title: Sean Avery

text: Avery was charged with criminal mischief in 2019. Prosecutors offered him a plea deal that would involve him pleading guilty, paying a fine, and attending anger management classes. In an in-person hearing in April 2022, Avery dismissed his lawyer, chose to represent himself, and declined a bench trial, demanding instead a jury trial. His court date was set for May 23, 2022. This angered Avery, who lives and works in California, and who had demanded a trial on the same day as his hearing. At a pretrial hearing on May 23, Avery attended via FaceTime and was represented by an attorney. He was ordered to appear in person on June 15.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery tried to use his podcast to rally supporters to attend his trial, although only two were in attendance. On June 16, the second day of his trial, Avery was convicted of attempted criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. He was ordered to pay a $205 surcharge and was barred from contact with his victims for three years.


title: Sean Avery

text: After retiring from the NHL in 2012, Avery began working at Lipman, a New York City-based advertising and creative agency. Avery was said to have "charmed (David) Lipman into giving him a position" and was brought on as the chief strategic officer. Avery helped develop strategies for the company and worked as a model. He also handled a range of assignments for Lipman’s parent company, Revolate Holdings, a "failed brand marketing holding company that had stakes in a number of ventures". During his time at Lipman, Avery was said to have been "terrorizing everyone in the office." According to former co-workers, "He will stop at nothing to get it done, even if there are casualties along the way. He creates conflict and pushes it too far." In August 2013, when Lipman declared bankruptcy, Avery was owed $229,167 for his work.


title: Sean Avery

text: In April 2008, it was announced that Avery would be spending the summer offseason interning at "Vogue" magazine. In June 2008, Avery guest-edited Mensvogue.com, the website for "Men's Vogue" magazine. His interest mainly resides with women's fashion; of men's fashion Avery has said, "You do suits and pants and that's about that. Women's clothes tell a story. That's what's interesting to me."


title: Sean Avery

text: In 2008, New Line Cinema put into development a film based on Avery’s life, focusing on his status as a professional athlete with an active interest in fashion, including a summer internship at "Vogue". Stan Chervin was hired to write the script.


title: Sean Avery

text: In 2009, Avery worked with men's fashion label Commonwealth Utilities to present a clothing line for New York Fashion Week.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery was hired to be the face of Hickey Freeman's Spring/Summer 2012 ad campaign, shot by Francesco Carrozzini. The print ads appeared in "Vanity Fair", "DC Modern Luxury" and other magazines. As of 2021, he is no longer working with Hickey Freeman.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery was in the 2013 campaign for 7 For All Mankind, "A Beautiful Odyssey." He also appeared in print ads.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery had a small role in the 2005 Maurice Richard biopic "The Rocket: The Legend of Rocket Richard", portraying former New York Rangers defenseman Bob Dill.


title: Sean Avery

text: He was a guest on a 2009 episode of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon"; a Top Ten List presenter on a 2009 episode of "Late Show with David Letterman"; a guest judge on "" in 2012; and appeared on "Fashion Police" in 2013.


title: Sean Avery

text: On March 4, 2014, he was announced as one of the celebrities who will take part in the 18th season of "Dancing with the Stars". He partnered with Karina Smirnoff. The two were the second couple to be eliminated on week 2 after a double elimination.


title: Sean Avery

text: He appeared in two movies starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by Peter Berg: 2016's Patriots Day and 2018's Mile 22.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery's memoir, "Ice Capades: A Memoir of Fast Living and Tough Hockey" (titled "Offside: My Life Crossing the Line" in Canada), was published by Blue Rider Press on October 24, 2017.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery had financial interest in two New York City restaurants in the early 2010s. In August 2013, the "New York Post" reported that Avery had sold his interests in both Warren 77 and Tiny's. According to sources, "For the betterment of the business, they paid him to go away. He got bought out".


title: Sean Avery

text: In May 2011, Avery recorded a video for the New Yorkers for Marriage Equality campaign, in support of same-sex marriage. In an interview with the "New York Times", he stated, "I certainly have been surrounded by the gay community. And living in New York and when you live in L.A., you certainly have a lot of gay friends." Avery also traveled to Albany, New York, to lobby politicians prior to the July 2011 legalization of same-sex marriage in New York State.


title: Sean Avery

text: In 2012, Avery was a member the board of directors of Athlete Ally. As of 2013, he is no longer associated with the group.


title: Sean Avery

text: In August 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdowns, Avery called for an end to lockdown restrictions using his Twitter account, noting that the cost of the restrictions in human lives outweighed the lives saved by their implementation.


title: Sean Avery

text: Avery married model Hilary Rhoda at the Parrish Art Museum in New York on October 10, 2015. The couple had been engaged since November 8, 2013. The two first met at Warren 77 in the summer of 2009. The couple have been publicly estranged from Rhoda's mother for several years.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It includes the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, with peninsular Malaysia sometimes also being included.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: The term Indochina (originally Indo-China) was coined in the early nineteenth century, emphasizing the historical cultural influence of Indian and Chinese civilizations on the area. The term was later adopted as the name of the colony of French Indochina (today's Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam). Today, the term, Mainland Southeast Asia, in contrast to Maritime Southeast Asia, is more commonly referenced.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: The origins of the name Indo-China are usually attributed jointly to the Danish-French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun, who referred to the area as in 1804, and the Scottish linguist John Leyden, who used the term "Indo-Chinese" to describe the area's inhabitants and their languages in 1808. Scholarly opinions at the time regarding China's and India's historical influence over the area were conflicting, and the term was itself controversial—Malte-Brun himself later argued against its use in a later edition of his "Universal Geography", reasoning that it over-emphasized Chinese influence, and suggested "Chin-India" instead. Nevertheless, "Indo-China" had already gained traction and soon supplanted alternative terms such as "Further India" and the "Peninsula beyond the Ganges". Later, however, as the French established the colony of French Indochina, use of the term became more restricted to the French colony, and today the area is usually referred to as Mainland Southeast Asia.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: In biogeography, the Indochinese bioregion is a major region in the Indomalayan realm, and also a phytogeographical floristic region in the Oriental Paleotropical Kingdom. It includes the native flora and fauna of all the countries above. The adjacent Malesian Region covers the Maritime Southeast Asian countries, and straddles the Indomalayan and Australasian realms.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: The Indochinese Peninsula projects southward from the Asian continent proper. It contains several mountain ranges extending from the Tibetan Plateau in the north, interspersed with lowlands largely drained by three major river systems running in a north–south direction: the Irrawaddy (serving Myanmar), the Chao Phraya (in Thailand), and the Mekong (flowing through Northeastern Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). To the south it forms the Malay Peninsula, located on which are Southern Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia; the latter is variably considered part of Mainland Southeast Asia or separately as part of Maritime Southeast Asia.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: It is also unclear whether some southern parts of China could also be considered Mainland Southeast Asia, due to proximity to Southeast Asian geography and climate as well as containing many ethnic groups considered Southeast Asian such as Tai peoples who live there. Nonetheless, they are generally not considered a part of South East Asia.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: Mainland Southeast Asia contrasts with Maritime Southeast Asia, mainly through the division of largely land-based lifestyles in Indochina and the sea-based lifestyles of the Indonesian archipelago and Philippine archipelago, as well as the dividing line between the Austroasiatic, Tai–Kadai, and Sino-Tibetan languages (spoken in Mainland Southeast Asia) and the Austronesian languages (spoken in Maritime Southeast Asia). The languages of the mainland form the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area: although belonging to several independent language families, they have converged over the course of history and share a number of typological similarities.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: The countries of mainland Southeast Asia received cultural influence from both India and China to varying degrees. Some cultures, such as those of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand are influenced mainly by India with a smaller influence from China. Others, such as Vietnam, are more heavily influenced by Chinese culture with only minor influences from India, largely via the Champa civilization that Vietnam conquered during its southward expansion. Myanmar, on the other hand balances the influence of the two cultures.


title: Mainland Southeast Asia

text: Overall, Mainland Southeast Asia is predominantly Buddhist with minority Muslim and Hindu populations.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: The Squid and the Whale is a 2005 American independent comedy-drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach and produced by Wes Anderson. It tells the semi-autobiographical story of two boys in Brooklyn dealing with their parents' divorce in 1986. The film is named after the giant squid and sperm whale diorama housed at the American Museum of Natural History, which is seen in the film. The film was shot on Super 16 mm, mostly using a handheld camera.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: At the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, the film won awards for best dramatic direction and screenwriting, and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Baumbach later received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The film received six Independent Spirit Award nominations and three Golden Globe nominations. Baumbach became one of the few screenwriters to ever sweep "The Big Four" critics awards (Los Angeles Film Critics' Association, National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics, and New York Film Critics' Circle).


