title: Ulster Defence Association

text: In 1989, the ULDP changed its name to the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP). It finally dissolved itself in 2001 following very limited electoral success and internal difficulties. Gary McMichael, son of John McMichael, was the last leader of the UDP, which supported the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG) was subsequently formed to give political analysis to the UDA and act as community workers in loyalist areas. It is currently represented on the Belfast City Council.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: In early January 1994, the UDA released a document calling for ethnic cleansing and repartition, with the goal of making Northern Ireland wholly Protestant. The plan was to be implemented should the British Army withdraw from Northern Ireland. Areas in the south and west with strong Catholic/nationalist majorities would be handed over to the Republic, and those Catholics left stranded in the "Protestant state" would be "expelled, nullified, or interned". The story was printed in "The Sunday Independent" newspaper on 16 January. The "doomsday plan" was based on the work of Dr Liam Kennedy, a lecturer at Queen's University Belfast who in 1986 had published a book called "Two Ulsters: A Case for Repartition", although it did not call for ethnic cleansing. The UDP's Raymond Smallwoods said "I wasn't consulted but the scenario set out is a perfectly plausible one". The DUP's Sammy Wilson stated that the plan "shows that some loyalist paramilitaries are looking ahead and contemplating what needs to be done to maintain our separate Ulster identity"


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: The UDA had links with Neo-Nazi groups in Britain—specifically Combat 18 (formed in 1992) and the British National Socialist Movement (formed in 1985). Members of these groups helped to smuggle weapons for the UDA. The UDA has received backing from Combat 18, the National Front and the British National Party. The links may not have been politically motivated, but for mutually beneficial arms deals. On one occasion the UDA sent Louis Scott, one of a few black members of the UDA, to make the transaction. Johnny Adair, who had been in Combat 18 before the UDA, established stronger links once he became a brigadier.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: The Red Hand Defenders is a cover name used by breakaway factions of the UDA and the LVF. The term was coined in 1997 when members of the LVF carried out attacks on behalf of Johnny Adair's "UFF 2nd Battalion, 'C' Company (Shankill Road)" and vice versa. The relationship between the UDA (specifically Adair's West Belfast Brigade, not the wider leadership of the UDA) was initially formed after the death of Billy Wright, the previous leader of the LVF, and grew from Adair's personal friendship with Mark 'Swinger' Fulton, the organisation's new chief.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: The necessity for a cover name resulted from the need to avoid tensions between the UDA and the UVF, the organisation from which the LVF had broken away. It was perceived that any open co-operation between the UDA and the LVF would anger the UVF, something which proved to be the case in following years and resulted in a loyalist feud. There has been debate as to whether or not the Red Hand Defenders have become an entity in their own right made up of dissident factions from both the UDA and the LVF (both of which have now declared ceasefires whilst the RHD has not), although much intelligence has been based on the claims of responsibility which, as has been suggested, are frequently misleading.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: A 1985 MI5 assessment reported that 85% of the UDA's "targeting material" came from the security forces.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: The UDA operated a devolved structure of leadership, each with a brigadier representing one of its six "brigade areas". It is not clear whether this brigade structure has been maintained in the UDA's post cease-fire state. The UDA's six "brigade areas" were:


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: In addition to these six core brigades two others may have existed. A seventh Mid-Ulster Brigade is mentioned by Steve Bruce as having existed for part of the UDA's history although Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack characterise this as a "battalion" rather than a brigade and suggest that its rural location prevented it from fully developing. In the late 1970s a Scottish Brigade was established under the command of Roddy McDonald but this proved short-lived. The security forces infiltrated this brigade almost immediately and in 1979 arrested almost its entire membership, ninety people in all. Six members received particularly lengthy prison sentences for their involvement in UDA activities in Perth and the Scottish Brigade quietly disappeared.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: Resident of the Taughmonagh estate in South Belfast. McDonald was a cautious supporter of the UDA's ceasefire and a harsh critic of Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair during his final years of membership of the organisation. McDonald remains the only brigadier who did not have a commonly used nickname.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: An active figure in the UDA/UFF, Adair rose to notoriety in the early 1990s when he led the "2nd Battalion, C Company" unit in West Belfast which was responsible for one of the bloodiest killing sprees of the Troubles.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: Jim 'Doris Day' Gray—East Belfast (1992–2005) An unlikely figure in Northern Ireland loyalism, the openly bisexual Gray was a controversial figure in the organisation until his death on 4 October 2005. Always flamboyantly dressed, Gray was a key figure in the UDA's negotiations with Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid. It is widely believed that Gray received his nickname from the RUC Special Branch.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: Jimbo 'Bacardi Brigadier' Simpson—North Belfast (Unknown–2002) Simpson is believed to have been an alcoholic, hence his nickname. He was leader of the UDA in the volatile North Belfast area, an interface between Catholics and Protestants in the New Lodge and Tiger's Bay neighbourhoods.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: Billy 'The Mexican' McFarland—North Antrim and Londonderry (Unknown–2013) He earned his nickname because of his moustache and swarthy appearance, and had overall command of the UDA's North Antrim and Londonderry brigade at the time of the Good Friday Agreement. He supported the leadership against Johnny Adair and has been associated with the magazine 'Warrior', which makes the case for Ulster Independence.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: Andre 'The Egyptian' Shoukri—North Belfast (2002–2005) Initially a close ally of Johnny Adair, Shoukri and his brother Ihab became involved with the UDA in his native North Belfast. The son of an Egyptian father and a Northern Irish mother, he was expelled from the UDA in 2005 following allegations of criminality.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: John 'Grug' Gregg—South East Antrim (c.1993–2003) John 'Grug' Gregg was a man with a fearsome reputation within the loyalist movement, known as a "Hawk" in loyalist circles, and controlled the streets of south east Antrim. On 14 March 1984, he severely wounded Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in an assassination attempt for which he was jailed. When asked by the BBC in prison if he regretted anything about the shooting, his reply was "only that I didn't succeed." He was killed on Belfast's Nelson Street, along with another UDA member (Rab Carson), while travelling in a taxi from the docks in 2003, and the murder was blamed on supporters of Johnny Adair, who had recently been expelled from the UDA in 2002.


title: Ulster Defence Association

text: Malcolm Sutton's "Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland", part of the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), states that the UDA/UFF was responsible for at least 260 killings, and lists a further 256 loyalist killings that have not yet been attributed to a particular group. According to the book "Lost Lives" (2006 edition), it was responsible for 431 killings.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: A restriction enzyme, restriction endonuclease, REase, ENase or" restrictase " is an enzyme that cleaves DNA into fragments at or near specific recognition sites within molecules known as restriction sites. Restriction enzymes are one class of the broader endonuclease group of enzymes. Restriction enzymes are commonly classified into five types, which differ in their structure and whether they cut their DNA substrate at their recognition site, or if the recognition and cleavage sites are separate from one another. To cut DNA, all restriction enzymes make two incisions, once through each sugar-phosphate backbone (i.e. each strand) of the DNA double helix.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: These enzymes are found in bacteria and archaea and provide a defense mechanism against invading viruses. Inside a prokaryote, the restriction enzymes selectively cut up "foreign" DNA in a process called "restriction digestion"; meanwhile, host DNA is protected by a modification enzyme (a methyltransferase) that modifies the prokaryotic DNA and blocks cleavage. Together, these two processes form the restriction modification system.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: More than 3,600 restriction endonucleases are known which represent over 250 different specificities. Over 3,000 of these have been studied in detail, and more than 800 of these are available commercially. These enzymes are routinely used for DNA modification in laboratories, and they are a vital tool in molecular cloning.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: The term restriction enzyme originated from the studies of phage λ, a virus that infects bacteria, and the phenomenon of host-controlled restriction and modification of such bacterial phage or bacteriophage. The phenomenon was first identified in work done in the laboratories of Salvador Luria, Jean Weigle and Giuseppe Bertani in the early 1950s. It was found that, for a bacteriophage λ that can grow well in one strain of "Escherichia coli", for example "E. coli" C, when grown in another strain, for example "E. coli" K, its yields can drop significantly, by as much as 3-5 orders of magnitude. The host cell, in this example "E. coli" K, is known as the restricting host and appears to have the ability to reduce the biological activity of the phage λ. If a phage becomes established in one strain, the ability of that phage to grow also becomes restricted in other strains. In the 1960s, it was shown in work done in the laboratories of Werner Arber and Matthew Meselson that the restriction is caused by an enzymatic cleavage of the phage DNA, and the enzyme involved was therefore termed a restriction enzyme.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: The restriction enzymes studied by Arber and Meselson were type I restriction enzymes, which cleave DNA randomly away from the recognition site. In 1970, Hamilton O. Smith, Thomas Kelly and Kent Wilcox isolated and characterized the first type II restriction enzyme, "Hind"II, from the bacterium "Haemophilus influenzae". Restriction enzymes of this type are more useful for laboratory work as they cleave DNA at the site of their recognition sequence and are the most commonly used as a molecular biology tool. Later, Daniel Nathans and Kathleen Danna showed that cleavage of simian virus 40 (SV40) DNA by restriction enzymes yields specific fragments that can be separated using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, thus showing that restriction enzymes can also be used for mapping DNA. For their work in the discovery and characterization of restriction enzymes, the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, and Hamilton O. Smith. The discovery of restriction enzymes allows DNA to be manipulated, leading to the development of recombinant DNA technology that has many applications, for example, allowing the large scale production of proteins such as human insulin used by diabetic patients.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Restriction enzymes likely evolved from a common ancestor and became widespread via horizontal gene transfer. In addition, there is mounting evidence that restriction endonucleases evolved as a selfish genetic element.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Restriction enzymes recognize a specific sequence of nucleotides and produce a double-stranded cut in the DNA. The recognition sequences can also be classified by the number of bases in its recognition site, usually between 4 and 8 bases, and the number of bases in the sequence will determine how often the site will appear by chance in any given genome, e.g., a 4-base pair sequence would theoretically occur once every 4^4 or 256bp, 6 bases, 4^6 or 4,096bp, and 8 bases would be 4^8 or 65,536bp. Many of them are palindromic, meaning the base sequence reads the same backwards and forwards. In theory, there are two types of palindromic sequences that can be possible in DNA. The "mirror-like" palindrome is similar to those found in ordinary text, in which a sequence reads the same forward and backward on a single strand of DNA, as in GTAATG. The "inverted repeat" palindrome is also a sequence that reads the same forward and backward, but the forward and backward sequences are found in complementary DNA strands (i.e., of double-stranded DNA), as in GTATAC (GTATAC being complementary to CATATG). Inverted repeat palindromes are more common and have greater biological importance than mirror-like palindromes.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Recognition sequences in DNA differ for each restriction enzyme, producing differences in the length, sequence and strand orientation (5' end or 3' end) of a sticky-end "overhang" of an enzyme restriction.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Different restriction enzymes that recognize the same sequence are known as neoschizomers. These often cleave in different locales of the sequence. Different enzymes that recognize and cleave in the same location are known as isoschizomers.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Naturally occurring restriction endonucleases are categorized into five groups (Types I, II, III, IV, and V) based on their composition and enzyme cofactor requirements, the nature of their target sequence, and the position of their DNA cleavage site relative to the target sequence. DNA sequence analysis of restriction enzymes however show great variations, indicating that there are more than four types. All types of enzymes recognize specific short DNA sequences and carry out the endonucleolytic cleavage of DNA to give specific fragments with terminal 5'-phosphates. They differ in their recognition sequence, subunit composition, cleavage position, and cofactor requirements, as summarised below:


