title: Carly Fiorina

text: When asked during a radio interview on September 15, 2008 whether she thought Palin had the experience to run a major company like Hewlett-Packard, Fiorina answered "No, I don't. But that's not what she's running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things." When questioned about her answer, she answered, "I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation." Fiorina further said that none of the candidates on either ticket had the experience to run a major corporation. After media coverage of Fiorina's comments, she "disappeared from public view" and planned television appearances were cancelled, although she continued to chair the party's fundraising committee. Responding to Barack Obama's victory over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary, Fiorina sought to attract more women to the Republican camp by praising Clinton's effort.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Referring to the McCain campaign, "Newsweek" described Fiorina as "the most prominent surrogate on economics issues in any of the major campaigns." In discussing the possibility of Fiorina becoming McCain's running mate, political analyst Stuart Rothenberg pointed out her potential downside, stating that she "is rather easy to sketch out" because she would "become a talking point for Democrats" who would focus on Fiorina's generous severance package from when she had left HP and her management style. Rothenberg concluded that Fiorina was "like a dream come true" for Democratic opposition researchers.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina performed unpaid service on the Defense Business Board, which looked at staffing issues, among others, at The Pentagon.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina spent two years leading the Central Intelligence Agency's External Advisory Board, from 2007 to 2009, and became chair of that board, when the board was first created in 2007 by then-CIA director Michael Hayden during the George W. Bush administration.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On November 4, 2009, Fiorina formally announced her candidacy in the 2010 Senate election in a bid to unseat incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina's campaign in the Republican primary for that seat received a number of endorsements, including one from Sarah Palin in the form of a Facebook note. Her campaign ad about Republican rival Tom Campbell featuring a "Demon Sheep"created by Fiorina advertising consultant Fred Davis IIIgenerated largely negative international publicity. After the ad went viral, the California Democratic Party created a parody of the ad depicting Fiorina herself as a demon sheep.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On June 8, 2010, Fiorina won the Republican primary election for the Senate with over 50 percent of the vote, beating Campbell and State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: A "Los Angeles Times" search of public records indicated Fiorina had failed to vote in most elections. Fiorina responded: "I'm a lifelong registered Republican but I haven't always voted, and I will provide no excuse for it. You know, people die for the right to vote. And there are many, many Californians and Americans who exercise that civic duty on a regular basis. I didn't. Shame on me."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: The "Los Angeles Times" noted that Fiorina had conservative positions on certain social issues. She personally opposed abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or endangerment of the mother's life. As a private citizen, she stated that she voted for Proposition 8, which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Following an August 4, 2010, federal court ruling that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, Fiorina expressed disagreement with the ruling, saying that California voters spoke clearly against same-sex unions when a majority approved the proposition in 2008. She stated that she opposed litmus tests for Supreme Court nominations and did not favor a federal "personhood" amendment. Fiorina had called global warming a "serious issue" but said that the science surrounding it is inconclusive, saying "I think we should have the courage to examine the science on an ongoing basis." In a campaign ad, Fiorina likened Boxer's concerns over global warming to worrying about "the weather." Fiorina accepted contributions from the coal industry as well as Koch Industries. Fiorina opposed the cap-and-trade legislation supported by Boxer, and thought efforts to control greenhouse gases would cost 3 million jobs and are "massively destructive".


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In financial disclosures, Fiorina identified her net worth at between 30 million and 120 million, and by October 22, Fiorina had contributed a total of 6.5 million to her own race.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Sarah Palin was set to appear at a GOP fundraiser two weeks ahead of the November 2 election, but neither Meg Whitman (the Republican nominee for Governor of California) nor Fiorina – both big-name Republicans – planned to attend. The prediction was that Palin's primary endorsement would jeopardize her general election candidacy.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina launched and developed a political action committee (PAC) known as "Up-Project" (short for "Unlocking Potential Project") from 2011 to 2014. The stated mission of the organization was "...to engage women with new messages and new messengers by focusing on personal interactions with voters and going beyond the traditional methods of identifying, persuading and turning-out voters..." In November 2014, "The Washington Post" reported that "Helping Fiorina chart her political future are consultants Frank Sadler, who once worked for Koch Industries, and Stephen DeMaura, a strategist who heads Americans for Job Security, a pro-business advocacy group in Virginia"; The Up-Project website lists Fiorina as chair.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On October 1, 2013, Al Cardenas, chair of the American Conservative Union (ACU), appointed Fiorina as chair of the American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF), the ACU's educational arm. The ACU is a conservative 501(c)(4) organization, while the ACUF is its affiliated 501(c)(3) foundation, which organizes the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina was co-chair of CPAC 2014, making a speech at the conference. At CPAC 2015, Fiorina again made a speech at the conference. It was speculated that Fiorina would announce her candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in that speech, but Fiorina did not, instead making her official announcement months later, on May 4, 2015, in a television and promotional video, therein repeating her talking points from CPAC and including an attack on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina ruled out running for the U.S. Senate in 2016, but refused to rule out running for president in 2016 or Governor of California in 2018. In November 2014, "The Washington Post" reported that Fiorina was "actively exploring" a run for president. Her business background and status as the only CEO and the only woman in a "sea of suited men" were mentioned as positives, though Republican strategists pointed to her poor 2010 Senate performance, unpaid campaign debt, and dismissal from HP as "considerable challenges" to her prospects. In March 2015, Fiorina said on "Fox News Sunday" that there was a "higher than 90% chance" that she would run for president in 2016.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On May 4, 2015, Fiorina announced her candidacy during an interview on "Good Morning America", with George Stephanopoulos. Fiorina entered the race with immediate criticism of Hillary Clinton. It was reported that the GOP saw Fiorina as "the tip of the spear" in its attack of the Clinton campaign because she was uniquely positioned to isolate her criticisms of Clinton from claims of gender bias.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Shortly after Fiorina announced her entry into the 2016 presidential race, in a replay of her 2010 senatorial race, the social media and editorial outlets questioned her tenure as HP's CEO as a basis for her run for president, focusing around US job cuts and offshoring that Fiorina directed during her tenure at HP, and contrasting it with the high compensation bonuses she received from the company. Campaign Manager, Sarah Isgur Flores, deflected the job cut criticism saying, Fiorina "worked hard to save as many jobs as possible."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On August 6, Fiorina participated in Fox News's first GOP debate. Failing to qualify for one of the Fox News prime-time debate slots, she was relegated to the debate airing earlier the same day. Fiorina's performance led news sources to conclude she had won the early debate. Following the debate, several pundits correctly predicted that her polling numbers would surge. On August 9, Fiorina reported an uptick in fundraising support. In an online poll by NBC and SurveyMonkey on August 10, Fiorina came in fourth of the seventeen Republican contenders with 8% of the sampled Republican primary voters saying they would support her in a primary or a caucus, a gain in support of six points from previous polling data. At another debate in September, hosted by CNN, Fiorina misrepresented a Planned Parenthood sting video, describing a grisly scene which was not in the video. She was sharply criticized for this in the media; the gaffe consumed much of the post-debate coverage. Planned Parenthood responded that she had lied, saying it was "not the first time Carly Fiorina has lied." PolitiFact chief editor Angie Drobnic Holan mentioned this particular lie in a December 2015 comparison of the presidential candidates with regard to their truthfulness. In the comparison, Fiorina scored 50% falsehood, the sixth worst performance.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: "The National Review" pointed out her role as foil to Hillary Clinton, saying "Carly Fiorina is no doubt getting attention because of her unique background, but more and more people are staying to listen because she has something fresh to say", and that "Fiorina also seems to relish the role of being the most pointed critic of Hillary Clinton... She contrasts her background as a 'problem solver' with Clinton's record as a professional politician." "The Nation" commented, "With so-called women's issues poised to play an unprecedented role in the upcoming election, Republicans need someone who can troll Hillary Clinton without seeming sexist." Meg Whitman, then CEO of Hewlett Packard, stated that in her opinion Fiorina was not qualified to be President of the United States, stating that a business background is important but that having worked in government is also important, and that "it's very difficult for your first role in politics to be President of the United States".


title: Carly Fiorina

text: As part of her financial disclosures related to her candidacy, Fiorina reported a net worth of 59 million, with 12 million in income in 2013. "International Business Times" estimates Fiorina's net worth between 30 million and 120 million.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Her performances in early debates for the Republican primary nomination, particularly her rebukes of front-runner Donald Trump in the September 16, 2015 debate, earned her a significant spike in the polls from 3% to 15% post-debate, but her polling numbers dropped to 4% by October, and to 3% in December.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On February 10, due to weak results in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, Fiorina announced that her campaign was suspended. On March 9, 2016, Fiorina endorsed Texas Senator Ted Cruz for President, saying she was "horrified" by Donald Trump, and that Cruz was the only candidate that could stop him.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On April 27, 2016, Cruz announced that, if he were selected as the party's presidential nominee, he would choose Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate, but after losing the Indiana primary six days later, he suspended his campaign, making her vice-presidential candidacy the shortest in modern American history.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina received one electoral college vote for vice president from a faithless elector in Texas. Following Trump's election, Fiorina was considered for the position of Director of National Intelligence during the 2016 transition period. In 2020, Fiorina endorsed Joe Biden's presidential campaign due to her disapproval of President Donald Trump.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: When she first entered politics as a Senate candidate in November 2009, Carly Fiorina was "considered to be a moderate Republican with little history on social issues" and her views changed during her run for Senate and her run for President in 2016. In 2017, she has described herself as conservative. In 2020, Fiorina announced that she would vote for Joe Biden for President. "FiveThirtyEight", a non-partisan organization which analyzes candidates' positions and conducts polling, considered Fiorina to be within the moderate and establishment wings of the GOP.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina is anti-abortion. She expressed support for legislation to ban abortions 20 weeks after fertilization, with an exception for cases of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother. In 2010, she said that "Roe v. Wade" was settled law, but later reversed that position. Fiorina supports overturning "Roe v. Wade", the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in the United States, leaving it to the states. She does support embryonic stem-cell research if the embryos were not created for that purpose.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In a February 2015 speech, Fiorina acknowledged the scientific consensus that climate change is real and caused by human activity, but expressed skepticism that government can affect the issue, and has "implied that targeting the coal industry will not solve the problem".


