title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: At least 22 people developed anthrax infections, 11 of whom contracted the especially life-threatening inhalational variety. Five died of inhalational anthrax: Stevens; two employees of the Brentwood mail facility in Washington, D.C. (Thomas Morris Jr. and Joseph Curseen), and two whose source of exposure to the bacteria is still unknown: Kathy Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant resident of the New York City borough of the Bronx who worked in the city, and the last known victim, Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old widow of a prominent judge from Oxford, Connecticut.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Because it took so long to identify a culprit, the 2001 anthrax attacks have been compared to the Unabomber attacks which took place from 1978 to 1995.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Authorities believe that the anthrax letters were mailed from Princeton, New Jersey. Investigators found anthrax spores in a city street mailbox located at 10 Nassau Street near the Princeton University campus. About 600 mailboxes were tested for anthrax which could have been used to mail the letters, and the Nassau Street box was the only one to test positive.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: All of the letters were copies made by a copy machine, and the originals were never found. Each letter was trimmed to a slightly different size. The Senate letter uses punctuation, while the media letter does not. The handwriting on the media letter and envelopes is roughly twice the size of the handwriting on the Senate letter and envelopes. The envelopes addressed to Senators Daschle and Leahy had a fictitious return address:


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Franklin Park, New Jersey, exists, but the ZIP code 08852 is for nearby Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. There is no Greendale School in Franklin Park or Monmouth Junction, though there is a Greenbrook Elementary School in adjacent South Brunswick Township, New Jersey.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The Amerithrax investigation involved many leads which took time to evaluate and resolve. Among them were numerous letters which initially appeared to be related to the anthrax attacks but were never directly linked.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: For example, before the New York letters were found, hoax letters mailed from St. Petersburg, Florida, were thought to be the anthrax letters or related to them. A letter received at the Microsoft offices in Reno, Nevada, after the discovery of the Daschle letters, gave a false positive in a test for anthrax. Later, because the letter had been sent from Malaysia, Marilyn Thompson of "The Washington Post" connected the letter to Steven Hatfill, whose girlfriend was from Malaysia. The letter merely contained a check and some pornography, and was neither a threat nor a hoax.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: A copycat hoax letter containing harmless white powder was opened by reporter Judith Miller in "The New York Times" newsroom.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Also unconnected to the anthrax attacks was a large envelope received at American Media, Inc., in Boca Raton, Florida (which was among the victims of the attacks) in September 2001. It was addressed "Please forward to Jennifer Lopez c/o The Sun", containing a metal cigar tube with a cheap cigar inside, an empty can of chewing tobacco, a small detergent carton, pink powder, a Star of David pendant, and "a handwritten letter to Jennifer Lopez. The writer said how much he loved her and asked her to marry him." Another letter, which mimicked the original anthrax letter to Senator Daschle, was mailed to Daschle from London in November 2001, at a time when Hatfill was in England, not far from London. Shortly before the discovery of the anthrax letters, someone sent a letter to authorities stating, "Dr. Assaad is a potential biological terrorist." No connection to the anthrax letters was ever found.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: During the first years of the FBI's investigation, Don Foster, a professor of English at Vassar College, attempted to connect the anthrax letters and various hoax letters from the same period to Steven Hatfill. Foster's beliefs were published in "Vanity Fair" and "Reader's Digest". Hatfill sued and was later exonerated. The lawsuit was settled out of court.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The letters sent to the media contained a coarse brown material, while the letters sent to the two U.S. Senators contained a fine powder. The brown granular anthrax mostly caused cutaneous anthrax infections (9 out of 12 cases), although Kathy Nguyen's case of inhalational anthrax occurred at the same time and in the same general area as two cutaneous cases and several other exposures. The AMI letter which caused inhalation cases in Florida appears to have been mailed at the same time as the other media letters. The fine powder anthrax sent to Daschle and Leahy mostly caused the more dangerous form of infection known as inhalational anthrax (8 out of 10 cases). Postal worker Patrick O'Donnell and accountant Linda Burch contracted cutaneous anthrax from the Senate letters.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: All of the material was derived from the same bacterial strain known as the Ames strain. The Ames strain is a common strain isolated from a cow in Texas in 1981. The name "Ames" refers to the town of Ames, Iowa, but was mistakenly attached to this isolate in 1981 because of a mix-up about the mailing label on a package. First researched at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), at Fort Detrick, Maryland, the Ames strain was subsequently distributed to sixteen bio-research labs within the U.S., as well as three international locations (Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom).


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: DNA sequencing of the anthrax collected from Robert Stevens (the first victim) was conducted at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) beginning in December 2001. Sequencing was finished within a month and the analysis was published in the journal "Science" in early 2002.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Radiocarbon dating conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in June 2002 established that the anthrax was cultured no more than two years before the mailings.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Early in 2002, it was noted that there were variants or mutations in the anthrax cultures that were grown from powder found in the letters. Scientists at TIGR sequenced the complete genomes from many of these isolates during the period from 2002 to 2004. This sequencing identified three relatively large changes in some of the isolates, each comprising a region of DNA that had been duplicated or triplicated. The size of these regions ranged from 823 to 2607 base pairs, and all occurred near the same genes. Details of these mutations were published in 2011 in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences". These changes became the basis of PCR assays used to test other samples to find any that contained the same mutations. The assays were validated over the many years of the investigation, and a repository of Ames samples was also built. From roughly 2003 to 2006 the repository and the screening of the 1,070 Ames samples in that repository were completed.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Based on the testing, the FBI concluded that flask RMR-1029 was the parent material of the anthrax spore powder. Ivins had sole control over that flask.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: On October 24, 2001, USAMRIID scientist Peter Jahrling was summoned to the White House after he reported signs that silicon had been added to the anthrax recovered from the letter addressed to Daschle. Silicon would make the anthrax more capable of penetrating the lungs. Seven years later, Jahrling told the "Los Angeles Times" on September 17, 2008, "I believe I made an honest mistake", adding that he had been "overly impressed" by what he thought he saw under the microscope.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Richard Preston's book provides details of conversations and events at USAMRIID during the period from October 16, 2001, to October 25, 2001. Key scientists described to Preston what they were thinking during that period. When the Daschle spores first arrived at USAMRIID, the key concern was that smallpox viruses might be mixed with the spores. "Jahrling met [John] Ezzell in a hallway and said, in a loud voice, 'Goddamn it, John, we need to know if the powder is laced with smallpox.'" Thus, the initial search was for signs of smallpox viruses. On October 16, USAMRIID scientists began by examining spores that had been "in a milky white liquid" from "a field test done by the FBI's Hazardous Materials Response Unit". Liquid chemicals were then used to deactivate the spores. When scientists turned up the power on the electron beam of the Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), "The spores began to ooze." According to Preston,


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: On October 25, 2001, the day after senior officials at the White House were informed that "additives" had been found in the anthrax, USAMRIID scientist Tom Geisbert took a different, irradiated sample of the Daschle anthrax to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) to "find out if the powder contained any metals or elements". AFIP's energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer reportedly indicated "that there were two extra elements in the spores: silicon and oxygen. Silicon dioxide is glass. The anthrax terrorist or terrorists had put powdered glass, or silica, into the anthrax. The silica was powdered so finely that under Geisbert's electron microscope it had looked like fried-egg gunk dripping off the spores."


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The "goop" Peter Jahrling had seen oozing from the spores was not seen when AFIP examined different spores killed with radiation.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The controversy began the day after the White House meeting. "The New York Times" reported, "Contradicting Some U.S. Officials, 3 Scientists Call Anthrax Powder High-Grade – Two Experts say the anthrax was altered to produce a more deadly weapon", and "The Washington Post" reported, "Additive Made Spores Deadlier". Countless news stories discussed the "additives" for the next eight years, continuing into 2010.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Later, the FBI claimed a "lone individual" could have created the anthrax spores for as little as $2,500, using readily available laboratory equipment.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: A number of press reports appeared suggesting the Senate anthrax had coatings and additives. "Newsweek" reported the anthrax sent to Senator Leahy had been coated with a chemical compound previously unknown to bioweapons experts. On October 28, 2002, "The Washington Post" reported "FBI's Theory on Anthrax is Doubted", suggesting that the senate spores were coated with fumed silica. Two bioweapons experts that were utilized as consultants by the FBI, Kenneth Alibek and Matthew Meselson, were shown electron micrographs of the anthrax from the Daschle letter. In a November 5, 2002 letter to the editors of "The Washington Post", they stated that they saw no evidence the anthrax spores had been coated with fumed silica.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In "Science" magazine, one group of scientists said that the material could have been made by someone knowledgeable with standard laboratory equipment. Another group said it "was a diabolical advance in biological weapons technology". The article describes "a technique used to anchor silica nanoparticles to the surface of spores" using "polymerized glass".