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Type I restriction enzymes were the first to be identified and were first identified in two different strains (K-12 and B) of "E. coli". These enzymes cut at a site that differs, and is a random distance (at least 1000 bp) away, from their recognition site. Cleavage at these random sites follows a process of DNA translocation, which shows that these enzymes are also molecular motors. The recognition site is asymmetrical and is composed of two specific portions—one containing 3–4 nucleotides, and another containing 4–5 nucleotides—separated by a non-specific spacer of about 6–8 nucleotides. These enzymes are multifunctional and are capable of both restriction digestion and modification activities, depending upon the methylation status of the target DNA. The cofactors S-Adenosyl methionine (AdoMet), hydrolyzed adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and magnesium (Mg) ions, are required for their full activity. Type I restriction enzymes possess three subunits called HsdR, HsdM, and HsdS; HsdR is required for restriction digestion; HsdM is necessary for adding methyl groups to host DNA (methyltransferase activity), and HsdS is important for specificity of the recognition (DNA-binding) site in addition to both restriction digestion (DNA cleavage) and modification (DNA methyltransferase) activity.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Typical type II restriction enzymes differ from type I restriction enzymes in several ways. They form homodimers, with recognition sites that are usually undivided and palindromic and 4–8 nucleotides in length. They recognize and cleave DNA at the same site, and they do not use ATP or AdoMet for their activity—they usually require only Mg as a cofactor. These enzymes cleave the phosphodiester bond of double helix DNA. It can either cleave at the center of both strands to yield a blunt end, or at a staggered position leaving overhangs called sticky ends. These are the most commonly available and used restriction enzymes. In the 1990s and early 2000s, new enzymes from this family were discovered that did not follow all the classical criteria of this enzyme class, and new subfamily nomenclature was developed to divide this large family into subcategories based on deviations from typical characteristics of type II enzymes. These subgroups are defined using a letter suffix.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Type IIB restriction enzymes (e.g., BcgI and BplI) are multimers, containing more than one subunit. They cleave DNA on both sides of their recognition to cut out the recognition site. They require both AdoMet and Mg cofactors. Type IIE restriction endonucleases (e.g., NaeI) cleave DNA following interaction with two copies of their recognition sequence. One recognition site acts as the target for cleavage, while the other acts as an allosteric effector that speeds up or improves the efficiency of enzyme cleavage. Similar to type IIE enzymes, type IIF restriction endonucleases (e.g. NgoMIV) interact with two copies of their recognition sequence but cleave both sequences at the same time. Type IIG restriction endonucleases (e.g., RM.Eco57I) do have a single subunit, like classical Type II restriction enzymes, but require the cofactor AdoMet to be active. Type IIM restriction endonucleases, such as DpnI, are able to recognize and cut methylated DNA. Type IIS restriction endonucleases (e.g., "Fok"I) cleave DNA at a defined distance from their non-palindromic asymmetric recognition sites; this characteristic is widely used to perform in-vitro cloning techniques such as Golden Gate cloning. These enzymes may function as dimers. Similarly, Type IIT restriction enzymes (e.g., Bpu10I and BslI) are composed of two different subunits. Some recognize palindromic sequences while others have asymmetric recognition sites.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Type III restriction enzymes (e.g., EcoP15) recognize two separate non-palindromic sequences that are inversely oriented. They cut DNA about 20–30 base pairs after the recognition site. These enzymes contain more than one subunit and require AdoMet and ATP cofactors for their roles in DNA methylation and restriction digestion, respectively. They are components of prokaryotic DNA restriction-modification mechanisms that protect the organism against invading foreign DNA. Type III enzymes are hetero-oligomeric, multifunctional proteins composed of two subunits, Res () and Mod (). The Mod subunit recognises the DNA sequence specific for the system and is a modification methyltransferase; as such, it is functionally equivalent to the M and S subunits of type I restriction endonuclease. Res is required for restriction digestion, although it has no enzymatic activity on its own. Type III enzymes recognise short 5–6 bp-long asymmetric DNA sequences and cleave 25–27 bp downstream to leave short, single-stranded 5' protrusions. They require the presence of two inversely oriented unmethylated recognition sites for restriction digestion to occur. These enzymes methylate only one strand of the DNA, at the N-6 position of adenosyl residues, so newly replicated DNA will have only one strand methylated, which is sufficient to protect against restriction digestion. Type III enzymes belong to the beta-subfamily of N6 adenine methyltransferases, containing the nine motifs that characterise this family, including motif I, the AdoMet binding pocket (FXGXG), and motif IV, the catalytic region (S/D/N (PP) Y/F).


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Type IV enzymes recognize modified, typically methylated DNA and are exemplified by the McrBC and Mrr systems of "E. coli".


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Type V restriction enzymes (e.g., the cas9-gRNA complex from CRISPRs) utilize guide RNAs to target specific non-palindromic sequences found on invading organisms. They can cut DNA of variable length, provided that a suitable guide RNA is provided. The flexibility and ease of use of these enzymes make them promising for future genetic engineering applications.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Artificial restriction enzymes can be generated by fusing a natural or engineered DNA-binding domain to a nuclease domain (often the cleavage domain of the type IIS restriction enzyme "Fok"I). Such artificial restriction enzymes can target large DNA sites (up to 36 bp) and can be engineered to bind to desired DNA sequences. Zinc finger nucleases are the most commonly used artificial restriction enzymes and are generally used in genetic engineering applications, but can also be used for more standard gene cloning applications. Other artificial restriction enzymes are based on the DNA binding domain of TAL effectors.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: In 2013, a new technology CRISPR-Cas9, based on a prokaryotic viral defense system, was engineered for editing the genome, and it was quickly adopted in laboratories. For more detail, read CRISPR (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats).


title: Restriction enzyme

text: In 2017, a group from University of Illinois reported using an Argonaute protein taken from "Pyrococcus furiosus" (PfAgo) along with guide DNA to edit DNA "in vitro" as artificial restriction enzymes.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Artificial ribonucleases that act as restriction enzymes for RNA have also been developed. A PNA-based system, called a PNAzyme, has a Cu(II)-2,9-dimethylphenanthroline group that mimics ribonucleases for specific RNA sequence and cleaves at a non-base-paired region (RNA bulge) of the targeted RNA formed when the enzyme binds the RNA. This enzyme shows selectivity by cleaving only at one site that either does not have a mismatch or is kinetically preferred out of two possible cleavage sites.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Since their discovery in the 1970s, many restriction enzymes have been identified; for example, more than 3500 different Type II restriction enzymes have been characterized. Each enzyme is named after the bacterium from which it was isolated, using a naming system based on bacterial genus, species and strain. For example, the name of the EcoRI restriction enzyme was derived as shown in the box.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: They are used to assist insertion of genes into plasmid vectors during gene cloning and protein production experiments. For optimal use, plasmids that are commonly used for gene cloning are modified to include a short "polylinker" sequence (called the multiple cloning site, or MCS) rich in restriction enzyme recognition sequences. This allows flexibility when inserting gene fragments into the plasmid vector; restriction sites contained naturally within genes influence the choice of endonuclease for digesting the DNA, since it is necessary to avoid restriction of wanted DNA while intentionally cutting the ends of the DNA. To clone a gene fragment into a vector, both plasmid DNA and gene insert are typically cut with the same restriction enzymes, and then glued together with the assistance of an enzyme known as a DNA ligase.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Restriction enzymes can also be used to distinguish gene alleles by specifically recognizing single base changes in DNA known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This is however only possible if a SNP alters the restriction site present in the allele. In this method, the restriction enzyme can be used to genotype a DNA sample without the need for expensive gene sequencing. The sample is first digested with the restriction enzyme to generate DNA fragments, and then the different sized fragments separated by gel electrophoresis. In general, alleles with correct restriction sites will generate two visible bands of DNA on the gel, and those with altered restriction sites will not be cut and will generate only a single band. A DNA map by restriction digest can also be generated that can give the relative positions of the genes. The different lengths of DNA generated by restriction digest also produce a specific pattern of bands after gel electrophoresis, and can be used for DNA fingerprinting.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: In a similar manner, restriction enzymes are used to digest genomic DNA for gene analysis by Southern blot. This technique allows researchers to identify how many copies (or paralogues) of a gene are present in the genome of one individual, or how many gene mutations (polymorphisms) have occurred within a population. The latter example is called restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP).