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina said in May 2015 that "drug addiction shouldn't be criminalized" and cited "decriminalizing drug addiction and drug use" as an example of a successful reform. Fiorina opposes the legalization of marijuana, but says that she believes in states' rights, and that as president she will not enforce the federal ban on marijuana in Colorado, where voters have legalized marijuana as a matter of state law.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: While running for president, Fiorina has been a critic of the Common Core State Standards. In September 2015, Fiorina said: "No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Common Core – they're all big, bureaucratic programs that are failing our nation." This was a reversal of her position on federal education policies during her 2010 campaign for U.S. Senate from California. In that campaign, Fiorina issued a position paper in which she "strongly advocated for metric-based accountability in schools" and "praised No Child Left Behind as setting high standards, and Race to the Top for using internationally-benchmarked measures."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In California, Fiorina supported the DREAM Act, which would allow children brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were under the age of 16 to secure permanent U.S. residency and a path to citizenship, if they graduate from college or serve in the armed forces.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Carly Fiorina opposed same-sex marriage, but supported civil unions. She later said that she hoped the nation would support "Obergefell v. Hodges", the decision legalizing same-sex marriage, and also respect individuals' consciences. In November 2009, during a "The Wall Street Journal" interview, Fiorina said that she voted in favor of Proposition 8, a California ballot proposition that banned same-sex marriage in that state. During the 2010 United States Senate election in California, Fiorina was endorsed by GOProud, a gay conservative organization. In 2010, Fiorina stated that she supported the Defense of Marriage Act, but also supported civil unions. She supported the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. In 2015, Fiorina reaffirmed her support for civil unions with the same government benefits accorded to married persons. She does not support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. In 2017, Fiorina headlined the 40th anniversary of Log Cabin Republicans, a political action committee which supports LGBT rights. In her address, she said, "Everyone has to be free to be who they are."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina believes employers should decide whether they should provide paid maternity leave to their employees and it should not be mandated by the government, noting that some companies in the private sector are already doing so. She also pointed out that HP, while she was CEO, offered paid maternity leave.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina has criticized the international nuclear agreement with Iran, saying that Iran is "at the heart" of evil in the Middle East; that the agreement is a "flawed deal"; and that "there is a lot of reason to be suspicious" of it. Fiorina also suggested that verification provisions in the agreement were insufficient and that approval of the agreement by the international community and the U.S.'s negotiating partners was suspect because Russia and China have an interest in gaining access to Iran's economy and the European Union "has negotiated, frankly, a number of weak deals." Fiorina opposes the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations, telling Hugh Hewitt that if elected she would close the U.S. embassy in Havana.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In a January 2015 discussion with an Iowa political blogger, Fiorina said of the Chinese: "They're not terribly imaginative. They're not entrepreneurial. They don't innovate. That's why they're stealing our intellectual property." Fiorina supports keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba open. In September 2015, Fiorina "offered a vigorous defense of CIA waterboarding," a tactic used by the United States during the George W. Bush-era War on Terror. Fiorina's interest in national security issues led to her name being floated for the position of Director of National Intelligence by Donald Trump during the 2016 transition period.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina was critical of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health care reform legislation during the debate in 2009 that led to the act's passage. Fiorina has supported repealing the ACA during both her 2010 Senate run in California, and in her 2015 presidential campaign. Fiorina has called the law "deeply flawed" and a "vast legislative overreach." Fiorina supports an individual mandate that would require individuals to carry "high-deductible 'catastrophic care' insurance plans and use federal dollars to subsidize state-based high-risk pools to provide care for those who otherwise cannot afford it."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina has stated that "there is no constitutional role for the federal government to be setting minimum wages" and that the minimum wage "is a classic example of a policy that is best carried out in the states" because economic conditions in New Hampshire vary significantly from more expensive economic conditions in Los Angeles or New York. Florina also believes that raising the federal minimum wage would "hurt those who are looking for entry-level jobs".


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina opposes net neutrality rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and has said she would "roll back" that policy: "Regulation over innovation is a really bad role for government." Fiorina has repeatedly criticized the rules, arguing that "the FCC just issuedwithout anyone commenting on it or anyone voting on it400 pages of new regulations over the Internet. It's not good, it's not helpful."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina "generally believes that reducing government regulations helps to spur the economy". She has condemned the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, saying in April 2015 that "We should get rid of Dodd-Frank and start again." Fiorina has been questioned by some in the media for stating that not "a single regulation has ever been repealed." Glenn Kessler of "The Washington Post" said that, "Important parts of the economy have been deregulated in recent decades. While the repeal of a specific rule is relatively rare, there are certainly examples."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina favors lowering tax rates, simplifying the tax code, and closing loopholes that she says mostly benefit wealthy taxpayers. Florina has said "the government needs to take in less tax money, not more." During her 2010 Senate campaign, Fiorina "called for eliminating the estate tax and capital gains taxes for investments in small businesses, and lowering marginal tax rates." Fiorina opposes proposals to increase the federal gas tax or state gas taxes in order to fund the Highway Trust Fund, asserting in a February 2015 "The Wall Street Journal" op-ed that "Any gas tax hike, big or small, will harm American families and hurt economic growth." Fiorina opposed the federal stimulus package of 2009 intended to create short-term job growth and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy, calling it a waste of taxpayer money. Fiorina has said she would cut the pay of federal workers and base their compensation on performance. She also advocates zero-based budgeting for the federal budget, which would start the annual budgeting process for each department from a baseline of zero.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina favors expanding the H-1B visa program. Writing in opposition to proposals she considered protectionist in a 2004 "The Wall Street Journal" op-ed, Fiorina said that while "America is the most innovative country," it would not remain so if the country were to "run away from the reality of the global economy." Fiorina said to Congress in 2004: "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs as a nation."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina (then Cara Carleton Sneed) married Todd Bartlem, a Stanford classmate, in June 1977. They divorced in 1984. In 1981, she was introduced to AT&T executive Frank Fiorina, who told her on their third date that she would one day be running the company. She married him in 1985; it was the second marriage for both. Fiorina has said that they wanted to have children together but "that wasn't God's plan". Frank Fiorina took early retirement from AT&T in 1998 at age 48 to travel with and support his wife in her career.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Frank Fiorina had two daughters, Traci and Lori Ann, from his first marriage. Their mother, Patricia, was awarded custody of both children following the divorce. Carly helped her husband with raising his daughters. Lori Ann struggled with alcoholism, prescription drug addiction and bulimia. She died in 2009 at age 35.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In February 2009, Fiorina was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy at Stanford Hospital in March 2009, followed by chemotherapy, which caused her to temporarily lose her hair, and later radiation therapy. She was given "an excellent prognosis for a full recovery." In late 2009, during her campaign for the United States Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer, Fiorina humorously told a group of supporters: "I have to say that after chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer just isn't that scary anymore."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: According to the financial disclosures filed by Fiorina's campaign in June 2015, she and her husband have a combined net worth of $59 million. Fiorina has released the income tax returns that she and her husband jointly filed in 2013 and 2012; in those years, the Fiorinas reported income of almost $2 million and $1.3 million, respectively.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina and her husband live in a home in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Mason Neck, Virginia, overlooking the Potomac River. The house and grounds were valued at $6.6 million in 2015. At the time of the 2010 Senate election, Fiorina and her husband lived in Los Altos Hills, California, a San Francisco Bay area suburb. Between 2005 and 2012, Fiorina and her husband also owned a condominium in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, where they lived for roughly half the year; they sold the condo for $5.3 million.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Discussing her religious faith, Fiorina said that she is Christian. Specifically, she said that "she was raised Episcopalian but is not a regular churchgoer."


title: Peter Popoff

text: Peter George Popoff (born July 2, 1946) is a German-born American televangelist and debunked clairvoyant and faith healer. He was exposed in 1986 for using a concealed earpiece to receive radio messages from his wife, who gave him the names, addresses, and ailments of audience members during Popoff-led religious services. Popoff falsely claimed God revealed this information to him so that Popoff could pretend to cure them through faith healing.


title: Peter Popoff

text: He went bankrupt the next year, but made a comeback in the late 1990s. Beginning in the mid-2000s, Popoff bought TV time to promote "Miracle Spring Water" on late-night infomercials, and referred to himself as a prophet. "We've done so many stories about him, but it never does any good," said Ole Anthony, founder of Trinity Foundation, which has investigated Popoff and other faith healers since 1987. "His scams are endless." "Miracle Spring Water" promotions were still running on TV channels in the United States and Canada in 2022.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff was born in occupied East Berlin on July 2, 1946, to George and Gerda Popoff. As a child, Popoff emigrated with his family to the United States, where he attended Chaffey College before transferring to the University of California, Santa Barbara, from which he graduated in 1970.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff's father preached at revival meetings throughout the United States. Beginning in 1960, Popoff also began making appearances as a preacher. Billed as "The Miracle Boy Evangelist" in print advertisements, the ads also claimed he was born in a West Berlin bomb shelter, and had been rescued from a Siberian prison camp. The powers he claimed included the abilities to heal the sick and foretell the future.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff married his wife Elizabeth in August 1971 and the couple settled in Upland, California. He then began his television ministry that, by the early 1980s, was being broadcast nationally. His miraculous "curing" of chronic and incurable medical conditions became a central attraction of his sermons. Popoff would tell attendees suffering from a variety of illnesses to "break free of the devil" by throwing their prescription pills onto the stage. Many would obey, tossing away bottles of digitalis, nitroglycerine, and other important maintenance medications. Popoff would also "command" supplicants in wheelchairs to "rise and break free". They would stand and walk without assistance, to the joyous cheers of the faithful. Critics later documented that the recipients of these dramatic "cures" were fully ambulatory people who had been seated in wheelchairs by Popoff's assistants prior to broadcasts.


title: Peter Popoff

text: In 1985, Popoff began soliciting donations for a program to provide Bibles to citizens of the Soviet Union by attaching them to helium-filled balloons and floating them into the country. When skeptics asked him to prove that the money he had collected had in fact been spent on Bibles and balloons, Popoff staged a burglary at his own headquarters. On subsequent broadcasts, he tearfully begged for additional donations to help repair the damage.


title: Peter Popoff

text: At the height of his popularity in the 1980s, Popoff would accurately announce home addresses and specific illnesses of audience members during his "healing sermons", a feat that he implied was due to divine revelation and "God-given ability". In 1986, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry charged that Popoff was using electronic transmissions to receive his information; Popoff denied it, insisting that the messages were divinely revealed. Skeptic groups distributed pamphlets explaining how Popoff's feats could be accomplished without any sort of divine intervention. Popoff branded his critics "tools of the devil".


