title: Defund the police

text: In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti has said he would cut as much as $150 million from the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) budget, a reversal of his planned increase of $120 million. Garcetti announced the funds would be redirected to community initiatives. In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed announced a plan to redirect some police funds to the city's African-American community, and she announced that police will no longer respond to non-criminal calls. However, in December 2021, after a reported spike in crime and drug dealing in the Tenderloin district, she announced her intention to flood the district streets with police in order to contain the emergency. In Milwaukee, an activist group called African-American Roundtable, formed by 65 organizations, asked the city to divert $75 million from the police budget to public health and housing.


title: Defund the police

text: In Minneapolis, activist groups Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective requested for the police budget to be cut by $45 million. Members of the Minneapolis City Council signed a pledge to dismantle the police and create new public safety systems. City council member Lisa Bender explained, "Our commitment is to end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe." In September, the pledge was set aside. Pledge signer Andrew Johnson clarified that he had supported the pledge only in spirit, not literally. Lisa Bender, the council president, said that different interpretations of the pledge by different council members had created confusion. "The New York Times" reported that the pledge "has been rejected by the city's mayor, a plurality of residents in recent public opinion polls, and an increasing number of community groups. Taking its place have been the types of incremental reforms that the city's progressive politicians had denounced."


title: Defund the police

text: By the end of 2020, as the city was dealing with a spike in violent crime, Minneapolis officials agreed to a 4.5 percent shift of the city's $179 million annual police budget to violence prevention programs and non-emergency services, which was far short of the sweeping changes demanded by activists and pledged by local lawmakers in the wake of Floyd's murder. In the 2021 Minneapolis municipal election, voters rejected a ballot measure to amend the city's charter to eliminate a required minimum number of police officers based on the city's population and that would have replaced the police department with a department of public safety. By the end of 2021, city officials had restored police funding in Minneapolis to $191 millionthe funding level prior the resource diversion following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.


title: Defund the police

text: In 2020, local policymakers in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and other US cities have supported some form of defunding or opposing budget increases.


title: Defund the police

text: In Nashville on June 2, 2020, a city budget hearing lasted over ten hours to accommodate the large numbers of residents waiting to take their turn to ask the city to defund the police.


title: Defund the police

text: In August 2020, the Austin City Council unanimously voted to cut $150 million, about one third, from the Austin Police Departments budget. About $80 million of the cuts consists of moving several civilian functions from the police department to other parts of city government, and $50 million is for "alternative forms of public safety". The other $20 million is to be reallocated to other city programs including violence prevention, abortion access, and food access.


title: Defund the police

text: On November 2, 2021, the city of Des Moines, Iowa, elected Indira Sheumaker to the office of City Council representing Ward 1 of the city—comprising the most diverse neighborhoods in the city. She defeated incumbent Bill Gray on a platform of defunding the police, decentralizing city government, and establishing community owned utilities. During her campaign, Indira was fighting felony charges stemming from an altercation with a police officer at the Iowa State Capitol.


title: Defund the police

text: The Los Angeles Police Protective League said defunding the police would be the "quickest way to make our neighborhoods more dangerous" and that "at this time ... 'defunding' the LAPD is the most irresponsible thing anyone can propose."


title: Defund the police

text: In Canada, politicians in major cities have expressed interest in diverting some police funds. In Toronto, city councilors Josh Matlow and Kristyn Wong-Tam have planned to propose a 10% cut to the police budget. Doctors for Defunding the Police have advocated for widespread reforms. In Montreal, Mayor Valérie Plante has said she is in talks about the police budget.


title: Defund the police

text: In Scotland, a violence reduction unit run by Police was set up in 2005, which aims to prevent violence with educational and outreach programs.


title: Defund the police

text: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair criticized "defund the police" in a 2021 article for the "New Statesman", describing it as "voter-repellent" and "the left's most damaging political slogan since 'the dictatorship of the proletariat. Blair furthermore claimed that the slogan "leaves the right with an economic message which seems more practical and a powerful cultural message around defending flag, family and fireside traditional values." Both the leaderships of the British Labour Party and the Conservative Party have pledged not to defund any British police forces.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: In Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon (, "ʾāḏām qaḏmōn", "Primordial Man") also called Adam Elyon (, "ʾāḏām ʿelyōn", "Most High Man"), or Adam Ila'ah (, "ʾāḏām ʿīllāʾā" "Supreme Man"), sometimes abbreviated as A"K (, "ʾA.Q."), is the first of Four Worlds that came into being after the contraction of God's infinite light. "Adam Kadmon" is not the same as the physical "Adam Ha-Rishon".


title: Adam Kadmon

text: In Lurianic Kabbalah, the description of "Adam Kadmon" is anthropomorphic. Nonetheless, "Adam Kadmon" is divine light without vessels, i.e., pure potential. In the human psyche, "Adam Kadmon" corresponds to the yechidah, the collective essence of the soul.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The first to use the expression "original man," or "heavenly man," was Philo, in whose view the , or , "as being born in the image of God, has no participation in any corruptible or earthlike essence; whereas the earthly man is made of loose material, called a lump of clay." The heavenly man, as the perfect image of the "Logos", is neither man nor woman, but an incorporeal intelligence purely an idea; while the earthly man, who was created by God later, is perceptible to the senses and partakes of earthly qualities. Philo is evidently combining philosophy and Midrash, Plato and the rabbis.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: Setting out from the duplicate biblical account of Adam, who was formed in the image of God (), and of the first man, whose body God formed from the earth (), he combines with it the Platonic theory of forms; taking the primordial Adam as the idea, and the created man of flesh and blood as the "image." That Philo's philosophic views are grounded on the Midrash, and not vice versa, is evident from his seemingly senseless statement that the "heavenly man," the οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος (who is merely an idea), is "neither man nor woman." This doctrine, however, becomes quite intelligible in view of the following ancient Midrash.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The remarkable contradiction between Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:7 could not escape the attention of the Pharisees, for whom the Bible was a subject of close study. In explaining the various views concerning Eve's creation, they taught that Adam was created as a man-woman (androgyny), explaining "" () as "male and female" instead of "man and woman," and that the separation of the sexes arose from the subsequent operation upon Adam's body, as related in the Scripture. This explains Philo's statement that the original man was neither man nor woman.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: This doctrine concerning the Logos, as also that of man made "in the likeness," although tinged with true Philonic coloring, is also based on the theology of the Pharisees. In an old Midrash it is remarked:


title: Adam Kadmon

text: This contains the kernel of Philo's philosophical doctrine of the creation of the original man. He calls him the idea of the earthly Adam, while with the rabbis the spirit (רוח) of Adam not only existed before the creation of the earthly Adam, but was preexistent to the whole of creation. From the preexisting Adam, or Messiah, to the Logos is merely a step.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: In Kabbalah, before creation began, all that existed was God's Infinite Light. The first stage of creation began when God contracted His Infinite Light to create the vacuum. Then a ray of divine light penetrated the vacuum and the persona of Adam Kadmon was projected into the vacuum. The first stage of Adam Kadmon was in the form of ten concentric circles ("igulim"), which emanated from the ray. The ray of light was then enclothed by the anthropomorphic form of Adam Kadmon (), which is a realm of infinite divine light without vessels, constrained by its potential to create future Existence. Adam Kadmon is sometimes referred to as "Adam Ila'a" (Aramaic: "upper man") or "Adam Elyon" (Hebrew: "upper man").


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The soul of Adam HaRishon ("the first man") was the supreme essence of mankind. It contained within it all subsequent souls. In the midrash, he is sometimes referred to as "Adam HaKadmoni" ("the ancient man"), "Adam Tata'a" (Aramaic: "lower man") or "Adam Tachton" (Hebrew: "lower man").


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The anthropomorphic name of Adam Kadmon denotes that it contains both the ultimate divine purpose for creation, i.e., mankind, as well as an embodiment of the Sefirot (divine attributes). Adam Kadmon is paradoxically both "Adam" and divine ("Kadmon-Primary").


title: Adam Kadmon

text: Adam Kadmon preceded the manifestation of the Four Worlds, Atzilut ("emanation"), Beriah ("creation"), Yetzirah ("formation") and Asiyah ("action"). Whereas each of the Four Worlds is represented by one letter of the divine four-lettered name of God, Adam Kadmon is represented by the transcendental cusp of the first letter Yud.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: In the system of the sefirot, Adam Kadmon corresponds to Keter ("crown"), the divine will that motivated creation.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The two versions of Kabbalistic theosophy, the "medieval/classic/Zoharic" (systemised by Moshe Cordovero) and the more comprehensive Lurianic, describe the process of descending worlds differently. For Cordovero, the sefirot, Adam Kadmon and the Four Worlds evolve sequentially from the Ein Sof (divine infinity). For Luria, creation is a dynamic process of divine exile-rectification enclothement, where Adam Kadmon is preceded by the Tzimtzum (Divine "contraction") and followed by Shevira (the "shattering" of the sefirot).


title: Adam Kadmon

text: Closely related to the Philonic doctrine of the heavenly Adam is the Adam Ḳadmon (called also Adam 'Ilaya, the "high man," the "heavenly man") of the Zohar, whose conception of the original man can be deduced from the following passages: "The form of man is the image of everything that is above [in heaven] and below [upon earth]; therefore did the Holy Ancient [God] select it for His own form."


title: Adam Kadmon

text: As with Philo the Logos is the original image of man, or the original man, so in the Zohar the heavenly man is the embodiment of all divine manifestations: the ten Sefirot, the original image of man. The heavenly Adam, stepping forth out of the highest original darkness, created the earthly Adam. In other words, the activity of the original essence manifested itself in the creation of man, who at the same time is the image of the heavenly man and of the universe, just as with Plato and Philo the idea of man, as microcosm, embraces the idea of the universe or macrocosm.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The conception of Adam Ḳadmon becomes an important factor in the later Kabbalah of Isaac Luria. Adam Ḳadmon is with him no longer the concentrated manifestation of the Sefirot, but a mediator between the En-Sof ("infinite") and the Sefirot. The En-Sof, according to Luria, is so utterly incomprehensible that the older Kabbalistic doctrine of the manifestation of the En-Sof in the Sefirot must be abandoned. Hence he teaches that only the Adam Ḳadmon, who arose in the way of self-limitation by the En-Sof, can be said to manifest himself in the Sefirot. This theory of Luria is treated by Ḥayyim Vital in "'Eẓ Ḥayyim; Derush 'Agulim we-Yosher" (Treatise on Circles and the Straight Line).


