow-up album in 1977 "Down Two Then Left" did not sell as well as "Silk Degrees" and neither of its singles reached the Top 40. For "Down Two Then Left", Scaggs continued working with Toto and additionally Ray Parker Jr, who later created the Ghostbusters theme song in 1984.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: The 1980 album "Middle Man" spawned two top 20 hits, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" (No. 15, Hot 100) and "Jojo" (No. 17, Hot 100); and Scaggs also enjoyed two more top 20 hits in 1980–81, "Look What You've Done to Me", from the "Urban Cowboy" soundtrack, and "Miss Sun", from a greatest hits set, both reaching No. 14 on the Hot 100. "Miss Sun" was an unreleased 1977 Toto demo.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: Scaggs took a long break from recording as he felt making music became a "career" and that music had "left him". He did attempt to make a new album in 1983, but "it didn't feel right". In 1985, he succumbed to feelings of anxiety and felt he had to get a record out as there was "something very big missing" in his life.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: Scaggs' next album, "Other Roads", did not appear until 1988 due to Columbia rejecting the record as "they didn't feel they had a strong hit single", making Scaggs spend more time perfecting the album. "Heart of Mine", from "Other Roads", is Scaggs' last top-40 hit as of 2018. Also in 1988, he opened the San Francisco nightclub, Slim's, and remained an owner of the venue until the club's closure in 2020.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: From 1989 to 1992, Scaggs joined Donald Fagen, Phoebe Snow, Michael McDonald and others in the New York Rock and Soul Revue.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: In 1992, Scaggs performed at Toto's tribute concert for Jeff Porcaro, along with Don Henley, Donald Fagen, Eddie Van Halen, George Harrison, and Michael McDonald.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: His next solo release was the album "Some Change" in 1994. He issued "Come On Home", an album of rhythm and blues, and "", an anthology, in 1997.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: After another hiatus from recording, his next album, "Dig", got good reviews, although the CD was released on an unfortunate date September 11, 2001. In May 2003, Scaggs released "But Beautiful", a collection of jazz standards that debuted at number one on the jazz chart. In 2008 he released "Speak Low", which he described in the liner notes as "a sort of progressive, experimental effort ... along the lines of some of the ideas that Gil Evans explored." During 2004, he released a DVD and a live 16-track CD "Greatest Hits Live" that was recorded August 2003 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: After a break in recording, he undertook a series of shows across the US in 2008. Two years later he joined Donald Fagen and Michael McDonald for concerts entitled the Dukes of September Rhythm Revue.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: His next album "Memphis" was released in March 2013. It was recorded in that Southern American city at the Royal Studios. The album included some of his favorite compositions from other artists. A tour of the United States, Canada and Japan followed the release. Before the year ended, he added live dates across North America and Australia for 2014. In 2015, he released "A Fool to Care", a compilation of mostly covers, including "Whispering Pines" with Lucinda Williams, and one original blues composition, "Hell to Pay," performed with Bonnie Raitt. The album rose to number 1 on the "Billboard" Blues Album chart and number 54 on the Billboard 200. In 2018, he released "Out of the Blues," reaching number 1 on the Billboard Top Blues Albums chart.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: Scaggs married his first wife, Donna Carmella Storniola, in 1973. They had two sons: Austin, a music journalist for "Rolling Stone", and Oscar, who died in 1998 from a heroin overdose. Scaggs and Carmella divorced in 1980. After 3.5 years, Scaggs won joint custody of his sons. Carmella died in February 2017.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: In 1992 he married Dominique Gioia. In 1996, they moved to Napa Valley and planted 2.2 acres of Grenache, Mourvedre, Syrah, and Counoisn. In 2000 they made their first wine. In 2006, Scaggs Vineyard was certified organic. In 2016, Scaggs sold his plot to Newfound Wines.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: In 2017, Scaggs' house burnt down as a result of the Northern California wildfires in October. He and his wife were on tour, so they weren’t harmed by the fires. However, he lost everything: his vineyard, cars, and sentimental objects such as decades worth of legal pads and cocktail napkins with lyrics on them.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki> While the 1969 self-titled Atlantic album failed to chart upon initial release, it peaked at No. 171 when reissued in 1974. Three years later the album was reissued once again, this time in a remixed form. This version, however, only bubbled under the "Billboard" 200, reaching No. 209.