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff's methods were definitively exposed in 1986 by the magician and skeptic James Randi and his associate Steve Shaw, an illusionist known professionally as Banachek, with technical assistance from the crime scene analyst and electronics expert Alexander Jason. With computerized radio scanners, Jason was able to demonstrate that Popoff's wife, Elizabeth, was using a wireless radio transmitter to broadcast information that she and her aides had culled from prayer request cards filled out by audience members. Popoff received the transmissions via an earpiece he was wearing and repeated the information to astonished audience members. Jason produced video segments interspersing the intercepted radio transmissions with Popoff's "miraculous" pronouncements.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Randi also planted accomplices in Popoff's audiences, including a man dressed as a woman whom Popoff "cured" of uterine cancer at a meeting in Detroit in 1984. Randi and Shaw recorded Elizabeth describing a woman to Popoff as "that big nigger in the back", and warning him, "Keep your hands off those tits ... I'm watching you." At another session, Elizabeth and her aides were heard laughing uncontrollably at the physical appearance of a man suffering from advanced testicular cancer.


title: Peter Popoff

text: In May 1986, Randi presented one of Jason's videos on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". Popoff initially denied Randi's accusations and accused NBC of "...[hiring] an actress to impersonate Mrs. Popoff on a doctored videotape". Eventually Popoff admitted the existence of the radio device, but claimed that Elizabeth only "occasionally" gave him "the name of a person who needs special prayers". He added that "almost everybody" knew about the wireless communication system. Although donations had exceeded over half a million dollars monthly, his ministry's viewer ratings and donations declined significantly after the Carson airing, and in September 1987 he declared bankruptcy, listing more than 790 unpaid creditors and a ministry debt of over $1 million, and personal debts of almost half that. Popoff's attorney, William Simon, "attributed the collapse of his ministry to financial mismanagement more than to disclosures about Popoff." Jason's video footage was also aired on the "Nova" episode "Secrets of the Psychics" in 1991. The episode was released on video as part of a lesson in critical thinking.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Octogenarian Larry Skelton, a former organist of Popoff from 1965 to 1990, and for Peter's father before that said, "When you're praying for the sick, it's through the Holy Spirit, and there's some times that it works freely, and then there are other times when the Spirit's just not there." He went on to say that "on the days it didn't show, you still had to pay for the auditorium, so you needed to help the Holy Spirit along." Skelton claimed that he had seen miracles, for instance a believer whose short leg grow six inches to match the length of his normal leg.


title: Peter Popoff

text: In 1998, "The Washington Post" reported that Popoff was making a comeback, seeking to jump-start his ministry by repackaging himself for an African American audience, buying time on the Black Entertainment Television network. Popoff, along with Don Stewart and Robert Tilton, received "criticism from those who say that preachers with a long trail of disillusioned followers have no place on a network that holds itself out as a model of entrepreneurship for the black community".


title: Peter Popoff

text: A February 2007 "Inside Edition" segment reported that Popoff's new infomercials depict him "healing the sick" in a manner identical to his methods prior to James Randi's exposé. Victims were interviewed, including a married couple who charged that Popoff had taken "thousands of dollars" from them. Popoff refused to comment. "Flim flam is his profession," Randi explained to reporter Matt Meaghan. "That's what he does best. He's very good at it, and naturally he's going to go back to it." In May 2007, ABC's "20/20" focused on Popoff's comeback and explored the lives of a few people who felt cheated. Various other media outlets have run similar stories. In July 2008, a Nanaimo, British Columbia resident was reimbursed by Popoff after she went public with her concerns over his fundraising tactics.


title: Peter Popoff

text: In 2008, the UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom issued strong warnings to broadcasters for transmitting Popoff's material, which the regulator felt promoted his products "in such a way as to target potential susceptible and vulnerable viewers". These programs included offers of free "Miracle Manna" that allegedly provided health and financial miracles. In 2009, Popoff began running advertisements in UK periodicals offering a free cross containing "blessed water" and "holy sand". The water, he claimed, was drawn from a spring near Chernobyl, Ukraine (site of the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster). Animals and humans drinking from the spring were purportedly spared radiation sickness. Responders to the ad received a small wooden cross bearing the inscription "Jerusalem" and a solicitation for donations, followed by numerous additional solicitation letters.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff was designated by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) as one of its recipients of the 2011 Pigasus Award for fraudulent practices, along with Mehmet Oz (from "The Dr. Oz Show") and CVS Pharmacy. "Debt cancellation is part of God's plan", according to Popoff, who taught that God would respond to prayer and seed-faith by providing financial blessing. Credit.com wrote a blog post concerning Popoff's claims.


title: Peter Popoff

text: In September 2015, Michael Marshall of the Good Thinking Society documented Popoff's latest promises of "fabulous extreme fortune" and "miracles" in exchange for donations to his organization. At a recent London gathering, GTS filmed Popoff "healing" a woman supposedly "wracked with pain", though Marshall and a colleague had previously seen her—in no obvious distress—handing out pens and questionnaires to audience members. Soon after the "healing", they watched her quietly leave the room.


title: Peter Popoff

text: In the mid-2000s, Popoff began to offer "Miracle Spring Water" on late-night infomercials in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Respondents were promised miraculous protection from disease and disability, along with financial prosperity (which might include "divine money transfers directly into your account"), if they slept with the water for one night before drinking it, then prayed over the empty bottle and sent it back to Popoff—with a donation. A deluge of solicitation letters and token enclosures would follow, requesting more donations in exchange for miracles. Popoff also started referring to himself as a prophet.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff's operation had functioned as a for-profit company until 2006, when it merged with a small church in Farmers Branch, Texas called Word for the World, which operated out of a storefront. Now classified as a church, Popoff's corporation no longer had to report annual income or salary to the IRS. When a reporter from "GQ" attempted to visit this church on a Sunday morning in late 2016, he found a deserted parking lot in an industrial park with no church sign visible on the outside.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Because of Popoff's history of fraud and financial irregularities, his "People United For Christ" organization earned a "Did Not Disclose" rating with the Better Business Bureau, indicating its refusal to provide information that would enable BBB to determine whether the group adheres to its Standards for Charity Accountability.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff's longtime assistants Reeford and Pamela Sherrell also began a televised Texas-based ministry, with Reeford using the name Pastor Lee Sherrell. Like Popoff, they used the offer of a religious trinket (a free prayer cloth) to compile an address list. Once a follower requested the prayer cloth and input his or her address, letters asking for money were dispatched.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Researcher and bioethics expert Fred M. Frohock cited Popoff as "one of many egregious instances of fake healing." Ole Anthony of the Trinity Foundation, founded in 1987 to research the claims of televangelists, said, "Most of these guys are fooled by their own theology"—referring to other televangelists such as Joel Osteen and T. D. Jakes—but in the case of Popoff, "he's fundamentally evil, because he "knows" he's a con man."


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff was collecting almost $4 million per year in the late 1980s, according to Randi. In 2003, his ministry received over $9.6 million, and in 2005, over $23 million. In that year, he and his wife were paid a combined salary of nearly $1 million, while two of his children received over $180,000 each. Financial data is not available for Popoff's ministry since 2005 because Peter Popoff Ministries changed from a for-profit business to a religious organization in 2006, making it tax-exempt. Popoff purchased a home in Bradbury, California, for $4.5 million in 2007. He drives a Porsche and a Mercedes-Benz.


title: Peter Popoff

text: The 1990 album "Spiritual Healing" by the death metal band Death was inspired by Popoff, and the front cover artwork depict a priest almost identical to him healing a person in a wheelchair.


title: Peter Popoff

text: The 1992 Steve Martin dramedy "Leap of Faith" was inspired by Popoff's fraudulent ministry, and demonstrated a number of the techniques Popoff and other televangelist scammers use to create the illusion of divine intervention. A 2012 Broadway musical adaptation of the same title was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical.


title: Peter Popoff

text: Popoff was also the inspiration for a character in the 2012 thriller film "Red Lights", a psychic who uses information fed to him via a hidden earpiece to persuade the audience at his shows that he is receiving personal details psychically. The script includes Elizabeth Popoff's infamous line, "Hello Petey, can you hear me? If you can't, you're in trouble", almost verbatim.


title: Critical mass

text: In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fission cross-section), density, shape, enrichment, purity, temperature, and surroundings. The concept is important in nuclear weapon design.


title: Critical mass

text: When a nuclear chain reaction in a mass of fissile material is self-sustaining, the mass is said to be in a "critical" state in which there is no increase or decrease in power, temperature, or neutron population.