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The above-quoted Midrash is even of greater importance for the understanding of the Pauline Christology, as affording the key to Paul's doctrine of the first and second Adam. The main passage in Pauline Christology is . According to this there is a double form of man's existence; for God created a heavenly Adam in the spiritual world and an earthly one of clay for the material world. The first Adam was of flesh and blood and therefore subject to death—merely "a living soul"; the second Adam was "a life-giving spirit"—a spirit whose body, like the heavenly beings in general, is immaterial.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: As a pupil of Gamaliel, Paul simply operates with conceptions familiar to the Palestinian theologians. Messiah, as the Midrash remarks, is, on the one hand, the first Adam, the original man who existed before Creation, his spirit being already present. On the other hand, Christ is the second, or Last Adam in so far as his bodily appearance followed the Creation. Adam, through Pauline Christology, was a pattern of the one to come. In Paul's Epistle to the Romans he writes: "14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come."


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The pattern of Adam, was that death came through a man, through sin, so all will die. The pattern of Christ the second Adam, was that all will be made alive through Christ. - 1 Corinthians 15: 21 - 22


title: Adam Kadmon

text: With Philo the original man is an idea; with Paul He is the pre-existent Logos, and Wisdom of God, incarnate as the man Jesus Christ. With Philo the first man is the original man; Paul identifies the original man with the second Adam. The Christian Apostle evidently drew upon the Judean theology of his day; but it can not be denied that in ancient times this theology was indebted to the Alexandrians for many of its ideas, and probably among them for that of pre-existence. The Midrash thus considered affords a suitable transition to the Gnostic theories of the original man. (Cf. “"Original Man"” ("Nāšā Qaḏmāyā" in Aramaic) under Manichaeism#Cosmogony.)


title: Adam Kadmon

text: It has been said that the Midrash already speaks of the spirit () of the first Adam or of the Messiah without, however, absolutely identifying Adam and Messiah. This identification could only be made by persons who regarded only the spirit of the Scripture (meaning, of course, their conception of it) and not the letter as binding. In such circles originated the Clementine "Homilies" and "Recognitions," in which the doctrine of the original man (called also in the Clementine writings "the true prophet") is of prime importance. It is quite certain that this doctrine is of Judæo-Christian origin. The identity of Adam and Jesus seems to have been taught in the original form of the Clementine writings. The "Homilies" distinctly assert:


title: Adam Kadmon

text: If any one do not allow the man fashioned by the hands of God to have the holy spirit of Christ, is he not guilty of the greatest impiety in allowing another, born of an impure stock, to have it? But he would act most piously if he should say that He alone has it who has changed His form and His name from the beginning of the world, and so appeared again and again in the world until, coming to his own times, . . . He shall enjoy rest forever.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The "Recognitions" also lay stress upon the identity of Adam and Jesus; for in the passage wherein it is mysteriously hinted that Adam was anointed with the eternal oil, the meaning can only be that Adam is the anointed (). If other passages in the "Recognitions" seem to contradict this identification they only serve to show how vacillating the work is in reference to the doctrine of the original man. This conception is expressed in true Philonic and Platonic fashion in i. 18, where it is declared that the "interna species" () of man had its existence earlier. The original man of the Clementines is, therefore, simply a product of three elements, namely, Jewish theology, Platonic-Philonic philosophy, and Oriental theosophy; and this fact serves to explain their obscurity of expression on the subject.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: In close relationship to the Clementine writings stand the Bible translator Symmachus and the Jewish-Christian sect to which he belonged. Victorinus Rhetor states that "The Symmachiani teach "Eum—Christum—Adam esse et esse animam generalem."" The Jewish-Christian sect of the Elcesaites also taught (about the year 100) that Jesus appeared on earth in changing human forms, and that He will reappear. That by these "changing human forms" are to be understood the appearances of Adam and the patriarchs is pointed out by Epiphanius, according to whom the Jewish-Christian sects of Sampsæans, Ossenes, Nazarene, and Ebionites adopted the doctrine of the Elcesaites that Jesus and Adam are identical.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The "Primal Man" of the Elcesaites, was also, according to the conception of these Jewish Gnostics, of huge dimensions; viz., ninety-six miles in height and ninety-four miles in breadth; being originally androgynous, and then cleft in two, the masculine part becoming the Messiah, and the feminine part the Holy Ghost.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The Primeval Man ("Protanthropos", Adam) occupies a prominent place in several Gnostic systems. In the Coptic Nag Hammadi texts, the archetypical Adam is known as Pigeradamas or Geradamas. According to Irenaeus the Aeon Autogenes emits the true and perfect Anthrôpos, also called Adamas; he has a helpmate, "Perfect Knowledge", and receives an irresistible force, so that all things rest in him. Others say there is a blessed and incorruptible and endless light in the power of Bythos; this is the Father of all things who is invoked as the First Man, who, with his Ennoia, emits "the Son of Man", or Euteranthrôpos.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: According to Valentinus, Adam was created in the name of Anthrôpos and overawes the demons by the fear of the pre-existent man (""). In the Valentinian syzygies and in the Marcosian system we meet in the fourth (originally the third) place Anthrôpos and Ecclesia.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: In the "Pistis Sophia" the Aeon Jeu is called the First Man, he is the overseer of the Light, messenger of the First Precept, and constitutes the forces of the Heimarmene. In the "Books of Jeu" this "great Man" is the King of the Light-treasure, he is enthroned above all things and is the goal of all souls.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: According to the Naassenes, the Protanthropos is the first element; the fundamental being before its differentiation into individuals. "The Son of Man" is the same being after it has been individualized into existing things and thus sunk into matter.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: The Gnostic Anthrôpos, therefore, or "Adamas", as it is sometimes called, is a cosmogonic element, pure mind as distinct from matter, mind conceived hypostatically as emanating from God and not yet darkened by contact with matter. This mind is considered as the reason of humanity, or humanity itself, as a personified idea, a category without corporeality, the human reason conceived as the World-Soul. The same idea, somewhat modified, occurs in Hermetic literature, especially the "Poimandres".


title: Adam Kadmon

text: A portion of these Gnostic teachings, when combined with Zoroastrian mythology, furnished Mani with his particular doctrine of the original man. He even retains the Jewish designations "Adam Kadmon" (= ) and "Nakhash Kadmon" (= ), as may be seen in the Fihrist. But, according to Mani, the original man is fundamentally distinct from the first father of the human race. He is a creation of the King of Light, and is therefore endowed with five elements of the kingdom of light; whereas Adam really owes his existence to the kingdom of darkness, and only escapes belonging altogether to the number of demons through the fact that he bears the likeness of the original man in the elements of light contained within him. The Gnostic doctrine of the identity of Adam, as the original man, with the Messiah appears in Mani in his teaching of the "Redeeming Christ," who has His abode in the sun and moon, but is identical with the original man. It also appears in this theory that Adam was the first of the sevenfold series of true prophets, comprising Adam, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Zoroaster, Buddha, and Jesus. The stepping-stone from the Gnostic original man to Manichaeism was probably the older Mandaean conception, which may have exercised great influence. Of this conception, however, there remains in the later Mandaean writings little more than the expression "Gabra Ḳadmaya" (Adam Ḳadmon).


title: Adam Kadmon

text: "Adam Kasia", also referred to using the portmanteau "Adakas" in the "Ginza Rabba", means "the hidden Adam" in Mandaic. The hidden Adam is also called "Adam Qadmaiia" (The First Adam). In Mandaeism, it means the soul of the first man and the soul of every human. "Adam Kasia" shows many similarities with the Jewish idea of Adam Kadmon.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: Outside of an Abrahamic context, the Cosmic Man is also an archetypical figure that appears in creation myths of a wide variety of cultures. Generally he is described as bestowing life upon all things, and is also frequently the physical basis of the world, such that after death parts of his body became physical parts of the universe. He also represents the oneness of human existence, or the universe.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: For instance, in the Purusha sukta of the Rigveda, Purusha (Sanskrit ", "पुरुष "man," or "Cosmic Man") is sacrificed by the devas from the foundation of the world—his mind is the Moon, his eyes are the Sun, and his breath is the wind. He is described as having a thousand heads and a thousand feet.


title: Adam Kadmon

text: One tradition associates Adam Kadmon or the biblical Adam and the figure of Cadmus in Greek mythology, both associated with dragons/serpents.


title: American Ultra

text: American Ultra is a 2015 American action comedy film directed by Nima Nourizadeh and written by Max Landis. The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Connie Britton, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman, and Tony Hale. The story is about a stoner who discovers he was part of a secret government program and is a sleeper agent.


title: American Ultra

text: It was released on August 21, 2015, by Lionsgate. The film received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the premise and cast, but criticism that it "fails to live up to its potential".


title: American Ultra

text: The film underperformed at the box office, earning a worldwide total of $30.3 million against a production budget of $28 million.


title: American Ultra

text: Mike Howell is a stoner who lives in the sleepy town of Liman, West Virginia, where he works as a convenience store clerk. He is planning to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Phoebe Larson, on a trip to Hawaii. He is unable to board the plane, as he suffers from intense panic attacks anytime he tries to leave town. He does not understand why Phoebe puts up with him.


title: American Ultra

text: In Langley, Virginia, CIA Agent Victoria Lasseter receives a coded warning that Mike, the sole survivor of her "Wiseman" Ultra program, is to be eliminated by her rival, Adrian Yates, and his similar "Toughguy" agents. Feeling a duty to protect Mike, Lasseter travels to Liman and "activates" Mike through a series of code words. Mike fails to understand their significance, and she leaves in resigned frustration.