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: An August 2006 article in "Applied and Environmental Microbiology", written by Douglas Beecher of the FBI labs in Quantico, Virginia, states "Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents." The article also specifically criticizes "a widely circulated misconception" "that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production". The harm done by this misconception is described this way: "This idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone. The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations." Critics of the article complained that it did not provide supporting references.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In late October 2001, ABC chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross linked the anthrax sample to Saddam Hussein because of its purportedly containing the unusual additive bentonite. On October 26, Ross said, "sources tell ABCNEWS the anthrax in the tainted letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was laced with bentonite. The potent additive is known to have been used by only one country in producing biochemical weapons—Iraq. ... [I]t is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program ... The discovery of bentonite came in an urgent series of tests conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and elsewhere." On October 28, Ross said that "despite continued White House denials, four well-placed and separate sources have told ABC News that initial tests on the anthrax by the U.S. Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, have detected trace amounts of the chemical additives bentonite and silica", a charge that was repeated several times on October 28 and 29.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: On October 29, 2001, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel "disputed reports that the anthrax sent to the Senate contained bentonite, an additive that ha[d] been used in Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program". Stanzel said, "Based on the test results we have, no bentonite has been found". The same day, Major General John Parker at a White House briefing stated, "We do know that we found silica in the samples. Now, we don't know what that motive would be, or why it would be there, or anything. But there is silica in the samples. And that led us to be absolutely sure that there was no aluminum in the sample, because the combination of a silicate, plus aluminum, is sort of the major ingredients of bentonite." Just over a week later, Homeland Security Advisor Tom Ridge in a White House press conference on November 7, 2001, stated, "The ingredient that we talked about before was silicon." Neither Ross at ABC nor anyone else publicly pursued any further claims about bentonite, despite Ross's original claim that "four well-placed and separate sources" had confirmed its detection.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Some of the anthrax spores (65–75%) in the anthrax attack letters contained silicon inside their spore coats. Silicon was even reportedly found inside the natural spore coat of a spore that was still inside the "mother germ", which was asserted to confirm that the element was not added after the spores were formed and purified, i.e., the spores were not "weaponized".


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In 2010, a Japanese study reported, "silicon (Si) is considered to be a "quasiessential" element for most living organisms. However, silicate uptake in bacteria and its physiological functions have remained obscure." The study showed that spores from some species can contain as much as 6.3% dry weight of silicates. "For more than 20 years, significant levels of silicon had been reported in spores of at least some "Bacillus" species, including those of "Bacillus cereus", a close relative of "B. anthracis"." According to spore expert Peter Setlow, "Since silicate accumulation in other organisms can impart structural rigidity, perhaps silicate plays such a role for spores as well."


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The FBI lab concluded that 1.4% of the powder in the Leahy letter was silicon. Stuart Jacobson, a small-particle chemistry expert stated that:


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: This is a shockingly high proportion [of silicon]. It is a number one would expect from the deliberate weaponization of anthrax, but not from any conceivable accidental contamination.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory conducted experiments in an attempt to determine if the amount of silicon in the growth medium was the controlling factor which caused silicon to accumulate inside a spore's natural coat. The Livermore scientists tried 56 different experiments, adding increasingly high amounts of silicon to the media. All of their results were far below the 1.4% level of the attack anthrax, some as low as .001%. The conclusion was that something other than the level of silicon controlled how much silicon was absorbed by the spores.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Richard O. Spertzel, a microbiologist who led the United Nations' biological weapons inspections of Iraq, wrote that the anthrax used could not have come from the lab where Ivins worked. Spertzel said he remained skeptical of the Bureau's argument despite the new evidence presented on August 18, 2008, in an unusual FBI briefing for reporters. He questioned the FBI's claim that the powder was less than military grade, in part because of the presence of high levels of silica. The FBI had been unable to reproduce the attack spores with the high levels of silica. The FBI attributed the presence of high silica levels to "natural variability". This conclusion of the FBI contradicted its statements at an earlier point in the investigation, when the FBI had stated, based on the silicon content, that the anthrax was "weaponized", a step that made the powder more airy and required special scientific know-how.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: "If there is that much silicon, it had to have been added," stated Jeffrey Adamovicz, who supervised Ivins's work at Fort Detrick. Adamovicz explained that the silicon in the anthrax attack could have been added via a large fermentor, which Battelle and some other facilities use but "we did not use a fermentor to grow anthrax at USAMRIID ... [and] We did not have the capability to add silicon compounds to anthrax spores." Ivins had neither the skills nor the means to attach silicon to anthrax spores. Spertzel explained that the Fort Detrick facility did not handle anthrax in powdered form. "I don't think there's anyone there who would have the foggiest idea how to do it."


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Authorities traveled to six continents, interviewed over 9,000 people, conducted 67 searches and issued over 6,000 subpoenas. "Hundreds of FBI personnel worked the case at the outset, struggling to discern whether the Sept. 11 al-Qaeda attacks and the anthrax murders were connected before eventually concluding that they were not." In September 2006, there were still 17 FBI agents and 10 postal inspectors assigned to the case, including FBI Special Agent C. Frank Figliuzzi who was the on-scene commander of the evidence recovery efforts.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The FBI and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) both gave permission for Iowa State University to destroy the Iowa anthrax archive and the archive was destroyed on October 10 and 11, 2001.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The FBI and CDC investigation was hampered by the destruction of a large collection of anthrax spores collected over more than seven decades and kept in more than 100 vials at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. Many scientists claim that the quick destruction of the anthrax spores collection in Iowa eliminated crucial evidence useful for the investigation. A precise match between the strain of anthrax used in the attacks and a strain in the collection would have offered hints as to when bacteria had been isolated and, perhaps, as to how widely it had been distributed to researchers. Such genetic clues could have given investigators the evidence necessary to identify the perpetrators.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Immediately after the anthrax attacks, White House officials pressured FBI Director Robert Mueller to publicly blame them on al-Qaeda following the September 11 attacks. During the president's morning intelligence briefings, Mueller was "beaten up" for not producing proof that the killer spores were the handiwork of Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide. "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official stated. The FBI knew early on that the anthrax used was of a consistency requiring sophisticated equipment and was unlikely to have been produced in "some cave". At the same time, President Bush and Vice President Cheney in public statements speculated about the possibility of a link between the anthrax attacks and Al Qaeda. "The Guardian" reported in early October that American scientists had implicated Iraq as the source of the anthrax, and the next day "The Wall Street Journal" editorialized that Al Qaeda perpetrated the mailings, with Iraq the source of the anthrax. A few days later, John McCain suggested on the "Late Show with David Letterman" that the anthrax may have come from Iraq, and the next week ABC News did a series of reports stating that three or four (depending on the report) sources had identified bentonite as an ingredient in the anthrax preparations, implicating Iraq.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Statements by the White House and public officials quickly proved that there was no bentonite in the attack anthrax. "No tests ever found or even suggested the presence of bentonite. The claim was just concocted from the start. It just never happened." Nonetheless, a few conservative journalists repeated ABC's bentonite report for several years, even after the invasion of Iraq proved there was no involvement.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist at the State University of New York at Purchase and chairwoman of a biological weapons panel at the Federation of American Scientists, and others began claiming that the attack might be the work of a "rogue CIA agent" in October 2001, as soon as it became known that the Ames strain of anthrax had been used in the attacks, and she told the FBI the name of the "most likely" person. On November 21, 2001, she made similar statements to the Biological and Toxic Weapons convention in Geneva. In December 2001, she published "A Compilation of Evidence and Comments on the Source of the Mailed Anthrax" via the web site of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) claiming that the attacks were "perpetrated with the unwitting assistance of a sophisticated government program". She discussed the case with reporters from "The New York Times". On January 4, 2002, Nicholas Kristof of "The New York Times" published a column titled "Profile of a Killer" stating "I think I know who sent out the anthrax last fall." For months, Rosenberg gave speeches and stated her beliefs to many reporters from around the world. She posted "Analysis of the Anthrax Attacks" to the FAS web site on January 17, 2002. On February 5, 2002, she published "Is the FBI Dragging Its Feet?" In response, the FBI stated, "There is no prime suspect in this case at this time". "The Washington Post" reported, "FBI officials over the last week have flatly discounted Dr. Rosenberg's claims". On June 13, 2002, Rosenberg posted "The Anthrax Case: What the FBI Knows" to the FAS site. On June 18, 2002, she presented her theories to senate staffers working for Senators Daschle and Leahy. On June 25, the FBI publicly searched Steven Hatfill's apartment, and he became a household name. "The FBI also pointed out that Hatfill had agreed to the search and is not considered a suspect." American Prospect and Salon.com reported, "Hatfill is not a suspect in the anthrax case, the FBI says." On August 3, 2002, Rosenberg told the media that the FBI asked her if "a team of government scientists could be trying to frame Steven J. Hatfill". In August 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft labeled Hatfill a "person of interest" in a press conference, though no charges were brought against him. Hatfill is a virologist, and he vehemently denied that he had anything to do with the anthrax mailings and sued the FBI, the Justice Department, Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and others for violating his constitutional rights and for violating the Privacy Act. On June 27, 2008, the Department of Justice announced that it would settle Hatfill's case for $5.8 million.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Hatfill also sued "The New York Times" and its columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, as well as Donald Foster, "Vanity Fair", "Reader's Digest", and Vassar College for defamation. The case against "The New York Times" was initially dismissed, but it was reinstated on appeal. The dismissal was upheld by the appeals court on July 14, 2008, on the basis that Hatfill was a public figure and malice had not been proven. The Supreme Court rejected an appeal on December 15, 2008. Hatfill's lawsuits against "Vanity Fair" and "Reader's Digest" were settled out of court in February 2007, but no details were made public. The statement released by Hatfill's lawyers said, "Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit has now been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all the parties".


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Bruce E. Ivins had worked for 18 years at the government's bio defense labs at Fort Detrick and was a top biodefense researcher. The Associated Press reported on August 1, 2008, that he had apparently committed suicide at the age of 62. It was widely reported that the FBI was about to press charges against him, but the evidence was largely circumstantial and the grand jury in Washington reported that it was not ready to issue an indictment. Rush D. Holt Jr. represented the district where the anthrax letters were mailed, and he said that circumstantial evidence was not enough and asked FBI director Robert S. Mueller to appear before Congress to provide an account of the investigation. Ivins's death left two unanswered questions. Scientists familiar with germ warfare said that there was no evidence that he had the skills to turn anthrax into an inhalable powder. Alan Zelicoff aided the FBI investigation, and he stated: "I don't think a vaccine specialist could do it…. This is aerosol physics, not biology".