title: Critical mass

text: A numerical measure of a critical mass is dependent on the effective neutron multiplication factor , the average number of neutrons released per fission event that go on to cause another fission event rather than being absorbed or leaving the material. When "k" = 1, the mass is critical, and the chain reaction is self-sustaining.


title: Critical mass

text: A "subcritical" mass is a mass of fissile material that does not have the ability to sustain a fission chain reaction. A population of neutrons introduced to a subcritical assembly will exponentially decrease. In this case, "k" < 1. A steady rate of spontaneous fissions causes a proportionally steady level of neutron activity. The constant of proportionality increases as increases.


title: Critical mass

text: A "supercritical" mass is one which, once fission has started, will proceed at an increasing rate. The material may settle into equilibrium ("i.e." become critical again) at an elevated temperature/power level or destroy itself. In the case of supercriticality, "k" > 1.


title: Critical mass

text: Due to spontaneous fission a supercritical mass will undergo a chain reaction. For example, a spherical critical mass of pure uranium-235 (U) with a mass of about would experience around 15 spontaneous fission events per second. The probability that one such event will cause a chain reaction depends on how much the mass exceeds the critical mass. If there is uranium-238 (U) present, the rate of spontaneous fission will be much higher. Fission can also be initiated by neutrons produced by cosmic rays.


title: Critical mass

text: The mass where criticality occurs may be changed by modifying certain attributes such as fuel, shape, temperature, density and the installation of a neutron-reflective substance. These attributes have complex interactions and interdependencies. These examples only outline the simplest ideal cases:


title: Critical mass

text: It is possible for a fuel assembly to be critical at near zero power. If the perfect quantity of fuel were added to a slightly subcritical mass to create an "exactly critical mass", fission would be self-sustaining for only one neutron generation (fuel consumption then makes the assembly subcritical again).


title: Critical mass

text: Similarly, if the perfect quantity of fuel were added to a slightly subcritical mass, to create a barely supercritical mass, the temperature of the assembly would increase to an initial maximum (for example: 1 K above the ambient temperature) and then decrease back to the ambient temperature after a period of time, because fuel consumed during fission brings the assembly back to subcriticality once again.


title: Critical mass

text: A mass may be exactly critical without being a perfect homogeneous sphere. More closely refining the shape toward a perfect sphere will make the mass supercritical. Conversely changing the shape to a less perfect sphere will decrease its reactivity and make it subcritical.


title: Critical mass

text: A mass may be exactly critical at a particular temperature. Fission and absorption cross-sections increase as the relative neutron velocity decreases. As fuel temperature increases, neutrons of a given energy appear faster and thus fission/absorption is less likely. This is not unrelated to Doppler broadening of the U resonances but is common to all fuels/absorbers/configurations. Neglecting the very important resonances, the total neutron cross-section of every material exhibits an inverse relationship with relative neutron velocity. Hot fuel is always less reactive than cold fuel (over/under moderation in LWR is a different topic). Thermal expansion associated with temperature increase also contributes a negative coefficient of reactivity since fuel atoms are moving farther apart. A mass that is exactly critical at room temperature would be sub-critical in an environment anywhere above room temperature due to thermal expansion alone.


title: Critical mass

text: The higher the density, the lower the critical mass. The density of a material at a constant temperature can be changed by varying the pressure or tension or by changing crystal structure (see allotropes of plutonium). An ideal mass will become subcritical if allowed to expand or conversely the same mass will become supercritical if compressed. Changing the temperature may also change the density; however, the effect on critical mass is then complicated by temperature effects (see "Changing the temperature") and by whether the material expands or contracts with increased temperature. Assuming the material expands with temperature (enriched uranium-235 at room temperature for example), at an exactly critical state, it will become subcritical if warmed to lower density or become supercritical if cooled to higher density. Such a material is said to have a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity to indicate that its reactivity decreases when its temperature increases. Using such a material as fuel means fission decreases as the fuel temperature increases.


title: Critical mass

text: Surrounding a spherical critical mass with a neutron reflector further reduces the mass needed for criticality. A common material for a neutron reflector is beryllium metal. This reduces the number of neutrons which escape the fissile material, resulting in increased reactivity.


title: Critical mass

text: In a bomb, a dense shell of material surrounding the fissile core will contain, via inertia, the expanding fissioning material, which increases the efficiency. This is known as a tamper. A tamper also tends to act as a neutron reflector. Because a bomb relies on fast neutrons (not ones moderated by reflection with light elements, as in a reactor), the neutrons reflected by a tamper are slowed by their collisions with the tamper nuclei, and because it takes time for the reflected neutrons to return to the fissile core, they take rather longer to be absorbed by a fissile nucleus. But they do contribute to the reaction, and can decrease the critical mass by a factor of four. Also, if the tamper is (e.g. depleted) uranium, it can fission due to the high energy neutrons generated by the primary explosion. This can greatly increase yield, especially if even more neutrons are generated by fusing hydrogen isotopes, in a so-called boosted configuration.


title: Critical mass

text: The critical size is the minimum size of a nuclear reactor core or nuclear weapon that can be made for a specific geometrical arrangement and material composition. The critical size must at least include enough fissionable material to reach critical mass. If the size of the reactor core is less than a certain minimum, too many fission neutrons escape through its surface and the chain reaction is not sustained.


title: Critical mass

text: The shape with minimal critical mass and the smallest physical dimensions is a sphere. Bare-sphere critical masses at normal density of some actinides are listed in the following table. Most information on bare sphere masses is considered classified, since it is critical to nuclear weapons design, but some documents have been declassified.


title: Critical mass

text: The critical mass for lower-grade uranium depends strongly on the grade: with 20% U it is over 400 kg; with 15% U, it is well over 600 kg.


title: Critical mass

text: The critical mass is inversely proportional to the square of the density. If the density is 1% more and the mass 2% less, then the volume is 3% less and the diameter 1% less. The probability for a neutron per cm travelled to hit a nucleus is proportional to the density. It follows that 1% greater density means that the distance travelled before leaving the system is 1% less. This is something that must be taken into consideration when attempting more precise estimates of critical masses of plutonium isotopes than the approximate values given above, because plutonium metal has a large number of different crystal phases which can have widely varying densities.


title: Critical mass

text: Note that not all neutrons contribute to the chain reaction. Some escape and others undergo radiative capture.


title: Critical mass

text: Let "q" denote the probability that a given neutron induces fission in a nucleus. Consider only prompt neutrons, and let "ν" denote the number of prompt neutrons generated in a nuclear fission. For example, "ν" ≈ 2.5 for uranium-235. Then, criticality occurs when "ν·q" = 1. The dependence of this upon geometry, mass, and density appears through the factor "q".


title: Critical mass

text: Given a total interaction cross section σ (typically measured in barns), the mean free path of a prompt neutron is formula_1 where "n" is the nuclear number density. Most interactions are scattering events, so that a given neutron obeys a random walk until it either escapes from the medium or causes a fission reaction. So long as other loss mechanisms are not significant, then, the radius of a spherical critical mass is rather roughly given by the product of the mean free path formula_2 and the square root of one plus the number of scattering events per fission event (call this "s"), since the net distance travelled in a random walk is proportional to the square root of the number of steps:


title: Critical mass

text: In terms of the total mass "M", the nuclear mass "m", the density ρ, and a fudge factor "f" which takes into account geometrical and other effects, criticality corresponds to


title: Critical mass

text: which clearly recovers the aforementioned result that critical mass depends inversely on the square of the density.


title: Critical mass

text: where the factor "f" has been rewritten as "f"' to account for the fact that the two values may differ depending upon geometrical effects and how one defines Σ. For example, for a bare solid sphere of Pu criticality is at 320 kg/m, regardless of density, and for U at 550 kg/m.


title: Critical mass

text: In any case, criticality then depends upon a typical neutron "seeing" an amount of nuclei around it such that the areal density of nuclei exceeds a certain threshold.


title: Critical mass

text: This is applied in implosion-type nuclear weapons where a spherical mass of fissile material that is substantially less than a critical mass is made supercritical by very rapidly increasing ρ (and thus Σ as well) (see below). Indeed, sophisticated nuclear weapons programs can make a functional device from less material than more primitive weapons programs require.


title: Critical mass

text: Aside from the math, there is a simple physical analog that helps explain this result. Consider diesel fumes belched from an exhaust pipe. Initially the fumes appear black, then gradually you are able to see through them without any trouble. This is not because the total scattering cross section of all the soot particles has changed, but because the soot has dispersed. If we consider a transparent cube of length "L" on a side, filled with soot, then the optical depth of this medium is inversely proportional to the square of "L", and therefore proportional to the areal density of soot particles: we can make it easier to see through the imaginary cube just by making the cube larger.


title: Critical mass

text: Several uncertainties contribute to the determination of a precise value for critical masses, including (1) detailed knowledge of fission cross sections, (2) calculation of geometric effects. This latter problem provided significant motivation for the development of the "Monte Carlo method" in computational physics by Nicholas Metropolis and Stanislaw Ulam. In fact, even for a homogeneous solid sphere, the exact calculation is by no means trivial. Finally, note that the calculation can also be performed by assuming a continuum approximation for the neutron transport. This reduces it to a diffusion problem. However, as the typical linear dimensions are not significantly larger than the mean free path, such an approximation is only marginally applicable.


title: Critical mass

text: Finally, note that for some idealized geometries, the critical mass might formally be infinite, and other parameters are used to describe criticality. For example, consider an infinite sheet of fissionable material. For any finite thickness, this corresponds to an infinite mass. However, criticality is only achieved once the thickness of this slab exceeds a critical value.


title: Critical mass

text: Until detonation is desired, a nuclear weapon must be kept subcritical. In the case of a uranium gun-type bomb, this can be achieved by keeping the fuel in a number of separate pieces, each below the critical size either because they are too small or unfavorably shaped. To produce detonation, the pieces of uranium are brought together rapidly. In Little Boy, this was achieved by firing a piece of uranium (a 'doughnut') down a gun barrel onto another piece (a 'spike'). This design is referred to as a "gun-type fission weapon".