title: American Ultra

text: Mike finds two Toughguys interfering with his car and is attacked, but his training activates and he kills them using a spoon. He calls Phoebe, who reaches him just as Sheriff Watts arrives. Yates sends two Toughguy operatives, Laugher and Crane, to kill Mike and Phoebe at the sheriff station, but they evade Laugher and kill Crane before escaping to the home of Mike's drug dealer Rose. Mike becomes unnerved by an array of facts he suddenly knows regarding military strategy. He also realizes he has very little memory prior to living in the town with Phoebe, wondering aloud why he never questioned this before.


title: American Ultra

text: Yates quarantines the town, and puts Lasseter and Mike's pictures on the local news. Lasseter convinces her former assistant, Petey Douglas, to air drop her a weapon using a drone. Yates finds out and threatens to charge Petey with treason. Yates then attacks Rose's house with two Toughguys using a lethal gas. The agents kill Rose and his two guards, Big Harold and Quinzin, before Mike and Phoebe kill the attackers and she rescues Mike from the gas, which she is familiar with. When pressed for answers on her knowledge of the gas, Phoebe reluctantly reveals she was a CIA agent assigned to be Mike's handler, leaving him heartbroken.


title: American Ultra

text: Laugher ambushes the duo and captures Phoebe. Mike is rescued by Lasseter and insists on returning to his house. She tells him that he volunteered for Wiseman due to his criminal record and subsequently had his memories erased. He also learns that Phoebe was to get him settled in Liman and then leave, but chose to stay because she genuinely fell in love. Lasseter explains that his panic attacks, including his fear of leaving town, were implanted to keep him safe.


title: American Ultra

text: Yates' army liaison, Otis, joins a Toughguy to attack Mike's house. Mike and Lasseter kill them, prompting Yates to order a drone strike on the entire block. Petey calls off the drone strike at the last minute and then secretly reports the situation to Yates' superior, Raymond Krueger.


title: American Ultra

text: Mike contacts Yates and arranges to exchange himself for Phoebe at a local grocery store. He attacks the store, killing or incapacitating multiple Toughguys before fighting and defeating Laugher, whom he spares when Mike learns that he is a mentally unbalanced man who was forcibly conscripted by Yates. Phoebe escapes from Yates when Lasseter attacks him, but Krueger arrives and stops her.


title: American Ultra

text: Phoebe and Mike leave the store under gunpoint of multiple law enforcement officers, as he proposes to her.


title: American Ultra

text: In a forested area, Krueger has Yates and Lasseter bound and kneeling. Yates argues that what he was doing would have been okay with Krueger, despite the deaths of innocent people, if the results had been successful, and Krueger agrees. Yates, smugly smiles and stands, but is executed by Krueger for his failure. Krueger admits that he had informed Lasseter of Yates' plan as a courtesy, but he did not expect her to intervene. She points out that, by taking out seventeen Toughguys, Mike is proof of the success of the Wiseman program and a potentially valuable asset.


title: American Ultra

text: Six months later, handled by Lasseter and Petey, Mike and Phoebe are in Manila, confident and happy together as they carry out a CIA assignment.


title: American Ultra

text: Writer Max Landis was inspired by a top secret CIA program from the 1950s code named "MKUltra," which conducted experiments on humans to develop superior agents through various mind control techniques. He wondered what it would be like if an ordinary stoner guy had been subjected to the program.


title: American Ultra

text: On November 4, 2013, it was announced that Eisenberg and Stewart were on board the project, having previously starred together in the film "Adventureland". On March 14, it was announced Goggins had been cast in the film. On April 1, Grace joined the film. On April 14, Pullman and Hale joined the cast. On April 15, it was announced Sharon Stone had been cast in the film; it was later reported Britton would be replacing her.


title: American Ultra

text: Principal photography began on April 14, 2014 in Louisiana near New Orleans and wrapped in mid-June. Filming in Louisiana presented challenges, the production had to deal with snakes, alligators, and torrential rain. Nourizadeh and director of photography Michael Bonvillain emphasized wide shots, and allowed the actors move around the set, with two cameras running to get coverage. The film was shot over a 43 day shooting schedule.


title: American Ultra

text: The film received tax incentives for filming in Louisiana, and spent $20.4 million in the state and received $6.55 million in tax incentives.


title: American Ultra

text: The film spent a further $3.3 million in post production in New York, and received $0.9 million in tax credits.


title: American Ultra

text: The "Apollo Ape" artwork was created by John Martel, a self-taught artist from Lake Charles, Louisiana. The promotional poster in the style of a comic book cover was done by artist Jim Evans. The end credits animation was made by Gary Leib. Leib worked on the animation over six months.


title: American Ultra

text: In November 2013, Apsara Distribution announced that they had acquired the rights to distribute the film outside the United States. In March 2014, Lionsgate announced their acquisition of the North American rights to the film, for $7 million. In April 2015, Lionsgate set an August 21 release date for the film.


title: American Ultra

text: The first still and two teaser posters were released on May 14, 2015 by MTV. The red band trailer was released by Yahoo! Movies on May 28, 2015. To promote the film at Comic-Con Lionsgate created a website offering free Marijuana to people with existing prescriptions.


title: American Ultra

text: The film was released on August 21, 2015. It is the first film to be released with a DTS:X soundtrack. According to iSpot.TV, Lionsgate spent $12.6 million on television advertising to promote the film.


title: American Ultra

text: "American Ultra" grossed $14,439,985 in North America and $15,855,091 in other territories for a worldwide total of $30,295,076, against a budget of $28 million. Industry estimates predicted opening weekend earnings of $7 to $8 million. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $5.5 million, finishing sixth at the box office and third among the week's new releases, behind "Sinister 2" ($10.5 million) and "" ($8.3 million). Straight Outta Compton in its second week retained the number 1 position.


title: American Ultra

text: In an interview with RedLetterMedia Landis elaborated on his comments, and further discussed the difficulties of making a film not based on existing intellectual property, and what he considered a misleading marketing campaign.


title: American Ultra

text: "American Ultra" received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 43%, based on 176 reviews, with an average rating of 5.40/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""American Ultra" has some interesting ideas, but like its stoned protagonist, it's too easily distracted to live up to its true potential." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 50 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: American Ultra

text: Mark Kermode of "The Guardian" gave the film two out of five stars, stating "Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart brave an anarchic mish-mash with lots of violence but few laughs." David Dishman of the "McAlester News-Capital" writes ""American Ultra" promoted itself under the slogan, "There is nothing more dangerous than a stoned cold killer," and while they may be right, there's also nothing spectacular about that stoned cold killer's movie."


title: American Ultra

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" awarded the film two of four stars: "Soon the movie's twisty charm gives way to gory splatter. Eisenberg and Stewart stay appealing to the last. The movie, not so much." Neil Genzlinger from "The New York Times" gave the film a mixed review, ending with "A lot of it seems familiar, and Mr. Eisenberg and Ms. Stewart aren't stretched much. But Mike finds amusing ways to defend himself using ordinary household items, Walton Goggins and John Leguizamo enliven things in goofy small roles, the plot has a nice twist or two, and your theater is probably air-conditioned." Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" had mixed opinions of the film, calling it uneven and "A genre mash that's mildly amusing until it can't think of anything else to do besides flop around in the deep end of conspicuous gore." He praises the supporting turns from Leguizamo, and Goggins. McCarthy gives particular praise to the animated end credits. Andrea Barker of "Variety" welcomed the film, "In a summer film slate awash with reboots, sequels and dutifully box-checking superhero product, it's refreshing to see a genre film made from a completely original screenplay" and praised the "clever ideas, bloody violence so cartoonish that it's almost cuddly, and an eminently likable leading pair" but was critical of the inconsistent tone and didn't feel the end result came together as a whole. Barker concludes, "Only at the end, with completely off-the-wall animated closing credits that embrace the film's latent surreality, do we finally get a glimpse of what 'American Ultra' has been aching to become." Some critics said the marketing was misleading, and


title: American Ultra

text: Neil Gunzlinger of "The New York Times" described it as "a diverting summer action adventure with occasional laughs, not a diverting stoner comedy with occasional action."


title: American Ultra

text: Author Stephen King praised the film in a Twitter message: "Saw AMERICAN ULTRA last night, and loved it. Fresh and exciting, very cool. Can't figure out why it isn't a smash."