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: It is 1986. Bernard Berkman is an arrogant, once-promising novelist whose career has gone into a slow decline; he cannot find an agent. His unfaithful wife, Joan, has recently begun publishing her own work to widespread acclaim, which only increases the growing tension between them. One day, Bernard and Joan tell their two sons, 16-year-old Walt and 12-year-old Frank, that they are separating, with Bernard renting a house on the other side of Prospect Park from their home in Park Slope, Brooklyn.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: The parents agree to joint custody, and to spending equal time with their children, but, after separation, the parental relationship becomes more combative than before. Joan begins dating Ivan, Frank's tennis instructor, and Bernard starts sharing his new house with Lili, one of his students. The two boys begin taking sides in the battle between their parents, with Frank siding with his mother and Walt with his father. Walt idolizes his father: he blames his mother and tries to emulate his father.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: Along with the trouble both boys exhibit verbally with their parents, they also show internal struggles and very different ways of handling the stress of their parents' divorce. Frank repeatedly masturbates at school; he begins to drink beer and imitates Ivan's mannerisms. Over-influenced by his father, Walt spoils his relationship with Sophie, his girlfriend, and she breaks up with him. He performs and claims to have written "Hey You" by Pink Floyd at his school's talent show. After he wins first place and receives praise from his family and friends, his school realizes that he did not write the song. At this point, the school calls Bernard and Joan in to discuss Walt. They all agree that he should see the school psychologist.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: At the meeting with the psychologist, Walt starts to see things without the taint of his father's opinions. The psychologist asks Walt for a happy memory. After some reluctance, he tells how his mother would take him, when he was very young, to see the giant squid and whale exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History; the exhibit scared him, so he would look at it through his fingers. Then, at home, they would discuss what they saw. As they talked, the exhibit would become less scary. It becomes clear to Walt that his father was never really present, and that his mother was the one who cared for him.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: After a heated argument between Bernard and Joan over custody and whether Joan would take him back, Bernard collapses on the street outside their home and is taken to the hospital. Bernard asks Walt to stay by his side, but Walt instead runs to the Natural History Museum. The film ends with him standing in front of the exhibit, now able to look at it.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: Bill Murray, a frequent collaborator to producer Wes Anderson, was considered for the role of Bernard Berkman. John Turturro was also considered for the role.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: Noah Baumbach looked to documentaries, French New Wave films, and John Cassavetes and early Martin Scorsese films when envisioning the style of the film. He shot the film in Super 16 rather than digital video "to give the film an authentic 1980’s feel", commenting "Super 16 also feels lived-in, instantly looks like an older film. I wanted to handhold the movie, but steadily, so you detect only a hint of movement. It added to the immediacy of the whole thing."


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: The screenplay was intentionally pared down. Baumbach explained, "I really wanted this [film] to be an experience that people live through. Which is how people talk about action films. In some ways, maybe the cinematic equivalent of that would be not to give people moments of reflection. So that you’re taken through each scene, and then you’re right into another. A lot of scenes start on the dialogue, and the dialogue prelapses the next scene — So you never have time. There’s no sun rises over Brooklyn shot, no establishing shot." Baumbach has said the film is semi-autobiographical.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 92% approval rating, based on 154 reviews, with an average rating of 7.90/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This is a piercingly honest, acidly witty look at divorce and its impact on a family." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: On an episode of "Ebert & Roeper", both critics praised the film and gave it a "two thumbs up" rating. "Premiere" critic Glenn Kenny praised the film, writing, "It's a rare film that can be convincingly tender, bitterly funny, and ruthlessly cutting over the course of fewer than 90 minutes. "The Squid and the Whale" not only manages this, it also contains moments that sock you with all three qualities at the same time." "Time" critic Richard Corliss wrote, ""The Squid and the Whale" is domestic tragedy recollected as comedy: a film whose catalog of deceits and embarrassments, and of love pratfalling over itself, makes it as (excruciatingly) painful as it is (exhilaratingly) funny."


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: The English Indie folk band Noah and the Whale takes its name from a combination of the director's name (Noah Baumbach) and the film's title.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: The film was released on DVD on March 21, 2006 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The DVD includes a 45-minute commentary with director Noah Baumbach, another 40-minute commentary with Baumbach and Phillip Lopate, cast interviews, and trailers. In 2013 Mill Creek Entertainment released the film for the first time on Blu-ray in a 2 pack set with "Running with Scissors". All extras were dropped for the Blu-ray release.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: The Criterion Collection re-released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on November 22, 2016 which included new interviews with Baumbach and actors Jeff Daniels, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline and Laura Linney; a new conversation about the score and other music in the film between Baumbach and composers Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips; a 2005 documentary titled "Behind The Squid and the Whale"; audition footage; and the original trailers.


title: The Squid and the Whale

text: The soundtrack features two songs by Loudon Wainwright III and one by Kate & Anna McGarrigle. It reuses Tangerine Dream's "Love on a Real Train", from "Risky Business", for the scenes of Frank's sexual awakenings. Other contemporary popular music is played in the background of scenes, such as The Cars' "Drive" and Bryan Adams' "Run to You". "Figure Eight", from "Schoolhouse Rock", is used as both an instrumental and a vocal. Pink Floyd's "Hey You" is heard several times in the movie, since it plays a role in the plot and is cited by Walt as capturing his emotional state. Both the original version, and diegetic performances by Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, are used. Baumbach originally wanted to use The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" instead but he could not secure the rights.


title: Disha Vakani

text: Disha Vakani (born 17 August), is a former Indian film and television actress. She was known for playing the role of Daya Jethalal Gada on the sitcom "Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah".


title: Disha Vakani

text: Disha Vakani was born in a Gujarati Jain family in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. She graduated in Dramatics from Gujarat College, Ahmedabad.


title: Disha Vakani

text: She started her career as a stage actress in Gujarati theatre and has starred in plays like "Kamal Patel v/s Dhamal Patel" and "Lali Lila". She has played supporting roles in Hindi films like "Devdas" (2002) and "Jodhaa Akbar" (2008). She has played the lead role of Dayaben Gada in SAB TV's sitcom "Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah" since 2008. Her brother Mayur Vakani also plays her on-screen brother Sundarlal or Sundar. She went on maternity leave in September 2017 and did not return back. She was never seen on Television or Social media after leaving the Show.


title: Disha Vakani

text: She married a Mumbai-based chartered accountant named Mayur Padia on 24 November 2015. On 27 November 2017, the couple became parents to a baby girl. On 24 May 2022 , the couple became parents again to a baby boy.


title: Adam Garcia

text: Adam Gabriel Garcia (born 1 June 1973) is an Australian stage, television, and film actor who is best known for lead roles in musicals such as "Saturday Night Fever" and "Kiss Me, Kate". He is also a trained tap dancer and singer. Garcia has been nominated twice at the Laurence Olivier Awards in 1999 and 2013.


title: Adam Garcia

text: Garcia was born in 1973 to Jean Balharry and Fabio Garcia in Wahroonga, New South Wales. His mother, Jean, is Australian, and his father, Fabio, is from Colombia. Garcia's mother is a retired physiotherapist. Garcia attended Knox Grammar School where he completed his high school education. He also received formal tap dance training at Capital Dance Studio in Sydney, Australia. Garcia attended Sydney University, but did not complete his education as he left the university to take the role of Slide in the production of the musical "Hot Shoe Shuffle", which toured Australia for two years before transferring to London, England.


title: Adam Garcia

text: Garcia began his film career in 1997, playing the role of Jones in Brian Gilbert's "Wilde". Garcia played Tony Manero in the stage version of "Saturday Night Fever", which premiered on 5 May 1998 at the London Palladium, and closed on 26 February 2000. He was nominated for his work in the play at the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical category in 1999, but lost to the cast of "Kat and the Kings". Garcia also reached number 15 in the UK Singles Chart in 1998, with his cover version of the Bee Gees song "Night Fever", taken from the film version of "Saturday Night Fever" (1977). In 2000, he played a major role in his second feature-film, "Coyote Ugly". Later that year, Garcia also appeared in Dein Perry's "Bootmen", playing the lead role.


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2003, he voiced the title character in the film "Kangaroo Jack" but was not credited for that role.


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2004, he also played alongside Lindsay Lohan and Megan Fox in "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen", as the character Stu Wolff, a drunk rock star, who is part of the band Sidarthur and is, in Lola's words, "a greater poet than Shakespeare". Between 2006 and 2007, Garcia played the character of Fiyero in the original West End production of "Wicked" alongside Idina Menzel, Kerry Ellis and Helen Dallimore. He previously played the same role during the show's early Broadway theatre workshops in 2000. Garcia appeared in two ITV dramas, "Britannia High" and "Mr Eleven", in 2008.


title: Adam Garcia

text: In January 2010, Garcia appeared with Ashley Banjo and Kimberly Wyatt as a judge on the British reality show "Got to Dance". He was a judge in the four seasons of the competition, from 2010 to 2012 and then again in 2014.


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2011, Garcia co-starred with Mischa Barton in "The Hen Do", but the film never left the cutting room floor.


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2012, he appeared in Cole Porter's musical "Kiss Me, Kate" at the Chichester Festival Theatre, directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Stephen Mear. Garcia was nominated for his role at the 2013 Laurence Olivier Awards in the category Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical.


title: Adam Garcia

text: Garcia appeared in "Threesome", a 2011 British television sitcom which began airing on 17 October 2011 on Comedy Central. Garcia became the fourth judge during the thirteenth season of the Australian version of "Dancing with the Stars".


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2016, Garcia began an Australian national tour production of "Singin' in the Rain" as Don Lockwood, but was injured onstage in Melbourne, ending his run. Later that year he played Father Damian Karras in the first UK production of The Exorcist, opening at the Birmingham Rep and transferring to the West End in 2017. He also filmed on location for "Murder on the Orient Express".