title: Critical mass

text: A theoretical 100% pure Pu weapon could also be constructed as a gun-type weapon, like the Manhattan Project's proposed Thin Man design. In reality, this is impractical because even "weapons grade" Pu is contaminated with a small amount of Pu, which has a strong propensity toward spontaneous fission. Because of this, a reasonably sized gun-type weapon would suffer nuclear reaction (predetonation) before the masses of plutonium would be in a position for a full-fledged explosion to occur.


title: Critical mass

text: Instead, the plutonium is present as a subcritical sphere (or other shape), which may or may not be hollow. Detonation is produced by exploding a shaped charge surrounding the sphere, increasing the density (and collapsing the cavity, if present) to produce a prompt critical configuration. This is known as an "implosion type weapon".


title: Critical mass

text: The event of fission must release, on the average, more than one free neutron of the desired energy level in order to sustain a chain reaction, and each must find other nuclei and cause them to fission. Most of the neutrons released from a fission event come immediately from that event, but a fraction of them come later, when the fission products decay, which may be on the average from microseconds to minutes later. This is fortunate for atomic power generation, for without this delay "going critical" would be an immediately catastrophic event, as it is in a nuclear bomb where upwards of 80 generations of chain reaction occur in less than a microsecond, far too fast for a human, or even a machine, to react. Physicists recognize two points in the gradual increase of neutron flux which are significant: critical, where the chain reaction becomes self-sustaining thanks to the contributions of both kinds of neutron generation, and prompt critical, where the immediate "prompt" neutrons alone will sustain the reaction without need for the decay neutrons. Nuclear power plants operate between these two points of reactivity, while above the prompt critical point is the domain of nuclear weapons and some nuclear power accidents, such as the Chernobyl disaster.


title: Critical mass

text: A convenient unit for the measurement of the reactivity is that suggested by Louis Slotin: that of the dollar and cents.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: The "Gearing" class was a series of 98 destroyers built for the U.S. Navy during and shortly after World War II. The "Gearing" design was a minor modification of the , whereby the hull was lengthened by at amidships, which resulted in more fuel storage space and increased the operating range.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: The first "Gearing"s were not ready for service until mid-1945 and saw little service in World War II. They continued serving, with a series of upgrades, until the 1970s. At that time many were sold to other nations, where they served many more years.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: In March 1945, the orders for 36 of the above vessels were cancelled, and 11 more orders were cancelled in August 1945. Following the close of World War II, 7 further vessels were cancelled in 1946:


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: The first ship was laid down in August 1944, while the last was launched in March 1946. In that time the United States produced 98 "Gearing"-class destroyers. The "Gearing" class was a seemingly minor improvement of the "Allen M. Sumner" class, built from 1943 until 1945. The main differences were that the "Gearing"s were longer in the midship section, allowing for increased fuel tankage for greater range, an important consideration in Pacific War. More importantly in the long run, the increased size of the "Gearing"s made them much more suitable for upgrades than the "Allen M. Sumner"s, as seen in the wartime radar picket subclass, the 1950s radar picket destroyer (DDR) and escort destroyer (DDE) conversions, and the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) conversions 1960-1965. As designed, the "Gearing" class's armament was identical to that on the "Allen M. Sumner" class. Three twin /38 caliber Mark 38 dual purpose (DP) mounts constituted the main battery. The 5-inch guns were guided by a Mark 37 Gun Fire Control System with a Mark 25 fire control radar linked by a Mark 1A Fire Control Computer stabilized by a Mark 6 8,500 rpm gyro. This fire control system provided effective long-range anti-aircraft (AA) or anti-surface fire. Twelve Bofors guns in two quad and two twin mounts and 11 Oerlikon cannons in single mounts were also equipped. The initial design retained the "Allen M. Sumner" class's heavy torpedo armament of ten torpedo tubes in two quintuple mounts, firing the Mark 15 torpedo. As the threat from "kamikaze" aircraft mounted in 1945, and with few remaining Japanese warships to use torpedoes on, most of the class had the aft quintuple 21-inch tube mounts replaced by an additional 40 mm quadruple mount (prior to completion on later ships) for 16 total 40 mm guns. Twenty-four ships (DD-742, DD743, 805-808, 829, 831-835, and 874-883) were ordered without torpedo tubes to allow for radar picket equipment; these were redesignated as DDRs in 1948.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: Following World War II most of the class had their AA and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) armament upgraded. The 40 mm and 20 mm guns were replaced by two to six /50 caliber guns in up to two twin and two single mountings. One depth charge rack was removed and two Hedgehog ASW mortar mounts added. The K-guns were retained. Nine additional (for a total of 35) ships were converted to radar picket destroyers (DDR) in the early 1950s; these typically received only one 3-inch twin mount to save weight for radar equipment, as did the wartime radar pickets. Nine ships were converted to escort destroyers (DDE), emphasizing ASW. was the most thorough DDE conversion, with 4 3-inch/70 caliber guns in twin enclosed mounts, two Weapon Alpha launchers, four new 21-inch torpedo tubes for the Mark 37 ASW torpedo, and one depth charge rack.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: In the late 1950s and early 1960s, 79 of the "Gearing"-class destroyers underwent extensive modernization overhauls, known as FRAM I, which were designed under project SCB 206 to convert them from an anti-aircraft destroyer to an anti-submarine warfare platform. FRAM I removed all of the DDR and DDE equipment, and these ships were redesignated as DDs. FRAM I and FRAM II conversions were completed 1960-1965. Eventually all but three "Gearing"s received FRAM conversions.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: The FRAM I program was an extensive conversion for the "Gearing"-class destroyers. This upgrade included rebuilding the ship's superstructure, electronic systems, radar, sonar, and weapons. The second twin 5-inch gun mount and all previous AA guns and ASW equipment were removed. On several ships the two forward 5-inch mounts remained and the aft 5-inch mount was removed. Upgraded systems included SQS-23 sonar, SPS-10 surface search radar, two triple Mark 32 torpedo tubes, an 8-cell Anti-Submarine Rocket (ASROC) box launcher, and one QH-50C DASH ASW drone helicopter, with its own landing pad and hangar. Both the Mk 32 torpedo tubes and ASROC launched Mk. 44 homing ASW torpedoes. ASROC could also launch a nuclear depth charge. On 11 May 1962, tested a live nuclear ASROC in the "Swordfish" test.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: In Navy slang, the modified destroyers were called "FRAM cans", "can" being a contraction of "tin can", the slang term for a destroyer or destroyer escort.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: The Gyrodyne QH-50C DASH was an unmanned anti-submarine helicopter, controlled remotely from the ship. The drone could carry two Mark 44 homing ASW torpedoes. During this era the ASROC system had an effective range of only , but the DASH drone allowed the ship to deploy ASW attack to sonar contacts as far as away. However, DASH proved unreliable in shipboard service, with over half of the USN's 746 drones lost at sea. This was possibly due to inadequate maintenance support, as other services had few difficulties with DASH. By 1970, DASH had been withdrawn from FRAM I ships, though it was retained into the early 1970s on FRAM II ships, which lacked ASROC. A limitation of drones in ASW was the need to re-acquire the target at ranges beyond the effectiveness of the controlling ship's sonar. This led to shift to the LAMPS program of manned helicopters, which the "Gearing" class were too small to accommodate.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: FRAM I "A" Ships: (First 8 conversions) Removal of aft twin 5-inch gun mount (Mount 53). Group A ships also received two MK10/11 Hedgehogs fitted on each side of the bridge at the 01 level and had the MK-32 triple torpedo launchers aft of the second stack. FRAM I "B" Ships (remainder of conversions): Kept their forward 5-inch mount (Mount 51), lost the second mount (Mount 52) and kept their aft 5-inch mount (Mount 53). In place of mount 52, a practice 5-inch reloading machine was installed with the MK-32 triple torpedo launchers aft of the loader. Group B ships also received greater ASROC and torpedo storage areas next to the port side of the DASH hangar.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: The FRAM II program was designed primarily for the "Allen M. Sumner" class destroyer, but sixteen "Gearing"s were upgraded as well. This upgrade program included life-extension refurbishment, a new radar system, Mark 32 torpedo tubes, DASH ASW drone, and variable depth sonar (VDS). Importantly, it did not include ASROC. FRAM II ships included six DDRs and six DDEs that retained their specialized equipment (1960–1961), as well as four DDRs that were converted to DDs and were nearly identical to the "Allen M. Sumner" class FRAM IIs (1962–1963). The FRAM II ships retained all six 5-inch guns, except the DDEs retained four 5-inch guns and a trainable Hedgehog in the No. 2 position. All FRAM IIs retained two Hedgehogs alongside either the No. 2 5-inch mount or the trainable Hedgehog mount. The four DDRs converted to DDs were armed with two new 21-inch torpedo tubes for the Mk. 37 ASW homing torpedo. Photographs of the six retained DDRs show no markings on the DASH landing deck, as well as a much smaller deckhouse than was usually provided for DASH, so they may not have been equipped with DASH.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: Many of the "Gearing"s provided significant gunfire support in the Vietnam War. They also served as escorts for Carrier Battle Groups (carrier strike groups from 2004) and Amphibious Ready Groups (Expeditionary Strike Groups from 2006). DASH was withdrawn from ASW service in 1969, due to poor reliability. Lacking ASROC, the FRAM II ships were disposed of in 1969–1974. With ASROC continuing to provide a standoff ASW capability, the "Gearing" FRAM Is were retained in service for several years, with most being decommissioned and transferred to foreign navies 1973–1980. They were replaced as ASW ships by the s, which were commissioned 1975–1983. These had the same ASW armament as a "Gearing" FRAM destroyer, with the addition of improved sonar and a piloted helicopter, initially the Kaman SH-2 Seasprite, and from 1984, the Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk. Some "Gearing"s served in the Naval Reserve Force (NRF) from 1973, remaining in commission with a partial active crew to provide training for Naval reservists. The last "Gearing"-class destroyer in US naval service was , a FRAM I, decommissioned and struck 1 October 1983, and expended as a target 14 July 1999.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: After the "Gearing"-class ships were retired from USN service, many were sold abroad, including over a dozen to the Republic of China Navy (ROCN) in Taiwan. These ships, along with "Fletcher"-class destroyers and "Allen M. Sumner"-class destroyers also acquired then, were upgraded under the Wu Chin () I, II, and III programs and known throughout the ROCN as the Yang-class () destroyers as they were assigned names that all end with the word "Yang". The last batch of 7 WC-III program vessels, all of them "Gearing" class, were retired in the early 2000s.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: Under the most advanced Wu Chin III upgrade program, all World War II vintage weapons were removed and replaced with four Hsiung Feng II surface-to-surface missiles, ten SM-1 (box launchers), one 8-cell ASROC, one Otobreda gun, two Bofors 40 mm AA, one 20 mm Phalanx CIWS and two triple torpedo tubes. The DASH ASW drones were not acquired, but hangar facilities aboard those ships that had them were later used to accommodate ASW versions of MD 500 Defender helicopters.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: After the Yang-class destroyers were decommissioned, the SM-1 launch boxes were moved to "Chi Yang"-class frigates to improve their anti-air capability.