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: The Best of Enemies is a 2019 American drama film directed and written by Robin Bissell in his feature debut. It is based on the book "The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South" by Osha Gray Davidson, which focuses on the rivalry between civil rights activist Ann Atwater and Ku Klux Klan leader C. P. Ellis. The film stars Taraji P. Henson, Sam Rockwell, Babou Ceesay, Anne Heche, Wes Bentley, Bruce McGill, John Gallagher Jr., and Nick Searcy. It was released in the United States on April 5, 2019, by STX Entertainment.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: In 1971 in Durham, North Carolina, Ann Atwater tries to get better housing conditions for poor black people, and is ignored by the all-white judge panel. C.P. is the president of the KKK, and cares for his children. Ann's daughter's school catches on fire, and C.P. is afraid that the black children will come to the white schools. Bill Riddick sets up a meeting with the both of them, to arrange charrettes to discuss segregation and other issues.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: At first, both of them refuse since they hate each other, but then they are convinced. C.P. is a proud racist and refuses to sit with Bill and Ann, since they are black and he is white.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: They agree to pick some people randomly from the group to vote on the issues at the end of the meeting sessions. C.P tries to talk to these selected to vote, but is rebuffed. A black reverend asks Bill if he can play gospel music at the end of each session. C.P. refuses, saying that if the blacks want to sing gospel music at the charrette, he should be allowed to put out his KKK items to display. Ann refuses, but Bill agrees.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: At one meeting, a group of black teenagers tries to destroy the KKK items, but Ann stops them and tells them to instead understand what the KKK is. C.P. observes.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: Bill makes the blacks and whites in their group sit next to each other in the cafeteria and eat. He makes C.P and Ann sit together alone. They eat in tense silence, then Ann asks C.P. if he has a boy in Murdock. C.P. says that he won't talk about his boy. Murdock is a facility that takes care of disabled boys, and his son has Down Syndrome.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: C.P. rushes to Murdock. His son Larry has been put in the same room with another boy who is screaming, upsetting Larry. C.P. demands that his son be placed in a room of his own, but the nurses say he can't afford it. Ann visits Larry and asks a favor from Bernadette, who works there, to put Larry in his own room.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: Bill takes Ann, C.P., and the rest of their group to visit the black school that was burned. C.P. is shocked by the damage. Ann's daughter says hi to Ann, but looks at C.P like he's evil when she finds out who he is. C.P.'s wife, Mary, is overjoyed with Ann's help, and goes to visit her to thank her. Ann asks her if C.P. has always been racist, and Mary says yes.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: The night before the final vote, C.P.'s KKK troublemaking friends threaten the selected voters to vote for segregation. C.P. finds out about this and is dismayed. Ann also finds about it and screams at C.P., calling him a coward.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: During the voting, all the issues pass, coming down to the final issue of desegregation. One by one, the voters vote. Ann votes for it, and C.P., surprising everyone, does the same, realizing the KKK is hateful. Also, he makes a speech and rips up his KKK membership card, much to the fury of his watching KKK friends. They threaten him and try to set fire to the gas station he owns but C.P. douses it. But the white community shuns his station, losing business. Ann and Bill visit him and they bring in the black community to buy from him instead.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: The real life Ann and C.P. went around to different cities together, to talk about their experiences and remained friends to the end of C.P.'s life, with Ann giving the eulogy at his funeral.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: In June 2015, it was announced that Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell would star in a civil rights drama, an adaptation of Osha Gray Davidson's history "The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South". Robin Bissell was attached to make his directorial debut from his own script. Filming began on May 22, 2017, in Georgia. In July 2018, STX Entertainment acquired the film's domestic distribution rights. Producers on the film were Danny Strong, Fred Bernstein, Matt Berenson, Bissell, Dominique Telson, and Material Pictures' Tobey Maguire and Matthew Plouffe. The trailer was released on October 11, 2018.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: "The Best of Enemies" was released in the United States on April 5, 2019, by STX Entertainment, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 18, 2019.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: "The Best of Enemies" grossed $10.2 million in North America and $11,831 in other territories, against a production budget of $10 million.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "The Best of Enemies" was released alongside "Shazam!" and "Pet Sematary", and was projected to gross $6–12 million from 1,705 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $1.6 million on its first day, including $265,000 from Thursday night previews. It ended up debuting to just $4.4 million, finishing sixth at the box office. The film fell 55% in its second weekend to $2 million, finishing tenth.


title: The Best of Enemies (2019 film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Best of Enemies" has the best of intentions, but they're derailed by a problematic perspective and a disappointing lack of insight." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 49 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 82% and a "definite recommend" of 70%.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang () is a South Korean e-commerce company based in Seoul, South Korea, and incorporated in Delaware, United States. Founded in 2010 by Bom Kim, the company expanded to become the largest online marketplace in South Korea. Its expansion led the company to the video streaming distribution after the launch of the service Coupang Play. Coupang is often referred to as the "Amazon of South Korea", due its position and corporate size in South Korean online market.


title: Coupang

text: The first marketplace and largest online retailer in South Korea, Coupang's annual revenue as of 2021 is US$18.4 billion. The company's Rocket Delivery network provides same-day or next-day delivery of more than five million unique items. Coupang claims that 99.6 percent of its orders are delivered within 24 hours. 70% of Korean citizens live within 10 minutes of a Coupang logistic center.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, in the Songpa-gu District. Coupang also has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Mountain View, and Seattle. It is incorporated in Delaware, United States.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang was founded by Bom Kim in 2010. A student of Harvard University, Kim started to study for his MBA at Harvard Business School but dropped out after six months into the program.


title: Coupang

text: Kim registered Coupang as a limited liability company in the US, allowing to access US funding. In November 2018, Coupang received a US$2 billion investment from SoftBank. Other major investors in Coupang include BlackRock and Fidelity.


title: Coupang

text: The company has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic with increased demand for online shopping. In July 2020, Coupang acquired the assets of Singaporean streaming service HOOQ to form the nucleus of its streaming service named Coupang Play.


title: Coupang

text: On 4 June 2021, Coupang announced that it had started operations in Japan. On 8 July 2021, the company launched in Taiwan.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang has grown rapidly. The company announced in 2020 that its annual revenue in 2019 increased by 64.2 percent over the previous year, and totaled 7.15 trillion won ($5.9 billion). Its operating loss in 2019 dropped from 1.13 trillion won to 720.5 billion won, declining 36 percent. The gains were attributed to expanded fast delivery service across the nation, including the overnight Rocket Delivery; sales of home appliances and fresh food; and a steady increase in customers. The company had created 2,500 jobs in 2014 and 30,000 in 2019; labor costs increased correspondingly from 100 billion won in 2014 to 1.4 trillion won in 2019. In 2020, the COVID pandemic accelerated the company's sales.


title: Coupang

text: According to SoftBank, Coupang's estimated value is $9 billion, and it has earned $3.4 billion venture funding to date. SoftBank funded the company with $2 billion in 2018 and $1 billion in 2015.


title: Coupang

text: Following Coupang's IPO in March 2021, SoftBank owns one-third of the company, Greenoaks Capital has a 16.6% stake, Maverick Holdings 6.4%, and Rose Park Advisors 5.1%. BlackRock holds a 2.1% stake and CEO Bom Suk Kim owns approximately 10.2%.


title: Coupang

text: Its sales increased 74% in the first quarter of 2021 with $4.26 billion recorded, compared to the first quarter of 2020. Its year-over-year net loss increased 180% to $295 million during that same period.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang is well known for its fast and efficient delivery system. Rocket Delivery is a signature service whereby items ordered before midnight will be delivered overnight by Coupang's own delivery personnel. In July 2020, Coupang's Rocket Delivery staff was renamed from Coupangman to "Coupangfriend (쿠팡친구)", since the number of female delivery workers has increased, and to imply friendly service.


title: Coupang

text: Rocket Delivery service is free for the Coupang Rocket membership subscribers, for whom delivery is free for all Rocket Delivery tagged products. Rocket Delivery is offered to non-subscribers if they purchase more than KRW19,800. It is estimated that 32% of Coupang users are subscribed. 99.3% of Coupang Rocket Delivery orders are delivered within one day.


title: Coupang

text: Rocket Delivery service is possible via 200 warehouses that are approximately 20 million sq. ft across the country. Coupang's logistic centers store approximately 5.3 million types of products and they are stored by an efficient storage system called Random Stow Algorithm. About 1.7 million Rocket Delivery products are sent out from the logistic centers on a daily basis.


title: Coupang

text: Rocket Wow, a paid subscription service, similar to Amazon Prime, costs users KRW 2,900 per month. On the 30th of Dec 2021, Coupang adjusted the membership fee to KRW 4,990 per month. The increased subscription service has applied to new subscribers.


title: Coupang

text: Rocket Fresh is a fresh-food delivery service. Similar to Rocket Delivery, Rocket Fresh delivers fresh foods overnight. Users can receive the food by 7am if they order before midnight. The service covers up to 8,500 kinds of foods. It has saved time on grocery shopping and allowed social distancing to prevent COVID-19.


title: Coupang

text: When Rocket Wow subscribers are ordering Rocket Fresh, they can choose the delivery option of Rocket Fresh Eco, which is an option to deliver the foods inside a reusable fresh eco-bag instead of a paper box. The bag preserves the foods in a fresh condition, and is re-collected in the customer's next delivery.


title: Coupang

text: Users can purchase foreign goods through Coupang. Rocket Direct Purchasing allows foreign goods to be delivered within 3 days.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang Eats is a food-delivery service like Uber Eats. Coupang users can order food from restaurants, with delivery by Coupang which can be tracked in real time. According to the "Delivery Service Trend Report 2021" released by market research company Open Survey, delivery-service app usage was topped by Baemin (88.6%), Yogiyo (68.2%), and Coupang Eats (34.7%). Compared to the previous year, Baemin rose 8.9 percent, Yogiyo fell 0.1 percent and Coupang Eats rose 28.6 percent. Coupang Eats' growth year-on-year was also noticeable in the recognition survey of each app. Baemin increased 2.4 percentage points from 93.4 percent last year to 95.8 percent this year, Yogiyo remained 90 percent, and Coupang Eats jumped 49.1 percentage points from 23.3 percent to 72.4 percent. Baedaltong fell from 62.7 percent to 55.5 percent. Coupang Eats topped the list with 74 percent for satisfaction with delivery apps.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang Flex is an outsourcing service that provides temporary employment to anyone over 18 years old. People can choose the date they wish to work and their main work is delivery. Those who have cars can pick up the packages from Coupang's logistic centers and deliver by themselves. Those who does not have cars assist the Coupangman. Coupang flex users are paid KRW 800 per package during the day and KRW1200 per package during the night. On average, they tend to deliver 50 to 60 packages per day.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang Play is a South Korean subscription-based video streaming service launched by Coupang in December 2020. It is based on the former Hooq's assets. After the SNL Korea 2 content, which lampooned Korean president candidates and congressperson, got viral, it has gained popularity with a reasonable subscription fee compared to other OTT services such as Netflix, Wavve and TVING.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang Pay is a digital payments service that enables customers to make easy payments. In mid 2020, the company spun off Coupang Pay as a separate fintech subsidiary. By the end of 2020, Coupang Pay was the second most widely used pay system in Korea, with settlement turnover of KRW 25 trillion.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang's own quick-delivery service, which was introduced in 2014 under the name Rocket Delivery, became a hot topic as it promised delivery within 24 hours for purchases worth more than 9,800 won. The service even delivers on holidays. Thanks to this, Coupang currently leads the Korean e-commerce industry in terms of sales. However, Coupang uses its purchased delivery trucks as private vehicles, not as freight transportation, so the license plates of the delivery trucks are white rather than yellow for freight. In Korea, only licensed trucks can carry goods from third parties. Because Coupang is a retailer, they carry their own goods, much like any other retailer that ships things to customers' homes. In addition, if customers change their minds and return their Rocket Delivery product, they have to pay a 5,000 won deduction for box, packaging, and labor costs, unless the customer is a member of the Rocket Wow club, a subscription service that offers free delivery, returns, and online streaming, among other benefits.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang has been involved in complaints by activists and families of workers who allegedly died from overwork. In April 2021 Kwon Young-gook, a lawyer and the co-chairman at the Committee for Coupang Workers' Human Rights and Health, said "Seven Coupang employees and two subcontractors have died of cardiovascular disorders, such as heart attack, for the past year. ... Out of the nine deaths, five are connected to overnight work as they passed away during or after night duty." According to statistics published in the "Korea Economic Daily", Coupang had recorded no work-accident deaths since its launch in 2011, as of the end of 2020.