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2018, Garcia was cast in "Dance Boss", an Australian reality television dance competition on the Seven Network presented by Dannii Minogue. He judged the competition alongside singer and dancer Timomatic and actress and performer Sharni Vinson. Later that year he played the Artilleryman in the 40th-anniversary tour of Jeff Wayne’s "War of the Worlds", to critical acclaim.


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2019, he filmed "Death on the Nile", and in December starred in a pantomime in Ipswich, England, as Prince Charming.


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2021, Garcia played the father of a dead girl (Victoria Justice) who comes back to make things right in the teen movie "Afterlife of the Party" directed by Stephen Herek.


title: Adam Garcia

text: In 2022, Garcia appeared in the second UK series of "The Masked Dancer". He finished in second place for the series as the character "Onomatopoeia".


title: Adam Garcia

text: On 26 March 2015, Garcia married his long-time girlfriend, Nathalia Chubin, in London. Chubin previously worked as a senior marketing executive for PlayStation. The couple have a daughter and a son together.


title: Jayne Meadows

text: Jayne Meadows (born Jane Cotter; September 27, 1919 – April 26, 2015), also known as Jayne Meadows Allen, was an American stage, film and television actress, as well as an author and lecturer. She was nominated for three Emmy Awards during her career and was the elder sister of actress and memoirist Audrey Meadows as well as the wife of original "Tonight Show" host Steve Allen.


title: Jayne Meadows

text: Jayne Meadows was born Jane Cotter in 1919, in Wuchang, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, the elder daughter of American Episcopal missionary parents, the Rev. Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor, who had married in 1915. Her younger sister was actress Audrey Meadows. She also had two older brothers. In the early 1930s, the family settled in Sharon, Connecticut, where her father had been appointed rector of Christ Church.


title: Jayne Meadows

text: Meadows' most famous movies include: "Undercurrent" (with Katharine Hepburn), "Song of the Thin Man" (with William Powell and Myrna Loy), "David and Bathsheba" (with Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward and Raymond Massey), "Lady in the Lake" (with Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter) and "Enchantment" (with David Niven and Teresa Wright). Louella Parsons presented to Meadows the Cosmopolitan Award for Finest Dramatic Performance of 1949, for "Enchantment".


title: Jayne Meadows

text: Among her earliest television appearances, Meadows played reporter Helen Brady in a 1953 episode of "Suspense" opposite Walter Matthau titled, "F.O.B. Vienna". She was a regular panelist on the original version of "I've Got a Secret" and an occasional panelist on "What's My Line?", the latter alongside husband Steve Allen. She also appeared on the NBC interview program "Here's Hollywood". During the early days of the burgeoning live entertainment scene in Las Vegas, the Allens occasionally worked together as an act.


title: Jayne Meadows

text: Prior to Allen's death in 2000, the couple made several television appearances together. In 1998, they played an argumentative elderly couple in an episode of "" in which Allen's character accidentally shoots a man in the act of committing suicide by plunging from the roof of the elderly couple's building. In 1999, the couple made their last joint TV appearance (again playing a couple) in the all-star episode of the Dick Van Dyke series "", titled "The Roast", which marked Steve Allen's final screen appearance. She also appeared in "City Slickers", as the telephone voice of Billy Crystal's character's over-protective and oversolicitous mother.


title: Jayne Meadows

text: She was married to Steve Allen from 1954 until his death in 2000. They had one son, Bill. Allen's three children from his first marriage (Stephen Jr., Brian and David) are her stepchildren.


title: Jayne Meadows

text: Meadows was active in Republican affairs although Steve Allen was a Democrat. She was the recipient of several honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from various universities.


title: Jayne Meadows

text: Meadows remained active until 2009 when she fell and fractured her hip. Her last public appearance was in August 2009 at the Early TV Memories First-Class Commemorative Stamp Dedication Ceremony. She died on April 26, 2015, of natural causes at her home in Encino, California, aged 95. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills, beside Steve Allen.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Ishtar is a 1987 American adventure-comedy film written and directed by Elaine May and produced by Warren Beatty, who co-starred opposite Dustin Hoffman. The story revolves around a duo of incredibly untalented American songwriters who travel to a booking in Morocco and stumble into a four-party Cold War standoff.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Shot on location in Morocco and New York City by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, the production drew media attention before its release for substantial cost overruns on top of a lavish budget, and reports of clashes between May, Beatty, and Storaro. A change in studio management at Columbia Pictures during post-production also led to professional and personal difficulties that undermined the film's release.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The film polarized critics and became a notorious failure at the box office. Many initially considered it to be one of the worst films ever made, although critical support for the film has grown strongly since its release. It was originally released on DVD only in Europe. A director's cut, running two minutes shorter, was released on Region A Blu-ray in August 2013.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Chuck Clarke and Lyle Rogers are inept songwriters who are down on their luck, but dream of becoming a popular singing duo like Simon and Garfunkel. Though they are poorly received at a local open-microphone night, agent Marty Freed offers to book them as lounge singers in a hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco, explaining that the last act quit due to political unrest in the area. Nearly broke, both single, and without any better options, Lyle and Chuck decide to take the gig.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: When they arrive in the fictional neighboring country of Ishtar, Chuck agrees to give his passport to a mysterious woman who claims her life is in danger. She promises to meet him in Marrakesh. Unfortunately, Chuck learns at the U.S. Embassy that it will take longer than expected to get a new passport. Lyle goes to Morocco in a bid to save their booking while Chuck stays behind.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Alone in Ishtar, Chuck meets CIA agent Jim Harrison. Chuck agrees to be a mole for the CIA and, in return, Harrison gets Chuck to Morocco by the next evening.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Now together again, Chuck and Lyle unwittingly become involved in a plot to overthrow the Emir of Ishtar. The mysterious woman, Shirra Assel, sneaks into Lyle's room and tries to steal his luggage, mistaking it for Chuck's. At the airport, she had stuck some of her items into Chuck's luggage, since that was her only way of smuggling them out of Ishtar. She later breaks into their room and goes through Chuck's luggage, but she fails to find an ancient, prophetic map that her archaeologist brother Omar had found. Shirra needs this map in order to command the loyalties of the left-wing guerrillas who oppose the government of Ishtar.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Shirra later confronts Chuck and accuses him of working with the CIA, and Chuck accuses her of being a communist. Meanwhile, Lyle attempts to find a camel salesman named Mohamad and gives him the secret code of "I want to buy a blind camel," as per Shirra's instructions, but Lyle finds the wrong Mohamad and ends up actually buying a blind camel. Chuck and Lyle receive instructions from both the CIA and the leftist guerillas to go into the desert, and both parties actually intend for them to die there.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: In the desert, Chuck pulls his jacket over his head to shield himself from the sun, and Lyle sees that the legendary map is sewn inside of the jacket. The jacket was originally Omar's, but Shirra took it, and then Chuck and Shirra traded jackets. The CIA sends helicopters to finish off Chuck and Lyle, but Shirra and a cab driver arrive in the desert and defend them.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Chuck and Lyle mail the map to their agent Marty Freed, who blackmails the CIA with the map. The CIA ends up having to support Shirra leading social reforms in the country, and back an album written by "Rogers and Clarke" with a tour starting in Morocco. At the show, Shirra is in the audience. Meanwhile, a military officer orders the rest of the men in uniform that make up the audience to "APPLAUD!" when the songs are finished.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Warren Beatty felt indebted to Elaine May, who, in addition to co-writing his 1978 hit "Heaven Can Wait", had done a major uncredited rewrite on the script of his Academy Award-winning "Reds" and helped immensely with its post-production. He began looking for a project that she could write and direct. She had never, he believed, had a sufficiently protective producer, and by starring in and producing her next film he could give her the chance to make the film he believed her to be creatively and commercially capable of making.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: At a dinner with Beatty and Bert Fields, their agent, May said she would like to do a variant on the "Road to ..." films of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, set in the Middle East. Her idea would feature Beatty and a co-star as a mediocre singer-songwriter duo who would go to Morocco and get caught in the crossfire between the Central Intelligence Agency and a local left-wing guerrilla group. She thought it would be funny to cast Beatty against type as the Hope part, the bumbler of the duo, while the co-star, possibly Dustin Hoffman, would play the self-assured ladies' man that Crosby usually portrayed.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Hoffman, who was also indebted to May for her extensive uncredited rewrite on "Tootsie", initially turned it down due to "misgivings". At Beatty's request, the two met with May and Hoffman's creative confidant, playwright Murray Schisgal. The latter two felt that the plot in Morocco overwhelmed the rest of the film and that it "should not leave New York". Hoffman was finally persuaded by Beatty's assurances that he would provide May with the room she needed to work.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: When May finished the script, Beatty, Hoffman, and some other friends including Charles Grodin had a meeting and read-through at Beatty's house. All present agreed that the script needed work, but it was funny and could be a hit.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Beatty went to Columbia Pictures production head Guy McElwaine, who years before had been his publicist, instructing Fields, "Bert, anything she wants. Period. That's my negotiating position." Despite the prospect of having two major stars on the same project with a well-regarded writer, McElwaine did not immediately approve it. He worried about the effects of having Beatty, Hoffman, and May on the same set since they were all known to be perfectionists. May, in particular, had a reputation for shooting as much raw footage as Beatty himself or Stanley Kubrick. But McElwaine was also afraid the property could be a hit for another studio if Columbia passed, since Beatty had a solid record of commercial success in his four movies as producer and star.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The two bankable stars and May received $12.5 million (equivalent to $ in ) in salaries before principal photography began. Beatty and Hoffman offered to defer theirs, but Columbia declined; Fields said that an agreement the studio had with HBO covered most of that cost. Beatty, Hoffman, and May all had final cut input as well (although Beatty has denied this). The film's original budget was set at $27.5 million.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Other roles were cast through connections to the three. Grodin was a friend of May and had starred in a successful comedy she directed, the original version of "The Heartbreak Kid." Isabelle Adjani, who played the female lead disguised as a boy for most of the film, was Beatty's girlfriend at the time. Vittorio Storaro replaced original cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno when Rotunno was unable to change his schedule to accommodate a delay in shooting.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Paul Williams began working on the songs the lead duo would sing. "The real task was to write songs that were believably bad. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had in my life. I've never had more fun on a picture, but I've never worked harder." May preferred that Williams write whole songs, even if she intended to use only a few lines, and then teach them to the stars and have them perform them, necessitating more time and money.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The studio had wanted to shoot the desert scenes in the Southwestern United States in order to keep costs down and production under control. But Columbia's parent company at the time, Coca-Cola, had money in Morocco it could not repatriate, so the studio relented and allowed production to take place in the real Sahara Desert. It was expected that shooting in Morocco would take ten weeks, after which the New York scenes would be shot.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: "Ishtar" began principal photography in October 1985, amidst high political tensions in North Africa. Israeli warplanes had just bombed Palestinian Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunis and, seven days later, the Palestine Liberation Front hijacked a cruise ship, the "Achille Lauro", murdering a wheelchair-using elderly Jewish American, Leon Klinghoffer. The Moroccan military was fighting the Polisario Front guerrillas at the time as well. There were rumors that Palestinian terrorists might try to kidnap Hoffman, and some locations had to be checked for land mines before the shooting could begin.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: There were also production difficulties. The filmmakers appreciated the Moroccans' hospitality and willingness to cooperate, but there was no one in the country with experience supporting a major Hollywood film production. Requests by the producers were sometimes unfulfilled, and calls for local extras led to thousands of people showing up.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Some of the film's production woes have become Hollywood lore. The film's animal trainer went looking for a blue-eyed camel in the Marrakech market and found one he considered perfect. But he chose not to buy it right away, expecting he could find others and use that knowledge to bargain with the first trader for a better price. He did not realize that blue-eyed camels were rare, and could not find another camel good enough. He returned to the first trader, who had since eaten the camel.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Another frequently related incident, as told by production designer Paul Sylbert but disputed by others on the film, concerns the dunes where scenes with Beatty and Hoffman lost in the desert would be shot. Sylbert had scouted dunes in the United States and Morocco but none seemed to fit the vision of May, who was very uncomfortable in the desert environment. She suffered from toothaches that she refused to have treated locally, and took extensive measures to shelter herself from the harsh sun, not only spending much of her time under a large parasol but wearing large sunglasses and wrapping her face in a white gauze veil, to the point that her appearance was compared to a "Star Wars" stormtrooper. After one unsuccessful search for dunes, Sylbert says, May suddenly announced she wanted a flat landscape instead. It took ten days to level an area of a square mile (2.6 km²).