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: W. Russell Byrne worked in the bacteriology division of the Fort Detrick research facility. He said that Ivins was "hounded" by FBI agents who raided his home twice, and he was hospitalized for depression during that time. According to Byrne and local police, Ivins was removed from his workplace out of fears that he might harm himself or others. "I think he was just psychologically exhausted by the whole process," Byrne said. "There are people who you just know are ticking bombs. He was not one of them."


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: On August 6, 2008, federal prosecutors declared Ivins the sole perpetrator of the crime when US Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor laid out the case to the public. "The genetically unique parent material of the anthrax spores... was created and solely maintained by Dr. Ivins." But other experts disagreed, including biological warfare and anthrax expert Meryl Nass, who stated: "Let me reiterate: no matter how good the microbial forensics may be, they can only, at best, link the anthrax to a particular strain and lab. They "cannot" link it to any individual." At least 10 scientists had regular access to the laboratory and its anthrax stock, and possibly quite a few more, counting visitors from other institutions and workers at laboratories in Ohio and New Mexico that had received anthrax samples from the flask. The FBI later claimed to have identified 419 people at Fort Detrick and other locations who had access to the lab where flask RMR-1029 was stored, or who had received samples from flask RMR-1029.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Ivins told a mental health counselor more than a year before the anthrax attacks that he was interested in a young woman who lived out of town and that he had "mixed poison" which he took with him when he went to watch her play in a soccer match. "If she lost, he was going to poison her," said the counselor, who treated Ivins at a Frederick clinic four or five times in mid-2000. She said that Ivins emphasized that he was a skillful scientist who "knew how to do things without people finding out". The counselor was so alarmed by his emotionless description of a specific, homicidal plan that she immediately alerted the head of her clinic and a psychiatrist who had treated Ivins, as well as the Frederick Police Department. She said that the police told her that nothing could be done because she did not have the woman's address or last name.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In 2008, Ivins told a different therapist that he planned to kill his co-workers and "go out in a blaze of glory". That therapist stated in an application for a restraining order that Ivins had a "history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, actions, plans, threats and actions towards therapists". Dr. David Irwin, his psychiatrist, called him "homicidal, sociopathic with clear intentions."


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: According to the report on the Amerithrax investigation published by the Department of Justice, Ivins engaged in actions and made statements that indicated a consciousness of guilt. He took environmental samples in his laboratory without authorization and decontaminated areas in which he had worked without reporting his activities. He also threw away a book about secret codes, which described methods similar to those used in the anthrax letters. Ivins threatened other scientists, made equivocal statements about his possible involvement in a conversation with an acquaintance, and put together outlandish theories in an effort to shift the blame for the anthrax mailings to people close to him.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The FBI said that Ivins's justifications for his actions after the environmental sampling, as well as his explanations for a subsequent sampling, contradicted his explanation for the motives for the sampling.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: According to the Department of Justice, flask RMR-1029, which was created and controlled by Ivins, was used to create "the murder weapon".


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In 2002, researchers did not believe it was possible to distinguish between anthrax variants. In January 2002, Ivins suggested that DNA sequencing should show differences in the genetics of anthrax mutations which would allow the source to be identified. Despite researchers advising the FBI that this may not have been possible, Ivins tutored agents on how to recognize them. Considered cutting edge at the time, this technique is now commonplace. In February 2002, Ivins volunteered to provide samples from several variants of the Ames strain in order to compare their morphs. He submitted two test tube "slants" each from four samples of the Ames strain in his collection. Two of the slants were from flask RMR-1029. Although the slants from flask RMR-1029 were later reported to be a positive match, all eight slants were reportedly in the wrong type of test tube and would therefore not be usable as evidence in court. On March 29, 2002, Ivins's boss instructed Ivins and others in suites B3 and B4 on how to properly prepare slants for the FBI Repository. The subpoena also included instructions on the proper way to prepare slants. When Ivins was told that his February samples did not meet FBIR requirements, he prepared eight new slants. The two new slants prepared from flask RMR-1029 submitted in April by Ivins did not contain the mutations that were later determined to be in flask RMR-1029.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: It was reported that in April 2004, Henry Heine found a test tube in the lab containing anthrax and contacted Ivins. In an email sent in reply, Ivins reportedly told him it was probably RMR-1029 and for Heine to forward a sample to the FBI. Doubts regarding the reliability of the FBI tests were later raised when the FBI tested Heine's sample and a further one from Heine's test tube: one tested negative and one positive.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: A DOJ summary report of February 19, 2010, said that "the evidence suggested that Dr. Ivins obstructed the investigation either by providing a submission which was not in compliance with the subpoena, or worse, that he deliberately submitted a false sample." Records released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2011 show that Ivins provided four sets of samples from 2002 to 2004, twice the number the FBI reported. Three of the four sets tested positive for the morphs.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The FBI said that "At a group therapy session on July 9, 2008, Dr. Ivins was particularly upset. He revealed to the counselor and psychologist leading the group, and other members of the group, that he was a suspect in the anthrax investigation and that he was angry at the investigators, the government, and the system in general. He said he was not going to face the death penalty, but instead had a plan to 'take out' co-workers and other individuals who had wronged him. He noted that it was possible, with a plan, to commit murder and not make a mess. He stated that he had a bullet-proof vest, and a list of co-workers who had wronged him, and said that he was going to obtain a Glock firearm from his son within the next day, because federal agents were watching him and he could not obtain a weapon on his own. He added that he was going to 'go out in a blaze of glory.'"


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: While in a mental hospital, Ivins made menacing phone calls to his social worker Jean Duley on July 11 and 12.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In the letters sent to the media, the characters 'A' and 'T' were sometimes bolded or highlighted by tracing over, according to the FBI suggesting that the letters contained a hidden code.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Some believe the letters to the "New York Post" and Tom Brokaw contained a "hidden message" in such highlighted characters. Below is the media text with the highlighted As and Ts:


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: According to the FBI, Summary Report issued on February 19, 2010, following the search of Ivins's home, cars, and office on November 1, 2007, investigators began examining his trash. A week later, just after 1:00 a.m. on the morning of November 8, the FBI stated that Ivins was observed throwing away "a copy of a book entitled "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid", published by Douglas Hofstadter in 1979" and "a 1992 issue of "American Scientist Journal" which contained an article entitled 'The Linguistics of DNA,' and discussed, among other things, codons and hidden messages".


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The book "Gödel, Escher, Bach" contains a lengthy description of the encoding/decoding procedures, including an illustration of hiding a message within a message by bolding certain characters. According to the FBI Summary Report, "[w]hen they lifted out just the bolded letters, investigators got TTT AAT TAT – an apparent hidden message". The 3-letter groups are codons, "meaning that each sequence of three nucleic acids will code for a specific amino acid".


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The FBI Summary Report proceeds to say: "From this analysis, two possible hidden meanings emerged: (1) 'FNY' – a verbal assault on New York, and (2) PAT – the nickname of [Dr. Ivins's] Former Colleague #2." Ivins was known to have a dislike for New York City, and four of the media letters had been sent to New York. The report states that it "was obviously impossible for the Task Force to determine with certainty that either of these two translations was correct", however, "the key point to the investigative analysis is that there is a hidden message, not so much what that message is". According to the FBI, Ivins showed a fascination with codes and also had an interest in secrets and hidden messages, and was familiar with biochemical codons.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Experts have suggested that the anthrax mailings included a number of indications that the mailer was trying to avoid harming anyone with his warning letters.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In June 2008, Ivins was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. The FBI stated that during a June 5 group therapy session there, Ivins had a conversation with an unnamed witness, during which he made a series of statements about the anthrax mailings that the FBI said could best be characterized as "non-denial denials". When asked about the anthrax attacks and whether he could have had anything to do with them, the FBI said that Ivins admitted he suffered from loss of memory, stating that he would wake up dressed and wonder if he had gone out during the night. Some of his responses allegedly included the following selected quotes:


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In an interview with a confidential human resource (CHR) which took place on January 8, 2008, the FBI said that the CHR told FBI agents that since Ivins's last interview with the FBI (on November 1, 2007), Ivins had "on occasion spontaneously declared at work, 'I could never intentionally kill or hurt someone'".