title: Coupang

text: Coupang is not the only logistics and delivery business facing such complaints in 2021. According to the BBC, CJ Logistics and Hanjin Transportation are some of the multiple businesses that have been involved in the controversy, and workers at Lotte Global Logistics in Seoul went on strike. In April 2021, the company introduced Coupang Care, a system that allows employees to take paid breaks and receive health care coaching.


title: Coupang

text: There is a debate over Coupang's Item Winner system, which selects the cheapest product among the same products as the sole seller. There is criticism that sellers offering items for as low as one won can monopolize the market. According to Coupang's terms and conditions, this right is delegated to Coupang as soon as the product's image and trademark are posted. In the process, problems can arise because sellers can use other sellers' images, via Coupang's copyright-transfer agreements. In May 2021, the situation was reported to be under review by the Fair Trade Commission.


title: Progressive rap

text: Progressive rap (or progressive hip hop) is a broad subgenre of hip hop music that aims to progress the genre thematically with socially transformative ideas and musically with stylistic experimentation. Developing through the works of innovative US hip hop acts during the 1980s and 1990s, it has also been known at various points as conscious, underground, and alternative hip hop.


title: Progressive rap

text: Progressive rap music critically examines social issues, political responsibility, and existential concerns, particularly in the context of African-American life and youth culture. Common themes include social injustice, inequality, status, identity, and religion, with discourses around ideologies such as Afrocentricity and Black religiosity. Unlike the genre's more commercially-dominant counterpart gangsta rap, prog-rap artists typically disavow intracultural violence and economic materialism in favor of constructive and educational responses such as consciousness, uplift, heritage, humor, and activism.


title: Progressive rap

text: Productions in the genre often take on avant-garde approaches and wide-ranging influences, such as jazz, rock, and soul. Examples have included the works of De La Soul, Fugees, Outkast, Kendrick Lamar, and Joey Bada$$. The music of such acts, especially in the 21st century, has impacted the mainstream sensibilities of hip hop while countering racist stereotypes pervasive in Western popular culture.


title: Progressive rap

text: Progressive rap music is defined by its critical themes around societal concerns such as structural inequalities and political responsibility. According to Lincoln University professor and author Emery Petchaur, artists in the genre frequently analyze "structural, systematic, and reproduced" sources of oppression and inequality in the world, while Anthony B. Pinn of Rice University describes it as a form of hip hop that examines dehumanizing social conditions and cycles of poverty "producing limited life options and despair". Meanwhile, academics Shawn Ginwright and Julio Cammarota observe critiques of racism, colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy that are intended to raise consciousness of social issues and politicize young people into activism. Petchaur, drawing from her experiences teaching high school, adds that the music frequently makes connections to critical consciousness that can variously shape the intellectual sensibilities of young students who are "deeply invested in hip hop".


title: Progressive rap

text: In the context of other rap forms, progressive hip hop is identified as a thematic subset alongside "status rap", which expresses concerns about social status and mobility, and gangsta rap, which examines similar existential crises and contradictions as progressive rap. However, it typically avoids gangsta rap's documentarian qualities in favor of actively constructive and educational responses to issues afflicting society, particularly black people, resulting in narratives that promote their history, culture, political involvement, and intrinsic value. In Pinn's words, it "seeks to address these concerns without intracommunal aggression and in terms of political and cultural education, providing an interpretation of American society and a constructive agenda (e.g. self respect, knowledge, pride, and unity) for the uplift of Black America". He adds that works of the genre also utilize "a more overt dialogue with and interpretation of Black religiosity". In a corollary analysis, fellow scholar Evelyn L. Parker says that progressive rap "seeks to transform systems of injustice by transforming the perspective of their victims" while demonstrating "the clear prophetic voice reflecting the rage caused by the dehumanizing injustices that African Americans experience".


title: Progressive rap

text: Progressive hip hop has been noted for often overlapping with counterpart forms such as gangsta and status rap, as "rappers may display characteristics of more than one category on a particular album or during the course of their career", according to the CERCL Writing Collective. Within progressive traditions of hip hop, clinical psychologist and documentarian Janice Haaken identifies subgenres like political hip hop and homo hop. However, she notes that these have largely eluded mainstream culture because of the commercial dominance of gangsta rap and the precarious position rap music in general holds in the popular imagination of the West, which often stereotypes the music with vulgar associations of culturally-marginalized youth rebellion. Noting its presence on the outside of the mainstream, "Fort Worth Star-Telegram" journalist Cary Darling writes that this form of hip hop has been "alternately labeled 'progressive,' 'alternative,' 'underground' or 'conscious'", while essentializing them collectively as a return to the creative spirit of hip hop's golden era:


title: Progressive rap

text: Intellectuals and patrons within progressive hip hop often deliberate over the preservation and public recognition of hip hop culture and history, particularly its positive impact on society. In arguing for institutional support from libraries, museums, and academia, hip hop journalist and non-profit advocate Manny Faces says that such venues can offer young "people of color" otherwise elusive educational resources while mitigating differences between the various groups inside and outside the culture: "It is in those halls where philanthropists, benefactors, and supporters of the arts, will not only appreciate this history but also witness first-hand the innovative work being done to enhance humanity through the world's most dominant youth culture."


title: Progressive rap

text: As with fashion in other hip hop forms, individuals operating within progressive rap circles follow a distinct dress code that acts as a response to societal oppression. Like gangsta rap in particular, progressive and conscious rappers communicate ideas of protest against socioeconomic conditions through the use of anti-fashion, an aesthetic concept that involves styles of dress contrary to prevailing fashions. This includes donning Afrocentric clothing to represent the valorization of African cultural heritage.


title: Progressive rap

text: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's 1982 song "The Message" and the music of Public Enemy are cited by both Pinn and Parker as formative examples of progressive rap. Parker specifically highlights "The Message" for how it communicates anger about chaotic urban life, particularly in the refrain: "Don't push me, 'cause I'm close to the edge / I'm tryin' not to lose my head / It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under." In the late 1980s and early 1990s, political hip hop emerged with an intellectual paradigm of Afrocentricity that shaped the element of discourse in progressive rap.


title: Progressive rap

text: At the turn of the 1990s, groups such as De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Brand Nubian emerged with works that "defined the term "progressive hip-hop"", according to Greg Kot, who credits them with "setting the standards for thematic genius in the idiom". De La Soul in particular "taught rappers back in 1989 that you could make interesting and successful music without relying on venomous stares and snarling poses", as Cheo Hodari Coker writes. These groups were part of an acclaimed collective of progressive-rap acts known as the Native Tongues that also included Jungle Brothers, Monie Love, Queen Latifah, Black Sheep, Busta Rhymes, and Mos Def.


title: Progressive rap

text: While highly successful with critics, the progressive rap music of this period failed to capture a sizable audience within hip hop's traditionalist base of artists and fans, who gravitated more toward hardcore stylings in the genre. De La Soul's 1989 debut album "3 Feet High and Rising", with its mix of collected sounds ranging from soul to psychedelic music, received widespread acclaim and sold well outside of the rap market. But the group's success was soon overshadowed by the sudden rise of gangsta rap in the early 1990s. "De La Soul went from the front of the hip-hop pack to the back of an appealing and colorful dead-end street", as Chris Nickson recounts.


title: Progressive rap

text: As hardcore and gangsta rap forms progressively dominated commercial hip hop in the 1990s, groups such as A Tribe Called Quest, Beastie Boys, and the eclectic Afrocentric Arrested Development continued to offer a marketable alternative. A Tribe Called Quest's early-1990s albums "The Low End Theory" (1991) and "Midnight Marauders" (1993) were especially influential in their fusion of abstract lyrics with music samples based in jazz, inspiring subsequent works by Common, The Roots, and Fugees. Common achieved underground success with his 1994 single "I Used to Love H.E.R." and went on to join The Roots in a developing collective and online community known as Okayplayer, featuring like-minded progressive rap musicians who emphasized the "organic" elements of hip hop. In 1996, Fugees gained mainstream recognition with their second album "The Score" and its supporting singles "Fu-Gee-La" and "Killing Me Softly". Seeking to restore a sense of musicality they believed had been lost among the Black underclass, the trio incorporated soulful melodies, harmonic refrains, and live instrumentation (bass, keyboard, drums, and guitar) that drew on reggae, doo-wop, and Latin influences, while performing tough-minded raps about socially conscious and urban realist ideas.


title: Progressive rap

text: The Fugees' individualistic style attracted a variety of audiences outside of the trio's hardcore fanbase while affiliating them with alternative hip hop, a designation they hated for suggesting only a fringe appeal to their music. "If we were truly 'alternative,' brothers in the 'hood wouldn't be getting with our music", Fugees member Pras told the "Los Angeles Times" in 1996. "You got the Mobb Deep fans loving it and the Red Hot Chili Peppers fans loving it. ... That's mass appeal." Reporting on their impact for the "Times", Coker said the trio occupy a unique space that avoids contemporary rap's pointless braggadocio, overused "P-Funk" samples, misogynistic attitudes, and luxury fantasies, while remaining distinct from "critically acclaimed but commercially cold [alternative] acts" such as Arrested Development, P.M. Dawn, and Digable Planets. "By redefining the creative center of hip-hop", Coker explained, "the trio is stepping out as the freshest and possibly most important progressive hip-hop act since De La Soul".