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Artificial restriction enzymes created by linking the "Fok"I DNA cleavage domain with an array of DNA binding proteins or zinc finger arrays, denoted zinc finger nucleases (ZFN), are a powerful tool for host genome editing due to their enhanced sequence specificity. ZFN work in pairs, their dimerization being mediated in-situ through the "Fok"I domain. Each zinc finger array (ZFA) is capable of recognizing 9–12 base pairs, making for 18–24 for the pair. A 5–7 bp spacer between the cleavage sites further enhances the specificity of ZFN, making them a safe and more precise tool that can be applied in humans. A recent Phase I clinical trial of ZFN for the targeted abolition of the CCR5 co-receptor for HIV-1 has been undertaken.


title: Restriction enzyme

text: Others have proposed using the bacteria R-M system as a model for devising human anti-viral gene or genomic vaccines and therapies since the RM system serves an innate defense-role in bacteria by restricting tropism by bacteriophages. There is research on REases and ZFN that can cleave the DNA of various human viruses, including HSV-2, high-risk HPVs and HIV-1, with the ultimate goal of inducing target mutagenesis and aberrations of human-infecting viruses. The human genome already contains remnants of retroviral genomes that have been inactivated and harnessed for self-gain. Indeed, the mechanisms for silencing active L1 genomic retroelements by the three prime repair exonuclease 1 (TREX1) and excision repair cross complementing 1(ERCC) appear to mimic the action of RM-systems in bacteria, and the non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) that follows the use of ZFN without a repair template.


title: Lisp

text: A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech.


title: Lisp

text: Successful treatments have shown that causes are functional rather than physical: that is, most lisps are caused by errors in tongue placement or fatness of tongue within the mouth rather than caused by any injury or congenital deformity to the mouth. The most frequently discussed of these problems is tongue thrust in which the tongue protrudes beyond the front teeth. This protrusion affects speech as well as swallowing and can lead to lisping. Ankyloglossia or tongue tie can also be responsible for lisps in children — however, it is unclear whether these deficiencies are caused by the tongue tie itself or the muscle weakness following the correction of the tongue tie. Overbites and underbites may also contribute to non lingual lisping. Temporary lisps can be caused by dental work, dental appliances such as dentures or retainers or by swollen or bruised tongues.


title: Lisp

text: Lisps caused by tongue tie can be treated by a dentist or otolaryngologist (ENT) with a lingual frenectomy, or laser incision, which takes less than 10 to 15 minutes to complete.


title: Lisp

text: With an interdental lisp, the therapist teaches the student how to keep the tongue behind the two front incisors.


title: Lisp

text: One popular method of correcting articulation or lisp disorders is to isolate sounds and work on correcting the sound in isolation. The basic sound, or phoneme, is selected as a target for treatment. Typically the position of the sound within a word is considered and targeted. The sound appears in the beginning of the word, middle, or end of the word (initial, medial, or final).


title: Lisp

text: Take for example, correction of an "S" sound (lisp). Most likely, a speech language pathologist (SLP) would employ exercises to work on Starting practice words would most likely consist of "S-initial" words such as "say, sun, soap, sip, sick, said, sail." According to this protocol, the SLP slowly increases the complexity of tasks (context of pronunciations) as the production of the sound improves. Examples of increased complexity could include saying words in phrases and sentences, saying longer multi syllabic words, or increasing the tempo of pronunciation.


title: Lisp

text: Using this method, the SLP achieves success with their student by targeting a sound in a phonetically consistent manner. Phonetic consistency means that a target sound is isolated at the smallest possible level (phoneme, phone, or allophone) and that the context of production must be consistent. Consistency is critical, because factors such as the position within the word, grouping with other sounds (vowels or consonants), and the complexity all may affect production.


title: Lisp

text: Another popular method for treating a lisp is using specially designed devices that go in the mouth to provide a tactile cue of exactly where the tongue should be positioned when saying the "S" sound. This tactile feedback has been shown to correct lisp errors twice as fast as traditional therapy.


title: Lisp

text: Using either or both methods, the repetition of consistent contexts allows the student to align all the necessary processes required to properly produce language; language skills (ability to formulate correct sounds in the brain: What sounds do I need to make?), motor planning (voicing and jaw and tongue movements: How do I produce the sound?), and auditory processing (receptive feedback: Was the sound produced correctly? Do I need to correct?).


title: Lisp

text: A student with an articulation or lisp disorder has a deficiency in one or more of these areas. To correct the deficiency, adjustments have to be made in one or more of these processes. The process to correct it is more often than not, trial and error. With so many factors, however, isolating the variables (the sound) is imperative to getting to the result faster.


title: Lisp

text: A phonetically consistent treatment strategy means practicing the same thing over and over. What is practiced is consistent and does not change. The words might change, but the phoneme and its positioning is the same (say, sip, sill, soap, ...). Thus, successful correction of the disorder is found in manipulating or changing the other factors involved with speech production (tongue positioning, cerebral processing, etc.). Once a successful result (speech) is achieved, then consistent practice becomes essential to reinforcing correct productions.


title: Lisp

text: When the difficult sound is mastered, the student will then learn to say the sound in syllables, then words, then phrases and then sentences. When a student can speak a whole sentence without lisping, attention is then focused on making correct sounds throughout natural conversation. Towards the end of the course of therapy, the student will be taught how to monitor his or her own speech, and how to correct as necessary. Speech therapy can sometimes fix the problem, but in some cases speech therapy fails to work.


title: Easter egg

text: Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tradition, which continues to be used in Central and Eastern Europe, is to use dyed and painted chicken eggs.


title: Easter egg

text: Although eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility and rebirth, in Christianity, for the celebration of Eastertide, Easter eggs symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus, from which Jesus was resurrected. In addition, one ancient tradition was the staining of Easter eggs with the colour red "in memory of the blood of Christ, shed as at that time of his crucifixion."


title: Easter egg

text: This custom of the Easter egg, according to many sources, can be traced to early Christians of Mesopotamia, and from there it spread into Eastern Europe and Siberia through the Orthodox Churches, and later into Europe through the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Mediaevalist scholars normally conclude that the custom of Easter eggs has its roots in the prohibition of eggs during Lent after which, on Easter, they have been blessed for the occasion.


title: Easter egg

text: A modern custom in some places is to substitute chocolate eggs wrapped in coloured foil, hand-carved wooden eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as chocolate.


title: Easter egg

text: The practice of decorating eggshells is quite ancient, with decorated, engraved ostrich eggs found in Africa which are 60,000 years old. In the pre-dynastic period of Egypt and the early cultures of Mesopotamia and Crete, eggs were associated with death and rebirth, as well as with kingship, with decorated ostrich eggs, and representations of ostrich eggs in gold and silver, were commonly placed in graves of the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians as early as 5,000 years ago. These cultural relationships may have influenced early Christian and Islamic cultures in those areas, as well as through mercantile, religious, and political links from those areas around the Mediterranean.


title: Easter egg

text: Eggs in Christianity carry a Trinitarian symbolism as shell, yolk, and albumen are three parts of one egg. According to many sources, the Christian custom of Easter eggs was adopted from Persian tradition into the early Christians of Mesopotamia, who stained them with red colouring "in memory of the blood of Christ, shed at His crucifixion". The Christian Church officially adopted the custom, regarding the eggs as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, with the Roman Ritual, the first edition of which was published in 1610 but which has texts of much older date, containing among the Easter Blessings of Food, one for eggs, along with those for lamb, bread, and new produce.


title: Easter egg

text: Sociology professor Kenneth Thompson discusses the spread of the Easter egg throughout Christendom, writing that "use of eggs at Easter seems to have come from Persia into the Greek Christian Churches of Mesopotamia, thence to Russia and Siberia through the medium of Orthodox Christianity. From the Greek Church the custom was adopted by either the Roman Catholics or the Protestants and then spread through Europe." Both Thompson, as well as British orientalist Thomas Hyde state that in addition to dyeing the eggs red, the early Christians of Mesopotamia also stained Easter eggs green and yellow.


title: Easter egg

text: Peter Gainsford maintains that the association between eggs and Easter most likely arose in western Europe during the Middle Ages as a result of the fact that Catholic Christians were prohibited from eating eggs during Lent, but were allowed to eat them when Easter arrived.


title: Easter egg

text: Influential 19th century folklorist and philologist Jacob Grimm speculates, in the second volume of his "Deutsche Mythologie", that the folk custom of Easter eggs among the continental Germanic peoples may have stemmed from springtime festivities of a Germanic goddess known in Old English as Ēostre (namesake of modern English "Easter") and possibly known in Old High German as *"Ostara" (and thus namesake of Modern German "Ostern" 'Easter'). However, despite Grimm's speculation, there is no evidence to connect eggs with Ostara. The use of eggs as favors or treats at Easter originated when they were prohibited during Lent. A common practice in England in the medieval period was for children to go door-to-door begging for eggs on the Saturday before Lent began. People handed out eggs as special treats for children prior to their fast.


title: Easter egg

text: Although one of the Christian traditions are to use dyed or painted chicken eggs, a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with candy such as jelly beans; as many people give up sweets as their Lenten sacrifice, individuals enjoy them at Easter after having abstained from them during the preceding forty days of Lent. These eggs can be hidden for children to find on Easter morning, which may be left by the Easter Bunny. They may also be put in a basket filled with real or artificial straw to resemble a bird's nest.


title: Easter egg

text: The Easter egg tradition may also have merged into the celebration of the end of the privations of Lent. Traditionally, eggs are among the foods forbidden fast days, including all of Lent, an observance which continues among the Eastern Christian Churches but has fallen into disuse in Western Christianity (although something similar has recently been instituted by a few as the “Daniel Fast").


title: Easter egg

text: This established the tradition of Pancake Day being celebrated on Shrove Tuesday. This day, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday when Lent begins, is also known as Mardi Gras, a French phrase which translates as "Fat Tuesday" to mark the last consumption of eggs and dairy before Lent begins.


title: Easter egg

text: In the Orthodox Church, Great Lent begins on Clean Monday, rather than Wednesday, so the household's dairy products would be used up in the preceding week, called Cheesefare Week.