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: After the FBI announced that Ivins acted alone, many people with a broad range of political views, some of whom were colleagues of Ivins, expressed doubts. Reasons cited for these doubts include that Ivins was only one of 100 people who could have worked with the vial used in the attacks and that the FBI couldn't place him near the New Jersey mailbox from which the anthrax was mailed. The FBI's own genetic consultant, Claire Fraser-Ligget, stated that the failure to find any anthrax spores in Ivins's house, vehicle or on any of his belongings seriously undermined the case. Noting unanswered questions about the FBI's scientific tests and lack of peer review, Jeffrey Adamovicz, one of Ivins's supervisors in USAMRIID's bacteriology division, stated, "I'd say the vast majority of people [at Fort Detrick] think he had nothing to do with it." More than 200 colleagues attended his memorial service following his death.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Alternative theories proposed include FBI incompetence, that Syria or Iraq directed the attacks, or that similar to some 9/11 conspiracy theories the US government knew in advance that the attacks would occur. Senator Patrick Leahy, who had received an anthrax-tainted letter, said the FBI had not produced convincing evidence in the case. "The Washington Post" called for an independent investigation in the case saying that reporters and scientists were poking holes in the case.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: On September 17, 2008, Senator Patrick Leahy told FBI Director Robert Mueller during testimony before the Judiciary Committee which Leahy chairs, that he did not believe Army scientist Bruce Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax attacks, stating:


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Although the FBI matched the genetic origin of the attack spores to the spores in Ivins's flask RMR-1029, the spores within that flask did not have the same silicon chemical "fingerprint" as the spores in the attack letters. The implication is that spores taken out of flask RMR-1029 had been used to grow "new" spores for the mailings.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: On April 22, 2010, the U.S. National Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, convened a review committee that heard testimony from Henry Heine, a microbiologist who was formerly employed at the Army's biodefense laboratory in Maryland where Ivins had worked. Heine told the panel that it was impossible that the deadly spores had been produced undetected in Ivins's laboratory, as maintained by the FBI. He testified that at least a year of intensive work would have been required using the equipment at the army lab to produce the quantity of spores contained in the letters and that such an intensive effort could not have escaped the attention of colleagues. Heine also told the panel that lab technicians who worked closely with Ivins have told him they saw no such work. He stated further that biological containment measures where Ivins worked were inadequate to prevent Anthrax spores from floating out of the laboratory into animal cages and offices. "You'd have had dead animals or dead people," Heine said. According to Science Magazine, "Heine caveated his remarks by saying that he himself had no experience making anthrax stocks." Science magazine provides additional comments by Adam Driks of Loyola who stated that the amount of anthrax in the letters could be made in "a number of days". Emails by Ivins state, "We can presently make 1 X 10^12 [one trillion] spores per week." And "The New York Times" reported on May 7, 2002, that the Leahy letter contained .871 grams of anthrax powder [equivalent to 871 billion spores]


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In a technical article to be published in the "Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefense" in 2011, three scientists argued that the preparation of the spores did require a high level of sophistication, contrary to the position taken by federal authorities that the material would have been unsophisticated. The paper is largely based on the high level of tin detected in tests of the mailed anthrax, and the tin may have been used to encapsulate the spores, which required processing not possible in laboratories to which Ivins had access. According to the scientific article, this raises the possibility that Ivins was not the perpetrator or did not act alone. Earlier in the investigation, the FBI had named tin as a substance "of interest" but the final report makes no mention of it and fails to address the high tin content. The chairwoman of the National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the FBI's scientific work and the director of a separate review by the Government Accountability Office said that the issues raised by the paper should be addressed. Other scientists, such as Johnathan L. Kiel, a retired Air Force scientist who worked on anthrax for many years, did not agree with the authors' assessments — saying that the tin might be a random contaminant rather than a clue to complex processing. Kiel said that tin might simply be picked up by the spores as a result of the use of metal lab containers, although he had not tested that idea.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In 2011, the chief of the Bacteriology Division at the Army laboratory, Patricia Worsham, said it lacked the facilities in 2001 to make the kind of spores in the letters. In 2011, the government conceded that the equipment required was not available in the lab, calling into question a key pillar of the FBI's case, that Ivins had produced the anthrax in his lab. According to Worsham, the lab's equipment for drying spores, a machine the size of a refrigerator, was not in containment so that it would be expected that non-immunized personnel in that area would have become ill. Colleagues of Ivins at the lab have asserted that he couldn't have grown the quantity of anthrax used in the letters without their noticing it.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: A spokesman for the Justice Department said that the investigators continue to believe that Ivins acted alone.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Congressman Rush Holt, whose district in New Jersey includes a mailbox from which anthrax letters are believed to have been mailed, called for an investigation of the anthrax attacks by Congress or by an independent commission he proposed in a bill entitled the Anthrax Attacks Investigation Act (H.R. 1248). Other members of Congress have also called for an independent investigation.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: An official of the U.S. administration said in March 2010 that President Barack Obama probably would veto legislation authorizing the next budget for U.S. intelligence agencies if it called for a new investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, as such an investigation "would undermine public confidence" in an FBI probe. In a letter to congressional leaders, Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget at the time, wrote that an investigation would be "duplicative", and expressed concern about the appearance and precedent involved when Congress commissions an agency Inspector General to replicate a criminal investigation, but did not list the anthrax investigation as an issue that was serious enough to advise the President to veto the entire bill.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In what appears to have been a response to lingering skepticism, on September 16, 2008, the FBI asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct an independent review of the scientific evidence that led the agency to implicate U.S. Army researcher Bruce Ivins in the anthrax letter attacks of 2001. However, despite taking this action, Director Mueller said that the scientific methods applied in the investigation had already been vetted by the research community through the involvement of several dozen nonagency scientists.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The NAS review officially got underway on April 24, 2009. While the scope of the project included the consideration of facts and data surrounding the investigation of the 2001 "Bacillus anthracis" mailings, as well as a review of the principles and methods used by the FBI, the NAS committee was not given the task to "undertake an assessment of the probative value of the scientific evidence in any specific component of the investigation, prosecution, or civil litigation", nor to offer any view on the guilt or innocence of any of the involved people.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In mid-2009, the NAS committee held public sessions, in which presentations were made by scientists, including scientists from the FBI laboratories. In September 2009, scientists, including Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University, Joseph Michael of Sandia National Laboratory and Peter Weber of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, presented their findings. In one of the presentations, scientists reported that they did not find any silica particles on the outside of the spores (i.e., there was no "weaponization"), and that only some of the spores in the anthrax letters contained silicon inside their spore coats. One of the spores was still inside the "mother germ", yet it already had silicon inside its spore coat.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: In October 2010, the FBI submitted materials to NAS that it had not previously provided. Included in the new materials were results of analyses performed on environmental samples collected from an overseas site. Those analyses yielded evidence of the Ames strain in some samples. NAS recommended a review of those investigations.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The NAS committee released its report on February 15, 2011, concluding that it was "impossible to reach any definitive conclusion about the origins of the anthrax in the letters, based solely on the available scientific evidence". The report also challenged the FBI and U.S. Justice Department's conclusion that a single-spore batch of anthrax maintained by Ivins at his laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland was the parent material for the spores in the anthrax letters.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Dozens of buildings were contaminated with anthrax as a result of the mailings. New York-based Bio Recovery Corporation and Ohio-based Bio-Recovery Services of America were placed in charge of the cleanup and decontamination of buildings in New York City, including ABC Headquarters and a midtown Manhattan building that was part of the Rockefeller Center and was home to the "New York Post" and Fox News. Bio Recovery provided the labor and equipment, such as HEPA filtered negative pressure air scrubbers, HEPA vacuums, respirators, cyclone foggers, and decontamination foam licensed by the Sandia National Laboratories. Ninety-three bags of anthrax-contaminated mail were removed from the "New York Post" alone.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The decontamination of the Brentwood postal facility took 26 months and cost $130 million. The Hamilton, New Jersey postal facility remained closed until March 2005; its cleanup cost $65 million.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The United States Environmental Protection Agency led the collaborative effort to clean up the Hart Senate Office Building, where Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office was located, as well as the Ford Office Building and several other locations around the capitol. It used $27 million of its funds for its Superfund program on the Capitol Hill anthrax cleanup. One FBI document said the total damage exceeded $1 billion.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The anthrax attacks, as well as the September 11, 2001, attacks, spurred significant increases in U.S. government funding for biological warfare research and preparedness. For example, biowarfare-related funding at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) increased by $1.5 billion in 2003. In 2004, Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act, which provides $5.6 billion over ten years for the purchase of new vaccines and drugs. These included the monoclonal antibody raxibacumab, which treats anthrax as well as an Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed, both of which are stockpiled by the US government.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Immediately after 9/11, well before the mailing of any of the letters involved in the anthrax attacks, the White House prudently began distributing ciprofloxacin, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of inhalational anthrax, to senior staffers.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Ciprofloxacin manufacturer Bayer pharmaceuticals agreed to provide the United States with 100,000 doses for $.95 per dose, a cut in the price from $1.74. The Canadian government had previously overridden the Bayer patent, and the US was threatening the same measure if Bayer did not agree to negotiate the price. Shortly afterward, it was recommended that doxycycline was a more appropriate drug to treat anthrax exposure. A widened use of the broad-spectrum antibiotic ciprofloxacin had also raised serious concerns amongst scientists about the creation and increased spread of drug-resistant bacteria strains. Numerous corporations offered to supply drugs for free, contingent on the Food and Drug Administration approving their products for anthrax treatment. They included Bristol Myers Squibb (gatifloxacin), Johnson and Johnson (levofloxacin) and GlaxoSmithKline (two drugs). Eli Lilly and Pfizer also offered to provide drugs at cost.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: The attack led to the widespread confiscation and curtailment of US Mail, especially to US media companies: "checks, bills, letters, and packages simply stopped arriving. For many people and businesses that had resisted the cultural shift to e-mail, this was the moment that pushed them online."