title: Progressive rap

text: By the late 1990s, progressive rap acts like Black Star and Juggaknots were helping inspire and shape what would become the underground hip hop subculture of the years that followed. The underground scene in New York's West Village in particular helped establish the careers of future solo progressive rappers such as Black Star members Mos Def and Talib Kweli, as well as Jean Grae, although as a female rapper she struggled to attract interest from record labels. Meanwhile, Fugees member Lauryn Hill had embarked on a solo career, duetting with Common on his single "Retrospect for Life" (1997) and releasing her hugely successful debut album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" (1998). "XXL" magazine said at the time that the album not only reveals Hill to be "the most exciting voice of a young, progressive hip-hop nation, it raises the standards for it."


title: Progressive rap

text: In the early 2000s, some progressive-rap acts achieved mainstream success with records that "ruminated on hip-hop's post-millennial direction" and that were produced "in an avant-garde vein purposely intended to evolve the [genre]", as Miles Marshall Lewis chronicles. In 2000, The Roots won a Grammy Award for their song "You Got Me" (1999), while Mos Def's acclaimed debut album "Black on Both Sides" (1999) received a Gold sales certification. Both acts were frequent collaborators with Common and appeared on his commercially successful "Like Water for Chocolate" (2000).


title: Progressive rap

text: Drawing on influences from jazz, R&B, funk, and African music, "Like Water for Chocolate" was Common's attempt to "expand hip hop" and his "mind to different styles of music, to different approaches", as he explained to "MTV News" for an article published "Common Moves Toward a Progressive Hip-Hop". Inspired as well by the radical spoken-word group the Last Poets, he performed teasing and playfully boastful raps around themes of life, the music industry, cultural quirks, and relationships, with the latter explored through "The Light"s advocacy for respecting women and denunciation of the word "bitch". Common said that he, Mos Def, and The Roots were among a movement of jazz-influenced progressive artists trying to compete commercially with more austerely-produced mainstream rappers like Jay-Z and DMX, who had outsold them significantly up to that point. Interviewed for the same piece, Jungle Brothers rapper Afrika Baby Bam expressed support for the younger artists and believed they were close to accomplishing their goal.


title: Progressive rap

text: Groups such as The Roots, Jurassic 5, and Dilated Peoples continued to release minor commercial breakthroughs during the first half of the decade. Among the most eclectic prog-rap successes from the early 2000s, in Lewis's opinion, were Outkast's "Stankonia" (2000) and The Roots' "Phrenology" (2002).


title: Progressive rap

text: In 2003, Outkast released the experimental and eccentric double album "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below", comprising one half of Big Boi's virtuosic progressive rap and another half of André 3000's musically wide-ranging and sung love songs. Avoiding tributes to crime or violence, Big Boi touched on themes of single-parent life, organized religion, post-9/11 infringement of civil liberties, prostitution, and social fashion, with raps set to austere techno beats, funk grooves, and multitracked soul vocals. The production's inventive vocal and rhythmic manipulation, unorthodox in-song stylistic changes, and oddly bawdy humor received comparisons to Parliament-Funkadelic and Mothers of Invention, along with more traditional 1970s R&B reference points in Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, and Marvin Gaye. Hailed by critics as the best album of 2003 and aided by the pop-soul hits "Hey Ya!" and "The Way You Move", the double album was a pivotal release in both rap and pop music, according to "The Independent"s Andy Gill, who predicted its standing "alongside the likes of "3 Feet High and Rising", "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and "The Marshall Mathers LP" – the kind of album that changes the game completely, that renders its competitors suddenly obsolete and old-hat."


title: Progressive rap

text: Later in the decade, Common and fellow Chicago hip hop artist Kanye West achieved further success with progressive rap records that explored contradictions in identity. Particularly in West's case, it often gave "expression to positive rage against systems that oppress communities" in a way that Parker compares to Arrested Development. On his debut album "The College Dropout" (2004), the rapper-producer infused pop music sensibilities into an otherwise "conscious or progressive hip-hop" which "melded intelligence and awareness with a stylish sense of cool that appealed to a broad range of fans", according to Darling, who also notes the contemporaneous success of the West-produced Common album "Be" (2005). "Highsnobiety" writer Shahzaib Hussain recognizes West's opening trilogy of education-themed albums, including "Late Registration" (2005) and "Graduation" (2007), as "a triumvirate of uber-successful records that cemented his role as a progressive rap progenitor".


title: Progressive rap

text: As industry sales declined past the mid 2000s, and other rap stars resorted to pop collaborations for mainstream appeal, West remained a highly profitable yet experimental artist impacting both pop and hip hop markets with progressive records like the Daft Punk-sampling "Stronger" (2007). His commercial success during this period encouraged more rappers to gravitate toward the center of mainstream and alternative hip-hop forms, "when this visionary megalomaniac was remaking the rap mainstream in his own image", as "Stereogum"s Chris Deville details. Toward the end of the 2000s, while suffering losses in his personal life, West began to alienate the pop-culture audience with notorious on-air incidents and a polarizing departure in the downbeat and Auto-Tune-processed sounds of "808s & Heartbreak" (2008), although that album too proved commercially successful and influential on the stylistic direction of hip hop.


title: Progressive rap

text: In 2010, West returned from an elaborate recording process with "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy", which set the rapper's egocentric meditations on his fame against an instrumentally varied and layered maximalist production that utilized samples, rhythm tracks, keyboards, guitars, orchestral arrangements, and a host of additional vocalists. His use of samples from progressive rock records on songs such as "Power" in particular lent the album the "prog-rap" epithet, although Deville argues that the music as a whole "borrows more from prog's pageantry and bombast than its maze-like compositional structure". According to Robert Christgau, the album "rescued [West's] faltering music from his staggering celebrity" and articulated his "personality disorders far more subtly and satirically" than his next album "Watch the Throne" (2011), a top-selling collaboration with his former major-label recruiter Jay-Z that West produced in a "funkier and less ornate variant" of its predecessor's prog-rap.


title: Progressive rap

text: While "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" was widely acclaimed and publicly redeemed West, much of the rapper's musical work through the rest of the decade would prove inferior to fans and become progressively overshadowed by stories surrounding his celebrity family life, provocative public statements, mental health issues, and nonmusical ventures. Faces cites West's "highly publicized controversies" as an example of factors contributing to the outside perception that hip hop is "any more than an expressive extension of a juvenile, disorderly, misogynistic lifestyle".


title: Progressive rap

text: During the 2010s, a progressive hip-hop and electronic music scene emerged along the US West Coast centering on musicians such as rapper Kendrick Lamar, producer-DJs Flying Lotus and the Gaslamp Killer, bassist Thundercat, and rap duo Shabazz Palaces. American studies and media scholar William Hoynes points to Lamar with his progressive rap music for being in a tradition of African-American artists and activists that have "worked both inside and outside of the mainstream to advance a counterculture that opposes the racist stereotypes being propagated in White-owned media and culture". Lamar's Los Angeles-based independent label Top Dawg Entertainment became known for producing album-oriented progressive rap, being home to fellow rappers Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and Schoolboy Q. Mello Music Group, another independent label based in Tucson, has hosted a community of progressive-rap acts, including veteran artists Kool Keith, Pete Rock, and O.C., alongside younger musicians like Open Mike Eagle, Oddisee, Apollo Brown, and L'Orange.


title: Progressive rap

text: In 2016, "Vice" journalist Mike Vinti reported on a development of progressive rap within the UK hip-hop scene. According to Vinti, it is being "driven by fresh minds like Gaika, Kojey Radical and Sub Luna City, who are working deliberately outside the confines of grime and traditional UK hip hop to create genuinely progressive rap that rivals the US for creativity, urgency, and importance, and portrays a much broader Black British music landscape than you hear on the radio." While arguing that American hip hop was in a creative and commercial decline, Marcus Dowling wrote contemporaneously that the English rapper M.I.A. remained a progressive-rap innovator for conceiving a globalized gaze of class- and gender inequality in a musical style that melds trap, contemporary dance, and deconstructed forms of rapping. "In the 21st century, it's entirely arguable that white is black, black is white, and things are obviously a bit difficult to understand", Dowling contended in regards to modern hip hop. "It's up to a wild, diverse, hyper-intellectualized and new-age brown woman to lead us."