title: Easter egg

text: During Lent, since chickens would not stop producing eggs during this time, a larger than usual store might be available at the end of the fast. This surplus, if any, had to be eaten quickly to prevent spoiling. Then, with the coming of Easter, the eating of eggs resumes. Some families cook a special meatloaf with eggs in it to be eaten with the Easter dinner.


title: Easter egg

text: One would have been forced to hard boil the eggs that the chickens produced so as not to waste food, and for this reason the Spanish dish hornazo (traditionally eaten on and around Easter) contains hard-boiled eggs as a primary ingredient.


title: Easter egg

text: In the Orthodox churches, Easter eggs are blessed by the priest at the end of the Paschal Vigil (which is equivalent to Holy Saturday), and distributed to the faithful. The egg is seen by followers of Christianity as a symbol of resurrection: while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it.


title: Easter egg

text: Similarly, in the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, the so-called święconka, i.e. blessing of decorative baskets with a sampling of Easter eggs and other symbolic foods, is one of the most enduring and beloved Polish traditions on Holy Saturday.


title: Easter egg

text: During Paschaltide, in some traditions the Pascal greeting with the Easter egg is even extended to the deceased. On either the second Monday or Tuesday of Pascha, after a memorial service people bring blessed eggs to the cemetery and bring the joyous paschal greeting, "Christ has risen", to their beloved departed (see Radonitza).


title: Easter egg

text: In Greece, women traditionally dye the eggs with onion skins and vinegar on Thursday (also the day of Communion). These ceremonial eggs are known as kokkina avga. They also bake tsoureki for the Easter Sunday feast. Red Easter eggs are sometimes served along the centerline of tsoureki (braided loaf of bread).


title: Easter egg

text: In Egypt, it is a tradition to decorate boiled eggs during Sham el-Nessim holiday, which falls every year after the Eastern Christian Easter.


title: Easter egg

text: Coincidentally, every Passover, Jews place a hard-boiled egg on the Passover ceremonial plate, and the celebrants also eat hard-boiled eggs dipped in salt water as part of the ceremony.


title: Easter egg

text: The dyeing of Easter eggs in different colours is commonplace, with colour being achieved through boiling the egg in natural substances (such as, onion peel (brown colour), oak or alder bark or walnut nutshell (black), beet juice (pink) etc.), or using artificial colourings.


title: Easter egg

text: A greater variety of colour was often provided by tying on the onion skin with different coloured woollen yarn. In the North of England these are called pace-eggs or paste-eggs, from a dialectal form of Middle English "pasche". King Edward I's household accounts in 1290 list an item of ‘one shilling and sixpence for the decoration and distribution of 450 Pace-eggs!’, which were to be coloured or gilded and given to members of the royal household. Traditionally in England, eggs were wrapped in onion skins and boiled to make their shells look like mottled gold, or wrapped in flowers and leaves first in order to leave a pattern, which parallels a custom practised in traditional Scandinavian culture. Eggs could also be drawn on with a wax candle before staining, often with a person's name and date on the egg. Pace Eggs were generally eaten for breakfast on Easter Sunday breakfast. Alternatively, they could be kept as decorations, used in egg-jarping (egg tapping) games, or given to Pace Eggers. In more recent centuries in England, eggs have been stained with coffee grains or simply boiled and painted in their shells.


title: Easter egg

text: In the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, with further symbolism being found in the hard shell of the egg symbolizing the sealed Tomb of Christ — the cracking of which symbolized his resurrection from the dead. The tradition of red easter eggs was used by the Russian Orthodox Church. The tradition to dyeing the easter eggs in an Onion tone exists in the cultures of Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Russia, Czechia, Romania, Slovenia, and Israel. The colour is made by boiling onion peel in water.


title: Easter egg

text: When boiling them with onion skins, leaves can be attached prior to dyeing to create leaf patterns. The leaves are attached to the eggs before they are dyed with a transparent cloth to wrap the eggs with like inexpensive muslin or nylon stockings, leaving patterns once the leaves are removed after the dyeing process. These eggs are part of Easter custom in many areas and often accompany other traditional Easter foods. Passover haminados are prepared with similar methods.


title: Easter egg

text: Pysanky are Ukrainian Easter eggs, decorated using a wax-resist (batik) method. The word comes from the verb "pysaty", "to write", as the designs are not painted on, but written with beeswax.


title: Easter egg

text: Decorating eggs for Easter using wax resistant batik is a popular method in some other eastern European countries.


title: Easter egg

text: In some Mediterranean countries, especially in Lebanon, chicken eggs are boiled and decorated by dye and/or painting and used as decoration around the house. Then, on Easter Day, young kids would duel with them saying 'Christ is resurrected, Indeed, He is', breaking and eating them. This also happens in Georgia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine. In Easter Sunday friends and family hit each other's egg with their own. The one whose egg does not break is believed to be in for good luck in the future.


title: Easter egg

text: In Germany, eggs decorate trees and bushes as Easter egg trees, and in several areas public wells as Osterbrunnen.


title: Easter egg

text: There used to be a custom in Ukraine, during Easter celebrations to have "krashanky" on a table in a bowl with wheatgrass. The number of the "krashanky" equalled the number of departed family members.


title: Easter egg

text: An egg hunt is a game in which decorated eggs, which may be hard-boiled chicken eggs, chocolate eggs, or artificial eggs containing candies, are hidden for children to find. The eggs often vary in size, and may be hidden both indoors and outdoors. When the hunt is over, prizes may be given for the largest number of eggs collected, or for the largest or the smallest egg.


title: Easter egg

text: Some central European nations (Czechs and Slovaks etc.) have a tradition of gathering eggs by gaining them from the females in return of whipping them with a pony-tail shaped whip made out of fresh willow branches and splashing them with water, by the Ruthenians called "polivanja", which is supposed to give them health and beauty.


title: Easter egg

text: Cascarones, a Latin American tradition now shared by many US States with high Hispanic demographics, are emptied and dried chicken eggs stuffed with confetti and sealed with a piece of tissue paper. The eggs are hidden in a similar tradition to the American Easter egg hunt and when found the children (and adults) break them over each other's heads.


title: Easter egg

text: In order to enable children to take part in egg hunts despite visual impairment, eggs have been created that emit various clicks, beeps, noises, or music so that visually impaired children can easily hunt for Easter eggs.


title: Easter egg

text: Egg rolling is also a traditional Easter egg game played with eggs at Easter. In the United Kingdom, Germany, and other countries children traditionally rolled eggs down hillsides at Easter. This tradition was taken to the New World by European settlers, and continues to this day each Easter with an Easter egg roll on the White House lawn. Rutherford B. Hayes started the tradition of the Easter Egg Roll at the White House. The Easter Monday Egg Roll was normally held at the United States Capitol, however, by the mid-1870s, Congress passed a law forbidding the Capitol’s grounds to be used for the activity due to the toll it was taking on the landscape. The law was enforced in 1877, but the rain that year canceled all outdoor activities. In 1878, Hayes was approached by many young easter egg rollers who asked for the event to be held at the White House. He invited any children who wanted to roll eggs to come to the White House in order to do so. The tradition still occurs every year on the South Lawn of the White House. Now, there are many other games and activities that take place such as “Egg Picking” and “Egg Ball.” Different nations have different versions of the Easter Egg roll game.


title: Easter egg

text: In the North of England, during Eastertide, a traditional game is played where hard boiled "pace eggs" are distributed and each player hits the other player's egg with their own. This is known as "egg tapping", "egg dumping", or "egg jarping". The winner is the holder of the last intact egg. The annual egg jarping world championship is held every year over Easter in Peterlee, Durham.


title: Easter egg

text: It is also practiced in Italy (where it is called "scuccetta"), Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia (where it is called "turčanje" or "trkanje"), Ukraine, Russia, and other countries. In parts of Austria, Bavaria and German-speaking Switzerland it is called "Ostereiertitschen" or "Eierpecken". In parts of Europe it is also called "epper", presumably from the German name "Opfer", meaning "offering" and in Greece it is known as "tsougrisma". In South Louisiana, this practice is called pocking eggs and is slightly different. The Louisiana Creoles hold that the winner eats the eggs of the losers in each round.


title: Easter egg

text: In the Greek Orthodox tradition, red eggs are also cracked together when people exchange Easter greetings.


title: Easter egg

text: Egg dance is a traditional Easter game in which eggs are laid on the ground or floor and the goal is to dance among them without damaging any eggs which originated in Germany.


title: Easter egg

text: The Pace Egg plays are traditional village plays, with a rebirth theme. The drama takes the form of a combat between the hero and villain, in which the hero is killed and brought back to life. The plays take place in England during Easter.


title: Easter egg

text: Chocolate eggs first appeared at the court of Louis XIV in Versailles and in 1725 the widow Giambone in Turin started producing chocolate eggs by filling empty chicken egg shells with molten chocolate. In 1873 J.S. Fry & Sons of England introduced the first chocolate Easter egg in Britain. Manufacturing their first Easter egg in 1875, Cadbury created the modern chocolate Easter egg after developing a pure cocoa butter that could be moulded into smooth shapes.


title: Easter egg

text: In Western cultures, the giving of chocolate eggs is now commonplace, with 80 million Easter eggs sold in the UK alone. Formerly, the containers Easter eggs were sold in contained large amounts of plastic, although in the United Kingdom this has gradually been replaced with recyclable paper and cardboard.


title: Easter egg

text: In the Indian state of Goa, the Goan Catholic version of marzipan is used to make easter eggs. In the Philippines, mazapán de pili (Spanish for "pili marzipan") is made from pili nuts.


title: Easter egg

text: The jewelled Easter eggs made by the Fabergé firm for the two last Russian Tsars are regarded as masterpieces of decorative arts. Most of these creations themselves contained hidden surprises such as clock-work birds, or miniature ships.


title: Easter egg

text: In Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and other Central European countries' folk traditions, Easter eggs are carved from wood and hand-painted, and making artificial eggs out of porcelain for ladies is common.


