title: Thatgamecompany

text: In late 2005, Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago began thinking about creating their own video game company. The two were in their final year as master's students in the Interactive Media Program at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, and had just released a video game—"Cloud"—that they had developed with several other students. The group intended the project as an experiment, meant to reveal whether they could create a game that "expressed something different than video games had in the past", and to determine the public's level of interest in video games of that nature. Due to the game's strongly positive reception, Chen and Santiago began to consider founding their own company, so that they could continue making games like "Cloud"—in which the design is not based on gameplay mechanics, but on inspiring emotions in players—after they left college.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: At the time, digital distribution was gaining popularity. The two saw it as an opportunity to create games without the high financial risk of retail distribution, which they believed would require them to first accumulate funds by working for other video game companies. Thatgamecompany was founded on May 15, 2006, as Chen and Santiago finished their master's degrees. The company soon signed a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment, which had been impressed by Chen's Flash game "Flow"—a component of his master's thesis at USC. Thatgamecompany was contracted to produce three games for the upcoming PlayStation Network distribution system and was given startup funding and a location at Sony's offices in Los Angeles.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: Initially, Thatgamecompany consisted of Chen, Santiago, Nick Clark, who had collaborated with Chen on "Flow", and John Edwards. Santiago was the president of the company and the producer for its games, Clark was the designer, and Edwards was the lead engineer. Although Chen cofounded the company, he initially worked at Maxis on the game "Spore". The company considered adapting "Cloud" as their first product for Sony, but instead decided on "Flow", as it was "more fleshed-out as a design". They felt that it would be easier than "Cloud" to develop while they built the company; no members of the team had experience with managing a business or with creating a commercial game. Several contract workers assisted Thatgamecompany with "Flow"s development, including Austin Wintory, the game's composer.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: The company had believed that the PlayStation 3 version of "Flow" could be completed in four months and that it would be ready for the November 2006 launch of the PlayStation Network. However, when it was released in February 2007, it did not include "half of the original design". According to Santiago, the Sony producer assigned to the team had anticipated that they would underestimate the game's development length, and was not surprised by the delay. The game was well received; it became the most downloaded game on the PlayStation Network in 2007, and was nominated for the Best Downloadable Game of the Year award at the 2008 Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Interactive Achievement Awards, and for the Best Innovation award at the 2007 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards. After its release, an expansion pack and a PlayStation Portable version of the game were created by SuperVillain Studios. Thatgamecompany was not involved in the development of either project beyond ensuring that they retained the same design and art direction as the original, as they were busy creating their next title, "Flower".


title: Thatgamecompany

text: "Flower" was Thatgamecompany's "first game outside the safety net of academia", according to Santiago. Six to nine people were involved at different stages of development. Chen returned to work full-time at the company prior to the game's development and served as the creative director. The game's music was composed by Vincent Diamante, who had worked with Chen and Santiago on "Cloud". The game was developed for two years, but the team spent three-fourths of that time in the prototyping stage. After they decided on the game's elements, "Flower" was produced in only six months. Like "Flow", the game was well received when it was released in February 2009, selling in the top ten PlayStation Network titles of the year and garnering several awards. After the release of "Flower", Thatgamecompany moved into their own building in Los Angeles.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: The company's third project was "Journey", which was released on March 13, 2012. It was the final game in Thatgamecompany's three-game contract with Sony and was developed by a team of fourteen. This team did not include Santiago, who, in order to concentrate on her role as the company's president, was replaced as a producer by Robin Hunicke. The game was in development for three years, despite having been expected to take one year, and the development team faced several problems in expanding the company from seven employees as they began the game to eighteen, and risked running out of money. Upon release, the game achieved both critical and commercial success. It became the fastest-selling game to date on PlayStation Store in North America and Europe. After the game was released, as the company began work on another project, several employees left for other opportunities. Santiago left the company to pursue other ventures, designer Chris Bell left to form his own studio The Willderness, and Hunicke resigned to work at Tiny Speck. Chen attributes the exodus to the end of Thatgamecompany's three-game contract, and to the fact that the company had run out of money, mandating an unpaid hiatus to all employees until the revenue from "Journey" came in.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: Once the money from "Journey" began to arrive, Thatgamecompany brought back several of the employees affected by the cash flow problems, and some new developers. The company, with its contract with Sony complete, raised $5.5 million in venture capital funding, which they hope to use to develop future games for multiple platforms without influences by publishers. The team then began working on what would become "Sky: Children of the Light", and as of June 2013 was made up of around 12 people, only half of whom worked on "Journey". Thatgamecompany hoped to release the game on "as many platforms as possible", and to include touch controls in an innovative way in the same way their previous games included tilting the controller. On May 27, 2014, it was reported that the game had received $7 million in funding from Capital Today and a team of other investors. While "Sky" was in development, Thatgamecompany re-released "Flow" and "Flower" onto both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation Vita, and released an updated port of "Journey" for the PlayStation 4. "Sky", a free-to-play multiplayer adventure game, was first released on July 18, 2019. Since its release, thatgamecompany has focused on supporting it.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: In March 2020, Thatgamecompany announced plans to open a second studio in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area in 2020, primarily to support "Sky"; these plans were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2022, it announced that it had received a $160 million investment and had taken on Pixar co-founder Edwin Catmull as an advisor. Chen also announced that the studio was working on their fifth game, which he described as "like a theme park" and "the most ambitious game I have built".