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The Vandal Kingdom () or Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans () was established by the Germanic Vandal people under Gaiseric. It ruled in North Africa and the Mediterranean from 435 to 534 AD.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: In 429 AD, the Vandals, estimated to number 80,000 people, had crossed by boat from Hispania to North Africa. They advanced eastward, conquering the coastal regions of what is now Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. In 435, the Roman Empire, then ruling North Africa, allowed the Vandals to settle in the provinces of Numidia and Mauretania when it became clear that the Vandal army could not be defeated by Roman military forces. In 439 the Vandals renewed their advance eastward and captured Carthage, the most important city of North Africa. The fledgling kingdom then conquered the Roman-ruled islands of Mallorca, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica in the western Mediterranean. In the 460s, the Romans launched two unsuccessful military expeditions by sea in an attempt to overthrow the Vandals and reclaim North Africa. The conquest of North Africa by the Vandals was a blow to the beleaguered Western Roman Empire as North Africa was a major source of revenue and a supplier of grain (mostly wheat) to the city of Rome.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Although primarily remembered for the sack of Rome in 455 and their persecution of Nicene Christians in favor of Arian Christianity, the Vandals were also patrons of learning. Grand building projects continued, schools flourished, and North Africa fostered many of the most innovative writers and natural scientists of the late Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The Vandal Kingdom ended in 534, when it was conquered by Belisarius in the Vandalic War and incorporated into the Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire). The surviving Vandals either assimilated into the indigenous African population or were dispersed among the Byzantine territories.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The Vandals, under their new king Gaiseric (also known as Genseric or Geiseric), crossed to Africa in 429, beginning the Vandalic conquest of Roman Africa. Although their numbers are unknown and some historians debate the validity of estimates, based on Procopius's assertion that the Vandals and Alans numbered 80,000 when they moved to North Africa, Peter Heather estimates that they could have fielded an army of around 15,000–20,000. According to Procopius, the Vandals came to Africa at the request of Bonifacius, the military ruler of the region. However, it has been suggested that the Vandals migrated to Africa in search of safety; they had been attacked by a Roman army in 422 and had failed to seal a treaty with them. Advancing eastward along the African coast, the Vandals laid siege to the walled city of Hippo Regius in 430. Inside, Saint Augustine and his priests prayed for relief from the Arian Christian invaders, knowing that the fall of the city would spell conversion or death for many Nicene Christians. On 28 August 430, three months into the siege, the 75-year-old St. Augustine died — perhaps from starvation or stress, as the wheat fields outside the city lay dormant and unharvested. After 14 months, hunger and disease were ravaging both the city's inhabitants and the Vandals outside the walls. The city eventually fell to the Vandals, who made it their first capital.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Peace was made between the Romans and the Vandals in 435 through a treaty between Valentinian III and Gaiseric, giving the Vandals control of coastal Numidia and parts of Mauretania. Gaiseric chose to break the treaty in 439 when he invaded the province of Africa Proconsularis and laid siege to Carthage. The city was captured without a fight; the Vandals entered it while most of the inhabitants were attending the races at the hippodrome. Gaiseric made it his capital and styled himself the King of the Vandals and Alans, to denote the inclusion of his Alan allies into his realm. Conquering Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, and the Balearic Islands, he built his kingdom into a powerful state. Averil Cameron suggests that the new Vandal rule may not have been unwelcome to the population of North Africa, as the previous landowners were generally unpopular.The impression given by sources such as Victor of Vita, Possidius, Quodvultdeus, and Fulgentius of Ruspe was that the Vandal takeover of Carthage and North Africa led to widespread destruction. However, recent archaeological investigations have challenged this assertion. Although Carthage's odeon was destroyed, the street grid remained the same, and some public buildings were renovated. The political centre of Carthage was Byrsa Hill. New industrial centres emerged in towns during this period. Historian Andy Merrills uses the large amounts of African red slip ware discovered across the Mediterranean that dates from the Vandal period of North Africa to challenge the assumption that Vandal rule of North Africa was a time of economic instability. When the Vandals raided Sicily in 440, the Western Roman Empire was too preoccupied with war in Gaul to react. Theodosius II, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, dispatched an expedition to deal with the Vandals in 441, but it progressed only as far as Sicily. The Western Empire under Valentinian III secured peace with the Vandals in 442. Under the treaty, the Vandals gained Byzacena, Tripolitania, and part of Numidia and confirmed their control of Proconsular Africa.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Historians since Edward Gibbon have seen the capture of North Africa by the Vandals and Alans as the "deathblow" and "the greatest single blow" to the Western Roman Empire in its struggle to survive. Prior to the Vandals, northern Africa was prosperous and peaceful, requiring only a small percentage of the Roman Empire's military forces, and was an important source of taxes for the empire and grain for the city of Rome. The scholar Josephus in the 1st century AD said that North Africa fed Rome for eight months of the year, with the other four months of needed grain coming from Egypt.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The Roman need for grain from North Africa may have declined by the 5th century because the population of the city of Rome had fallen, and the number of Roman soldiers had decreased. The treaty in 442 between Rome and the Vandals seems to have ensured that grain shipments continued. However, in terms of halting hostilities between Rome and the Vandals, that treaty was honored more in the breach than in the observance, and the Romans placed a high priority on recovering North Africa and regaining their control of grain from the Vandal Kingdom.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The peace treaty of 442 did not halt Vandal raids in the western Mediterranean. Over the next 35 years, Gaiseric used his large naval fleet to loot the coasts of both the Eastern and Western Empires. After Attila the Hun's death in 453, however, the Romans turned their attention back to the Vandals, who were now in control of some of the richest lands formerly ruled by Rome.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: In an effort to bring the Vandals into the fold of the Empire, Valentinian III offered the hand of his daughter, Eudocia, in marriage to Gaiseric's son Huneric when both Eudocia and Huneric were children. However, they had not yet wed when in 455, Valentinian III was murdered by accomplices of the usurper Petronius Maximus, who sought control of the Empire. Maximus immediately married Valentinian's widow, the Empress Licinia Eudoxia, and he also canceled Eudocia's betrothal to Huneric and married her instead to his own son, Palladius. Diplomacy between Rome and the Vandal Kingdom broke down. Eudoxia wrote a letter to Gaiseric, begging him to come to her aid. Claiming that the broken betrothal between Huneric and Eudocia invalidated his peace treaty with Valentinian, Gaiseric sacked Rome, rescuing Eudoxia, Eudocia, and Eudoxia's younger daughter Placidia (the latter was married to the future unrecognised emperor Olybrius). Maximus and Palladius were killed by an angry mob while fleeing the city.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine offers the only 5th-century report that on 2 June 455, Pope Leo the Great received Gaiseric and implored him to abstain from murder and destruction by fire, and to be satisfied with pillage. The Vandals departed with countless valuables, including the spoils of the Temple in Jerusalem booty brought to Rome by Titus. Eudoxia and her daughters were taken to Carthage, where Eudocia married Huneric shortly thereafter.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The sack of Rome earned the Vandals association with senseless destruction through the noun vandalism.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The Vandal sack of Rome, piracy in the Mediterranean, and the Roman need to recover control of the grain trade made the destruction of the Vandal Kingdom a priority for the Roman Empire. The Western Roman Emperor Majorian began to organize an offensive in the summer of 458. A maritime force staged from Cartagena in Hispania would take Mauretania and then march on Carthage, while a simultaneous assault, commanded by Marcellinus, would retake Sicily. The Emperor assembled his fleet in 460, but Gaiseric learned of the impending assault and "put a scorched earth policy into effect in Mauretania - scouring the land and poisoning the wells in advance of the planned imperial offensive." In addition, Gaiseric led his own fleet against Majorian's force and defeated the Romans at Cartagena.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: In 468, both the Western and Eastern Empires attempted to conquer Africa again with the "most ambitious campaign ever launched against the Vandal state." Primary sources suggest that the fleet numbered 1,113 ships and carried 100,000 men, but this figure has been rejected by modern historiography, with Heather suggesting 30,000 troops and 50,000 soldiers and sailors combined, based on 16,000 Roman soldiers conveyed on 500 ships in 532. Andy Merrills and Richard Miles have asserted that the operation was undoubtedly extensive and "deserves admiration for its logistical brilliance." At a naval battle in Cape Bon, Tunisia, the Vandals destroyed the Western fleet and part of the Eastern fleet through the use of fire ships. Following up the attack, the Vandals tried to invade the Peloponnese but were driven back by the Maniots at Kenipolis with heavy losses. In retaliation, the Vandals took 500 hostages at Zakynthos, hacked them to pieces, and threw the pieces overboard on the way back to Carthage.In the 470s, the Romans abandoned their policy of war against the Vandals. The Western Germanic general Ricimer reached a treaty with the Vandals, and in 476 Gaiseric was able to conclude a "perpetual peace" with Constantinople. Relations between the two states assumed a veneer of normality. From 477 onward, the Vandals produced their own coinage, although it was restricted to bronze and silver low-denomination coins. Although the low-denomination imperial money was replaced, the high-denomination was not, demonstrating in the words of Merrills "reluctance to usurp the imperial prerogative".


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Gaiseric died on 25 January 477, 88 years of age. According to the law of succession which he had promulgated, the oldest male member of the royal house was to succeed. Thus he was succeeded by his son Huneric (477–484), who at first tolerated Nicene Christians, owing to his fear of Constantinople, but after 482 began to persecute Manichaeans and Niceanian. He also murdered many rivaling members of the Vandalic dynasty. The native Berbers of North Africa who were kept in line during Gaiseric's rule soon began revolts and invasions against the Vandals following Gaiseric's death and Huneric's strict religious laws. The Vandals started rapidly losing territory in modern-day western Algeria to the Kingdom of Altava, and by the end of Huneric's rule he completely lost control over the Aurès Mountains to king Masties, who established the kingdom of the Aurès in 483–484.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Gunthamund (484–496), his cousin and successor, sought internal peace with the Niceanians and ceased persecution once more. Externally, Vandal power had been declining since Gaiseric's death; Gunthamund lost large parts of Sicily to Theodoric's Ostrogoths and had to withstand increasing pressure from the native Berbers, whom raided everything inland up to the coast.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Gunthamund's successor Thrasamund (496–523) was a religious fanatic and hostile to Niceanians, but he contented himself with bloodless persecutions. In 510 the Frexenses Berber tribe under king Guenfan seized a portion of territory south of Thugga and established the kingdom of Dorsale, pushing the Vandals further out of inland. Around the 510s, migrating Laguatan berbers under king Cabaon captured Oea (modern Tripoli) and Sabratha and established a kingdom there, and began sacking Vandalic territories and destroyed various Vandalic settlements. Thrasamund attempted to crush him and retake his territory, but the expedition in 523 ended in a disastrous Vandalic defeat. He also allied with the Visigoths, but despite this alliance, Thrasamund failed to aid Theoderic when the Byzantine Navy ravaged the coast of southern Italy, preventing him from coming to the assistance of King Alaric of the Visigoths in the Battle of Vouillé, which contributed to Alaric's defeat.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Thrasamund's successor Hilderic (523–530) was the Vandal king who was most tolerant of Trinitarian Christians. He granted religious freedom, and consequently Chalcedonian synods were once more held in North Africa. However, he had little interest in war and left it to his nephew Hoamer. When the Vandals and the Berber kingdom of Dorsale came into conflict yet again, Hoamer suffered a decisive defeat by the Berbers led by Guenfan and his son Antalas. Following this, the Arian faction within the royal family led a revolt, and Hoamer's cousin Gelimer (530–534) became king. Hilderic, Hoamer, and their relatives were thrown into prison. In 533, Hilderic was executed when the Byzantine army approached Carthage.Byzantine Emperor Justinian I declared war, with the stated intention of restoring Hilderic to the Vandal throne. While an expedition was en route, Gelimer's brother Tzazo led a large part of the Vandal army and navy to Sardinia to deal with a rebellion by the Gothic nobleman Godas. This enabled the armies of the Byzantine Empire, commanded by Belisarius, to land unopposed from Carthage. Gelimer quickly assembled an army and met Belisarius at the Battle of Ad Decimum, in the Vandals were prevailing until Gelimer's brother Ammatas and nephew Gibamund fell in battle. Gelimer then lost heart and fled. Belisarius quickly took Carthage as the surviving Vandals fought on.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: On December 15, 533, Gelimer and Belisarius clashed again at the Battle of Tricamarum, some from Carthage. Again, the Vandals fought well but broke, this time when Tzazo fell in battle. Belisarius quickly advanced to Hippo, second city of the Vandal Kingdom. In 534 Gelimer, besieged at Mount Pappua by the Herulian General Pharas, surrendered to the Byzantines, ending the Kingdom of the Vandals.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The Vandals' territory in North Africa (which is now northern Tunisia and eastern Algeria) became a Byzantine province. The best Vandal warriors were formed into five cavalry regiments, known as "Vandali Iustiniani", and stationed on the Persian frontier. Some entered the private service of Belisarius. Gelimer himself was honourably treated and granted large estates in Galatia, where he lived to be an old man. He was also offered the rank of patrician but refused it because he was not willing to convert from Arianism to Nicene Christianity. In the words of historian Roger Collins: "The remaining Vandals were then shipped back to Constantinople to be absorbed into the imperial army," As a distinct ethnic unit they disappeared, either by fleeing to Spain or by being absorbed into the population of North Africa.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: From their invasion of North Africa in 429 onward, the Vandals, who were predominantly followers of Arianism, persecuted Nicene Christians. This persecution began with the unfettered violence inflicted against the church during Gaiseric's invasion, but, with the legitimization of the Vandal Kingdom, the oppression became entrenched in "more coherent religious policies."