title: Ishtar (film)

text: May feuded with others on set as well. She and Storaro frequently differed over camera placements, since she was looking for the ideal comic effect while the cinematographer, who had little experience making comedies, sought the most ideal composition. Beatty often took Storaro's side in disputes between him and May. "She probably felt ganged up on by the two of them," Hoffman observed later on. Eventually, Beatty and May began quarreling, and Hoffman sometimes served as the mediator. He claims there were times when the two were not speaking to each other. May also did not get along with Adjani, which adversely affected the latter's relationship with Beatty.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The director remained aloof from the film's editing staff, taking copious notes during dailies but refusing to share them. As Columbia had feared, she shot a large amount of film as well, reportedly in one instance calling for fifty takes of vultures landing next to Beatty and Hoffman.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Expenses continued to grow. "This was the kind of film where nobody would say 'Sorry, we can't afford that,'" according to Mac Brown, who monitored the budget. When a replacement part was needed for a camera, it was sent over to Morocco with a New York-based location coordinator instead of just being shipped, out of fear it might get lost or held up at customs. The coordinator's airfare and a week's hotel stay were paid for by the production.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Privately, both Beatty and May began to confess they had made a mistake. "I was going to give this gift to Elaine, and it turned out to be the opposite," Hoffman recalls Beatty telling him. Matters came to a head when it came time to shoot the film's climactic battle scenes. They were far outside May's background in improvisational theatre, and during a confrontation with Beatty, May said, "You want it done? "You" shoot it!" Many crew members said that, on any other film, the director would have been fired. Beatty knew that if he called her bluff, he would have had to finish directing the film, which would have been a major embarrassment given that his main objective in making the film was to give May the chance she had never had. He compromised by scaling back the battle scenes.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: When the film returned to New York, Beatty told then-Columbia CEO Fay Vincent that May could not direct. But he rejected another suggestion to fire her, citing his image as a supporter of women's rights. Vincent said he would do it, but Beatty said if he did then he and Hoffman would leave the uncompleted film as well. He proposed instead that every scene be shot twice, his way and May's, effectively doubling the movie's cost.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: After a month-long break, the New York scenes were shot in early 1986, at Kaufman Astoria Studios and various locations. Due to union work rules, Storaro's Italian crew had to be doubled by a local standby crew, who were usually not needed but drew full pay for the entire shoot. It was also necessary to stop production for several days so Beatty and Hoffman could rehearse their songs.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: In April 1986, a month after principal photography wrapped, Vincent fired McElwaine. His replacement as head of the production was David Puttnam, producer of "Chariots of Fire" and a longtime critic of Hollywood budgetary excesses. Among those films he had specifically criticized in the latter category was "Reds", singling out Beatty in particular. He had also publicly criticized Hoffman for allegedly using his star power to force rewrites to the 1979 film "Agatha," which had promoted his minor character to a lead. After quitting as a producer of that film, Puttnam called Hoffman "the most malevolent person I have ever worked with".


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Due to his history with both stars, the new studio head promised to stay out of "Ishtar"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s post-production, but Beatty and Hoffman felt that move was subtly intended to undermine the film by suggesting it was a failure for which he wanted to avoid responsibility. They worried it would hurt the film when it was released before Christmas 1986.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Interpersonal difficulties from Morocco continued in post-production. May was supposed to direct actors when they looped their lines in a recording studio, but sometimes left the job to Beatty or one of the editors. Most of those absences were in sessions with Adjani, who was required to lower her voice since her character had to pass as a boy for most of the film. This strained her relationship with Beatty even more.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The film's raw footage before editing, known as 'rushes', came to 108 hours, more than three times that typical for a comedy. Three teams of editors, one each for Beatty, Hoffman, and May worked almost continuously to produce cuts of the film to each principal's liking. Since McElwaine, whom he had tried to please as a friend, was no longer in charge, Beatty eventually relented to letting May cut the film her way, partly because he detested Puttnam and believed he was leaking negative information about "Ishtar" to the media. "Just tell the asshole to keep paying the bills," he is reported to have told another Columbia executive. The costs, which Puttnam had believed would come under control in post-production, instead continued to mount.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Eventually, it became clear the film would not be ready in time for Christmas. When the release date of late spring of 1987 was announced, later than had been expected, stories in the media about the film's troubles increased. Industry insiders began to refer to it as "The Road to Ruin" and "Warrensgate", after the expensive 1980 flop "Heaven's Gate". Beatty, who had kept the media off the set during production, took these gibes personally. He and May began to fight more frequently in the editing room.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Finally, with the new release date looming, Bert Fields was called in to mediate between the director and stars. Beatty denies this, but Fields and others say he was present in the editing room. The agent has been described as having final cut, although he claims that was May's. Tensions continued as Beatty was trying to placate Adjani and lobbied for more footage of her. When they were finished, the editors were furious as no one had gone over the complete film. Beatty refused to show Puttnam the final cut.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Negative buzz about "Ishtar" and its high budget was widespread in the press long before the film ever reached theaters. In an interview with Elaine May, Mike Nichols described the bomb as "the prime example that I know of in Hollywood of studio suicide", implying that Puttnam sandbagged the project by leaking negative anecdotes to the media because of his grudges against Beatty and Hoffman. Before release, market research led Columbia to believe the film would fail. Its head of marketing, Peter Sealey, advised the studio to minimize its losses by cutting the film's advertising budget. Instead, Columbia spent even more to promote the film, afraid of alienating Beatty and Hoffman. "Ego trumps logic in Hollywood," said Sealey.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Despite the negative press, three previews went well, with Beatty describing one in Toronto as the best he had ever had, and he and the studio considered striking more prints. Those discussions ended after the opening weekend, May 15, 1987. "Ishtar", on more than a thousand screens across the country, took in $4.2 million (equivalent to $ in ) in receipts, winning the weekend, being No. 1 at the box office. However, it beat "The Gate"—a low-budget horror film with no stars—by only $100,000, and ultimately it grossed only $14.3 million at the North American box office. Against a $51 million production budget and up to another $20 million spent on prints and marketing costs, the film is estimated to have lost $40 million. "Ishtar" has since become synonymous with the phrase "box office flop", and in 2014, the "Los Angeles Times" listed the film as one of the most expensive box office flops of all time.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: "Chicago Reader" critic Jonathan Rosenbaum surmised that the media were eager to torpedo "Ishtar" in retaliation for instances of Beatty's perceived "high-handed way with members of the press". The film had been completely closed to the media, with no reporters at all permitted on set during production, a restriction greater than Beatty's previous productions. Specifically, Rosenbaum mentions critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert: "... he was really getting them very irritated, and using them as the butt of all these jokes, and so on. And so the point is that if you start multiplying that in terms of the treatment [of] a lot of other people in the press, "Ishtar" was their one chance finally to get even."