title: Easter egg

text: Easter eggs are frequently depicted in sculpture, including a sculpture of a pysanka standing in Vegreville, Alberta.


title: Easter egg

text: While the origin of Easter eggs can be explained in the symbolic terms described above, among followers of Eastern Christianity the legend says that Mary Magdalene was bringing cooked eggs to share with the other women at the tomb of Jesus, and the eggs in her basket miraculously turned bright red when she saw the risen Christ.


title: Easter egg

text: A different, but not necessarily conflicting legend concerns Mary Magdalene's efforts to spread the Gospel. According to this tradition, after the Ascension of Jesus, Mary went to the Emperor of Rome and greeted him with "Christ has risen," whereupon he pointed to an egg on his table and stated, "Christ has no more risen than that egg is red." After making this statement it is said the egg immediately turned blood red.


title: Easter egg

text: Red Easter eggs, known as "kokkina avga" (κόκκινα αυγά) in Greece and "krashanki" in Ukraine, are an Easter tradition and a distinct type of Easter egg prepared by various Orthodox Christian peoples. The red eggs are part of Easter custom in many areas and often accompany other traditional Easter foods. Passover haminados are prepared with similar methods.


title: Easter egg

text: Dark red eggs are a tradition in Greece and represent the blood of Christ shed on the cross. The practice dates to the early Christian church in Mesopotamia.


title: Easter egg

text: In Greece, superstitions of the past included the custom of placing the first-dyed red egg at the home's iconostasis (place where icons are displayed) to ward off evil. The heads and backs of small lambs were also marked with the red dye to protect them.


title: Easter egg

text: The egg is widely used as a symbol of the start of new life, just as new life emerges from an egg when the chick hatches out.


title: Easter egg

text: Painted eggs are used at the Iranian spring holidays, the Nowruz that marks the first day of spring or Equinox, and the beginning of the year in the Persian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical Northward equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed. The painted eggs symbolize fertility and are displayed on the Nowruz table, called Haft-Seen together with various other symbolic objects. There are sometimes one egg for each member of the family. The ancient Zoroastrians painted eggs for Nowruz, their New Year celebration, which falls on the Spring equinox. The tradition continues among Persians of Islamic, Zoroastrian, and other faiths today. The Nowruz tradition has existed for at least 2,500 years. The sculptures on the walls of Persepolis show people carrying eggs for Nowruz to the king.


title: Easter egg

text: The Neopagan holiday of Ostara occurs at roughly the same time as Easter. While it is often claimed that the use of painted eggs is an ancient, pre-Christian component of the celebration of Ostara, there are no historical accounts that ancient celebrations included this practice, apart from the Old High German lullaby which is believed by most to be a modern fabrication. Rather, the use of painted eggs has been adopted under the assumption that it might be a pre-Christian survival. In fact, modern scholarship has been unable to trace any association between eggs and a supposed goddess named Ostara before the 19th century, when early folklorists began to speculate about the possibility.


title: Easter egg

text: There are good grounds for the association between hares (later termed Easter bunnies) and bird eggs, through folklore confusion between hares' forms (where they raise their young) and plovers' nests.


title: Easter egg

text: In Judaism, a hard-boiled egg is an element of the Passover Seder, representing festival sacrifice. The children's game of hunting for the afikomen (a half-piece of matzo) has similarities to the Easter egg hunt tradition, by which the child who finds the hidden matzah will be awarded a prize. In other homes, the children hide the afikoman and a parent must look for it; when the parents give up, the children demand a prize for revealing its location.


title: Dick Dale

text: Richard Anthony Monsour (May 4, 1937 – March 16, 2019), known professionally as Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist. He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverb. Dale was known as "The King of the Surf Guitar", which was also the title of his second studio album.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale was one of the most influential guitarists of all time and especially of the early 1960s. Most of the leading bands in surf music, such as The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and The Trashmen, were influenced by Dale's music, and often included recordings of Dale's songs in their albums. His style and music influenced guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Eddie Van Halen and Brian May.


title: Dick Dale

text: He has been credited with popularizing tremolo picking, a technique that is now widely used in many musical genres (such as extreme metal, folk etc.). His speedy single-note staccato picking technique was unrivaled until guitarists like Eddie Van Halen entered the music scene. He was cited as one of the fathers of heavy metal for pushing the limits of amplification.


title: Dick Dale

text: Working together with Leo Fender, Dale also pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, helping to develop new equipment that was capable of producing thick and previously unheard volumes including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier. Dale also pioneered the use of portable reverb effects.


title: Dick Dale

text: The use of his recording of "Misirlou" by Quentin Tarantino in the film "Pulp Fiction" led to his return in the 1990s, marked by four albums and world tours. He was also nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for the song "Pipeline" with Stevie Ray Vaughan.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dick Dale was born Richard Anthony Monsour in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 4, 1937. He was of Lebanese descent from his father, James, and of Polish-Belarusian descent from his mother, Sophia "Fern" (née Danksewicz). His family subsequently moved to Quincy, Massachusetts, which at the time had a significant Lebanese population in the neighborhood of Quincy Point. He learned the piano when he was nine after listening to his aunt playing it. He was given a trumpet in seventh grade, and later acquired a ukulele (for $6 part exchange), after having become influenced by Hank Williams. The first song he played on the ukulele was "Tennessee Waltz". He was also influenced musically by his uncle, who taught him how to play the tarabaki and could play the oud.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale then bought a guitar from a friend for $8, paying him back by installments. He learned to play the instrument, using both lead and rhythm styles, so that the guitar filled the place of drums. His early tarabaki drumming later influenced his guitar playing, particularly his rapid alternate picking technique. Dale referred to this as "the pulsation", noting all instruments he played derived from the tarabaki. He was raised in Quincy until he completed the eleventh grade at Quincy High School in 1954, when his father, a machinist, took a job working for Hughes Aircraft Company in the Southern California aerospace industry. The family moved to El Segundo, California. Dale spent his senior year at and graduated from Washington Senior High School. He learned to surf at the age of 17. As a Lebanese-American, he retained a strong interest in Arabic music, which later played a major role in his development of surf rock music.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale began playing in local country western rockabilly bars where he met Texas Tiny in 1955, who gave him the name "Dick Dale" because he thought it was a good name for a country singer.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale employed non-Western scales in his playing. He regularly used reverb, which became a trademark of surf guitar. Being lefthanded, Dale initially played a right-handed model. However, he did so (like Albert King) without restringing the guitar, effectively playing the guitar upside-down (while Hendrix, by comparison, would restring his guitar). Even after he acquired a proper left-handed guitar, Dale continued to use his reverse stringing. He often played by reaching over the fretboard, rather than wrapping his fingers up from underneath.


title: Dick Dale

text: He partnered with Leo Fender to test new equipment, later saying "When it can withstand the barrage of punishment from Dick Dale, then it is fit for the human consumption." His combination of loud amplifiers and heavy gauge strings led him to be called the "Father of Heavy Metal". After Dale blew up several Fender amplifiers, Leo Fender and Freddie Tavares saw Dale play at the Rendezvous Ballroom, Balboa, California and identified the problem arose from him creating a sound louder than the audience screaming. The pair visited the James B. Lansing loudspeaker company and asked for a custom 15-inch loudspeaker, which became the JBL D130F model, and was known as the Single Showman Amp. Dale's combination of a Fender Stratocaster and Fender Showman Amp allowed him to attain significantly louder volume levels unobtainable by then-conventional equipment.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale's performances at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa in mid to late 1961 are credited with the creation of the surf music phenomenon. Dale obtained permission to use the 3,000 person capacity ballroom for surfer dances after overcrowding at a local ice cream parlor where he performed made him seek other venues. The Rendezvous ownership and the city of Newport Beach agreed to Dale's request on the condition that he prohibit alcohol sales and implement a dress code. Dale's events at the ballrooms, called "stomps," quickly became legendary, and the events routinely sold out.


title: Dick Dale

text: "Let's Go Trippin'" is one of the first surf rock songs. This was followed by more locally released songs, including "Jungle Fever" and "Surf Beat" on his own Deltone label. His first full-length album was "Surfers' Choice" in 1962. The album was picked up by Capitol Records and distributed nationally, and Dale soon began appearing on "The Ed Sullivan Show", and in films where he played his signature single "Miserlou". He later stated, "I still remember the first night we played it ("Misirlou"). I changed the tempo, and just started "cranking" on that mother. And ... it was eerie. The people came rising up off the floor, and they were chanting and stomping. I guess that was the beginning of the surfer's stomp." His second album was named after his performing nickname, "King of the Surf Guitar".