title: Thatgamecompany

text: When Thatgamecompany designs a game, they begin by deciding on the emotions and feelings they wish to invoke in the player. This differs from the approach of most developers, who build from game mechanics or genre features. According to Santiago, the company creates emotional responses to demonstrate the wide range of possible experiences in video games, which she believes is larger than the few—excitement and fear, for example—that are typically presented. Chen has said that the company's games are meant to evoke emotions more than a message; he specifically changed the design of "Flower" when early testers felt that the game promoted green energy. Chen believes that he is "too young" to make a game with a strong message, and so designs the company's products to avoid overt meanings. Santiago has said that Thatgamecompany's goal is "to create games that push the boundaries of videogames as a communicative medium, and to create games that appeal to a wide variety of people". She hopes to change the video game industry with this process, so that other companies approach video games as a "creative medium" instead of a mass product.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: Thatgamecompany's employees are not opposed to making action titles, and, as a break from their regular projects, have internally created "exciting" games that were well received by Sony. However, Chen believes that there is no reason for the company to commercially produce such games, as they would not be creating new ideas that justified the cost of remaining an independent studio, as opposed to working for existing game developers. Similarly, Chen does not intend for Thatgamecompany to make "big budget blockbuster games", as he believes that the financial pressure would stifle innovation.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: In "Flow", the player navigates a series of two-dimensional planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves by consuming other microorganisms. The game's design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California, and on psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow. It was released for the PlayStation 3 on February 22, 2007.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: "Flower" was intended as a spiritual successor to "Flow". Using the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controller, the player controls wind that blows a flower petal through the air. Flying close to flowers results in the player's petal being followed by other flower petals. Approaching flowers may also have side-effects on the game world, such as bringing vibrant color to previously dead fields or activating stationary windmills. The game features no text or dialogue, forming a narrative arc primarily through visual representation and emotional cues. It was released for the PlayStation 3 on February 12, 2009.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: In "Journey", the player controls a robed figure who wakes up in a desert, with a large mountain in the distance as their destination. While traveling, the player can encounter other players over the Internet, one at a time. Players cannot communicate verbally, but may help each other or not as they wish. The game was released for the PlayStation 3 on March 13, 2012. Austin Wintory was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2013 for Best Score Soundtrack for "Journey", the first such nomination for a full video game score, but lost to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It was released on Windows in 2019.


title: Thatgamecompany

text: "Sky: Children of the Light" is Thatgamecompany's latest game, released for iOS on July 18, 2019, and on Android on April 7, 2020, is intended as a spiritual successor to all of their previous games. In "Sky", the player explores a magical kingdom using a cape that gives them the ability to fly. Players play alongside millions of other players, connected via the internet. There are seven unique realms to explore, and each one is themed around a different stage of life. In addition to these realms, there is a Home that serves as a hub between the different realms. Throughout the game, the player will encounter "spirits" that give the player cosmetic and gameplay-affecting items in return for in-game currency. "Sky" is a free-to-play game, with cosmetic items and in-game currency available for purchase as microtransactions. "Sky" was chosen as Apple's iPhone Game of the Year in 2019, and reached 100 million installations in May 2021. It was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2021, and is currently scheduled to release on the PlayStation 4 on December 6, 2022.