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: After the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent anthrax mailings, lawmakers were pressed for legislation to combat further terrorist acts. Under heavy pressure from then Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, a bipartisan compromise in the House Judiciary Committee allowed legislation for the Patriot Act to move forward for full consideration later that month.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: A theory that Iraq was behind the attacks, based upon purported evidence that the powder was weaponized and some reports of alleged meetings between 9/11 conspirators and Iraqi officials, may have contributed to the hysteria which ultimately enabled the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Years after the attack, several anthrax victims reported lingering health problems including fatigue, shortness of breath and memory loss.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: A 2004 study proposed that the total number of people harmed by the anthrax attacks of 2001 should be raised to 68.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: A postal inspector, William Paliscak, became severely ill and disabled after removing an anthrax-contaminated air filter from the Brentwood mail facility on October 19, 2001. Although his doctors, Tyler Cymet and Gary Kerkvliet, believe that the illness was caused by anthrax exposure, blood tests did not find anthrax bacteria or antibodies, and therefore the CDC does not recognize it as a case of inhalational anthrax.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Robert Stack's final episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" prominently featured the anthrax attacks in detail. Season 12, Ep. 13.


title: 2001 anthrax attacks

text: Dan Krauss' "" from Netflix and the BBC takes a "quasi-documentary" approach to the investigation. First streamed on September 8, 2022.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Dogma is a 1999 American fantasy comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, who also stars with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, George Carlin, Linda Fiorentino, Janeane Garofalo, Chris Rock, Jason Lee, Salma Hayek, Bud Cort, Alan Rickman, Alanis Morissette and Jason Mewes. It is the fourth film in Smith's View Askewniverse series. Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson, stars of the first Askewniverse film "Clerks", appear in the film, as do Smith regulars Scott Mosier, Dwight Ewell, Walt Flanagan, and Bryan Johnson.


title: Dogma (film)

text: The story revolves around two fallen angels who plan to employ an alleged loophole in Catholic dogma to return to Heaven after being cast out by God, but as existence is founded on the principle that God is infallible, their success would prove God wrong, thus undoing all creation. The last scion and two prophets are sent by the seraph Metatron to stop them.


title: Dogma (film)

text: The film's irreverent treatment of Catholicism and the Catholic Church triggered considerable controversy, even before its opening. The Catholic League denounced it as blasphemy. Organized protests delayed its release in many countries and led to at least two death threats against Smith. Despite this, "Dogma" was well received by critics, and grossed $44 million against its $10 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing film in the View Askewniverse series to date.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Bartleby and Loki are fallen angels, eternally banished from Heaven to Wisconsin for insubordination, after an inebriated Loki resigned as the Angel of Death at Bartleby's suggestion. In a newspaper article that arrives anonymously, the angels discover a way home: Cardinal Ignatius Glick is rededicating his church in Red Bank, New Jersey, in the image of the "Buddy Christ". Anyone who enters the church during the rededication festivities will receive a plenary indulgence, remitting all sins. Were the banished angels to undergo this rite—and then die after transmuting into human form—God would have no choice but to allow them re-entry into Heaven. They are encouraged by the demon Azrael and the Stygian triplets, three teenage hoodlums who serve Azrael in hell.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Bethany Sloane, a despondent abortion clinic counselor, attends a service at her church in McHenry, Illinois. Donations are solicited for a campaign to stop a New Jersey hospital from disconnecting life support on John Doe Jersey, a homeless man who was beaten into a coma by the triplets. Metatron—a seraph, and the voice of God—appears to Bethany in a pillar of fire and explains that if Bartleby and Loki succeed in re-entering Heaven, they will overrule the word of God, disprove the fundamental concept of God's omnipotence, and nullify all of existence. Bethany, aided by two prophets, must stop the angels and save the universe.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Now a target, Bethany is attacked by the triplets, who are driven off by the two foretold prophets, drug-dealing stoners Jay and Silent Bob. Bethany and the prophets are joined by Rufus, the 13th apostle, and Serendipity, the Muse of creative inspiration, now working in a strip club in search of inspiration of her own. Azrael summons the Golgothan, a vile creature made of human excrement, but Bob immobilizes it with aerosol air freshener.


title: Dogma (film)

text: On a train to New Jersey, a drunken Bethany reveals her mission to Bartleby, who tries to kill her; Bob throws the angels off the train. Bartleby and Loki now realize the consequences of their scheme; Loki wants no part of destroying all existence, but Bartleby remains angry at God for his expulsion, and for granting free will to humans while demanding servitude from angels, and resolves to proceed.


title: Dogma (film)

text: In New Jersey, Bethany asks why she has been called upon to save the universe; why can't God simply do it himself? Metatron admits that God's whereabouts are unknown; he disappeared while visiting New Jersey in human form to play skee ball. The task falls to Bethany because—she now learns—she is the last scion, a distant but direct blood relative of Jesus.


title: Dogma (film)

text: The group cannot persuade Glick to cancel the celebration. Jay steals one of Glick's golf clubs. Their only remaining option is to keep the angels out of the church, but Azrael and the triplets trap them in a bar to prevent them from doing so. Azrael reveals that he sent the news clipping to the angels; he would rather end all existence than spend eternity in Hell. Bob kills Azrael with the golf club, which Glick had blessed to improve his game. Bethany blesses the bar sink's contents, and the others drown the triplets in the holy water. They race to the church, where Bartleby has killed Glick, his parishioners, and assorted bystanders. When Loki (who is now wingless and therefore mortal, with a conscience) attempts to stop him, Bartleby kills him as well.


title: Dogma (film)

text: All appears lost; Jay attempts to seduce Bethany before all existence ends. When he mentions John Doe Jersey, Bethany finally puts all the clues together. She and Bob race across the street to the hospital, as the others try to keep Bartleby from entering the church. But in doing so, Jay destroys his wings with automatic gunfire, making him mortal as well. Bethany disconnects John's life support, liberating God, but killing herself. Bartleby reaches the church entrance where he confronts God, manifested in female form, who annihilates him with her voice. Bob arrives with Bethany's lifeless body; God resurrects her and conceives a child—the new last scion—within her womb. God, Metatron, Rufus, and Serendipity return to Heaven, leaving Bethany and the prophets to reflect on the past, and the future.


title: Dogma (film)

text: On October 25, 2000, Kevin Smith wrote an essay titled "In the Beginning... The Story of Dogma", which details the history and genesis of how "Dogma" came to be. His essay is available on the "Dogma" 2-disc Special Edition DVD.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Before Smith began writing "Clerks", he began noting down ideas for a film called "God". During his brief period in film school, he essentially wrote the scene introducing Rufus, but this version did not feature Jay and Silent Bob. During the development of "Clerks", Smith continued to jot down ideas for his "God" project, including having the main character be a high school jock, the conception of 13th Apostle, Rufus, and a muse named Serendipity; but, Smith didn't have a story to work off of.


title: Dogma (film)

text: By the time "Clerks" had been picked up for distribution, Smith began writing the first draft for the film. He felt calling the project "God" was inappropriate, and retitled it "Dogma". The first draft was completed in August 1994, with 148 pages accomplished, and more additions; the high school protagonist was changed to a stripper named Bethany who meets Jay and Silent Bob at a nudie booth, Azrael (or known throughout the script as the "Shadowy Figure") was introduced in the final 30 pages, and Bethany blew up the church in order to not let Bartleby and Loki pass through the archway. After Smith and "Clerks" producer Scott Mosier reread the draft, they decided that they didn't want "Dogma" to be their sophomore film; they didn't want to tackle a bigger scale picture until they felt ready to do it. Despite including the line "Jay and Silent Bob will return in "Dogma"" at the end of "Clerks", Smith moved to Universal Studios in order to develop his next film, "Mallrats".


title: Dogma (film)

text: During "Mallrats" production, Smith revisited the "Dogma" script and made some changes; Bethany's job went from stripper to an abortion clinic and included an orangutan for Jay and Silent Bob to hang out with. In 1996, he dropped the orangutan and reworked Bethany to be played by his then-girlfriend Joey Lauren Adams. During that time, he was writing "Chasing Amy" and got Ben Affleck to agree to be in both projects. After "Chasing Amy" was released to critical and box-office success, Smith felt confident enough to make "Dogma".


title: Dogma (film)

text: Smith and Mosier assembled a group of visual artists to realize their concept of a surreal, abstract environment "somewhere between reality and unreality": production designer Robert Holtzman, special effects supervisor Charles Belardinelli, creature effects supervisor Vincent Guastini, costume designer Abigail Murray, and director of photography Robert Yeoman.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Principal filming took place from April to June 1998. The triplets' attack on John Doe Jersey was filmed on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey; all other scenes were shot in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Mexican restaurant in which Metatron explains Bethany's mission was the Franklin Inn in Franklin Park, north of Pittsburgh. Serendipity's pole dance and the Golgothan confrontation took place at the Park View Cafe (since renamed Crazy Mocha and later Yinz Coffee) on East North Avenue in Pittsburgh. The heroes plan their final strategy in the Grand Concourse Restaurant in the restored Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad Station. St Michael's Church, site of the apocalyptic climax, is the Saints Peter and Paul Church—currently vacant—in East Liberty.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Jason Lee was initially attached to play Loki. When that role went to Matt Damon, due to his onscreen chemistry with Affleck in "Good Will Hunting", Lee received the Azrael role due to scheduling conflicts with filming "Mumford". Smith envisioned Samuel L. Jackson as Rufus, but was convinced to hire Chris Rock after meeting him. Alan Rickman was recruited to play Metatron. Albert Brooks was offered the role of Cardinal Glick, but turned it down.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Critics expressed surprise at the film's eclectic casting, which Smith said was done deliberately to emphasize contrasts between characters — Rickman as the powerful Metatron, for example, opposite Mewes as the hopelessly verbose stoner Jay, "...a Shakespearean trained actor of the highest order next to a dude from New Jersey." Smith warned Mewes that he would have to take his acting to a higher level. "I really impressed upon him that he had to be prepared for this movie. 'There are real actors in this one,' we kept telling him." In response, Mewes memorized not only his own dialogue but the entire screenplay, because he "didn't want to piss off that Rickman dude".