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale later said "There was a tremendous amount of power I felt while surfing and that feeling of power was simply transferred into my guitar". His playing style reflected the experience he had when surfing, and projecting the power of the ocean to people.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale and the Del-Tones performed both sides of his Capitol single, "Secret Surfin' Spot" in the 1963 movie "Beach Party", starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. The group performed the songs "My First Love," "Runnin' Wild" and "Muscle Beach" in the 1964 film, "Muscle Beach Party".


title: Dick Dale

text: Surf rock's national popularity was somewhat brief, as the British Invasion began to overtake the American charts in 1964. Though he continued performing live, Dale developed colorectal cancer. In the liner notes of "Better Shred Than Dead: The Dick Dale Anthology", Dale quoted Jimi Hendrix saying, "Then you'll never hear surf music again" in response to hearing he might be terminally ill. Dale covered "Third Stone from the Sun" as a tribute to Hendrix. Though he recovered, he retired from music for several years. In 1979, he almost lost a leg after a pollution-related infection of a mild swimming injury. As a result, Dale became an environmental activist and soon began performing again. He recorded a new album in 1986 and was nominated for a Grammy. In 1987 he appeared in the movie "Back to the Beach", playing surf music and performing "Pipeline" with Stevie Ray Vaughan.


title: Dick Dale

text: The use of "Miserlou" in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film "Pulp Fiction" gained him a new audience. The following year, John Peel praised his playing following a gig in the Garage, London. Peel later selected "Let's Go Trippin'" as the theme tune for his BBC Radio 4 series "Home Truths". The same year, he recorded a surf-rock version of Camille Saint-Saëns's "Aquarium" from "The Carnival of the Animals" for the musical score of the enclosed roller coaster, Space Mountain at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale was inducted to the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame in 1996. In 2000 the U.S. House of Representatives elected Dale into the Library of Congress Hall of Records for outstanding achievements in music. In March 2005, "Q" magazine placed Dale's version at number 89 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.


title: Dick Dale

text: In 2009, Dale was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. Dale is also a 2011 inductee into the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach, California, in the Surf Culture category.


title: Dick Dale

text: In June 2009, Dale began a West Coast tour from southern California to British Columbia, with approximately 20 concert dates. "Forever Came Calling" (or FCC) featured Dale's then-17-year-old son, Jimmie Dale on drums, who opened for him. He was scheduled to play the Australian One Great Night On Earth festival to raise funds to benefit those affected by the Black Saturday bushfires and other natural disasters.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale said that he was forced to keep touring to the end of his life, because of his inability to afford his medical costs. He had many health issues, including diabetes, kidney failure, and vertebrae damage that made performing excruciatingly painful. At the time of his death, Dale had tour dates scheduled into November 2019.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale was married three times. His first wife Jeannie in the 1970s was a Tahitian dancer in Hawaii and provided backup


title: Dick Dale

text: vocals for the 1975 release Spanish Eyes. Together, they created a musical revue and toured at resorts in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe. From the proceeds, the couple made successful investments in nightclubs and real estate, allowing Dale to purchase his three-story 17 room dream mansion at 'the Wedge' located in Newport Beach at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula and mouth to Newport Harbor. Jeannie toured with Dale and his Deltones through the early '80s up until their very public and bitter divorce in 1984, which depleted much of Dale's accumulated wealth.


title: Dick Dale

text: He met his second wife Jill in 1986. Together they had a son, James (Jimmy), born in 1992. Dale credits Jill for his transition from surf rock to a more raw and stripped-down style that consisted of just him and two other musicians. Jill provided back up vocals and drum tracks for Dale's 1993 "Tribal Thunder" album.


title: Dick Dale

text: He said that he never used alcohol or other drugs for health reasons, and discouraged their use by band members and road crew. In 1972, he stopped eating red meat. He studied Kenpo karate for over 30 years. In early 2008, he experienced a recurrence of colorectal cancer and completed a surgical, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment regimen.


title: Dick Dale

text: In ""Rolling Stone"'s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time", Dale was ranked 31st in 2003 and 74th in the 2011 revision.


title: Dick Dale

text: Dale died in Loma Linda, California on March 16, 2019, at the age of 81. He was treated for heart failure and kidney failure prior to his death.


title: ETOPS

text: ETOPS () is an acronym for "Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards"—a special part of flight rules for one-engine-inoperative flight conditions. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) coined the acronym for twin-engine aircraft operation in airspace further than one hour from a diversion airport at the one-engine-inoperative cruise speed, over water or remote lands, or on routes previously restricted to three- and four-engine aircraft.


title: ETOPS

text: The first heavier-than-air, non-stop transatlantic flight was made in 1919, by John Alcock and Arthur Brown, in a twin-engine Vickers Vimy, from Newfoundland to Ireland in sixteen hours. By 1936 the Bureau of Air Commerce (the precursor to the FAA) restricted operations to within of an airport, regardless of the engine number, about 60 minutes with one engine inoperative. In 1953 the FAA "60-minute rule" restricted twin-engine aircraft to a 60-minute diversion area, based on the piston engine reliability of the time, with flexibility beyond with special approval. In the 1950s the ICAO recommended a 90-minute diversion time for all aircraft, adopted by many regulatory authorities and airlines outside the US.


title: ETOPS

text: During the 1950s, Pan Am twin-piston Convair 240s flew across the Caribbean from Barranquilla, Colombia to Kingston, Jamaica, Avensa Convair 340s flew from Maracaibo, Venezuela to Montego Bay, Jamaica, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Douglas DC-3s flew Curacao to Ciudad Trujillo (now Santo Domingo) while KLM Royal Dutch Convairs flew Aruba to Kingston with Delta Air Lines operating Convair 340 flights nonstop between New Orleans and Havana as well as nonstop between Havana and Montego Bay and also on a routing of Havana - Port au Prince - Ciudad Trujillo - San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1948-52 New Zealand National scheduled a DC-3 to fly from Apia (Western Samoa) to Aitutaki, a -hour flight covering 685 airportless nautical miles between Tafuna (Pago Pago) and Aitutaki. In 1963 Polynesian Airlines started flying a Percival Prince Apia to Aitutaki; in 1964 the flight was a DC-3 from Faleolo (Upolu) to Aitutaki, a distance of 768 n.m. More recently, the January 1979 OAG showed a weekly Polynesian Airlines HS748 from Niue to Rarotonga, with no airport.


title: ETOPS

text: Later ICAO issues Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPS) for ETOPS, and ETOPS were extended to four-engine aircraft like the Boeing 747-8 and the terminology updated to EDTO – Extended Diversion Time Operations.


title: ETOPS

text: Jet engines are much more reliable than piston engines. The first jet airliner to enter service was the four-engine de Havilland Comet in 1952.


title: ETOPS

text: Twinjets grew bigger and faster than four-engine piston aircraft, like those powered by the reliable Pratt & Whitney JT8D (e.g., the DC-9 and Boeing 737).


title: ETOPS

text: By the late 1960s, large civil airliners were jet-powered, relegating the piston engine to niche roles such as cargo flights. The JT8D was reliably powering the three-engine Boeing 727. The 60-minute rule was waived in 1964 for three-engine aircraft, which opened the way for the development of wide-body, intercontinental trijets, such as the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar and DC-10. By then, only twin-engine jets were restricted by the 60-minute rule. Trijets and quadjets dominated international long-haul flights until the late 1980s.


title: ETOPS

text: Airbus A300 twinjets, the first twin-engine wide-body aircraft, had been flying across the North Atlantic, the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean under a 90-minute ICAO rule since 1976.


title: ETOPS

text: Dick Taylor, then Boeing's director of engineering approached FAA director J. Lynn Helms in 1980 about the possibility of an exemption: his response was "It'll be a cold day in hell before I let twins fly long haul, overwater routes."


title: ETOPS

text: Trans World Airlines operated the first 120-minute ETOPS (ETOPS-120) service on February 1, 1985, with a Boeing 767-200 from Boston to Paris. The 767 burned less fuel per hour than a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar on the same route, prompting TWA to spend $2.6 million on each 767 they owned to retrofit them to ETOPS-120 specs.


title: ETOPS

text: In April 1986, Pan Am inaugurated transatlantic revenue service using A310s, and Airbus ETOPS operators were more than 20 in less than five years.


title: ETOPS

text: In 1988, the FAA amended the ETOPS regulation to allow the extension to a 180-minute diversion period, subject to stringent technical and operational qualifications. ETOPS-180 and ETOPS-207 cover about 95% of the Earth. The first such flight was conducted in 1989. This set of regulations was subsequently adopted by the JAA, ICAO, and other regulatory bodies.


title: ETOPS

text: The original 1985 regulations allowed an airliner to have ETOPS-120 rating on entry into service. ETOPS-180 was only possible after one year of trouble-free 120-minute ETOPS experience. In 1990 Boeing convinced the FAA that it could deliver an airliner with ETOPS-180 on its entry into service. This process was called Early ETOPS. The Boeing 777 was the first aircraft to be introduced with an ETOPS rating of 180 minutes.


title: ETOPS

text: In the 1990s, the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) demurred; on its entry into service in Europe, the Boeing 777 was rated ETOPS-120. European airlines operating the 777 had to demonstrate one year of trouble-free 120-minute ETOPS experience before obtaining 180-minute ETOPS for the 777.


title: ETOPS

text: Effective February 15, 2007, the FAA ruled that US-registered twin-engine airplane operators can fly more than 180-minute ETOPS to the design limit of the aircraft. In November 2009, the Airbus A330 became the first aircraft to receive ETOPS-240 approval, which has since been offered by Airbus as an option.


title: ETOPS

text: ETOPS-240 and beyond are now permitted on a case-by-case basis, with regulatory bodies in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand adopting said regulatory extension. Authority is only granted to operators of two-engine airplanes between specific city pairs. The certificate holder must have been operating at 180-minute or greater ETOPS authority for at least 24 consecutive months, of which at least 12 consecutive months must be at 240-minute ETOPS authority with the airplane-engine combination in the application.


title: ETOPS

text: On December 12, 2011, Boeing received type-design approval from the FAA for up to 330-minute extended operations for its Boeing 777 series, all equipped with GE engines, and with Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney engines expected to follow. The first ETOPS-330 flight took place on December 1, 2015, with Air New Zealand connecting Auckland to Buenos Aires on a 777-200ER. On May 28, 2014, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner received its ETOPS-330 certificate from the FAA, enabling LAN Airlines to switch to the 787 from the A340 on their Santiago–Auckland–Sydney service a year later.


title: ETOPS

text: Until the rule change in North America and Oceania, several commercial airline routes were still economically off-limits to twinjets because of ETOPS regulations, unless the route was specifically conducted as indivertible. There were routes traversing the Southern hemisphere, e.g., South Pacific (e.g., Sydney–Santiago, which is the longest over-the-sea distance flown by a commercial airline), South Atlantic (e.g., Johannesburg–São Paulo), Southern Indian Ocean (e.g., Perth–Johannesburg), and Antarctica.


title: ETOPS

text: Before the introduction of the Airbus A350XWB in 2014, regulations in North America and Europe permitted up to 180-minute ETOPS at entry. The A350 XWB was first to receive an ETOPS-370 prior to entry into service by European authorities, enabling economical nonstop routes between Europe and Oceania (and thereby bypassing historical stopovers across Asia and North America) by the late 2010s and early 2020s. This includes the high-demand London-Sydney route, in the latest development for ultra long-haul flights. The A350 XWB's current ETOPS certification covers 99.7% of the Earth's entire surface, allowing point-to-point travel anywhere in the world except directly over the South Pole.