title: Gearing-class destroyer

text: Five "Gearing"-class destroyers are preserved as museum ships: two in the United States, one in South Korea, one in Taiwan, and one in Turkey. The ROKS Jeon Buk (DD-916) (formerly the USS Everett F. Larson) was scrapped in December 2021, leaving five survivors out of the ninety eight ships built.


title: Cantonese profanity

text: The five most common Cantonese profanities, vulgar words in the Cantonese language are "diu" (/), "gau" (//), "lan" (/), "tsat" (//) and "hai" (/), where the first literally means "fuck", "Diu" (or Jiu) is literally the word for fuck, "hai" is a word for female genitalia and "gau" refers to male genitalia. They are sometimes collectively known as the "outstanding five in Cantonese" (). These five words are generally offensive and give rise to a variety of euphemisms and minced oaths. Similar to the seven dirty words in the United States, these five words are forbidden to say and are bleep-censored on Hong Kong broadcast television. Other curse phrases, such as "puk gai" (/) and "ham gaa caan" (/), are also common.


title: Cantonese profanity

text: "Diu" (Traditional Chinese: or , Jyutping: diu2), literally meaning "fuck", is a common but grossly vulgar profanity in Cantonese. In a manner similar to the English word "fuck", "diu" expresses dismay, disgrace and disapproval. Examples of expressions include "diu nei!" ( or , fuck you!) and the highly offensive ( or , fuck your mother) or (, fuck your mother's stinky cunt).


title: Cantonese profanity

text: The word "diu" was originally a noun meaning the penis and evolved as a verb. Regarded as a grossly vulgar word in Cantonese, the word has gained a new meaning in Taiwan to refer to "cool". In this context, the Mandarin pronunciation may not be censored on TV broadcasts but the original Cantonese pronunciation is still taboo.


title: Cantonese profanity

text: "Gau" ( or ; Jyutping: gau1, but more commonly written as ("haau1") or ("gou1") despite different pronunciations, is a vulgar Cantonese word which literally means erected "cock" or "cocky".


title: Cantonese profanity

text: The phrase "ngong6 gau1" is an adjective that may be loosely translated as a "dumbass". Minced variants include "ngong6 geoi1", "ngong6 kiu1", "ngaang6 gaau1" ("lit." hard plastic) and "on9" (used in internet slang). The phrase "mou4 lei4 tau4 gau1" () meaning "makes no sense" was cut to "mou4 lei4 tau4" to avoid the sound "gau1". Similar to "fucking" in English, this word is usually used as an adverb. Compare this:


title: Cantonese profanity

text: Two common euphemisms "gau", which only differ in the tone, include "gau2" (nine) and "gau2" (dog, but it may change the original "dumbass" meaning into "cunning" instead).


title: Cantonese profanity

text: "Lan" ( or ; Jyutping: lan2), more commonly idiomatically written as "lun", is another vulgar word that means penis. Similar to "gau", this word is also usually used as an adverb.


title: Cantonese profanity

text: "Tsat" ( or or ; Jyutping: cat6), more commonly idiomatically written as , is a vulgar word for an impotent penis. "Ban6 cat6" ()


title: Cantonese profanity

text: (stupid dick) is a more common phrase among others. However, it is usually used as a vulgar adjective especially among the youth. It means "ugly" or "shameful".


title: Cantonese profanity

text: A common euphemism is "cat1" (seven), which only differs in the tone. Other euphemisms include "caat3" (to brush) and "caak6" (thieves). As a result, thieves that are easily caught by the police are often intentionally described as "ban6 caak6" (stupid thieves) in the newspaper to achieve the humorous effects from the phrase "ban6 cat6".


title: Cantonese profanity

text: "Hai" (traditional Chinese: or ; Jyutping: hai1) is a common vulgar word that literally means vagina. The English equivalent is "cunt". is more common on the mainland of China, with being used in Hong Kong and Macao. The Chinese character consists of two parts: the upper part is that means "body" while the bottom part means "a hole". The Chinese character thus literally means a "hole at the bottom of the body". Two common phrases include "so4 hai1" (silly cunt) and "cau3 hai1" (stinking cunt). Also another phrase is "diu2 hai1" (fuck a pussy).


title: Cantonese profanity

text: A common euphemism is "sai1" (west). The phrase "sai1 hau2 sai1 min6" (west mouths and west faces) is often used to describe women who have an impolite look. Some terms that are associated with western culture, such as "sai1 yan4" (westerners), may become Cantonese jokes that are based on the ambiguity of the pronunciations or tones. Other euphemisms include "haai4" (shoes) and "haai5" (crabs). As a result, crabs are sometimes intentionally linked with other words such as stinking and water to achieve some vagina-related humorous effects.


title: Cantonese profanity

text: The word "hai" can also mean total failure, as in the phrase "hai1 saai3" (). The Chinese character , one of whose meanings is similar to the English "bask", functions in Cantonese as the verbal particle for the perfective aspect. To further stress the failure, sometimes the phrase "hai1 gau1 saai3" is used (the word "gau" that means penis is put in between the original phrase). Since this phrase is highly offensive (it consists of two of the five vulgar words), a euphemism or "xiehouyu", a kind of Chinese "proverb", is sometimes used. As in a normal "xiehouyu", it consists of two elements: the former segment presents a scenario, while the latter provides the rationale thereof. One would often only state the first part, expecting the listener to know the second. The first part is "a man and a woman having a sunbath (naked)" (). Since the penis and vagina are both exposed to the sun, the second part is "hai1 gau1 saai3" ()—a pun for total failure. Therefore, if one wants to say that something is a total failure, he only has to say , and the listener will understand the intended meaning.


title: Cantonese profanity

text: "Puk gai" (, more commonly idiomatically written as ) literally means "falling onto street", which is a common curse phrase in Cantonese that may be translated into English as "drop dead". It is sometimes used as a noun to refer to an annoying person that roughly means a "prick". The phrase can also be used in daily life under a variety of situations to express annoyance, disgrace or other emotions. Since the phrase does not involve any sexual organs or reference to sex, some argue that it should not be considered as profanity. Nevertheless, "PK" is often used as a euphemism for the phrase. The written form can be seen on graffiti in Hong Kong and in Guangdong.


title: Cantonese profanity

text: In Southeast Asia, the meaning of the phrase has evolved so that it is no longer a profanity, and is usually taken to mean "broke/bankrupt" or "epic fail". In Taiwan, it is commonly used to refer to planking. The term is additionally used in a colloquial sense by Malays in Singapore in which case it is usually rendered as ""pokai"".


title: Cantonese profanity

text: In Hong Kong, there are specific by-laws that forbid the usage of profanity in public. For instance, it is not permitted to "use obscene language... in Ocean Park", for which "an offence is liable on conviction to a fine at level 1 and to imprisonment for 1 month", while in the MTR, it was prohibited to "use any threatening, abusive, obscene or offensive language". However, despite the explicit prohibition by various laws, the exact definition of "obscene language" is not given in the ordinance.


title: Helots

text: The helots (; , "heílotes") were a population that constituted a majority of the population of Laconia and Messenia – the territories ruled by Sparta. There has been controversy since antiquity as to their exact characteristics, such as whether they constituted an Ancient Greek tribe, a social class, or both. For example, Critias described helots as "slaves to the utmost", whereas according to Pollux, they occupied a status "between free men and slaves". Tied to the land, they primarily worked in agriculture as a majority and economically supported the Spartan citizens.


title: Helots

text: The number of helots in relation to Spartan citizens varied throughout the history of the Spartan state; according to Herodotus, there were seven helots for each Spartan at the time of the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Thus the need to keep the helot population in check and prevent rebellion was one of the main concerns of the Spartans. Helots were ritually mistreated and humiliated. Every autumn the Spartans would declare war on the helots so they could be mistreated by a member of the Crypteia without fear of religious repercussion. Uprisings and attempts to improve the lot of the helots did occur, such as the Conspiracy of Cinadon.


title: Helots

text: Several theories exist regarding the origin of the name "helot". According to Hellanicus, the word relates to the village of Helos, in the south of Sparta. Pausanias thus states, "Its inhabitants became the first slaves of the Lacedaemonian state, and were the first to be called helots". This explanation is, however, not very plausible in etymological terms.