title: Dogma (film)

text: Other unorthodox casting decisions included George Carlin, who had made his devout atheism a cornerstone of his public image, as a Catholic priest; Mexican actress Salma Hayek as Serendipity — "the [Muse] who throughout history inspired all the geniuses of art and music, like Mozart and Michelangelo, and never got any of the credit" — and singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette as God. "There's a Zen Buddhist serenity to Alanis that calls to mind something otherworldly," Smith explained. "She's definitely ethereal in nature, even when not speaking, and she carries an air about her that played into the role." Emma Thompson was originally attached to play God, but had to withdraw from the film when she became pregnant.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Being a fan of "The X-Files", Smith offered the role of Bethany to Gillian Anderson. According to Smith, Anderson "really hated it."


title: Dogma (film)

text: On the film's official website, Smith described a scene that did not make the final cut: a climactic face-off in the hospital between Silent Bob, a badly burned and half-decomposed triplet, and the Golgothan. The battle was to end with the triplet killing Bethany (temporarily), and God, newly liberated, transforming the Golgothan into flowers. Test audiences felt the scene had "too much Golgothan", and the film's run time already exceeded two hours, so the scene was eliminated.


title: Dogma (film)

text: One scene that gained infamy among Kevin Smith's fanbase was known as the ""Fat Albert" sequence." When Bethany and Rufus find Jay & Silent Bob in the strip club, a gang in the club (led by Dwight Ewell) grows jealous that the stripper is paying more attention to Jay & Silent Bob than them. The gang confronts Jay & Silent Bob, and, thanks to Jay's insults, the gang draws guns on Jay & Silent Bob. Jay & Silent Bob then defuse the situation by taking to the stage and performing the theme song from "Fat Albert." This whole incident makes Rufus realize that the stripper is the muse Serendipity, and she actually deescalated things by giving Jay & Silent Bob the idea. The scene was in the film when it screened at Cannes, but was removed from the film when it was released to theaters. The scene gained infamy as fans began speculating on Smith's View Askew message boards as to why it was removed. According to Smith on the "Dogma: Special Edition" DVD, he removed the scene because the feedback he received was that it ran on too long, and was not very funny.


title: Dogma (film)

text: This film was originally scheduled for a November 1998 release, and to be released by Miramax Films, but due to controversy, the film was postponed for a 1999 release, and the rights were passed on to Lions Gate Films for the United States, although Miramax Films retained foreign distribution.


title: Dogma (film)

text: "Dogma" was released on DVD and VHS by Columbia TriStar Home Video in May 2000. This was followed by a 2-disc Special Edition DVD in 2001, and then on Blu-ray 2008. "Dogma" is unavailable to stream or purchase digitally due to the film's rights being owned personally by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in a deal that predates streaming. It is also out of print on home media, leading to inflated prices among resellers. In 2022, in lieu of the release of "Clerks III", Smith talked about trying to buy back the rights to "Dogma" from the Weinsteins. He claimed that both of his offers were "scoffed at" and added that "my movie about angels is owned by the devil himself."


title: Dogma (film)

text: The soundtrack album accompanying the film was released in the United States on November 2, 1999, by Maverick Records. It features an orchestral score by Howard Shore, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra; and the song "Still", written, performed, and produced by Morissette. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic described the "rich, effective" score as "alternately melodramatic and humorous".


title: Dogma (film)

text: Several songs used in the film do not appear on the soundtrack, including "Magic Moments" performed by Perry Como, "Candy Girl" by New Edition, "Alabamy Bound" performed by Ray Charles, and others. In one scene, Matt Damon's Loki recites the hook of the Run-DMC song "Run's House".


title: Dogma (film)

text: "Dogma" was the third-highest-grossing film in its opening weekend, behind "The Bone Collector" and "", grossing $8.7 million. The film grossed a domestic total of $30.7 million from a $10 million budget. It remains the highest-grossing film in Smith's View Askewniverse series.


title: Dogma (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 127 reviews, with an average rating of 6.25/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Provocative and audacious, "Dogma" is an uneven but thoughtful religious satire that's both respectful and irreverent." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 62 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three-and-a-half stars (out of four).


title: Dogma (film)

text: Some religious groupsin particular the activist Catholic Leaguedenounced the film as blasphemous. Other groups staged protests outside theaters screening the film. Director Kevin Smith himself attended one of these protests, pretending to be opposed to the movie. Roger Ebert noted that no official objection came from the Catholic Church itself. "We are actually free in this country to disagree about religion," Ebert wrote, "and blasphemy is not a crime."


title: Dogma (film)

text: In late November 2005, Smith responded to talk of a possible sequel on the ViewAskew.com message boards:


title: Dogma (film)

text: When asked about the sequel in October 2017, Smith said it would not happen, as he no longer desired to make any new religious films.


title: Dogma (film)

text: Near the same time as the cancellation, just weeks before the Weinstein scandal broke to the public, Harvey Weinstein pitched to Smith about doing a sequel. Not much came from this pitch, but it was just a mere idea for Weinstein. According to Smith in an interview with "Business Insider", he recalls:


title: Dogma (film)

text: Smith believes that he only got the call because, "It was him looking to see who was a friend still because his life was about to shift completely."


title: Dogma (film)

text: Damon returned to reprise his role as a reborn Loki in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot". In a fourth-wall breaking monologue, he explains after the events of "Dogma" God once again banished him to Earth, this time to the Mediterranean Sea where he was rescued by Italian fishermen after getting amnesia, describing the plot of Damon's film "The Bourne Identity": he remarks that would make his current form his ""reborn" identity".


title: Dogma (film)

text: While promoting "Clerks III", Smith reiterated that Weinstein still owned "Dogma", and tried to buy the film's rights back once he was assured the money would not go directly to Weinstein, who is currently imprisoned. Despite increasingly larger offers from Smith's camp and a letter sharing how personal "Dogma" was for him, their offers were denied by Weinstein's lawyer. Smith described the film as a movie that is "held hostage" and shared his wish to both tour the film as a re-release and to produce a sequel if he would get the rights back.


title: Yeezus

text: Yeezus is the sixth studio album by American rapper and producer Kanye West. It was released on June 18, 2013, through Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records. West gathered a number of artists and close collaborators for the production, including Mike Dean, Daft Punk, Noah Goldstein, Arca, Hudson Mohawke, and Travis Scott. The album also features guest vocals from Justin Vernon, Chief Keef, Kid Cudi, Assassin, King L, Charlie Wilson, and Frank Ocean.


title: Yeezus

text: Fifteen days before its release date, West enlisted the help of producer Rick Rubin to strip down the sound of "Yeezus" in favor of a more minimalist approach. The album has been characterized as West's most experimental and sonically abrasive work. It draws from an array of genres, including industrial, acid house, electro, punk, and Chicago drill. West's unconventional use of samples is also contained, as on "Blood on the Leaves", which contains a sample from Nina Simone's 1965 rendition of "Strange Fruit".


title: Yeezus

text: The physical CD edition was released in a clear jewel box with only a strip of red tape and sample credits. Initial promotion included worldwide video projections of the music and live television performances. West released two singles from the album; "Black Skinhead" in July 2013 and "Bound 2" the following month. The release of "Yeezus" coincided with that of rapper J. Cole's album "Born Sinner", which was moved back a week to coincide with "Yeezus" release, leading to speculation about which release would sell more copies.


title: Yeezus

text: "Yeezus" received widespread acclaim from critics, many of whom named it among West's best work and commended its brash direction, though public response was divided. The album was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards. The album debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200, selling 327,000 copies in the first week of release, while also topping the charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Russia and the United Kingdom. It has since been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and was named by several publications as one of the best albums of the 2010s, including "Rolling Stone", who later included it at 269 on its 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.


title: Yeezus

text: Following the release of his fifth studio album, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (2010), Kanye West collaborated with longtime friend Jay-Z on "Watch the Throne" (2011). In July 2012, producer No I.D. revealed that he had been working on West's sixth solo studio album (and seventh overall) and that it would be released after "Cruel Summer" (2012), a collaborative compilation album between members of West's record label GOOD Music. For "Yeezus", West enlisted several collaborators, including Kid Cudi, Charlie Wilson, S1, The Heatmakerz, Mike Dean, Hudson Mohawke, Skrillex, Young Chop, Chief Keef, Frank Ocean, Odd Future, Travis Scott, The-Dream, Cyhi the Prynce, Malik Yusef, King L, John Legend, James Blake, RZA, Mase, and Pusha T. The album features additional vocals by Justin Vernon, Frank Ocean, Kid Cudi, Chief Keef, King L, Assassin, and Charlie Wilson.


title: Yeezus

text: West was influenced primarily by minimalist design and architecture during the production of "Yeezus", and visited a furniture exhibit in the Louvre five times. A single Le Corbusier lamp was his "greatest inspiration". West worked closely with the architect Oana Stănescu, and took "field trips" to Le Corbusier homes. Fascinated by Stănescu's comments on the unusual and radical nature of Corbusier design choices, West applied the situation to his own life, feeling that "visionaries can be misunderstood by their unenlightened peers". West also met with architect Joseph Dirand and Belgian interior designer Axel Vervoordt, and had "rare Le Corbusier lamps, Pierre Jeanneret chairs and obscure body-art journals from Switzerland" delivered to the loft. West also wanted a deep hometown influence on the album, and listened to 1980s house music most associated with his home city of Chicago for influence. Alejandro Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain" was also an inspiration for the album and its ensuing tour. The album was originally titled "Thank God for Drugs".