title: Boz Scaggs

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki> "Rolling Stone" ranked this album at number 496 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The ease of doing business index was an index created jointly by Simeon Djankov, Michael Klein, and Caralee McLiesh, three leading economists at the World Bank Group. The academic research for the report was done jointly with professors Edward Glaeser, Oliver Hart, and Andrei Shleifer. Higher rankings (a low numerical value) indicated better, usually simpler, regulations for businesses and stronger protections of property rights. Empirical research funded by the World Bank to justify their work show that the economic growth effect of improving these regulations is strong. Though the first report was authored by Djankov, Klein, and McLiesh, and they continue to be listed as "founders" of the report, some sources attribute the genesis of the idea to Djankov and Gerhard Pohl. The report was discontinued by the World Bank on September 16, 2021, following the release of an independent audit of the data irregularities. The audit documented how bank leadership pressured experts to manipulate the results of the 2018 and 2020 Doing Business Reports.An improved Doing Business analysis is proposed in Fraser Institute's 2022 Economic Freedom of the World report.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The report was, above all, a benchmark study of regulation. The survey consisted of a questionnaire designed by the "Doing Business" team with the assistance of academic advisers. The questionnaire centered on a simple business case that ensures comparability across economies and over time. The survey also based assumptions on the legal form of the business, size, location, and nature of its operations. The ease of doing business index was meant to measure regulations directly affecting businesses and did not directly measure more general conditions such as a nation's proximity to large markets, quality of infrastructure, inflation, or crime.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The next step was gathering data surveys of over 12,500 expert contributors (lawyers, accountants, etc.) in 190 countries who deal with business regulations in their day-to-day work. These individuals interacted with the "Doing Business" team in conference calls, written correspondence, and visits by the global team. For the 2017 report, team members visited 34 economies to verify data and to recruit respondents. Data from the survey was subjected to several rounds of verification. The surveys were not a statistical sample, and the results were interpreted and cross-checked for consistency before being included in the report. Results were also validated with the relevant government before publication. Respondents filled out written surveys and provided references to the relevant laws, regulations, and fees based on standardized case scenarios with specific assumptions, such as the business being located in the largest business city of the economy.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: For example, according to the "Doing Business" (DB) 2013 report, Canada ranked third on the first subindex "Starting a business" behind only New Zealand and Australia. In Canada, there is 1 procedure required to start a business which takes on average 5 days to complete. The official cost is 0.4% of the gross national income per capita. There was no minimum capital requirement. By contrast, in Chad which ranked among the worst (181st out of 185) on this same subindex, there were 9 procedures required to start a business taking 62 days to complete. The official cost was 202% of the gross national income per capita. A minimum capital investment of 289.4% of the gross national income per capita is required.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: While fewer and simpler regulations often imply higher rankings, this was not always the case. Protecting the rights of creditors and investors, as well as establishing or upgrading property and credit registries, may mean that more regulation is needed.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In most indicators, the case study referred to a small domestically-owned manufacturing company—hence the direct relevance of the indicators to foreign investors and large companies is limited. DB uses a simple averaging approach for weighting sub-indicators and calculating rankings. A detailed explanation of every indicator can be found through the DB website and a .xls archive that simulates reforms.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Some caveats regarding the rankings and main information presented have to be considered by every user of the report. Mainly:


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The "Doing Business" report was not intended as a complete assessment of competitiveness or the business environment of a country and should rather be considered as a proxy of the regulatory framework faced by the private sector in a country.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The "Doing Business" report has its origins in a paper first published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics by Simeon Djankov, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes and Andrei Shleifer called "The Regulation of Entry" in 2002. The paper presented data on the regulation of entry of start-up firms in 85 countries covering the number of procedures, official time, and official cost that a start-up must bear before it could operate legally. The main findings of the paper were that: "Countries with heavier regulation of entry have higher corruption and larger unofficial economies, but no better quality of public or private goods. Countries with more democratic and limited governments have lighter regulation of entry." The paper became widely known because it provided quantitative evidence that entry regulation benefits politicians and bureaucrats without adding value to the private sector or granting any additional protection.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Several countries have launched reforms to improve their rankings. These efforts are motivated to a great scope by the fact that the World Bank Group publishes the data, and hence coverage by the media and the private sector every year. Also, "Doing Business" highlights every year the successful reforms carried out by each country. The Regulation of Entry was published, Simeon Djankov and Andrei Shleifer have published nine other academic studies, one for each set of indicators covered by the report.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Over 18 years, 2003 to 2020, the reports recorded nearly 5,000 regulatory reforms implemented by 190 economies.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In 2014 "Doing Business" covered regulations measured from June 2012 through May 2013 in 189 economies.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In 2015, "Doing Business" covered regulations measured from June 2013 through June 2014 in 189 economies. For the first time this year, "Doing Business" collected data for 2 cities in 11 economies with more than 100 million inhabitants. These economies include Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, and the United States. The added city enables a sub-national comparison and benchmarking against other large cities.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In 2021, the World Bank announced that it would be discontinuing the Doing Business Report following accusations of irregularities, data manipulation, undue influence, and unethical behavior by bank staff including Djankov, former World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, and IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: As stated in the report, "Empirical research is needed to establish the optimal level of business regulation—for example, what the duration of court procedures should be and what the optimal degree of social protection is. The indicators compiled in the "Doing Business" project allow such research to take place. Since the start of the project in November 2001, more than 3,000 academic papers have used one or more indicators constructed in "Doing Business" and the related background papers by its authors." An example of such empirical research is a paper on business regulation and poverty, published in "Economics Letters".


title: Ease of doing business index

text: More than 3,000 academic papers used data from the index. The effect of improving regulations on economic growth is claimed to be very strong. Moving from the worst one-fourth of nations to the best one-fourth implies a 2.3 percentage point increase in annual growth. Another 7,000 working papers in economics and social science departments use the data from the Doing Business report. The 2016 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Oliver Hart is among the authors of such papers.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The various sub-components of the index in themselves provided concrete suggestions for improvement. Many of them may have been relatively easy to implement and uncontroversial (except perhaps among corrupt officials who may gain from onerous regulations requiring bribes to bypass). As such, the index has influenced many nations to improve their regulations. Several have explicitly targeted to reach a minimum position on the index, for example, the top 25 list. To consider the element of corruption and transparency in the economy, the index has also been combined with the Corruption Perceptions Index in the annual Best European Countries for Business publication.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Somewhat similar annual reports are the Indices of Economic Freedom and the Global Competitiveness Report. They, especially the latter, look at many more factors that affect economic growth, like inflation and infrastructure. These factors may however be more subjective and diffuse, since many are measured using surveys and they may be more difficult to change quickly compared to regulations.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: A November 2017 EconTalk podcast explains the lasting influence in academia and policy circles of the Doing Business report.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The "Doing Business" Report (DB) was an annually published report which was developed by a team led by Djankov in 2003. It was published by the World Bank Group every year from 2003 to 2019 and aimed to measure the costs to firms of business regulations in 190 countries. The study was one of the flagship knowledge products of the World Bank Group in the field of private sector development and is claimed to have motivated the design of several regulatory reforms in developing countries. The study presented every year a detailed analysis of costs, requirements, and procedures a specific type of private firm is subject in all countries, and then, creates rankings for every country. The study is also backed up by broad communication efforts, and by creating rankings, the study spotlights countries and leaders that are promoting reforms.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The DB was widely known and used by academics, policy-makers, politicians, development experts, journalists, and the business community to highlight red tape and promote reforms. As stated by the IEG study from the World Bank: "For country authorities, it sheds a bright, sometimes unflattering, light on regulatory aspects of their business climate. For business interests, it has helped to catalyze debates and dialogue about reform. For the World Bank Group, it demonstrates an ability to provide global knowledge, independent of resource transfer and conditionality. The annual exercise generates information that is relevant and useful".According to the DB, the regulation does matter for the development of the private sectors, and several reforms are suggested across the report to promote the development of the private sector and enable the business environment. Some highlighted findings of the DB are:


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In 2017, the study contains quantitative measures of regulations for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, getting an electricity connection, and closing a business. As stated in the introduction of the study, "A fundamental premise of DB is that economic activity requires good rules. These include rules that establish and clarify property rights and reduce the costs of resolving disputes, rules that increase the predictability of economic interactions, and rules that provide contractual partners with core protections against abuse."


title: Ease of doing business index

text: "Doing Business" was a controversial study, with passionate critics and devoted fans. As recognized by the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank, some have questioned the reliability and objectivity of its measurements while others doubt the relevance of the issues it addresses or fears it may unduly dominate countries reform agendas at the expense of more crucial development objectives. Attention given to the indicators may inadvertently signal that the World Bank Group values less burdensome business regulations more highly than its other strategies for poverty reduction and sustainable development.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Published for seventeen years, the DB has originated a growing body of research on how performance on DB indicators, and reforms generated by the reports, related to specific development desirable outcomes. As stated by the DB 2010, about "405 articles have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, and about 1143 working papers are available through Google Scholar".


title: Ease of doing business index

text: DB was widely used as a study to measure competitiveness. However, regulation rather than competitiveness is the main objective in the DB. Other studies that are also used to measure competitiveness and recognized as business enabling environment ranking systems are the Global Competitiveness Index, the Index of Economic Freedom, and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, among others.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: On 12 January 2018, Paul Romer, the World Bank's chief economist, announced that past releases of the index would be corrected and recalculated going back at least four years. Romer apologized to Chile, saying that the former director of the group responsible for the index had repeatedly manipulated its methodology, unfairly penalizing the country's rankings during the administration of left-wing President Michelle Bachelet. In response, Bachelet announced that Chile would formally request a complete investigation by the World Bank.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: It revealed in the 2021 WilmerHale report explained below that there were more extensive data irregularities in the 2018 report, specifically the manipulation of China's data in an attempt to secure funding.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Several major newspapers – including the Financial Times, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal – report that the data of China, Azerbaijan, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia among others were suspected to be "inappropriately altered" in the 2020 Doing Business publication. In light of the data irregularities found in both the 2018 and 2020 reports, the World Bank announced on 27 August 2020 that it would pause the Doing Business publication while it conducts a review of data changes for the last five reports and an internal audit of data integrity.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Following these revelations, some organizations paused the use of Doing Business data, and supplemented these reports with data from alternative indicators measuring the same concepts. On December 16, 2020, the World Bank released 3 reports about the conclusions of the reviews examining the data irregularities:


title: Ease of doing business index

text: These reviews found that, while the specific issues uncovered in this breach had been addressed, a culture where management pressured experts to manipulate data persisted: "The DB team members reported undue pressure, both directly and indirectly by Bank management to manipulate data in 2017 during the 2018 report production process and in 2019 during the 2020 report production process. The lack of a safe speak-up environment within the DB team led to a fear of retaliation for those who would escalate and report pressures to manipulate data. This contributed to the compromise of data integrity in the DB report." These reports also found that over half of Doing Business staff interviewed admitted to manipulating data.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In September 2021, the World Bank announced that it would be discontinuing the Doing Business report following the release of an independent report detailing the specifics of the 2020 and 2018 irregularities, including detailed explanations of how senior leaders at the bank manipulated data and pressured experts to change rankings and methodology to improve scores for certain countries.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The report from the law firm WilmerHale provided extensive details on both the 2018 and 2020 manipulation scandals, including implicating the then-president of the Bank Jim Yong Kim, the then-CEO of the Bank Kristalina Georgieva, and one of the founders of the report Simeon Djankov, in data manipulation for the purposes of raising the scores of some countries (China and Saudi Arabia) and reducing the scores of others (Azerbaijan). Specifically, in 2018 in an effort to secure funding from China, Kim, Georgieva, and Djankov repeatedly pressured the team that creates the data to pursue multiple avenues to improve China's score, eventually resorting to having members of the team unlock the report and change three of China's data points after the scores had been finalized. Georgieva issued a statement disagreeing with the characterization of her actions in the report.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: According to the report, in 2020 Djankov pressured the Doing Business team to change Saudi Arabia's score in an effort to rank better than Jordan due to extensive Reimbursable Advisory Services contracts between the Bank and Saudi Arabia. The subsequent change in methodology also lead to the UAE improving in score but not overall ranking. Also in 2020, Djankov ordered a review of three of Azerbaijan's data points. The team reviewed these data points and concluded that they were accurate. Djankov ignored these recommendations and changed Azerbaijan's score anyway, also altering the overall methodology of the report to ensure that Azerbaijan scored lower.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Beyond these specific allegations, the report also documents a culture of pressure to manipulate from the highest levels of the Bank, particularly under the leadership of Djankov. According to the report "nearly every Doing Business employee with whom we spoke described the environment on the Doing Business team under the management of Mr. Djankov to be, at best, deeply problematic, and, at worse, emotionally harrowing. Employees said that Mr. Djankov was a “bully” who instilled fear on the team; that he managed “by terror and intimidation”; that his management style constituted “psychological terrorism” that created a “toxic environment”; that he was a “larger than life fear factor” for everyone on the team; and that his management style was pompous and undiplomatic."The report also documents the culture of fear that prevented employees from reporting these irregularities, with Djankov threatening retaliation against anyone that threatened his authority, and "dangled promotions in front of Doing Business leadership to incentivize compliance with his personal objectives."