title: Helots

text: Linguists have associated the word with the root , "wel-", as in , "halískomai", "to be captured, to be made prisoner". In fact, some ancient authors did not consider the term ethnic, but rather an indication of servitude: Antiochus of Syracuse writes: "those of the Lacedaemonians who did not take part in the expedition were adjudged slaves and were named helots", while Theopompus (fragment 122), cited by Athenaeus (VI, 416c), states, "...and the one nation called their slaves helots and the others called them penestae..." "In all of these texts, the naming of the group as helots is the central and symbolic moment of their reduction to serfhood. They are thus institutionally distinguished from the anonymous "douloi" (slaves)."


title: Helots

text: Certainly conquest comprised one aspect of helotism; thus Messenians, who were conquered in the Messenian Wars of the 8th century BC, become synonymous in Herodotus with helots.


title: Helots

text: The situation seems less clear in the case of the earliest helots, who, according to Theopompus, were descended from the initial Achaeans, whom the Dorians had conquered. But not all Achaeans were reduced to helotism: the city of Amyclae, home of the Hyacinthia festival, enjoyed special status, as did others.


title: Helots

text: Contemporary authors propose alternative theories: according to Antiochus of Syracuse, helots were the Lacedaemonians who did not participate in the Messenian Wars; for Ephorus of Cyme, they were the "perioeci" ("dwellers in surrounding communities") from Helos, reduced to slavery after a failed revolt.


title: Helots

text: From at least the classical period, the number of Spartans was very small in comparison to that of the helots. In a celebrated passage, Thucydides stresses that "most Spartan institutions have always been designed with a view to security against the Helots". Aristotle compares them to "an enemy constantly sitting in wait of the disaster of the Spartans". Consequently, fear seems to be an important factor governing relations between Spartans and Helots. According to tradition, the Spartiates always carried their spears, undid the straps of their bucklers only when at home lest the Helots seize them, and locked themselves in their homes. They also took active measures, subjecting them to what Theopompus describes as "an altogether cruel and bitter condition".


title: Helots

text: Plutarch also states that Spartans treated the Helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous—wine usually being diluted with water) "... and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during syssitia (obligatory banquets). However, he notes that this rough treatment was inflicted only relatively late, after the 464 BC earthquake.


title: Helots

text: Some modern scholars advocate a reevaluation of ancient evidence about helots. It has been argued that the "kunē" was not actually made of dogskin, and that the "diphthera" (literally, "leather") was the general attire of the poor peasant class. The obligation of masters to prevent fatness amongst their helots is actually deemed implausible: as the Spartiates lived separately, dietary intake could not be rigorously controlled; as manual labour was an important function of the Helots (for example, being used to carry their master's arms and armour on campaign), it would make sense to keep them well fed. Besides, the rations mentioned by Thucydides for the Helots on Sphacteria are close to normal. Myron's evidence is interpreted as an extrapolation from actions performed on symbolic representatives. In short, Grote writes that "the various anecdotes which are told respecting [Helot] treatment at Sparta betoken less of cruelty than of ostentatious scorn". He has been followed recently by J. Ducat (1974 and 1990), who describes Spartan treatment of the Helots as a kind of ideological warfare, designed to condition the Helots to think of themselves as inferiors. This strategy seems to have been successful at least for Laconian Helots: when the Thebans ordered a group of Laconian helot prisoners to recite the verses of Alcman and Terpander (national poets of Thebes), they refused on the grounds that it would displease their masters.


title: Helots

text: Other modern scholars consider then, "although the details may be fanciful, [Myron's evidence] does reflect accurately the general Spartiate attitude towards helots". It has also been proposed that contempt alone could hardly explain the organized murder of Helots mentioned by several ancient sources. According to Aristotle, the ephors annually declared war on the Helots, thereby allowing Spartans to kill them without fear of religious pollution. This task was apparently given to the "kryptes", graduates of the difficult "agoge" who took part in the crypteia. This lack of judicial protection is confirmed by Myron of Priene, who mentions killing as a standard mode of regulation of the Helot population. According to a passage in Thucydides, helots were massacred in a carefully staged event in 425 BC or earlier:


title: Helots

text: Thus Paul Cartledge claims that "the history of Sparta (...) is fundamentally the history of the class struggle between the Spartans and the Helots".


title: Helots

text: Helots, whose name meant "captives" were assigned to citizens to carry out domestic work or to work on their "klēroi," or portions. The "klēroi" were the original divisions of Messenia after its conquest by Sparta. Various sources mention such servants accompanying this or that Spartan. Plutarch has Timaia, the wife of King Agis II, "being herself forward enough to whisper among her helot maid-servants" that the child she was expecting had been fathered by Alcibiades, and not her husband, indicating a certain level of trust. According to some authors, in the 4th century BC, citizens also used chattel-slaves for domestic purposes. However, this is disputed by others. Some helots were also servants to young Spartans during their "agoge", the Spartan education; these were the μόθωνες / "móthōnes" (see below). Finally, helots, like slaves, could be artisans or tradesmen.


title: Helots

text: They were required to hand over a predetermined portion of their harvest ( / "apophorá"), with the helots keeping the surplus. According to Plutarch, this portion was 70 medimnoi of barley for a man, 12 for a woman, as well as a quantity of oil and wine corresponding to an amount reasonable for the needs of a warrior and his family, or a widow, respectively. The existence of the "apophorá" is contested by Tyrtaeus: "Secondly, though no fixed tribute was imposed on them, they used to bring the half of all the produce of their fields to Sparta... Like asses worn by their great burdens, bringing of dire necessity to their masters the half of all the fruits the corn-land bears." Pausanias is describing the period immediately after the first Messenian War, when conditions were probably more severe. Also, since taking a percentage of the produce would have required constantly overseeing the helots, it is unlikely such a tax could be implemented upon the relatively distant Messenia. With Tyrtaeus being a poet, the amount might well have been a poetic figure of speech, similar to the modern "half a kingdom". In fact, it is debated whether the quote refers to helots in the first place, since Tyrtaeus' description of the Second Messenian War refers to enemy phalanxes, indicating the first war could have ended with the Messenian people becoming a vassal state of Sparta rather than helots.


title: Helots

text: Having paid their tribute, the helots could often live rather well; the lands of Laconia and Messenia were very fertile, and often permitted two crops per year. It seems they could enjoy some private property: in 425 BC, some helots had their own boats. A certain amount of wealth was achievable: in 223 BC, 6,000 helots purchased their freedom for 500 drachmas each, a considerable sum at the time.


title: Helots

text: Helots lived in family units and could, at least " de facto", contract unions among themselves. Since helots were much less susceptible than other slaves in Greek antiquity to having their family units dispersed, they could reproduce themselves, or at least maintain their number. Probably not insignificant to begin with, their population increased in spite of the "crypteia", other massacres of helots (see below), and losses in war. Simultaneously, the population of Spartiate citizens declined.


title: Helots

text: The absence of a formal census prevents an accurate assessment of the helot population, but estimates are possible. According to Herodotus, helots were seven times as numerous as Spartans during the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. The long Peloponnesian War drained Sparta of so many of its citizens that by the time of the conspiracy of Cinadon, the beginning of the 4th century BC, only forty Peers, or citizens, could be counted in a crowd of 4,000 at the agora (Xenophon, "Hellenica", III, 3, 5). The total population of helots at that time, including women, is estimated as 170,000–224,000.


title: Helots

text: Since the helot population was not technically chattel, their population was reliant on native birth rates, as opposed to prisoners of war or purchased slaves. Helots were encouraged by the Spartans to impose a eugenics doctrine similar to that which they, themselves, practiced. This would, according to Greek beliefs of the period, ensure not only genetic but also acquired favourable characteristics be passed along to successive generations. Tempering these selective factors was the "crypteia," during which the strongest and fittest helots were the primary targets of the "kryptes"; to select soft targets would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. This theoretically removed the strongest and most able potential rebels while keeping the general populace fit and efficient.


title: Helots

text: What is more, the Spartans used helot women to satisfy the state's human personnel needs: the 'bastards' ("nothoi") born of Spartan fathers and helot women held an intermediary rank in Lacedaemonian society (cf. "mothakes" and "mothones" below) and swelled the ranks of the citizen army. It is difficult to determine whether these births were the results of voluntary liaisons (at least on the part of the father) or part of a formal state program. It is unknown what happened to girls born of such unions, as they served no military purpose. It is possible they were abandoned at birth and left to die, or lived to remain helots.


title: Helots

text: According to Myron of Priene, cited by Athenaeus, the emancipation of helots was "common" ( / "pollákis"). The text suggests that this is normally associated with completion of military service. The first explicit reference to this practice in regards to the helots occurs in Thucydides (IV, 26, 5). This is on the occasion of the events at Sphacteria, when Sparta had to relieve their hoplites, who were besieged on the island by the Athenians:


title: Helots

text: "The fact was, that the Lacedaemonians had made advertisement for volunteers to carry into the island ground corn, wine, cheese, and any other food useful in a siege; high prices being offered, and freedom promised to any of the helots who should succeed in doing so".


title: Helots

text: Thucydides reports that the request met with some success, and the helots got supplies through to the besieged island. He does not mention whether or not the Spartans kept their word; it is possible that some of the helots later executed were part of the Sphacterian volunteers but later said they kept their word.


title: Helots

text: Another such call came during the Theban invasion of Laconia in one of the decisive battles of Peloponnese wars. Xenophon in "Hellenica" (VI, 5, 28) states that the authorities agreed to emancipate all the helots who volunteered. He then reports that more than 6,000 heeded the call, leading to some embarrassment for the Spartans, who were initially overwhelmed by the number. Xenophon states that the Spartans' fears were assuaged when they received aid from their allies and Boeotian mercenary forces.


title: Helots

text: All the same, in 424 BC, the 700 helots who served Brasidas in Chalcidice were emancipated, and they were henceforth known as the "Brasidians". It was also possible to purchase freedom, or achieve it by undergoing the traditional Spartan education. Generally, emancipated helots were referred to as "neodamodes" ( / "neodamōdeis"): those who rejoined the / "dễmos" (Deme) of the Perioeci.