title: Asemic writing

text: Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word "asemic" means "having no specific semantic content", or "without the smallest unit of meaning". With the non-specificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning, which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret. All of this is similar to the way one would deduce meaning from an abstract work of art. Where asemic writing distinguishes itself among traditions of abstract art is in the asemic author's use of gestural constraint, and the retention of physical characteristics of writing such as lines and symbols. Asemic writing is a hybrid art form that fuses text and image into a unity, and then sets it free to arbitrary subjective interpretations. It may be compared to free writing or writing for its own sake, instead of writing to produce verbal context. The open nature of asemic works allows for meaning to occur across linguistic understanding; an asemic text may be "read" in a similar fashion regardless of the reader's natural language. Multiple meanings for the same symbolism are another possibility for an asemic work, that is, asemic writing can be polysemantic or have zero meaning, infinite meanings, or its meaning can evolve over time. Asemic works leave for the reader to decide how to translate and explore an asemic text; in this sense, the reader becomes co-creator of the asemic work.


title: Asemic writing

text: In 1997, visual poets Tim Gaze and Jim Leftwich first applied the word "asemic" to name their quasi-calligraphic writing gestures. They then began to distribute them to poetry magazines both online and in print. The authors explored sub-verbal and sub-letteral forms of writing, and textual asemia as a creative option and as an intentional practice. Since the late 1990s, asemic writing has blossomed into a worldwide literary/art movement. It has especially grown in the early part of the 21st century, though there is an acknowledgement of a long and complex history, which precedes the activities of the current asemic movement, especially with regards to abstract calligraphy, wordless writing, and verbal writing damaged beyond the point of legibility. Jim Leftwich has recently stated that an asemic condition of an asemic work is an impossible goal, and that it is not possible to create an art/literary work entirely without meaning. He has begun to use the term "pansemic" too. He also explained (in 2020): "The term 'pansemia' didn't replace the term 'asemia' in my thinking (nor did 'pansemic' replace 'asemic'); it merely assisted me in expanding my understanding of the theory and practice of asemic writing". Others such as author Travis Jeppesen have found the term "asemic" to be problematic because "it seems to infer writing with no meaning."


title: Asemic writing

text: Asemic writing exists in many different forms. It is often created with a pen or brush, but can range from being hand drawn in the sand with a stick and documented by photography, or to works on canvas, paper, computer images, and animations. The key to asemic writing is that even though it is traditionally "unreadable" it still maintains a strong attractive appeal to the reader's eye. Various asemic writing includes pictograms, or ideograms the meanings of which are sometimes suggested by their shapes, though it may also flow as an abstract expressionist scribble which resembles writing but avoids words. Asemic writing, at times, exists as a conception or shadow of conventional writing practices. Reflecting writing, but not completely existing as a traditional writing system, asemic writing seeks to make the reader hover in a state between reading and looking. Asemic writing has no verbal sense, though it may have clear textual sense. Through its formatting and structure, asemic writing may suggest a type of document and, thereby, suggest a meaning. The form of art is still writing, often calligraphic in form, and either depends on a reader's sense and knowledge of writing systems for it to make sense, or can be understood through aesthetic intuition. True asemic writing occurs when the creator of the asemic piece cannot read their own asemic writing. Relative asemic writing is a natural writing system that can be read by some people but not by everyone (e.g. ciphers, wildstyle, etc.). Most asemic writing lies between these two extremes. Influences on asemic writing are illegible, invented, or primal scripts (cave paintings, doodles, children's drawings, etc.). But instead of being thought of as mimicry of preliterate expression, asemic writing may be considered to be a global postliterate style of writing that uses all forms of creativity for inspiration. Other influences on asemic writing are alien languages in science fiction, artistic languages, sigils (magick), undeciphered scripts, and graffiti. Uses for asemic writing include mental and creative idea stimulation, non-verbal communication, meditation, hoaxes, and general authorial self-expression.


title: Asemic writing

text: Asemic writing occurs in avant-garde literature and art with strong roots in the earliest forms of writing. The history of today's asemic movement stems from two Chinese calligraphers: "crazy" Zhang Xu, a Tang dynasty () calligrapher who was famous for creating wild illegible calligraphy, and the younger "drunk" monk Huaisu who also excelled at illegible cursive calligraphy. Japanese calligraphers subsequently expanded upon Chinese abstract calligraphic expression by Hitsuzendō (the way of Zen through brush), allowing their works to move past formal presentation and "breathe with the vitality of eternal experience".