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The film had a polarizing effect on critics upon release. "The Washington Post"'s critics were split: Desson Thomson described the film as an "unabashed vamp for a pair of household names, and as such it works, often hilariously", while Hal Hinson wrote that "it's piddling—a hangdog little comedy with not enough laughs." Ebert wrote for the "Chicago Sun-Times" that ""Ishtar" is a truly dreadful film, a lifeless, massive, lumbering exercise in failed comedy" and Siskel called it "shockingly dull" and "dim-witted"; together they selected it as the worst film of 1987 on "Siskel & Ebert & The Movies". Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" was more forgiving, writing "The worst of it is painless; the best is funny, sly, cheerful and, here and there, even genuinely inspired" and Vincent Canby—also for the "Times"—listed it as a runner-up to his top films of 1987. "Ishtar" currently holds a 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 57 reviews. The site's consensus states; "Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, and laughter itself get lost in the desert during a flawed spoof of classic road movies that proves ill-suited for its mismatched and miscast stars." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "C+" on scale of A+ to F.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: As a result of the losses it suffered from the film and negative publicity, Coca-Cola re-evaluated its decision to enter the business. It spun off its entertainment holdings into a separate company called Columbia Pictures Entertainment (now Sony Pictures Entertainment), with Coca-Cola holding 49% of the stock. Two years later, it sold Columbia to Sony.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: "Ishtar" was nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay, with Elaine May winning Worst Director, tied with Norman Mailer for "Tough Guys Don't Dance". "Ishtar" was also nominated for Worst Picture at the 1987 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards. When the Stinkers unveiled their "100 Years, 100 Stinkers" list to present the 100 worst movies of the 20th century, "Ishtar" made the list and ranked at No. 20 in the listed bottom 20.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The film's failure did not affect the friendship between Beatty and Hoffman, who both liked the final cut of the film; Beatty later cast his co-star in his more successful "Dick Tracy" for Disney.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Beatty and May barely spoke for two years afterward, and friends of hers say she remains bitter about the experience. It was nine years before she took another screenwriting credit, for "The Birdcage". She was nominated for an Academy Award for "Primary Colors", but has not directed another film since "Ishtar".


title: Ishtar (film)

text: On December 20, 2010, Hoffman appeared on "Late Show with David Letterman" alongside Robert De Niro. When Letterman asked the actors if any of their films made them "wince a little bit", Hoffman joked "Well, I'm sure Bob feels ambivalent about "Ishtar"". (Letterman looked at his notes and observed that de Niro wasn't in that film.)


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The McClatchy-Tribune News Service wrote in 2011, "Time has not improved this film's reputation as being one of the worst ever made." "Time Out" suggested it was "so bad it could have been deliberate" and called it "one of the worst films ever made." It was included in Michael Sauter's "The Worst Movies of All Time" book and Richard Roeper included it on his list of the 40 worst films he had seen. In 1999 "Time" placed the film on a list of the 100 worst ideas of the 20th century.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: However, particularly since its Blu-ray release in 2013, "Ishtar" has received a wave of positive reviews and retrospectives from a number of publications, including the "Los Angeles Times", "Slate", Indiewire, and "The Dissolve". Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" called "Ishtar" a "wrongly maligned masterwork" and raved, "There's a level of invention, a depth of reflection, and a tangle of emotions in "Ishtar" which are reached by few films and few filmmakers." Charles Bramesco of "The Guardian" wrote upon the film's 30th anniversary, "While "Ishtar" has not appreciated into a stealth masterpiece in the mold of "Showgirls"' long road to reappraisal, its stature as the definitive cinematic failure has been outed as undeserved." Directors Quentin Tarantino, Lena Dunham, Joe Swanberg, and Edgar Wright have all publicly praised "Ishtar", and Martin Scorsese has further cited it as one of his favorite films of all time.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: In one of Gary Larson's "The Far Side" comic strips, captioned "Hell's Video Store", the entire store is stocked with nothing but copies of "Ishtar". Larson later apologized, saying, "When I drew the above cartoon, I had not actually seen "Ishtar ... " Years later, I saw it on an airplane, and was stunned at what was happening to me: I was actually being entertained. Sure, maybe it's not the greatest film ever made, but my cartoon was way off the mark. There are so many cartoons for which I should probably write an apology, but this is the only one which compels me to do so."


title: Ishtar (film)

text: The film's creators still defend it. Despite all the trouble and misery he went through making it, Warren Beatty has been quoted as saying, "There was almost no review that didn't in the first paragraph deal with the cost of the movie. That was an eye-opener—about the business, and the relationship of the entertainment press to business. "Ishtar" is a very good, not very big, comedy, made by a brilliant woman. And I think it's funny."


title: Ishtar (film)

text: Dustin Hoffman has also vouched for "Ishtar", saying "I liked that film ... just about everyone I've ever met that makes a face when the name is brought up has not seen it. ... I would do it again in a second."


title: Ishtar (film)

text: In 2006, Elaine May stated, "If all of the people who hate "Ishtar" had seen it, I would be a rich woman today."


title: Ishtar (film)

text: A documentary about the film, "Waiting for Ishtar: A Love Letter to the Most Misunderstood Movie of All Time", was released in 2017.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: "Ishtar" was issued on VHS globally in late 1987 (and once more in 1994), eventually generating more than seven million dollars in rental fees in the United States alone. In 2004, the film was released on DVD on every continent but North America and Antarctica. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment had announced that the film would be released only on Blu-ray Disc (and finally in a digital format in North America) on January 4, 2011, but it was pulled from the studio's release schedule just prior to that date.


title: Ishtar (film)

text: They tell me now—Sony—that they're going to release this on Blu-ray, and it will really look wonderful and sound wonderful. If they don't, you'll be the last 80 or 90 or however many people to see this movie in this particular version. ... If you all clap your hands and believe it! They say they want to and they'll do it soon, and I have great faith that they'll do it.


title: Ke Lingling

text: Ke Lingling (born 1951; ; also known as Ke Xiaoming ()) is the ex-wife of Xi Jinping, who is now the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and known as the paramount leader. She is from Puning, Guangdong, and is the daughter of former Chinese diplomat Ke Hua.


title: Ke Lingling

text: In 1979, Ke Lingling married Xi Jinping, but their life philosophy differed. Ke wanted to move to the UK, where her father at this time served as ambassador, but Xi refused to accompany her. In 1982 they divorced, ending three years of marriage; they had no children. After they divorced, Ke immigrated to the UK.


title: Grumman LLV

text: The Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) is an American light transport truck model, designed as a mail truck for the United States Postal Service, which is its primary user. It is also used by Canada Post.


title: Grumman LLV

text: The Grumman LLV was specifically designed for the United States Postal Service; Grumman won the contract to produce it. The main design points of the vehicle in contract competition were serviceability, handling in confined areas, and overall economical operation. As its name suggests, the Grumman LLV is easily capable of a long life, perhaps approaching 20 years of operation. The lifespan specified by the U.S. Postal Service was 24 years, but in 2009 this was extended to 30 years. The majority of LLVs have been on the road for over 27 years. The body and final assembly is by Grumman, and the chassis (based on the 1982 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer) is made by General Motors, with the powerplant (2.5L I-4 TBI "Iron Duke" and, in later production, 2.2L I-4 SPFI "122"), instrument cluster and front suspension similar to those used in the Chevrolet S-10 pickup and Chevrolet S-10 Blazer sport utility vehicle.


title: Grumman LLV

text: In the United States, the Grumman LLV is the most common vehicle used by letter carriers for curbside and residential delivery of mail, replacing the previous standard letter-carrier vehicle, the Jeep DJ-5. Curbside delivery from a driver seated in a vehicle to a curbside mailbox is sometimes termed "mounted delivery", in contrast to walking delivery. The Grumman LLV entered service in 1987. The USPS bought over 100,000 of these vehicles, the last one in 1994. Approximately 140,000 LLVs are in the USPS delivery fleet. A number were also sold to Canada, Mexico, and several other countries.


title: Grumman LLV

text: Like the older postal-service Jeep DJ-5, the Grumman LLV features a right-hand drive (RHD) configuration, in contrast to the typical left-hand drive (LHD) position of vehicles in North America. It also features a large metal tray, which is able to hold three trays of letter mail, mounted where a passenger seat would normally be. This arrangement positions the driver on the side of the vehicle closest to the curb, enabling the carrier to easily grab sorted mail and place it into mailboxes without having to leave the seat. Other notable features are an exceptionally tight turning radius and a low-geared, 3 speed transmission for hauling heavy cargo. The LLV has a cargo capacity.