title: Helots

text: Moses Finley underscores that the fact helots could serve as hoplites constituted a grave flaw in the system. In effect, the hoplite system was a strict method of training to ensure that discipline was maintained in the phalanx. The Spartans gained considerable reputation as hoplites, due to tactical capabilities developed through constant training. In addition to this military aspect, to be a hoplite was a key characteristic of Greek citizenship.


title: Helots

text: Phylarchus mentions a class of men who were at the same time free and non-citizens: the / "mothakes", who had undergone the "'agoge'", the Spartan educational system. Classical historiography recognizes that the helots comprised a large portion of these "mothakes". Nevertheless, this category poses a number of problems, firstly that of vocabulary.


title: Helots

text: The situation is somewhat complicated by a gloss of Hesychios of Alexandria which attests that "mothakes" were slave children ( / "doũloi") raised at the same time as the children of citizens. Philologists resolve this quandary in two ways:


title: Helots

text: Herodotus makes multiple accounts of Helots accompanying Spartans as servants and soldiers in battles such as Thermopylae and Plataea, often lightly equipped compared to their hoplite counterparts. In his reports on Plataea, he makes multiple accounts of Helots which accompanied the Spartans on the battlefield and made up the mass of the army. In Greek military practice, the standard depth of the army's phalanx was eight men, having known this, Herodotus deducted that there was a soldier ratio of seven Helots to one Spartan at Plataea.


title: Helots

text: Historians have confirmed that Herodotus' accounts of both Helot and Spartan soldiers is exaggerated, it is however confirmed that Helots were present on the battlefield due to Herodotus alluding to a grave which was constructed for the Helots. Helots may have also had other roles at Plataea besides forming the ranks in battle, some historians believe that Helots were also designated with guarding supply lines for the armies.


title: Helots

text: The first helot attempt at revolt which is historically reported is that provoked by general Pausanias in the 5th century BC. Thucydides reports:


title: Helots

text: Besides, they were informed that he was even intriguing with the helots; and such indeed was the fact, for he promised them freedom and citizenship if they would join him in insurrection, and would help him to carry out his plans to the end.


title: Helots

text: These intrigues did not however lead to a helot uprising; Thucydides indeed implies that Pausanias was turned in by the helots (I, 132, 5 - "...the evidence even of the helots themselves.") Perhaps the promises made by Pausanias were too generous to be believed by the helots; not even Brasidas, when he emancipated his helot volunteers, offered full citizenship.


title: Helots

text: The massacre of Cape Taenarus, the promontory formed by the southernmost tip of Taygetus, is also reported by Thucydides:


title: Helots

text: The Lacedaemonians had once raised up some helot suppliants from the temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, led them away and slain them; for which they believe the great earthquake at Sparta to have been a retribution.


title: Helots

text: This affair, recalled by the Athenians in responding to a Spartan request to exile Pericles—who was an Alcmaeonid on his mother's side—is not dated. Historians know only that it happened before the disastrous earthquake of 464 BC. Thucydides here is the only one to implicate the helots: Pausanias speaks rather about Lacedaemonians who had been condemned to death. Nor does the text allow us to conclude that this was a failed uprising of helots, only that there was an attempt at escape. Additionally, a helot revolt in Laconia is unlikely, and Messenians would not likely have taken refuge at Cape Taenarus.


title: Helots

text: The uprising coincident with the earthquake of 464 BC is soundly attested to, although Greek historians do not agree on the interpretation of this event.


title: Helots

text: According to Thucydides, the helots and perioeci of Thouria and Aithaia took advantage of the earthquake to revolt and establish a position on Mt. Ithome. He adds that most of the rebels were of Messenian ancestry—confirming the appeal of Ithome as a historical place of Messenian resistance—and focuses attention on the perioeci of Thouria, a city on the Messianian coast. Conversely, historians could deduce that a minority of the helots were Laconian, thus making this the one and only revolt of their history. Commentators such as Stephanus of Byzantium - writing around a thousand years later - suggest that this Aithaia was in Laconia, thus indicating a large-scale uprising in the region. The version of events given by Pausanias is similar.


title: Helots

text: Diodorus Siculus (XI, 63,4 – 64,1), probably influenced by Ephorus of Cyme, attributed the uprising equally to the Messenians and the helots. This version of events is supported by Plutarch.


title: Helots

text: Finally, some authors make responsibility for the uprising with the helots of Laconia. This is the case of Plutarch in his "Life of Cimon": the helots of the Eurotas River valley want to use the earthquake to attack the Spartans whom they think are disarmed. The intervention of Archidamus II, who calls the Lacedaemonians to arms, simultaneously saves them from the earthquake and the helot attack. The helots fold, but revert to open warfare joined by the Messenians.


title: Helots

text: It is difficult to reconcile these versions. It is nevertheless clear that in any case the revolt of 464 BC represented a major traumatic event for the Spartans. Plutarch indicates that the Crypteia and other poor treatments of the helots were instituted after this revolt. If there is any doubt in these affirmations, they at least underscore the immediate Spartan reaction: gathering allies and pursuing war with the same Athens that would later be faced in the Peloponnesian War. After all, the rebellion represented an early indication of souring relations between the Athenians and the Spartans. The Spartans spuriously expelled an Athenian army sent to assist in putting down the rebellion, and the Athenians assisted in the resettlement of helots onto the island of Naupactus.


title: Helots

text: During the same war and after the capitulation of the Spartans besieged in Sphacteria, the Athenians installed a garrison in Pylos composed of Messenians from Naupactus. Thucydides underlines that they had hoped to exploit the patriotism of the latter in order to pacify the region. Though the Messenians may not have triggered full-blown guerrilla warfare, they nevertheless pillaged the area and encouraged helot desertion. Sparta was forced to dedicate a garrison to controlling this activity; this was the first of the / "epiteikhismoí" ("ramparts"), outposts planted by the Athenians in enemy territory.


title: Helots

text: The second such outpost was at Kythera. This time, the Athenians set their sights on the helots of Laconia. Again, pillaging and desertion did occur, but not on the scale hoped for by the Athenians or feared by the Spartans: there was no uprising like that which accompanied the earthquake.


title: White Light/White Heat

text: White Light/White Heat is the second studio album by American rock band the Velvet Underground. Released on January 30, 1968, on Verve Records, it was the band's last studio recording with multi-instrumentalist and founding member John Cale. Recorded after Reed fired Andy Warhol, who had produced their debut album "The Velvet Underground & Nico", they hired Steve Sesnick as a manager and hired producer Tom Wilson who had worked on the band's debut. "White Light/White Heat" was engineered by Gary Kellgren.


title: White Light/White Heat

text: The album includes lyrically transgressive themes like their debut, exploring topics such as sex, amphetamines, and drag queens. Reed was inspired by a variety of authors, including William S. Burroughs and Alice Bailey, and the lyrics create a cast of characters, such as in "The Gift" and those named in "Sister Ray". Musically, he took influence from jazz music and players such as saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Warhol conceived the album's cover art, although he is officially uncredited.


title: White Light/White Heat

text: "White Light/White Heat" was recorded quickly and modeled after the band's live sound and techniques of improvisation, since they often played loud with new equipment from an endorsement deal with Vox. However, the final product was compressed and distorted-–most members were dissatisfied with the final product and it was followed with the less experimental "The Velvet Underground" the following year; Cale would leave the band later in 1968. The distortion level became a prototype for punk rock and noise rock. The 17-minute "Sister Ray" is widely considered the standout track by critics and fans.


title: White Light/White Heat

text: "White Light/White Heat" sold fewer copies than "The Velvet Underground & Nico", and peaked at 199 on the "Billboard" Top LPs chart. The album's only single, "White Light/White Heat", failed to chart, which the band blamed on airplay bans and lack of promotion from Verve. The album was dismissed by many contemporary mainstream music critics, although underground newspapers took notice. Ultimately, "White Light/White Heat" had a hugely significant impact on early forms of punk rock and no wave and has appeared on several lists of the greatest albums of all time.


title: White Light/White Heat

text: After the disappointing sales of the Velvet Underground's first album, "The Velvet Underground & Nico" (1967), their relationship with Andy Warhol deteriorated. They toured throughout most of 1967, and many of their live performances featured noisy improvisations that became key elements on "White Light/White Heat". The band fired Warhol, parted ways with Nico (which she would describe as being fired), and recorded their second album with Tom Wilson credited as producer. Jack Donohue, writing for "Tech", the student newspaper of MIT, would be one of the first to announce that the band were working on a follow-up. The band had access to new electronics through an endorsement deal with Vox. The sound of the album was designed from the beginning to be against the Summer of Love in San Francisco and also to capture their live sound.


title: White Light/White Heat

text: Steve Sesnick was chosen as the replacement manager for the band, and he was accepted by all band members except bassist John Cale; drummer Moe Tucker even considered him a fifth member of the group. Singer Lou Reed influenced the album with his obsession with astrology, especially his interest in the Virgo-Pisces astrological opposition. Rehearsal was similar to the band's debut, with the band's best pieces being reworked mostly in the studio. However, Cale would state that no one in the band "had the patience to rehearse" the album, even after numerous attempts to do so.


title: White Light/White Heat

text: The album was recorded in a short time frame, and with a noticeably different style from that of "The Velvet Underground & Nico". Decades after its release, John Cale (in the liner notes of "Peel Slowly and See") described "White Light/White Heat" as "a very rabid record... The first one had some gentility, some beauty. The second one was consciously anti-beauty." Sterling Morrison, the lead guitarist, said: "We were all pulling in the same direction. We may have been dragging each other off a cliff, but we were all definitely going in the same direction." Tucker would estimate that the album took two weeks to record, with about seven recording sessions. It was "almost" recorded in one day—the band would not "accommodate what [they] were trying to do due to the limitations of the studio", according to Morrison. They were well prepared, and the tension between Cale and Reed wasn't apparent in the studio.