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Following these reports, various agencies expressed concern about the allegations and their effect on the world's faith in data produced by the World Bank. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for strong action to prevent misconduct and strengthen data integrity. Other US agencies called the report "serious and troubling" and quickly replaced data from the Doing Business report with other sources.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: When these allegations came to light, Georgieva was serving as the managing director of the International Monetary Fund. The IMF's board reviewed the allegations, but found that the report "did not conclusively demonstrate" that she engaged in data manipulation. The US government refused to publicly support Georgieva, but did not call for her removal.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The "Doing Business" methodology regarding labor regulations was criticized by the International Trade Union Confederation because it favored flexible employment regulations. In early reports, the easier it was to dismiss a worker for economic reasons in a country, the more its rankings improved. The Employing Workers index was revised in Doing Business 2008 to be in full compliance with the 188 International Labour Organization conventions. It has subsequently been removed from the rankings. The ITUC debuted the Global Rights Index in 2014 as a response to the "Doing Business" report.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In 2008 the World Bank Group's Independent Evaluation Group, a semi-independent watchdog within the World Bank Group, published an evaluation of the "Doing Business" index. The report, "Doing Business: An Independent Evaluation", contained both praise and criticism of "Doing Business". The report recommended that the index be clearer about what is and is not measured, disclose changes to published data, recruit more informants, and simplify the Paying Taxes indicator.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In April 2009 the World Bank issued a note with revisions to the Employing Workers index. The note explained that scoring for the "Employing Workers" indicator would be updated in "Doing Business 2010" to give favorable scores for complying with relevant ILO conventions. The Employing Workers indicator was also removed as a guidepost for Country Policy and Institutional Assessments, which help determine resources provided to IDA countries.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: A study commissioned by the Norwegian government alleges methodological weaknesses, an uncertainty in the ability of the indicators to capture the underlying business climate, and a general worry that many countries may find it easier to change their ranking in "Doing Business" than to change the underlying business environment.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In 2013, an independent panel appointed by the President of the World Bank and headed by Trevor Manuel of South Africa issued a review expressing concern about the potential for the report and index to be misinterpreted, and the narrowness of the indicators and information base. It recommended that the report be retained, but that the aggregate rankings be removed and that a peer-review process is implemented (among other things). Regarding the topics of Paying Taxes and Employing Workers, it noted that "The latter has already been excluded from the report's rankings. While there is a persuasive case for paying attention to these aspects of doing business, the Bank will need to carefully consider the correct way to assess the regulation and legal environment of these areas if these indicators are to be retained."


title: Ease of doing business index

text: In 2018, another independent evaluation, was commissioned by the World Bank Group. The evaluation praised the Doing Business report for its objectivity and focus on regulatory reform. It suggested adding peer-reviewed research papers behind every set of indicators. Subsequently, the World Bank has added one such research article, underlying the indicator on property registration.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: The last published rankings came from the ""Doing Business" 2020" report. Ranking of economies was introduced in the ""Doing Business" 2006" report.