title: ETOPS

text: Meanwhile, the first time that ETOPS-330 approval was given to a four-engine aircraft was in February 2015, to the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental. It is the only ETOPS-compliant aircraft allowed to run non-stop overflights over Antarctica with proper alternates, alongside the Airbus A340 and A380.


title: ETOPS

text: The North Atlantic Tracks are the most heavily used oceanic routes in the world, and are largely covered by ETOPS 120-minute rules, thereby removing the necessity of using 180-minute rules. However, North Atlantic diversion airports are subject to adverse weather conditions that affect their availability for use. As a result, the JAA and FAA have given 15% extension to the 120-minute rules to deal with such contingencies, resulting to ETOPS-138 (i.e. 138 minutes) to allow ETOPS flights with such airports closed. By the mid-2010s, virtually all North Atlantic plane routes were dominated by twin-engine aircraft.


title: ETOPS

text: During the Cold War, routes between Europe and East Asia were prohibited from flying over Soviet Union or China since both airspaces were previously heavily military-controlled. Virtually all flights between Europe and North East Asia flew over the U.S., often with a tank stop in Anchorage, Alaska. They flew near the North Pole with a very large distance to usable airports, for which only three- and four-engine wide-body aircraft were permitted for safety reasons by international aviation authorities. Some flights between Europe and Oceania still largely pass through stopovers in Asia (either in the Middle East or Southeast Asia) or North America (either in Canada or the U.S.) given the current aircraft range restrictions and, in the case of the early 2020s, the reinstatement of selected routes by airlines between the Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere bypassing Russia due to its ongoing war with Ukraine.


title: ETOPS

text: For decades, narrow-body aircraft like the Airbus A320 series, and the Boeing 737 series and 757 have continuously operated flights as approved for ETOPS operation, alongside earlier wide-body aircraft such as the A300 and A310, and Boeing 767. The success of ETOPS aircraft like A300 and Boeing 767 made the intercontinental trijets obsolete for passenger use, production of which was largely ended by the late 2000s with Boeing cancelling the MD-11 program in the same period.


title: ETOPS

text: The rules have also allowed American legacy carriers (United Airlines and Delta Air Lines in particular) to use the Boeing 757 on "long and thin" transatlantic routes between their major hubs and secondary European cities that cannot generate the passenger demand to justify the use of a widebody airliner. The practice has been controversial, because although the 757 has adequate range to cross the Atlantic Ocean comfortably, strong headwinds caused by the jetstream over the winter months can result in westbound flights being declared "minimum fuel", forcing a refuelling stop at Gander, Newfoundland, in order to safely complete their journey.


title: ETOPS

text: Aloha Airlines operated 180-minute ETOPS–approved Boeing 737-700 aircraft on nonstop routes between the Hawaiian Islands and the western U.S. and also Vancouver, Canada. The use of the smaller 737-700 enabled Aloha to serve routes that could not support larger jet aircraft with an example being the Honolulu – Burbank nonstop route. Prior to the 737-700 operation, Aloha Airlines had operated 737-200 aircraft to various Pacific islands utilizing 120 minute ETOPS.


title: ETOPS

text: Other new-generation ETOPS aircraft include the Airbus A220 series, the Embraer E-Jets series and the ATR 72. By the mid-2010s, the widespread successes of ETOPS-reliant narrow-body aircraft have diminished the global market share of double-deck wide-body jets. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the early 2020s, Boeing and Airbus have since ended all production of the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380, respectively (and both being the two largest commercial aircraft in the world). At the same time, the increasing prominence of new-generation ultra-long-range wide-body twinjets like the Boeing 777 and 787, and Airbus A330 and A350 over the last decade has shifted the favor from quadjets to twinjets for international long-haul travel.


title: ETOPS

text: The cornerstone of the ETOPS approach is the statistics showing that the turbine assembly of a modern jet engine is an inherently reliable component. Engine ancillaries, by contrast, have a lower reliability rating. Therefore, an ETOPS-certified engine may be built with duplicate sets of certain ancillaries in order to receive the required reliability rating.


title: ETOPS

text: ETOPS approval is a two-step process. First, the airframe and engine combination must satisfy the basic ETOPS requirements during its type certification. This is called "ETOPS type approval". Such tests may include shutting down an engine and flying the remaining engine during the complete diversion time. Often such tests are performed in the middle of the ocean. It must be demonstrated that, during the diversion flight, the flight crew is not unduly burdened by extra workload due to the lost engine and that the probability of the remaining engine failing is extremely remote. For example, if an aircraft is rated for ETOPS-180, it means that it is able to fly with full load and just one engine for three hours.


title: ETOPS

text: Second, an operator who conducts ETOPS flights must satisfy their own country's aviation regulators about their ability to conduct ETOPS flights. This is called "ETOPS operational certification" and involves compliance with additional special engineering and flight crew procedures in addition to the normal engineering and flight procedures. Pilots and engineering staff must be qualified and trained for ETOPS. An airline with extensive experience operating long distance flights may be awarded ETOPS operational approval immediately, while others may need to demonstrate ability through a series of ETOPS proving flights.


title: ETOPS

text: Regulators closely watch the ETOPS performance of both type certificate holders and their affiliated airlines. Any technical incidents during an ETOPS flight must be recorded. From the data collected, the reliability of the particular airframe-engine combination is measured and statistics published. The figures must be within limits of type certifications. Of course, the figures required for ETOPS-180 will always be more stringent than ETOPS-120. Unsatisfactory figures would lead to a downgrade or, worse, suspension of ETOPS capabilities either for the type certificate holder or the airline.


title: ETOPS

text: Engines must have an in-flight shutdown (IFSD) rate better than 1 per 20,000 hours for ETOPS-120, 1 per 50,000 hours for ETOPS-180, and


title: ETOPS

text: Private jets are exempted from ETOPS by the FAA, but are subject to the ETOPS 120-minute rule in EASA's jurisdiction.


title: ETOPS

text: There are different levels of ETOPS certification, each allowing aircraft to fly on routes that are a certain amount of single-engine flying time away from the nearest suitable airport. For example, if an aircraft is certified for 180 minutes, it is permitted to fly any route not more than 180 minutes' single-engine flying time to the nearest suitable airport.


title: ETOPS

text: The following ratings are awarded under current regulations according to the capability of the airliner:


title: ETOPS

text: Until the mid-1980s, the term EROPS (extended range operations) was used before being superseded by ETOPS usage. In 1997, when Boeing proposed to extend ETOPS authority for twins to beyond 180 minutes, Airbus proposed to replace ETOPS by a newer system, referred to as Long Range Operational Performance Standards (LROPS), which would affect all civil airliners, not just those with a twin-engine configuration with more than 180 minutes ETOPS.


title: ETOPS

text: This final rule applies to air carrier (part 121), commuter, and on-demand (part 135) turbine powered multi-engine airplanes used in extended-range operations. However, all-cargo operations in airplanes with more than two engines of both part 121 and part 135 are exempted from the majority of this rule. Today's rule [January 16, 2007] establishes regulations governing the design, operation and maintenance of certain airplanes operated on flights that fly long distances from an adequate airport. This final rule codifies current FAA policy, industry best practices and recommendations, as well as international standards designed to ensure long-range flights will continue to operate safely." and Several commenters … recommended use of the acronym "LROPS"—meaning 'Long Range Operations'—for three- and four-engine ETOPS, to avoid confusion, particularly for those operations beyond 180 minutes' diversion time. The FAA has decided to use the single term, 'extended operations,' or ETOPS, for all affected operations regardless of the number of engines on the airplane."


title: ETOPS

text: Prior to 2007, the FAA used the term for "Extended Range Operation with Two-Engine Airplanes" but the meaning was changed when regulations were broadened to include aircraft with more than two engines.


title: ETOPS

text: EDTO – Extended Diversion Time Operations. ICAO amendment 36 replaced the term ETOPS with the new term EDTO (Extended Diversion Time Operations). The main reason of this change in the terminology was to better reflect the scope and applicability of these new standards.


title: ETOPS

text: A colloquial aviation backronym is "Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim", referring to the inevitable emergency water landing of a twin engine aircraft after a double engine failure over water outside gliding range of land.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Ethan Anthony Couch (born April 11, 1997) is an American who, at age 16, killed four people while driving under the influence on June 15, 2013, in Burleson, Texas. Couch, while intoxicated and under the influence of drugs, was driving on a restricted license and speeding in a residential area when he lost control of his vehicle, colliding with a group of people assisting another driver with a disabled SUV. Four people were killed in the collision, and nine people were injured. Two passengers in Couch's pickup truck suffered serious injuries, with one passenger suffering complete paralysis.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Couch was indicted on four counts of intoxication manslaughter for recklessly driving under the influence. In December 2013, Judge Jean Hudson Boyd sentenced Couch to ten years of probation, subsequently ordering him to undergo therapy at a long term inpatient facility. Before sentencing, Couch's attorneys had argued that Couch had "affluenza" and needed rehabilitation instead of prison, arguing that Couch had no understanding of boundaries as his affluent parents had never given him any. Couch's sentence, judged by many as outrageously lenient, set off what "The New York Times" called "an emotional, angry debate that has stretched far beyond the North Texas suburbs".


title: Ethan Couch

text: On December 11, 2015, after a video was posted online purporting to show Couch drinking at a party, Couch became the subject of a manhunt, and was listed in the National Fugitive Database after attempts by his probation officer to contact him failed. On December 28, 2015, authorities detained Couch and his mother in the Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. On April 13, 2016, Couch was sentenced to serve two years in prison, and was released in 2018. On January 2, 2020, Couch returned to jail for an alleged probation violation, failing a mandated drug test for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). He was released a day later, pending an investigation into whether the positive test result for THC came from illegal marijuana or from cannabidiol oil.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Couch's parents are Fred and Tonya. Fred founded Cleburne Metal Works, a metal roofing company, in 1986, and Tonya was a nurse before her license was revoked in 2012. Couch grew up in Burleson and previously attended Anderson Private School. Couch drove himself to school at the age of thirteen; when this was questioned by the principal his father responded by threatening to buy the school. Couch then withdrew from Anderson and began attending a co-op based in nearby Watauga until age 15, when he enrolled in a community college.