title: Grumman LLV

text: The LLV has a unique footprint. The front wheels (taken from the two-wheel-drive S-10 Blazer model) have narrower spacing than the rear wheels (using the rear axle from the four-wheel-drive S-10 Blazer model). The front of the vehicle also has low ground clearance. While this has advantages, there are some trade offs. The vehicle was tested successfully in warmer climates, but when used in places with substantial snowfall, they became difficult to control and were poorly adapted to those conditions.


title: Grumman LLV

text: The Grumman LLV's average EPA fuel economy is [ in the city/ on the highway]. In actual use by the USPS, which includes extensive stop-and-go driving for residential delivery, average fuel economy is about . Like other U.S. Postal Service vehicles before it, the Grumman LLV does not carry a license plate and instead uses a seven-digit U.S. Postal Service serial number, usually starting with 020, 021, 120, 125, 126, 220, 221, 330, 331, 430, 431, 720, 820, 821, 920, or 921. The first digit of the serial number represents the last digit of the year in which it was made.


title: Grumman LLV

text: Because the United States Postal Service owns over 100,000 Grumman LLVs, of which the oldest are reaching the end of their lifespan, the USPS has been looking into replacing or retrofitting the LLVs. In fiscal year 2009, the USPS spent $524 million to repair its fleet of Grumman LLVs, and estimated that it would cost $4.2 billion to replace the entire fleet.


title: Grumman LLV

text: The LLVs also suffer from a number of design flaws including lack of air conditioning and a heater prone to breaking down. The wheels and suspension are not suited for the all-terrain and all-weather needs of delivering mail and require snow chains during inclement weather. Also, because the windshield fluid line is above the fusebox, LLVs are prone to catching fire, with 42 fires reported in 2017 alone. According to documents obtained in 2020 via a Freedom of Information Act request as part of a Vice Media investigation, 407 LLVs have been damaged or destroyed since May 2014.


title: Grumman LLV

text: In some areas, LLVs have been supplemented or replaced with vans and minivans, including the 2008-2010 purchase of Dodge Grand Caravan and Chevrolet Uplander minivans, which tend to be more comfortable for postal workers, especially in extreme climates. The United States Postal Service has announced that they will purchase 7,160 Ram ProMaster (to replace Caravan & Uplander vehicles) and up to 30,608 right-hand drive Mercedes Metris vehicles as part of the Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) vehicle program announced on August 3, 2018 to replace and upgrade its fleet of delivery vehicles.


title: Grumman LLV

text: In 2014, the USPS reviewed options for replacement. The Office of Inspector General found that the Postal Service's acquisition plan for replacements lacked details and while the USPS could continue deliveries until 2017, there were concerns over the aging vehicles.


title: Grumman LLV

text: Canada Post also adopted the Grumman LLV, but around 2008, it began studying whether to refurbish, upgrade, or replace its fleet. On March 18, 2010, Canada Post and Ford Motor Company announced that Canada Post would purchase a fleet of Transit Connect vans.


title: Grumman LLV

text: On January 20, 2015, the USPS released solicitation RFI-NGDV for the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle. Potential bidders had until March 5, 2015 to submit comments and pre-qualification responses. The USPS was to then select companies to receive the RFP for prototype development. On February 13, 2015, it was announced that General Motors was actively pursuing this new contract, which would have them provide the USPS with 180,000 new vehicles at a cost of at least $5 billion. On September 22, 2016, the United States Postal Service awarded the NGDV Prototype Contract to six selected suppliers: AM General, Karsan, Mahindra, Oshkosh, Utilimaster, and a joint-venture bid involving Workhorse and VT Hackney. Half of the prototypes will feature hybrid and new technologies, including alternative fuel capabilities. The prototypes will represent a variety of vehicle sizes and drive configurations, in addition to advanced power trains and a range of hybrid technologies.


title: Grumman LLV

text: On February 23, 2021, USPS announced that Oshkosh Defense has been awarded the contract for design and manufacture of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV), delivering up to 165,000 over a 10-year period.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Constitution of Japan (Shinjitai: , Kyūjitai: , Hepburn: ) is the constitution of Japan and the supreme law in the state. Written primarily by American civilian officials working under the Allied Occupation of Japan, the constitution replaced the Meiji Constitution of 1890 when it came into effect on 3 May 1947.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The constitution provides for a parliamentary system of government and guarantees certain fundamental rights. In contrast to the Meiji Constitution, which invested the Emperor of Japan with supreme political power, under the new charter the Emperor was reduced to "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people" and exercises only a ceremonial role acting under the sovereignty of the people.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The constitution, also known as the MacArthur Constitution, , or the , was drafted under the supervision of Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, during the Allied occupation of Japan after World War II. Japanese scholars reviewed and modified it before adoption. It changed Japan's previous system of semi-constitutional monarchy and stratocracy with a parliamentary monarchy. The Constitution is best known for Article 9, by which Japan renounces its right to wage war and maintain military forces.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Japanese constitution is the oldest unamended constitution in the world. It has not had any amendments to its text in more than 70 years. It is a short constitution with only 5,000 words, compared to the average constitution with 21,000 words.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Meiji Constitution was the fundamental law of the Empire of Japan, propagated during the reign of Emperor Meiji (). It provided for a form of mixed constitutional and absolute monarchy, based on the Prussian and British models. In theory, the Emperor of Japan was the supreme leader, and the cabinet, whose prime minister was elected by a privy council, were his followers; in practice, the Emperor was head of state but the Prime Minister was the actual head of government. Under the Meiji Constitution, the prime minister and his cabinet were not accountable to the elected members of the Diet, and increasingly deferred to the Imperial Japanese Army in the lead-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: On 26 July 1945, shortly before the end of the Second World War, Allied leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of China issued the Potsdam Declaration. The Declaration demanded Japan's unconditional surrender, demilitarisation and democratisation.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The declaration defined the major goals of the post-surrender Allied occupation: "The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established" (Section 10). In addition, "The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government" (Section 12). The Allies sought not merely punishment or reparations from a militaristic foe, but fundamental changes in the nature of its political system. In the words of a political scientist Robert E. Ward: "The occupation was perhaps the single most exhaustively planned operation of massive and externally directed political change in world history."