title: Ease of doing business index

text: Singapore topped the "Ease of Doing Business" rankings in 2007–2016. Based on Singapore's experience, IDA International is collaborating with public agencies in several countries in the areas such as ICT strategy, national Infocomm planning and solutions implementation that can help increase the ease of doing business. One interesting fact is that although richer countries on average are ranked higher than poor countries, there are some remarkable exceptions, particularly oil-rich countries. For example, Kuwait (ranked 83), Qatar (ranked 77), Oman (ranked 68) Saudi Arabia (ranked 62). Compare to lower-income countries: India (ranked 63), Kenya (ranked 56), Colombia (ranked 67), Uzbekistan (ranked 69). Notable exceptions are Norway (ranked 9) and the United Arab Emirates (ranked 16).


title: Ease of doing business index

text: China's 2018 ranking, and 2020 rankings of the UAE and Saudi Arabia are alleged to have been artificially strengthened by an internal audit of the rankings. In contrast, Azerbaijan's 2019 ranking is alleged to have been artificially lowered.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Insomnia is a 2002 American psychological crime thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Hillary Seitz. A remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name, it stars Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank with Maura Tierney, Martin Donovan, Nicky Katt and Paul Dooley in supporting roles. The film follows two Los Angeles homicide detectives investigating a murder in Nightmute, Alaska. It is the only film by Nolan that he did not write or co-write.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Released on May 24, 2002, "Insomnia" grossed more than $113 million worldwide against a production budget of $46 million, and received critical praise, including for Pacino's and Williams' performances.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: In the small fishing town of Nightmute, Alaska, 17-year-old Kay Connell is found murdered. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detectives Will Dormer and Hap Eckhart are sent to assist the local police with their investigation. They do so at the request of police chief Nyback, an old colleague of Dormer. Ellie Burr, a young, local detective who is also a fan of Dormer's investigative work, picks them up when they arrive.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Back in Los Angeles, Internal Affairs is investigating one of Dormer's past cases. While in the restaurant of their hotel, Eckhart reveals that he is going to testify against Dormer in exchange for immunity. Dormer responds by noting that many criminals whom he helped to convict using questionable evidence could go free if their cases are reopened.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Dormer cleverly attracts the murderer to the scene of the crime, but the suspect flees into the fog, shooting one of the police officers through the leg. Dormer spots a figure in the fog and fires with his backup weapon when his primary jams. Rushing to the fallen figure, Dormer picks up a .38 pistol the suspect has dropped. He then discovers that he has shot Eckhart. Eckhart recognizes him, and dies believing Dormer shot him on purpose.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Because of Eckhart's pending testimony, Dormer knows that Internal Affairs will never believe the shooting was an accident, so he claims that Eckhart was shot by the suspect. He does not mention that he has the .38 pistol. Burr is put in charge of the shooting investigation, and her team finds the .38 caliber bullet that hit the officer. That night, Dormer walks to an alley and fires the .38 pistol into an animal carcass, then retrieves and cleans the bullet. At the morgue, the pathologist hands him the bagged bullet retrieved from Eckhart's body, but she is unfamiliar with its type. Dormer leaves and switches the .38 bullet for the 9 mm slug from Eckhart's body.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Over the next few days, Dormer is plagued by insomnia, brought on by his guilt over killing Eckhart and exacerbated by the perpetual daylight. Dormer starts receiving anonymous phone calls from the killer, who claims to have witnessed Dormer kill his partner. When the police learn that Kay was a fan of local crime writer Walter Finch, Dormer breaks into Finch's apartment in the nearby village of Umkumiut. Finch arrives at home, realizes the police are present, and evades Dormer after a chase. Dormer returns to Finch's apartment and plants the .38 to frame Finch.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Finch contacts Dormer and arranges a meeting on a ferry. Finch wants help in shifting suspicion to Kay's abusive boyfriend Randy Stetz and in return will stay silent about the Eckhart shooting. Dormer gives advice on handling police questioning. After Finch leaves Dormer on the ferry, he shows the detective a tape recorder he used to record the conversation.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Finch calls Dormer and tells him that Kay's death was "an accident"; he beat her to death in a fit of rage after she laughed at his sexual advances. The next day, Finch gives false testimony at the police station. When Finch claims Randy has a gun, Dormer realizes Finch has discovered his plant and has hidden it at Randy's home. Randy is arrested when the gun is found at his house. Finch asks Burr to come to his lake house the next day to collect letters indicating that Randy abused Kay.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Burr returns to the scene of Eckhart's death and finds a 9 mm shell casing, which conflicts with the bullet type from Eckhart's body. She reads her own case study from an investigation Dormer was involved in and learns he has carried a 9 mm, leading her to suspect that he shot Eckhart. Meanwhile, on his last night staying in the hotel, Dormer confides in the hotel owner, Rachel Clement, about the Internal Affairs investigation: He fabricated evidence to help convict a pedophile he was certain was guilty of murdering a child and who would have walked if Eckhart had testified.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Dormer learns that Burr has gone to Finch's. He finds Kay's letters in Finch's apartment and realizes that Finch intends to kill Burr. He learns of Finch's lake house and rushes there. At the house, Finch knocks Burr unconscious just as Dormer arrives, and takes Burr's gun. Dormer is too disoriented from lack of sleep to fight off Finch. Burr revives and saves Dormer, while Finch escapes. Burr reveals she knows Dormer shot Eckhart, and he admits that he is no longer certain if it was an accident. From his shed, Finch shoots at them with a shotgun, and Burr returns fire with Dormer's gun while Dormer sneaks around to Finch's location. After a scuffle in which Dormer grabs Finch's shotgun, Finch shoots Dormer with Burr's gun, and Dormer shoots and kills Finch with the shotgun.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Burr rushes to the fatally wounded Dormer and comforts him by affirming that Eckhart's shooting was accidental, then moves to throw away the 9 mm shell casing to preserve Dormer's reputation. Dormer stops her, however, urging her not to lose her integrity as he had. Dormer says his last words "just let me sleep" and dies just as Burr puts the bullet back in the evidence bag.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Jonathan Demme was originally attached to direct the film and considered Harrison Ford for the role of Will Dormer.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: "Insomnia" has Robin Williams playing a villain, deviating from the comedic roles for which he was earlier known. Regarding his decision to cast Williams, Nolan said: "I think [audiences] will come away feeling like they have seen a 'new' Robin Williams. Seeing Robin Williams doing something they would have never imagined that he would or could do."