title: Ethan Couch

text: At the age of 15, Couch was cited for "minor in consumption of alcohol" and "minor in possession of alcohol", after he was caught in a parked pickup truck with a naked, passed-out 14-year-old girl. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to probation, a compulsory alcohol awareness class, and 12 hours of community service.


title: Ethan Couch

text: His parents—who divorced in 2017—have also each had legal problems, publicized in the media following their son's conviction.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Fred Couch has previously been charged with evading arrest, theft by check, and assault against his then-wife Tonya, and was convicted of misdemeanor assault in 2000. On August 19, 2014, he was arrested for impersonating a police officer, allegedly displaying a fake badge during a disturbance call, and was later found guilty and sentenced to a year of probation in December 2016. In February 2016, police were called to his home after he allegedly choked his girlfriend, but no charges were filed. In September 2019, he was charged with assault, allegedly having choked his girlfriend with his hands that July.


title: Ethan Couch

text: In 2013, Tonya Couch was sentenced to a $500 fine and a six-month community supervision order for reckless driving when she used her vehicle to force another motorist off the road.


title: Ethan Couch

text: On the evening of June 15, 2013, according to authorities and trial testimony, Couch was witnessed on surveillance video stealing two cases of beer from a Walmart store, driving with seven passengers in his father's red 2012 Ford F-350 pickup truck, and speeding at in a designated 40-mile-per-hour (64 km/h) zone.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Approximately an hour after the beer theft, Couch was driving his father's truck at on rural, two-lane Burleson-Retta Road where motorist Breanna Mitchell's sport utility vehicle had stalled. Hollie Boyles and her daughter Shelby, who lived nearby, had come out to help her, as had passing youth minister Brian Jennings. Couch's truck swerved off the road and into Mitchell's sport utility vehicle, then crashed into Jennings' parked car, which in turn hit an oncoming Volkswagen Beetle. Couch's truck then flipped over and struck a tree. Mitchell, Jennings, and both Boyles were killed, while Couch and his seven teenage passengers, none of whom were wearing seat belts, survived. The two children in Jennings' car and the two people in the Volkswagen also survived.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Three hours after the incident, Couch, 16, had a blood alcohol content of 0.24%, three times the legal limit for adult drivers (21+ years old) in Texas, and he also tested positive for marijuana and diazepam.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Couch was charged with four counts of intoxication manslaughter and two counts of intoxication assault. Couch entered a guilty plea, and Tarrant County prosecutors were seeking a maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment for Couch.


title: Ethan Couch

text: G. Dick Miller, a psychologist hired as an expert by the defense, testified in court that the teen was a product of "affluenza" and was unable to link his actions with consequences because of his parents teaching him that wealth buys privilege. It was initially reported that, as part of his sentencing, their son would be sent for teen substance abuse and mental health rehabilitation to Newport Academy, an upscale residential treatment center in Newport Beach, California with costs upwards of $450,000, annually.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Following a court hearing closed to the public, Judge Boyd instead sentenced Couch to an unspecified lock-down rehabilitation facility at his parents' expense; the time Couch would have to stay there was also unspecified. Couch was ordered to stay away from drugs, alcohol, and driving. A hearing on April 11, 2014, revealed that on February 19, 2014, Couch had begun treatment "at the North Texas State Hospital, a state-owned inpatient mental health facility" in Vernon, Texas. Although the daily rate for the treatment facility is $715, Couch's parents were ordered to pay just $1,170 per month for his stay there, based on the state's sliding-scale payment schedule. The amount ordered is the maximum allowed on the payment schedule. Couch's parents promised in court to pay the requested fee for their son's treatment.


title: Ethan Couch

text: At least one relative of the crash victims protested the lightness of Couch's sentence and his lack of remorse.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Following the probation sentence, the Tarrant County District Attorney's office asked a juvenile judge to incarcerate Couch, on two counts of intoxication assault, saying there had been no verdict formally entered for those charges and "every case deserves a verdict."


title: Ethan Couch

text: One psychologist who disagreed with Couch's sentence—Dr. Suniya S. Luthar, who specializes in "the costs of affluence in suburban communities"—maintains that research shows feelings of entitlement among affluent youth are a social problem, and that "we are setting a double standard for the rich and poor." Luthar asked, "What is the likelihood if this was an African-American, inner-city kid that grew up in a violent neighborhood to a single mother who is addicted to crack and he was caught two or three times  ... what is the likelihood that the judge would excuse his behavior and let him off because of how he was raised?"


title: Ethan Couch

text: Writing in "The Guardian", Texas student Jessica Luther points out that Couch's family's ability to pay for private therapy, i.e., their wealth, was intrinsic to the judge's reasoning for giving Couch a light sentence. An offender without his means would end up in the overcrowded, publicly supported Texas juvenile justice system where (the judge noted) Couch "might not get the kind of intensive therapy in a state-run program that he could receive at the California facility suggested by his attorneys".


title: Ethan Couch

text: Another psychologist — Robin S. Rosenberg — has argued that Miller's defense makes no sense because Couch could have learned that bad behavior has consequences in other areas of his life, and that a sentence to a luxurious rehabilitation home reinforces the message "that his wealth and privilege "can" obviate the negative consequences of his criminal behavior".


title: Ethan Couch

text: Critics complained that the presiding judge — District Judge Jean Boyd — had given a much harsher sentence to another 16-year-old intoxicated driver 10 years earlier, who killed one person. In February 2004, Boyd sentenced Eric Bradlee Miller, who stole a truck and killed a 19-year-old father, to 20 years telling him, "the court is aware you had a sad childhood  ... I hope you will take advantage of the services [offered by the Texas Youth Commission] and turn your life around." Eric Bradlee Miller had killed one person, not four, and had a much lower blood alcohol level (0.11% compared to Couch's 0.24%), but was from a much poorer family.


title: Ethan Couch

text: According to "The New York Times", however, it is unclear what, if any, part, Couch's family's wealth played in his sentence. "[I]t is not uncommon for minors involved in serious drunken-driving cases and other crimes to receive probation instead of prison time", and the sentence may be part of "a growing trend of giving a young person a second chance through rehabilitation instead of trying him as an adult". Boyd had a history of attempting to place youths in rehabilitation rather than jail.


title: Ethan Couch

text: The leading Republican and Democratic candidates in the 2014 Texas gubernatorial election, respectively, Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis, commented on the sentence. Davis referred to it as a "disgrace" and Abbott, then-Texas Attorney General, said his office was looking to appeal the case.


title: Ethan Couch

text: At a February 5, 2014 hearing, Eric Boyles, whose wife and daughter were killed in the crash, said "Had he not had money to have the defense there, to also have the experts testify, and also offer to pay for the treatment, I think the results would have been different."


title: Ethan Couch

text: Five civil lawsuits were filed by families of the four victims and two of the passengers between September and November 2013, against Couch, his family, and Cleburne Metal Works (doing business as Cleburne Sheet Metal, as the truck's registered owner). An additional lawsuit was filed in December 2013, by the family of Isaiah McLaughlin, a passenger in Jennings' vehicle. The lawsuits were filed by:


title: Ethan Couch

text: The first lawsuit was filed by Maria Lemus and Sergio Molina on behalf of their son, Sergio E. Molina, who was riding in the bed of Couch's truck and suffered a traumatic brain injury. According to the suit petition, Molina's medical expenses exceeded an estimated $600,000 at the time and could top $10 million if he needs round-the-clock care.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Five of the six suits (all those except the McLaughlin suit) were consolidated in January 2014 to save court costs. The McLaughlin and Mitchell suits were settled out-of-court by March 2014, and Sergio Molina's family reached an out-of-court settlement in May 2014. By November 2014, all of the suits had been settled with the exception of the suit by McConnell, who had requested a jury trial. In the McConnell suit, lawyers for the defendants filed a writ of mandamus in July 2014 to prevent access to the records of Dr. Miller; the emergency stay was granted by the Texas Court of Appeals in August, but mandamus was subsequently denied in September. The McConnell suit was settled in October 2015.


title: Ethan Couch

text: In late 2015, authorities began investigating a claim made on Twitter on December 2, 2015. The user posted a video along with a caption stating that Couch was in violation of his probation. The video shows several young people playing beer pong at a party, one of whom appears to be Couch. Drinking was a direct violation of Couch's 10 year probation. Consequences could have included a re-sentencing, which could mean a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment, according to the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office.


title: Ethan Couch

text: A warrant was issued for Couch on December 11, 2015, after his probation officer could not reach him. On December 18, 2015, Couch and his mother were reported as missing, and as having not been reached after failing to make contact with Couch's probation officer. The fugitive hunt for Couch became a federal matter in December 2015 with the U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, and other agencies joining the hunt for the suspect who was believed to have fled the country. A $5,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts or arrest of Ethan Couch was offered.


title: Ethan Couch

text: Couch and his mother were discovered and arrested in Puerto Vallarta, in Jalisco, Mexico on December 28, 2015. Mexican authorities transported the pair to immigration offices in Guadalajara for deportation to the United States. Ethan Couch won a delay in his deportation, based on a constitutional appeal in Mexico (see "recurso de amparo"), and was transported to a detention facility in Mexico City. His mother was deported on December 30 aboard a commercial flight to Los Angeles International Airport and arrested upon arrival on December 31 by the Los Angeles Police Department on a felony charge of hindering apprehension of a felon. She was initially being held on $1 million bail, but after her transfer back to Tarrant County, a judge dropped her bail to $75,000, and she was released from jail on January 12, having posted bond.