title: Yeezus

text: In 2012, West began recording his sixth studio album with collaborators, including No I.D. and DJ Khaled. The first recordings were held in January 2013, in the living room of his personal loft at a Paris hotel, referred to in the album's credits as the "No Name Hotel". West kept compositions simple in order to hear the tracks more clearly; too much bass or complexity would simply overpower the room's poor acoustics. The beats emanating from the loft space, which sometimes lasted through the night, provoked complaints from neighbors. Reports emerged that he and his then-girlfriend Kim Kardashian had moved to the loft in order for West to begin work on the album.


title: Yeezus

text: The atmosphere in the studio was described by contributor Evian Christ as "very focused", and West once again brought in several close collaborators. Producer Hudson Mohawke noted the inclusive "group" atmosphere of the sessions, in which multiple contributors would work on similar pieces, with different elements ultimately selected from each. All involved were given a song to work on and return the next day to sit and critique, a process Anthony Kilhoffer compared to an art class. Producer Arca described being initially asked to send West music, noting that she purposefully sent perhaps the strangest stuff she had, with West happening to be excited by it. Describing West's collaborative style, Arca stated: It was a lot of coming up with design, like solving riddles. If the song called for something aggressive, it was up to three or four people to design what in their head was the best solution for that aggression in that moment. Everyone would approach it in completely different ways, and ultimately, it would all be edited by Kanye himself.


title: Yeezus

text: Determined to "undermine the commercial", several tracks were left off the finished product that were deemed too melodic or more in line with West's previous material. West set parameters regarding sound and style, insisting that there be no "bass wobbles" reminiscent of dubstep. The album's recording process was described as "very raw" by Thomas Bangalter of the French electronic duo Daft Punk, who produced four songs for the album, adding that West was "rapping – kind of screaming primally, actually". While previous albums, particularly "Dark Fantasy", took considerable time in the studio, "Yeezus" was described by Kilhoffer as "the fastest record we ever made". In May 2013, Def Jam executives listened to the "final product", (only later to be changed) describing the album as "dark". American musician Travis Scott opined that the snippets he'd heard of "Yeezus" were from the year 3000 and recalled "crazy memories" from being around West during the recording of it.


title: Yeezus

text: "W" writer Christopher Bagley reports that West's creative process often bordered on perfectionist. In March 2013, West described the album to Bagley as near completion, only to revise this statement one month later to the album being "only 30 percent complete". West made several last-minute alterations to "Yeezus", enlisting the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, Rick Rubin, as an executive producer for additional recording mere days before its release; changes included re-recording whole songs and rewriting entire verses. The rough cut West played Rubin ran nearly three and a half hours long. West's orders to Rubin were to take the music in a "stripped-down minimal direction", often removing elements already recorded. In a September 2013 interview with radio DJ Zane Lowe, West said of Rubin that "he's not a producer, he's a reducer".


title: Yeezus

text: For several days in late May and early June 2013, West and a "rotating group of intimates, collaborators and hangers-on" holed up at Rubin's Shangri-La studio in Malibu in service of completing the record. Rubin thought it impossible to meet the deadline and all involved ended up working long hours with no days off in order to complete the record. West had intended the album be 16 tracks until Rubin suggested cutting the album down to fewer tracks, from 16 songs to 10, saying the others could be reserved for a follow-up. Rubin gave as example "Bound", which was "a more middle of the road R&B song, done in an adult contemporary style" before West decided to replace the musical backing with a minimalistic sample, "a single note bassline in the hook which we processed to have a punk edge in the Suicide tradition". Two days before the album had to be delivered to the label, West wrote and sang the lyrics to two songs while also recording the vocals to three others in just two hours.


title: Yeezus

text: According to "Chicago Tribune" critic Greg Kot, "Yeezus" is a "hostile, abrasive and intentionally off-putting" album that combines "the worlds of" 1980s Chicago acid-house, 2013 Chicago drill music, 1990s industrial music, and the "avant-rap" of Saul Williams, Death Grips, and Odd Future. "The Independent", Mass Appeal, and "The Village Voice" described it as an experimental release, while Meagan Garvey of The Outline described it as West's "industrial album". "Rolling Stone" described it as "an extravagantly abrasive album full of grinding electro, pummeling minimalist hip-hop, drone-y wooz and industrial gear-grind", while "Vulture" called it a "punk rap opus", and "Rolling Stone" called it an "industrial-rap opus". "Slant Magazine" critic Ted Scheinman described the album as "built on alien, angular beats, slowly morphing drones and sirens, abrupt periods of silence, and a pulse-quickening style of delivery from Yeezy himself", writing that West reconceives the "notion of what kind of music (or noise) can underpin hip-hop". According to Charles Aaron of "Spin", "Yeezus" is "a hip hop album, not a rap album", because of how its sounds and subject matter are assembled together, and although listeners can hear "'punk' or 'post-punk' or industrial'" throughout, "hip-hop has always been about noise and dissonance and dance music as agitation". The album also incorporates elements of industrial and trap music. The record "most closely resembles" 1990s industrial rock, during which the genre had a significant pop culture impact, with artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Marilyn Manson gaining success. The industrial scene created a "vast global underground community", and "Esquire" notes that one of its epicenters was in Chicago, where West was raised. Evan Rytlewski of "The A.V. Club" characterized its opening series of songs as electro and industrial hip hop.


title: Yeezus

text: Referencing the sound of "Yeezus" in September 2013, West stated: "For me as Kanye West, I got to fuck shit up... I'm going to take music and try to make it three dimensional... I'm not here to make easy listening, easily programmable music". At the same time, he viewed himself as artistically being "here to crack the pavement and break new ground, sonically". West would later go onto describe the sound of the album as "a protest to music". West elaborated, claiming that he "was like 'I'm gonna take my ball and go home'".


title: Yeezus

text: "Yeezus" is primarily electronic in nature, and boasts distorted drum machines and synthesizers that sound like they're malfunctioning, low-resolution samplers that add a pixelated digital aura to the most analog sounds. To this end, the album incorporates glitches reminiscent of CD skips or corrupted MP3's, and Auto-Tuned vocals are modulated to a point in which they are difficult to decipher. "Esquire" cites "On Sight" as an early example of the album's connection to electronic music, citing its "droning synthesizer tone", which is "modulated until the signal starts throwing off harshly treble-heavy spikes and begins to clip, as if it were overloading a digital audio processor".


title: Yeezus

text: "Yeezus" continues West's practice of eclectic samples: he employs an obscure Hindi sample on "I Am a God", and a sample of 1970s Hungarian rock group Omega on "New Slaves". "On Sight" interpolates a melody from "Sermon (He'll Give Us What We Really Need)" by the Holy Name of Mary Choral Family, although the track originally sampled an old vocal track from the original recording. As late as a week prior to release, lawyers were forced to track down the choir director and members of the choir on the South Side of Chicago in order to get clearance for such a sample. Def Jam executives were significantly worried enough the deal would not be in place in time for the record's deadline, and producers re-recorded the vocals with a new choir as the sample could not be cleared in enough time. "Bound 2" features heavy soul music samples and has been described as the only song on "Yeezus" which recalls the sound of West's early work. "Bound", a 1971 song by American soul group Ponderosa Twins Plus One from their album "2 + 2 + 1 = Ponderosa Twins Plus One", serves as the primary sample used in West's track.


title: Yeezus

text: The album's second track "Black Skinhead" has alternately been called an industrial hip hop song and "a galloping punk-rap manifesto". "I Am a God" was inspired by a "diss" from a major fashion designer, who informed West of his invitation to a widely anticipated runway show on the condition he agree to not attend other shows. "I'm in It" began with a different sample and melody, but West removed the sample and Rubin edited the track down from a six-minute arrangement. "Blood on the Leaves", which samples Nina Simone's 1965 rendition of "Strange Fruit" and was the first track in the first incarnation of the track list, is an example of West's signature dichotomy in which he melds the sacred and profane. "Strange Fruit", first recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939, brought the lynchings of black Americans to a "startling poignancy", creating "one of the most towering, important songs of the 20th century". West's anthemic re-telling instead details an MDMA-fueled hookup and the perils of fame.


title: Yeezus

text: On May 1, 2013, West used Twitter to post a single message reading "June Eighteen", leading several media outlets to speculate that the post referred to the release date of West's upcoming album. On May 17, he began promotion of the album by unveiling the previously unreleased song "New Slaves" through video projections in 66 assorted locations. The following day, West appeared on the American late-night live television sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" and performed the songs "New Slaves" and "Black Skinhead". West subsequently revealed the album's cover and title, "Yeezus", on his official website. Fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar offered his opinion on the title in an interview that same month, stating: "That's crazy, I want to hear that. That's that creative Kanye genius stuff out the box". He also claimed that the album's "whole marketing scheme is crazy" and "very inspiring". The iTunes Store made "Yeezus" available for pre-order on May 20, but the listing was subsequently taken down for unknown reasons. On May 29, A.P.C. founder Jean Touitou unveiled an advertisement for "Yeezus" which stated that the album would not be available for pre-order. Speaking about the album's minimal promotion, West stated: "With this album, we ain't drop no single to radio. We ain't got no NBA campaign, nothing like that. Shit, we ain't even got no cover. We just made some real music".