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Japanese government accepted the conditions of the Potsdam Declaration, which necessitates amendments to its Constitution after the surrender.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The wording of the Potsdam Declaration—"The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles ..."—and the initial post-surrender measures taken by MacArthur, suggest that neither he nor his superiors in Washington intended to impose a new political system on Japan unilaterally. Instead, they wished to encourage Japan's new leaders to initiate democratic reforms on their own. But by early 1946, MacArthur's staff and Japanese officials were at odds over the most fundamental issue, the writing of a new Constitution. Emperor Hirohito, Prime Minister Kijūrō Shidehara, and most of the cabinet members were extremely reluctant to take the drastic step of replacing the 1889 Meiji Constitution with a more liberal document.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Konoe Fumimaro, Shidehara Cabinet and the civil constitutional study groups formed original constitutions. The formal draft constitution which was created by the Shidehara Cabinet was rejected by GHQ and the government reviewed the revised drafts by various political parties and accepted liberal ways of thinking especially toward the emperor as the symbol of nationals and dispossession of a military power.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: After World War II, the Allied Powers concluded an "Instrument of Surrender" with Japan, which stated that "the Emperor and the Government of Japan shall come under the subordination of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers”. Koseki interprets this statement as the GHQ's indirect rule through the Emperor and the Japanese government, rather than direct rule over the Japanese people. In other words, GHQ regarded the Emperor Hirohito not as a war criminal parallel to Hitler and Mussolini but as one governance mechanism.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Japanese government at the end of World War II was organized by the cabinet of Prince Higashikuninomiya, with Fumimaro Konoe, who had served as the prime minister during the Manchurian Incident in 1931, as a minister without portfolio. The trigger of constitutional amendment was from GHQ General MacArthur's word to Fumimaro Konoe. After an unsuccessful first visit on September 13, 1945, Fumimaro Konoe paid another visit to MacArthur at the GHQ headquarters on October 4, 1945. Although the GHQ later denied this fact, citing a mistake by the Japanese interpreter, diplomatic documents between Japan and the U.S. state that "the Constitution must be amended to fully incorporate liberal elements". "At the meeting, the General told Konoe that the Constitution must be amended". In this regard, it can be said that the GHQ granted Konoe the authority to amend the Constitution. However, at this point, the Higashikuninomiya Cabinet was succeeded by the Shidehara Cabinet, and Joji Matsumoto, the then Minister of State, stated that the Cabinet should be the only one to amend the Constitution, and the Constitutional Problems Investigation Committee was established. In other words, there was a conflict between the Konoe and Shidehara cabinets as to who should take the initiative in constitutional amendment.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: However, this conflict ended with Konoe being nominated as a candidate for Class A war criminal due to domestic and international criticism. To begin with, Konoe was able to have the initiative to amend the Constitution because he had been assigned full-time by the GHQ to amend the constitution, although he was not an unappointed minister when the cabinet was changed. However, due to domestic and foreign criticism of Konoe, the GHQ announced on November 1 that Konoe had not been appointed to amend the Constitution and that he had no authority to lead the amendment of the constitution since the cabinet had changed. At that time, Konoe belonged to the Office of the Minister of the Interior, which was in charge of politics related to the Imperial Household, but since the Office of the Minister of the Interior was about to be abolished, he decided to submit a proposal for amendment before then. Konoe's proposal reflected the wishes of the GHQ and was very liberal in content, including "limitation of the royal prerogative," "independent dissolution of the Diet," and "freedom of speech," but it was never finally approved as a draft, and Konoe committed suicide by poisoning himself. After this, the authority to amend the Constitution was completely transferred to Shidehara's cabinet.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: In late 1945, Shidehara appointed Jōji Matsumoto, state minister without portfolio, head of a blue-ribbon committee of Constitutional scholars to suggest revisions. The Matsumoto Committee was composed of the authorities of the Japanese law academia, including Tatsuki Minobe (美濃部達吉), and the first general meeting was held on October 27, 1945. Joji Matsumoto presented the following four principles of constitutional amendment to the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives in 1945.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: 1. Do not change the basic principle of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan that the Emperor has total control.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: 2. To expand the power of the parliament and, as a reflection, limit the matters related to the Emperor's power to some extent.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: 3. Put the responsibility of the Minister of State on all national affairs, and the Minister of State shall be responsible to the Parliament.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Matsumoto Commission's recommendations (), made public in February 1946, were quite conservative as "no more than a touching-up of the Meiji Constitution". MacArthur rejected them outright and ordered his staff to draft a completely new document. An additional reason for this was that on 24 January 1946, Prime Minister Shidehara had suggested to MacArthur that the new Constitution should contain an article renouncing war.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: As the momentum for constitutional amendment increased, interest in the constitution increased among the people. In fact, not only political parties but also private organizations have announced draft constitutional amendments.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The most famous of these is the outline of the draft constitution by the Constitution Study Group. The Constitutional Study Group was established on October 29, 1945 to study and prepare for the establishment of the Constitution from a leftist approach. While many political party drafts only added to the Meiji Constitution, their drafts included the principle of popular sovereignty, which grants sovereignty to the people and regards the Emperor as a symbol of the people. The Constitutional Study Group submitted a draft to the Prime Minister's Office on December 26, 1945. On January 2, 1946, GHQ issued a statement that it would focus on the content. Toyoharu Konishi states that the GHQ may have included the opinion of the Constitutional Study Group in the draft, reflecting the situation in the United States, where people disregarded popular sovereignty at that time. Also, regarding the symbolic emperor system, since the members of the Constitutional Study Group came into contact with the GHQ dignitaries earlier than the drafting of the guidelines, the Constitutional Study Group proposed the symbolic emperor system through the GHQ dignitaries. It is analyzed that it was reflected in the GHQ proposal.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Constitution was mostly drafted by American authors. A few Japanese scholars reviewed and modified it. Much of the drafting was done by two senior army officers with law degrees: Milo Rowell and Courtney Whitney, although others chosen by MacArthur had a large say in the document. The articles about equality between men and women were written by Beate Sirota.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: MacArthur gave the authors less than a week to complete the draft, which was presented to surprised Japanese officials on 13 February 1946. MacArthur initially had a policy of not interfering with the revision of the Constitution, but from around January 1946, he made a statement to the Constitutional Draft Outline of the Constitutional Study Group and activated movements related to the Constitution. There are various theories as to the reason. Kenzo Yanagi mentioned the memorandum of Courtney Whitney, who was the director of the Civil Affairs Bureau of the General Headquarters, on February 1, 1946 as a reason for the attitude change. In the memorandum, it is mentioned that the Far Eastern Commission was about to be established. The Far Eastern Commission is the supreme policy-making body established by the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, Australia and other allies to occupy and control Japan, and its authority was higher than that of GHQ. MacArthur learned that the Far Eastern Commission was interested in constitutional amendment, and thought that constitutional authority could be transferred to the Far Eastern Commission after the commission was established. Therefore, he might be eager to end the constitutional issue with unlimited authority before it was founded.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: On February 18, the Japanese government called on the GHQ to reconsider the MacArthur Draft, which is significantly different from the Matsumoto Draft, but Whitney rejected the proposal on February 20. On the contrary, he asked the Japanese government for a reply within 48 hours. Then, Prime Minister Shidehara met with MacArthur on February 21 and decided to accept the MacArthur draft by a cabinet meeting on the following day.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: After the Cabinet decision, Joji Matsumoto aimed to draft a Japanese government bill based on the MacArthur Draft, and the draft was completed on March 2 of the same year.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: On March 4 Joji Matsumoto presented the draft to Whitney, but GHQ noticed that there were differences between the MacArthur Draft and the March 2 Draft. In particular, the March 2 Draft did not include a preamble, and a heated argument ensued. Finally, adjustments were made by the Japanese government and GHQ, and the draft was completed on March 6.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: On 6 March 1946, the government publicly disclosed an outline of the pending Constitution. On 10 April, elections were held for the House of Representatives of the Ninetieth Imperial Diet, which would consider the proposed Constitution. The election law having been changed, this was the first general election in Japan in which women were permitted to vote.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: In the process of passing through the House of Representatives in August 1946, the draft of the Constitutional Amendment was modified. This is called the Ashida Amendment, since the chairman of the committee at the time was Hitoshi Ashida. In particular, Article 9, which refers to the renunciation of armed forces, was controversial.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The phrase "In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph," was added to paragraph 2 by Hitoshi Ashida without the diet deliberations. Although the reason is not clear, this addition has led to the interpretation of the Constitution as allowing the retention of force when factors other than the purpose of the preceding paragraph arise. Even now there is a great debate over whether force for self-defense, such as the Self Defense Forces, is a violation of the Constitution.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Article 9.1)    Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: 2)   In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Unlike most previous Japanese legal documents, the constitution is written in modern colloquial Japanese instead of Classical Japanese. The Japanese version includes some awkward phrasing and scholars sometimes consult the English drafts to resolve ambiguities.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The MacArthur draft, which proposed a unicameral legislature, was changed at the insistence of the Japanese to allow a bicameral one, with both houses being elected. In most other important respects, the government adopted the ideas embodied in the 13 February document in its own draft proposal of 6 March. These included the constitution's most distinctive features: the symbolic role of the Emperor, the prominence of guarantees of civil and human rights, and the renunciation of war. The constitution followed closely a 'model copy' prepared by MacArthur's command.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: In 1946, criticism of or reference to MacArthur's role in drafting the constitution could be made subject to Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) censorship (as was any reference to censorship itself). Until late 1947, CCD exerted pre-publication censorship over about 70 daily newspapers, all books, and magazines, and many other publications.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: It was decided that in adopting the new document the Meiji Constitution would not be violated. Rather, to maintain legal continuity, the new Constitution was adopted as an amendment to the Meiji Constitution in accordance with the provisions of Article 73 of that document. Under Article 73 the new constitution was formally submitted to the Imperial Diet, which was elected by universal suffrage, which was granted also women, in 1946, by the Emperor through an imperial rescript issued on 20 June. The draft constitution was submitted and deliberated upon as the Bill for Revision of the Imperial Constitution.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The old constitution required that the bill receive the support of a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Diet to become law. Both chambers had made amendments. Without interference by MacArthur, House of Representatives added Article 17, which guarantees the right to sue the State for the tort of officials, Article 40, which guarantees the right to sue the State for wrongful detention, and Article 25, which guarantees the right to life. The house also amended Article 9. And the House of Peers approved the document on 6 October; the House of Representatives adopted it in the same form the following day, with only five members voting against. It became law when it received the Emperor's assent on 3 November 1946. Under its own terms, the constitution came into effect on 3 May 1947.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: A government organisation, the "Kenpō Fukyū Kai" ("Constitution Popularisation Society"), was established to promote the acceptance of the new constitution among the populace.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The new constitution would not have been written the way it was had MacArthur and his staff allowed Japanese politicians and constitutional experts to resolve the issue as they wished. The document's foreign origins have, understandably, been a focus of controversy since Japan recovered its sovereignty in 1952. Yet in late 1945 and 1946, there was much public discussion on constitutional reform, and the MacArthur draft was apparently greatly influenced by the ideas of certain Japanese liberals. The MacArthur draft did not attempt to impose a United States-style presidential or federal system. Instead, the proposed constitution conformed to the British model of parliamentary government, which was seen by the liberals as the most viable alternative to the European absolutism of the Meiji Constitution.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: After 1952, conservatives and nationalists attempted to revise the constitution to make it more "Japanese", but these attempts were frustrated for a number of reasons. One was the extreme difficulty of amending it. Amendments require approval by two-thirds of the members of both houses of the National Diet before they can be presented to the people in a referendum (Article 96). Also, opposition parties, occupying more than one-third of the Diet seats, were firm supporters of the constitutional status quo. Even for members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the constitution was advantageous. They had been able to fashion a policy-making process congenial to their interests within its framework. Yasuhiro Nakasone, a strong advocate of constitutional revision during much of his political career, for example, downplayed the issue while serving as prime minister between 1982 and 1987.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The constitution has a length of approximately 5,000 words and consists of a preamble and 103 articles grouped into 11 chapters. These are:


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The constitution starts with an imperial edict made by the Emperor. It contains the Emperor's Privy Seal and signature, and is countersigned by the Prime Minister and other Ministers of State as required by the previous constitution of the Empire of Japan. The edict states:


title: Constitution of Japan

text: I rejoice that the foundation for the construction of a new Japan has been laid according to the will of the Japanese people, and hereby sanction and promulgate the amendments of the Imperial Japanese Constitution effected following the consultation with the Privy Council and the decision of the Imperial Diet made in accordance with Article 73 of the said Constitution.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The constitution contains a firm declaration of the principle of popular sovereignty in the preamble. This is proclaimed in the name of the "Japanese people" and declares that "sovereign power resides with the people" and that:


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Government is a sacred trust of the people, the authority for which is derived from the people, the powers of which are exercised by the representatives of the people, and the benefits of which are enjoyed by the people.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Part of the purpose of this language is to refute the previous constitutional theory that sovereignty resided in the Emperor. The constitution asserts that the Emperor is merely a symbol of the state, and that he derives "his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power" (Article 1). The text of the constitution also asserts the liberal doctrine of fundamental human rights. In particular Article 97 states that:


title: Constitution of Japan

text: the fundamental human rights by this Constitution guaranteed to the people of Japan are fruits of the age-old struggle of man to be free; they have survived the many exacting tests for durability and are conferred upon this and future generations in trust, to be held for all time inviolate.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Under the constitution, the Emperor is "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people". Sovereignty rests with the people, not the Emperor as it did under the Meiji Constitution. The Emperor carries out most functions of a head of state, formally appointing the Prime Minister and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, convoking the National Diet and dissolving the House of Representatives, and also promulgating statutes and treaties and exercising other enumerated functions. However, he acts under the advice and approval of the Cabinet or the Diet.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: In contrast with the Meiji Constitution, the Emperor's role is entirely ceremonial, as he does not have powers related to government. Unlike other constitutional monarchies, he is not even the "nominal" chief executive or even the nominal commander-in-chief of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). The constitution explicitly limits the Emperor's role to matters of state delineated in the constitution. The constitution also states that these duties can be delegated by the Emperor as provided for by law.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne is regulated by the Imperial Household Law and is managed by a ten-member body called the Imperial Household Council. The budget for the maintenance of the Imperial House is managed by resolutions of the Diet.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Under Article 9, the "Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes". To this end, the article provides that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as another war potential, will never be maintained". The necessity and practical extent of Article 9 have been debated in Japan since its enactment, particularly following the establishment of the Japan Self-Defence Forces (JSDF), a "de facto" post-war Japanese military force that substitutes for the pre-war Armed Forces, since 1 July 1954. Some lower courts have found the JSDF unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court never ruled on this issue.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Individuals have also challenged the presence of U.S. forces in Japan as well as the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty under Article 9 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Japan has found that the stationing of U.S. forces did not violate Article 9, because it did not involve forces under Japanese command. The Court ruled the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty to be a highly sensitive political question, and declined to rule on its legality under the political question doctrine.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Various political groups have called for either revising or abolishing the restrictions of Article 9 to permit collective defense efforts and strengthen Japan's military capabilities.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The United States has pressured Japan to amend Article 9 and to rearm as early as 1948 with Japan gradually expanding its military capabilities, "sidestepping constitutional constraints".


title: Constitution of Japan

text: "The rights and duties of the people" are featured prominently in the post-war constitution. Thirty-one of its 103 articles are devoted to describing them in detail, reflecting the commitment to "respect for the fundamental human rights" of the Potsdam Declaration. Although the Meiji Constitution had a section devoted to the "rights and duties of subjects" which guaranteed "liberty of speech, writing, publication, public meetings, and associations", these rights were granted "within the limits of law" and could be limited by legislation. Freedom of religious belief was allowed "insofar as it does not interfere with the duties of subjects" (all Japanese were required to acknowledge the Emperor's divinity, and those, such as Christians, who refused to do so out of religious conviction were accused of lèse-majesté). Such freedoms are delineated in the post-war constitution without qualification.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Individual rights under the Japanese constitution are rooted in Article 13 where the constitution asserts the right of the people "to be respected as individuals" and, subject to "the public welfare", to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". This article's core notion is "jinkaku", which represents "the elements of character and personality that come together to define each person as an individual", and which represents the aspects of each individual's life that the government is obligated to respect in the exercise of its power. Article 13 has been used as the basis to establish constitutional rights to privacy, self-determination and the control of an individual's own image, rights which are not explicitly stated in the constitution.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Under Japanese case law, constitutional human rights apply to corporations to the extent possible given their corporate nature. Constitutional human rights also apply to foreign nationals to the extent that such rights are not by their nature only applicable to citizens (for example, foreigners have no right to enter Japan under Article 22 and no right to vote under Article 15, and their other political rights may be restricted to the extent that they interfere with the state's decision making).


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The constitution establishes a parliamentary system of government in which legislative authority is vested in a bicameral National Diet. Although a bicameral Diet existed under the existing constitution, the new constitution abolished the upper House of Peers, which consisted of members of the nobility (similar to the British House of Lords). The new constitution provides that both chambers be directly elected, with a lower House of Representatives and an upper House of Councillors.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Diet nominates the Prime Minister from among its members, although the Lower House has the final authority if the two Houses disagree. Thus, in practice, the Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party of the Lower House. The House of Representatives has the sole ability to pass a vote of no confidence in the Cabinet, can override the House of Councillors' veto on any bill, and has priority in determining the national budget, and approving treaties.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Executive authority is vested in a cabinet, jointly responsible to the Diet, and headed by a Prime Minister. The prime minister and a majority of the cabinet members must be members of the Diet, and have the right and obligation to attend sessions of the Diet. The Cabinet may also advise the Emperor to dissolve the House of Representatives and call for a general election to be held.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The judiciary consists of several lower courts headed by a Supreme Court. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is nominated by the Cabinet and appointed by the Emperor, while other justices are nominated and appointed by the Cabinet and attested by the Emperor. Lower court judges are nominated by the Supreme Court, appointed by the Cabinet and attested by the Emperor. All courts have the power of judicial review and may interpret the constitution to overrule statutes and other government acts, but only in the event that such interpretation is relevant to an actual dispute.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The constitution also provides a framework for local government, requiring that local entities have elected heads and assemblies, and providing that government acts applicable to particular local areas must be approved by the residents of those areas. These provisions formed the framework of the Local Autonomy Law of 1947, which established the modern system of prefectures, municipalities and other local government entities.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Under Article 96, amendments to the constitution "shall be initiated by the Diet, through a concurring vote of two-thirds or more of all the members of each House and shall thereupon be submitted to the people for ratification, which shall require the affirmative vote of a majority of all votes cast thereon, at a special referendum or at such election as the Diet shall specify". The constitution has not been amended since its implementation in 1947, although there have been movements led by the Liberal Democratic Party to make various amendments to it.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Article 97 provides for the inviolability of fundamental human rights. Article 98 provides that the constitution takes precedence over any "law, ordinance, imperial rescript or other act of government" that offends against its provisions, and that "the treaties concluded by Japan and established laws of nations shall be faithfully observed". In most nations it is for the legislature to determine to what extent, if at all, treaties concluded by the state will be reflected in its domestic law; under Article 98, however, international law and the treaties Japan has ratified automatically form a part of domestic law. Article 99 binds the Emperor and public officials to observe the constitution.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The final four articles set forth a six-month transitional period between adoption and implementation of the Constitution. This transitional period took place from 3 November 1946, to 3 May 1947. Pursuant to Article 100, the first House of Councillors election was held during this period in April 1947, and pursuant to Article 102, half of the elected Councillors were given three-year terms. A general election was also held during this period, as a result of which several former House of Peers members moved to the House of Representatives. Article 103 provided that public officials currently in office would not be removed as a direct result of the adoption or implementation of the new Constitution.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Article 96 provides that amendments can be made to the Constitution if approved by super majority of two-thirds of both houses of the Diet, and then by a simple majority in a popular referendum. The Emperor promulgates the successful amendment in the name of the people, and cannot veto it. Details of the process is determined by the and the .


title: Constitution of Japan

text: Unlike some constitutions (e.g. the German, Italian, and French Constitutions), Japan's Constitution does not have an explicit entrenchment provision limiting what can be amended. However, the Preamble of the Constitution declared democracy to be the "universal principle of mankind" and Article 97 proclaims the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution to be "for all time inviolable." Because of this, scholars generally believe that basic principles such as the sovereignty of the people, pacifism, and respect for human rights are unamendable. More broadly, fundamental norms written in the Constitution by constituent power cannot be amended. The preamble of the Constitution states: "We reject and revoke all constitutions, laws, ordinances, and rescripts in conflict herewith". Pacifism, popular sovereignty and respect for basic human rights are among them according to the Preamble and Article 11.


title: Constitution of Japan

text: The Constitution has not been amended since its enactment in 1946. Some commentators have suggested that the Constitution's American authors favoured the difficulty of the amendment process from a desire that the fundamentals of the regime they had imposed would be resistant to change. Among the Japanese themselves, any change to the document and to the post-war settlement it embodies is highly controversial. From the 1960s to the 1980s, Constitutional revision was rarely debated, although amendment of the Constitution has been one of the party line of the LDP since it was formed. In the 1990s, right-leaning and conservative voices broke some taboos, for example, when the newspaper "Yomiuri Shimbun" published a suggestion for Constitutional revision in 1994. This period saw a number of right-leaning groups pushing aggressively for Constitutional revision and a significant number of organizations and individuals speaking out against revision and in support of "the peace Constitution".