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: "Insomnia" was filmed over a three-month period from April to June 2001. The opening aerial scene was filmed over the Columbia Glacier near Valdez, Alaska and the float plane approach was over the Portland Canal near Hyder, Alaska, and Stewart, British Columbia. The town of Nightmute, Alaska, was primarily filmed in/around Squamish, British Columbia, including the hotel/lodge, police station, high school, and the funeral cemetery scene. The scene where Will Dormer shoots his partner on the rocky beach in the fog was filmed at Clementine Creek in Indian Arm, outside of Vancouver. The village of Umkumuit, where Finch's apartment is located and where the log chase scene occurs, was filmed on Vancouver Island in Port Alberni. The waterfall road scene where Dormer is on his way to Finch's lake house and spins his car 180° was shot in front of Bridal Veil Falls on the Richardson Highway near Valdez, Alaska. The final scene of the movie on the fictional Lake Kgun at Finch's lake house was filmed on the northwest end of Strohn Lake in Bear Glacier Provincial Park, just outside of Stewart, British Columbia. For this final scene, the film crew constructed Finch's lake house and dock from scratch and then disassembled and removed it after filming was completed in late June 2001.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 200 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Driven by Pacino's performance, "Insomnia" is a smart and riveting psychological drama". On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: Lou Lumenick of the "New York Post" gave the film an enthusiastic review, calling it a "four-course gourmet alternative to summer popcorn flicks, serving up the meatiest performances Al Pacino and Robin Williams have given in many years." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said that "Unlike most remakes, the Nolan "Insomnia "is not a pale retread, but a re-examination of the material, like a new production of a good play."