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Once Gaiseric secured his hold over Numidia and Mauretania in the treaty of 435, he worked "to destroy the power of the Nicene church in his new territories by seizing the basilicas of three of the most intransigent bishops and expelling them from their cities." Similar policies continued with the capture of Carthage in 439 as the Vandal king made efforts to simultaneously advance the Arian church and oppress Nicene practices. Heather notes that four major churches within the city walls were confiscated for the Arians, and a ban was imposed on all Nicene services in areas in which Vandals settled; Gaiseric also had Quodvultdeus, Bishop of Carthage, and many of his clergy exiled from Africa and refused "to allow replacements to be ordained… so that the total number of Nicene bishops within the Vandal kingdom suffered a decline." Laymen were excluded from office and frequently suffered confiscation of their property.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: However, diplomatic considerations took precedence over religious policy. In 454, at the request of Valentinian III, Gaiseric installed Deogratius as the new Bishop of Carthage, a position that had been left empty since Quodvultdeus's departure. Heather argues that this accession was intended to improve Vandal–Roman relations as Gaiseric negotiated the marriage of his son Huneric to the Princess Eudocia. However, after Valentinian was killed and Vandal relations with Rome and Constantinople worsened, Gaiseric renewed his oppressive religious policies, leaving the bishopric empty once again when Deogratius died in 457.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Heather has argues that Gaiseric's promotion of the Arian church, with the accompanying persecution of the Nicene church, had political motivations. He notes a "key distinction" between "the anti-Nicene character" of Gaiseric's actions in Proconsularis and the rest of his kingdom; persecution was most intense when it was in proximity to his Arian followers. Heather suggests that Arianism was a means for Gaiseric to keep his followers united and under control; wherever his people interacted with Niceanians, this strategy was threatened. However, Heather also notes that "personal belief must have also played a substantial role in Gaiseric's decision making."


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Huneric, Gaiseric's son and successor, continued and intensified the repression of the Nicene church and attempted to make Arianism the primary religion in North Africa; indeed, much of Victor of Vita's narrative focuses on the atrocities and persecutions committed during Huneric's reign. Priests were forbidden to practice the liturgy, "Homoousian" books were destroyed, and almost 5,000 clergy were exiled into the desert. Violence continued with "men and women… subjected to a series of torments including scalping, forced labour and execution by sword and fire." In 483, Huneric issued a royal edict commanding all Chalcedonian bishops in Africa to attend a debate with Arian representatives. In the aftermath of this conference, he forbade Nicene clergy from assembling or carrying out baptisms or ordinations and ordered all Nicene churches to be closed and Nicene property confiscated. These churches were then turned over for the royal fisc or for Arian clerical use.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: While primary sources reveal little about Gunthamund's religious policies, existing evidence does suggest that the new king was "generally better disposed towards the Chalcedonian faith than his predecessor [Huneric] had been" and maintained a period of tolerance. Gunthamund ended the desert exile of a bishop called Eugenius and also restored the Nicene shrine of Saint Agileus in Carthage.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Thrasamund ended his late brother's policies of tolerance when he ascended to the throne in 496. He reintroduced "harsh measures against the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy" but "worked to maintain positive relations with the Romano-African lay elite," his intention being to split the loyalties of the two groups.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: Except for Hilderic, most Vandal kings persecuted Niceanians (as well as Donatists) to a greater or lesser extent, banning conversion for Vandals and exiling bishops.


title: Vandal Kingdom

text: The administration of the Vandal Kingdom bears close resemblance to the Roman provincial administration of Africa. While it was staffed by local Africans, the currency and taxation system were a creative adaptation of Roman models and which were similar to ones administered by the Romans. Vandal troops were also fashioned similarly to the Roman model. Power and wealth in the Vandal state were led by a military landowning aristocracy and the political elite replaced and expropriated the largely absentee senatorial aristocracy. Other main sources of income included its take-over of the major grain and oil export region of the Romans, which had hitherto been the source of food for the major city of Rome. The wealth that the Vandal leaders accumulated were spent on luxurious town houses and religious buildings, according to literary sources and archeology.


title: Amatriciana sauce

text: Sugo all'amatriciana (), or alla matriciana (in "Romanesco" dialect), also known as salsa all'amatriciana, is a traditional Italian pasta sauce based on guanciale (cured pork cheek), pecorino romano cheese, tomato, and, in some variations, onion. Originating from the town of Amatrice (in the mountainous Province of Rieti of Lazio region), the "Amatriciana" is one of the best known pasta sauces in present-day Roman and Italian cuisine. The Italian government has named it a traditional agro-alimentary product of Lazio and "Amatriciana tradizionale" is registered as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed in the EU and the UK.


title: Amatriciana sauce

text: Amatriciana originates from a recipe called "pasta alla gricia". In papal Rome, the "grici" were sellers of common edible foods, who got this name because many of them came from Valtellina, at that time a possession of the Swiss canton of Grigioni. According to another hypothesis, the name originates from the hamlet of Grisciano, in the "comune" of Accumoli, near Amatrice. The sauce—nowadays named also "Amatriciana bianca"—was, and still is, prepared with guanciale (cured pork cheek) and grated pecorino romano. At some point, a little olive oil was added to the recipe. In the 1960s, Amatriciana sauce was still prepared in this way in Amatrice itself.


title: Amatriciana sauce

text: The invention of the first tomato sauces (and the likely earliest date for the introduction of tomato in the "gricia", creating Amatriciana) dates back to the late 18th century. The first written record of pasta with tomato sauce can be found in the 1790 cookbook "L'Apicio Moderno" by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi.


title: Amatriciana sauce

text: The Amatriciana recipe became increasingly famous in Rome over the 19th and early 20th centuries, due to the centuries-old connection between Rome and Amatrice. The recipe was extremely well received and rapidly went on to become a classic of Roman cuisine, even though it originated elsewhere. The name of the dish in the Romanesco dialect eventually became "matriciana" due to the apheresis typical of this dialect.


title: Amatriciana sauce

text: While tomato-less "gricia" is still prepared in central Italy, it is the tomato-enriched "amatriciana" that is better known throughout Italy and exported everywhere. While in Amatrice the dish is prepared with spaghetti, the use of bucatini has become extremely common in Rome and is now prevalent. Other types of dry pasta (particularly rigatoni) are also used, whereas fresh pasta is generally avoided.


title: Amatriciana sauce

text: The recipe is known in several variants depending, among other things, on the local availability of certain ingredients. In Amatrice, the use of guanciale and tomato, onion is not favoured, but is shown in the classical handbooks of Roman cuisine. For frying, olive oil is most commonly used, but "strutto" (canned pork lard) is used as well. In Amatrice, the local pecorino is sometimes used as cheese.


title: Amatriciana sauce

text: For cheese either pecorino romano or Amatrice's pecorino (from the Monti Sibillini or Monti della Laga areas) can be used. The addition of black pepper or chili pepper is common.


title: Sidecar (cocktail)

text: The sidecar is any cocktail traditionally made with cognac, orange liqueur (Cointreau, Grand Marnier, dry curaçao, or a triple sec), plus lemon juice. In its ingredients, the drink is perhaps most closely related to the older brandy crusta, which differs both in presentation and in proportions of its components.


title: Sidecar (cocktail)

text: Like the daiquiri, the sidecar evolved from the original sour formula, but sidecars are often drier than sours, combining liqueurs like curaçao with citrus. Sidecars are considered more of a challenge for bartenders because the proportion of ingredients is more difficult to balance for liqueurs of variable sweetness.


title: Sidecar (cocktail)

text: The exact origin of the sidecar is unclear, but it is thought to have been invented around the end of World War I in either London or Paris. The drink was directly named for the motorcycle attachment, which was very commonly used back then.


title: Sidecar (cocktail)

text: The Ritz Hotel in Paris claims origin of the drink. The first recipes for the sidecar appear in 1922, in Harry MacElhone's "Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails" and Robert Vermeire's "Cocktails and How to Mix Them". It is one of six basic drinks listed in David A. Embury's "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" (1948).


title: Sidecar (cocktail)

text: In early editions of MacElhone's book, he cites the inventor as Pat MacGarry, "the popular bartender at Buck's Club, London", but in later editions he cites himself. While Vermiere states that the drink was "very popular in France. It was first introduced in London by MacGarry, the celebrated bartender of Buck's Club." Embury credits the invention of the drink to an American army captain in Paris during World War I and named after the motorcycle sidecar that the captain used.