title: Yeezus

text: In May 2013, American rapper J. Cole called West "one of the greatest artists of our generation" via Twitter, with him following this by tweeting: "Which is exactly why I'm moving my release date up. "Born Sinner" June 18th". He explained releasing his second studio album "Born Sinner" on the same day as "Yeezus" during an interview that same month, saying: "I'm not going to sit [here]... I worked too hard to come a week later after Kanye West drops an amazing album. It'd be like, 'Oh and J.Cole dropped too, a week later.' Nah. I'm going to go see him on that date. He's the greatest". The next month, J. Cole gave further context, claiming for the coinciding release to be "more about the statement" than the sales. J. Cole elaborated on this, admitting that the music being competed over "is art" and he "can't compete against the Kanye West celebrity and the status that he's earned just from being a genius", though stated: "But I can put my name in the hat and tell you that I think my album is great and you be the judge and you decide". A lyrical reference to releasing on the same date as West is included in the track "Forbidden Fruit" from "Born Sinner".


title: Yeezus

text: The physical CD edition of "Yeezus" was released in a clear jewel box with no album artwork, reflecting the minimalist tone. The packaging consists of little more than a piece of red tape and a sticker affixed to the back, with sample credits and the album's UPC. Other versions of this release have different colors of stickers, with green, yellow and orange being some of the other colors. The front is affixed with a Parental Advisory label. "The Source" pointed out a resemblance between the "Yeezus" CD packaging and a packaging concept designed for the single "Crystal" by the English band New Order in 2001. In a 2016 BBC interview with Annie Mac, West explained the album cover; "The whole concept for the "Yeezus" album is that we're not going to be using CDs in the future and since this is the last time we're going to see it, this is an open casket for the CD."


title: Yeezus

text: Def Jam confirmed in late June 2013 that "Black Skinhead" would be serviced to American radio as the album's first single on July 2, 2013, and that a music video for the track was being produced. It was officially released to radio in the United Kingdom on June 19. The song peaked at number 69 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and 34 on the UK Singles Chart. In August 2013, it was revealed that "Bound 2" would be released as the second single from "Yeezus". "Bound 2" features vocals from American soul singer Charlie Wilson and incorporates numerous samples into its production, including prominent elements of the song "Bound" (1971) by soul group Ponderosa Twins Plus One. "Bound 2" received general acclaim from music critics, who referred to the song as one of the highlights of the album and compared its soul sample-based production to West's early work from his debut studio album "The College Dropout" (2004). The song has since peaked at number 55 on the UK Singles Chart. In November 2013, producer Hudson Mohawke revealed that "Blood on the Leaves" would serve as the album's third single. West subsequently made the announcement in an interview on New York's 92.3 NOW.


title: Yeezus

text: On September 6, 2013, West announced The Yeezus Tour, a North American tour to take place between October 19 through December 7, 2013; two months prior to West's announcement, "Yeezus" co-producer Mike Dean had announced a tour for the album. The tour was marketed as his "first solo tour in 5 years", and featured Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T, A Tribe Called Quest, and Travis Scott as the supporting acts. On October 30, 2013, while on the road to Vancouver, a truck carrying custom-made video screens and equipment for the show was involved in a car accident, the crash damaged the equipment beyond repair. The tour resumed on November 16, 2013, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. The missed Chicago and Detroit shows were rescheduled however, the rest of the missed dates were cancelled, Def Jam cited routing logistics as the reason.


title: Yeezus

text: "Yeezus" was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 84, based on 46 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.2 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.


title: Yeezus

text: Reviewing the album in "The Guardian", lead critic Alexis Petridis found it "noisy, gripping, maddening, potent", while Helen Brown from "The Daily Telegraph" said it was "the most exciting album" she had heard in some time. Jon Dolan from "Rolling Stone" called it a "brilliant, obsessive-compulsive career auto-correct" that made other abrasive records by "mad geniuses", such as "In Utero" by Nirvana and Radiohead's "Kid A", seem tame by comparison. "Pitchfork" critic Ryan Dombal viewed it as a "razor-sharpened take" on West's fourth studio album, "808s & Heartbreak", concluding that "cohesion and bold intent are at a premium on "Yeezus", perhaps more than any other Kanye album. Each fluorescent strike of noise, incongruous tempo flip, and warped vocal is bolted into its right place across the album's fast 40 minutes". Randall Roberts of the "Los Angeles Times" felt it was his most ambitious piece of music yet, and Evan Rytlewski from "The A.V. Club" said it was his most uninhibited record: "Even by the standards of an artist who reinvents himself with each release, it's a drastic departure". In a highly positive review, AllMusic's David Jeffries opined that the album was an "extravagant stunt with the high-art packed in, offering an eccentric, audacious, and gripping experience that's vital and truly unlike anything else". Ann Powers of NPR described the album as "juxtaposing avant-garde industrial and electronic innovations with the high romantic hip-hop West had already perfected." Rock artist Lou Reed reviewed "Yeezus" in July 2013 shortly before his death, describing it as majestic and inspiring. "He's really trying to raise the bar. No one's near doing what he's doing, it's not even on the same planet".


title: Yeezus

text: Some reviewers expressed reservations. In "The New York Times", Jon Pareles said West's innovative transfiguration of his music—with unrefined electronica and drill elements—was undermined by his distasteful lyrics and appropriation of 1960s civil rights slogans "to his own celebrity or to bedroom exploits". In Robert Christgau's opinion, the combination of harsh rock and hip hop sounds on "Yeezus" was as bold as Public Enemy's music during the 1980s, but West's lyrics were grotesquely off-putting. "He's wordsmith enough to insure that his sexist imagery is very hard to take", Christgau wrote in "The Barnes & Noble Review", looking at the album as an "alt-rap also-ran". Chris Richards from "The Washington Post" found West's lyricism perhaps "his least compelling" yet and "drunk on bitterness", though viewed the album as "West at his most wasted, stumbling through rubble". Alex Griffin of "Tiny Mix Tapes" expressed similar feelings, describing it as "a nebulous, dense, paranoid web of utterly unfiltered expression that's utterly or negligibly fascinating depending on how much you care about Yeezy". In "The Times", Will Hodgkinson surmised that "Yeezus" could have been West's masterpiece had he not become "so hopelessly self-important".


title: Yeezus

text: Based on 146 individual year-end top ten lists compiled by Metacritic, "Yeezus" was the most critically acclaimed album of 2013, appearing on 61 lists and being named first on 18 of them. In October 2013, "Complex" named "Yeezus" the sixth best hip hop album of the last five years. "Yeezus" was rated as album of the year by nine publications. "Spin" named it the best album of 2013, writing, ""Yeezus" was a thorny tangram puzzle of boxy headbanger blats that exemplified a year of equally stripped-down, basal pleasures". "The A.V. Club" named it the best album of 2013 saying "It's magnificent, and it sounds like absolutely nothing else". "Rolling Stone" named it the second best album of 2013, comparing it in concept to Reed's polarizing 1975 album "Metal Machine Music": "No wonder the late, great Lou Reed embraced "Yeezus", since it's basically the "Metal Machine Music" concept translated into futuristic hip-hop, all industrial overload and hypertense egomania and hostile vibes". "Exclaim!" also named it the hip hop album of the year. "NME" named it the second best album of the year calling it "his most sonically challenging album to date". "Stereogum", "Time", and "Complex" were also among the publications that named "Yeezus" the best album of 2013.


title: Yeezus

text: "Yeezus" was also nominated in two categories at the 2014 Grammy Awards including for Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song for "New Slaves". West responded unfavorably to this due to not receiving more nominations. He then addressed the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences at one of his concerts and referred to it as patronizing. The album received nominations for; Foreign Rap Album of the Year at the Hungarian Music Awards, International Album of the Year at the Danish Music Awards, World's Best Album at the 2014 World Music Awards, and Best Album at the 2014 "NME" Awards.


title: Yeezus

text: In January 2014, "Yeezus" was named the best album of 2013 by "The Village Voice"s Pazz & Jop annual critics' poll. By topping the poll, West attained his fourth album to do so, following on from "The College Dropout", "Late Registration", and "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" in 2004, 2005, and 2010, respectively. On the same poll for singles, "Bound 2", "New Slaves", and "Black Skinhead" were ranked in the top 10. In 2020, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Yeezus" as the 269th album on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.


title: Yeezus

text: "Yeezus" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200, becoming West's sixth chart-topping studio album and selling 327,000 copies in the United States in its first week. The album failed to reach the 500,000 sales projections, and marked West's lowest solo opening week sales in the US. However, it still had the third-best first week sales of 2013 at the time of release and marked the highest first week sales by a hip hop album since Drake's 2011 album "Take Care". Simultaneously, "Born Sinner" entered at number two on the "Billboard" 200 with sales of 297,000 copies, selling 30,000 less than "Yeezus". The second week sales saw the album fall dramatically; although it descended two places to end at number three on the chart, sales dropped by 80% to 65,000 units, making "Yeezus" the largest second-week percentage drop for a number one-debuting album in 2012–13 and the fourth-largest for a number one-bowing album in the SoundScan era. "Billboard"s Keith Caulfield attributed the diminished figures to the non-traditional marketing, considering that the lack of singles and public appearances led the album to find "difficulty in sustaining its momentum". That same week, "Born Sinner" remained at number two on the "Billboard" 200, outselling "Yeezus" by nearly 20,000 units with sales of 84,000 copies. The following week, "Born Sinner" climbed to number one on the chart, tying the peak position attained by "Yeezus" previously. On August 12, 2013, "Yeezus" was certified gold in the US by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over 500,000 copies. By September 19, 2013, the album had sold 537,000 copies, being outperformed by the 599,000 copies sold of "Born Sinner". J. Cole responded to this by commenting that he doesn't "live for the accolades" and claiming: "I'm more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings". "Yeezus" was later certified platinum in the US by the RIAA on January 8, 2014, for shipments of one million albums shipped to stores and digital retailers. "Yeezus" was ranked as the 37th most popular album of 2013 on the "Billboard" 200.