title: Insomnia (2002 film)

text: "Taste of Cinema" complimented Nolan for being able to "capture the excitement of the original while still setting it apart as a notable film itself." IndieWire included "Insomnia" in their "10 Remakes of Classics by Great Auteurs" list, writing, "Nolan shifts the moral ground from the snowballing moral corruption of the original to shades of guilt and accountability and Pacino's increasingly bleary and hallucinatory perspective becomes an evocative metaphor for his struggle."


title: Bond girl

text: A Bond girl is a character who is a love interest or female companion of James Bond in a novel, film or video game. Bond girls occasionally have names that are double entendres or puns, such as Pussy Galore, Plenty O'Toole, Xenia Onatopp, or Holly Goodhead.


title: Bond girl

text: A Bond girl can also refer to the female lead in the films, such as Ursula Andress, Honor Blackman or Sophie Marceau.


title: Bond girl

text: There is no set rule on what kind of person a Bond girl will be or what role she will play. She may be an ally or an enemy of Bond, pivotal to the mission or simply there for her looks. There are female characters such as Judi Dench's M, and Camille Montes, a Bolivian intelligence agent who teams up with Bond in "Quantum of Solace", who are not romantic interests of Bond, and hence not strictly Bond girls. However, it has been argued that M's pivotal role in the plot of "Skyfall" qualifies her as a Bond girl or Bond woman.


title: Bond girl

text: The term "Bond girl" may also be considered as an anachronism, with some female cast members in the films preferring the designation "Bond woman".


title: Bond girl

text: Nearly all of Ian Fleming's Bond novels and short stories include one or more female characters who can be said to qualify as Bond girls, most of whom have been adapted for the screen. While Fleming's Bond girls have some individual traits (at least in their literary forms), they also have a great many characteristics in common. One of these is age: The typical Bond girl is in her early to mid-twenties, roughly ten years younger than Bond, who seems to be perennially in his mid-thirties. Examples include Solitaire (25), Tatiana Romanova (24), Vivienne "Viv" Michel (23), and Kissy Suzuki (23). The youngest Bond girl (though she and Bond do not sleep together) may be Gala Brand; she is named for the cruiser in which her father is serving at the time of her birth. Bond's youngest sexual partner in the books is Mariko Ichiban, an 18-year-old masseuse in "You Only Live Twice". The eldest Bond girls are Pussy Galore, who Bond speculates is in her early 30s, and 29-year-old Domino Vitali.


title: Bond girl

text: Bond girls conform to a fairly well-defined standard of beauty. They possess splendid figures and tend to dress in a slightly masculine, assertive fashion, wear little jewellery—and that in a masculine cut—wide leather belts, and square-toed leather shoes. (There is some variation in dress, though: Bond girls have made their initial appearances in evening wear, in bra and panties and, on occasion, naked.) Most are white; they often sport light though noticeable suntans (although a few, such as Solitaire, Tatiana Romanova, and Pussy Galore, are not only tanless but remarkably palel) and they generally use little or no makeup and no nail polish, also wearing their nails short. Their hair may be any colour, though they typically wear it in a natural or casual cut that falls heavily to their shoulders. Their features, especially their eyes and mouths, are often widely spaced (e.g. Vesper Lynd, Gala Brand, Tiffany Case, Tatiana Romanova, Honey Ryder, Viv Michel, Mary Goodnight). Their eyes are usually blue (e.g. Vesper Lynd, Gala Brand, Tatiana Romanova, Honey Ryder, Tracy Bond, Mary Goodnight), and sometimes this is true to an unusual and striking degree: Tiffany Case's eyes are chatoyant, varying with the light from grey to grey-blue, while Pussy Galore has deep violet eyes, the only truly violet eyes that Bond had ever seen. The first description of a Bond girl, "Casino Royale's" Vesper Lynd, is almost a template for the typical dress as well as the general appearance of later Bond girls; she sports nearly all of the features discussed above. In contrast, Dominetta "Domino" Vitali arguably departs to the greatest degree from the template, dressing in white leather doeskin sandals, appearing more tanned, sporting a soft Brigitte Bardot haircut, and giving no indication of widely spaced features. (The departure may be due to the unusual circumstances behind the writing of the novel "Thunderball", in which Domino appears.) Even Domino, however, wears rather masculine jewellery.