title: Asemic writing

text: In the 1920s, Man Ray, who was influenced by Dada, created an early work of wordless writing with his poem "Paris, 1924", which is nothing more than dashes on a page. Later in the 1920s, Henri Michaux, who was influenced by Asian calligraphy, Surrealism, and Automatic writing, began to create wordless works such as "Alphabet" (1925) and "Narration" (1927). Michaux referred to his calligraphic works as "interior Gestures". The writer and artist Wassily Kandinsky was an early precursor to asemic writing, with his linear piece "Indian Story" (1931) exemplifying complete textual abstraction.


title: Asemic writing

text: In the 1950s, there is Brion Gysin (whose calligraphy was influenced by Japanese and Arabic calligraphy), Isidore Isou (who founded Lettrisme/Letterism), Cy Twombly (a former US Army Cryptologist), and Morita Shiryū/Bokujin-kai Group (Ink Human Society) all of whom expanded writing into illegible, abstract, and wordless visual mark-making; they would help lay the foundation for asemic writers of the future. Mira Schendel was an artist from Brazil who created many illegible works over the course of her life, for example her piece "Archaic Writing" (1964). Mirtha Dermisache is another writer who had created asemic writing since the 1960s. Dermisache actively said that even though her graphisms have no meaning, they still retained the full rights of an autonomous work. 1971 was the year when released his work which contains asemic writing throughout the entire graphic novel. León Ferrari was another artist/poet who created many asemic works in the 1960s and 1970s, such as "Escritura" (1976). 1974 saw the release of Max Ernst's work "Maximiliana: The Illegal Practice Of Astronomy: hommage à Dorothea Tanning"; this book is a major influence on asemic writers such as Tim Gaze, Michael Jacobson, and Derek Beaulieu. Roland Barthes was also involved with asemic writing; he titled his asemic works Contre-écritures.


title: Asemic writing

text: A modern example of asemic writing is Luigi Serafini's "Codex Seraphinianus" (1981). Serafini described the script of the "Codex" as asemic in a talk at the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles held on 8 May 2009. In the 1980s, Chinese artist Xu Bing created "Tiānshū", or "A Book from the Sky" which is a work of books and hanging scrolls on which were printed 4000 hand carved meaningless characters. The 1980s also saw artist Gu Wenda begin the first of a series of projects centered on the invention of meaningless, false Chinese ideograms, depicted as if they were truly old and traditional. One exhibition of this type was held in Xi'an in 1986, featuring paintings of fake ideograms on a massive scale. Also in China, during the 1990s, an abstract calligraphy movement known as "Calligraphy-ism" came into existence, a leading proponent of this movement being Luo Qi. Calligraphy-ism is an aesthetic movement that aims to develop calligraphy into an abstract art. The characters do not need to retain their traditional forms or be legible as words. In Vietnam during the 2000s, a calligraphy group called the Zenei Gang of Five appeared. To this group of young artists, "Wordless" means that which cannot be said, that which is both before and beyond the specificity of naming. To be without words is saying nothing and saying everything.


title: Asemic writing

text: Satu Kaikkonen, a contemporary asemic artist/writer from Finland, had this to say about asemic writing:


title: Asemic writing

text: False writing systems are artificially constructed alphabets or scripts used (sometimes within the context of a false document) to convey a degree of verisimilitude. Examples of this include alien dialogue in comic strips, animated cartoons, and graphic novels (such as Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", and the "Valérian and Laureline" series).


title: Asemic writing

text: The script in Luigi Serafini's 1981 "Codex Seraphinianus" was confirmed by the author to have no occult meaning. The Voynich manuscript, a mysterious work which may have inspired the "Codex Seraphinianus", uses an undeciphered writing system which some have speculated to be false.


title: Jo Hartley

text: Joanne Victoria Hartley (born 12 March 1972) is an English actress born in Oldham, Lancashire who has appeared in the films "The Young Victoria", "Eddie the Eagle", "Slaughterhouse Rulez" and "Torvill & Dean" and in British television series "This is England", "Not Safe For Work", "After Life", "Bliss", and "In My Skin."


title: Jo Hartley

text: Hartley was brought up in a working-class family, attending North Chadderton School in Chadderton, in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. She started acting at the age of 11 in her school production of "The Sound of Music" as Gretel Von Trappe. She then joined Oldham Theatre Workshop, developing her acting skills until the age of 17, when she stopped acting to work at British Aerospace (BAe) on a Youth Training Scheme where she worked as a secretary in the office for two years until leaving BAe to join Japan Airlines as a flight attendant.


title: Jo Hartley

text: Hartley returned to England, in London studying at the Questors Theatre in Ealing, where she studied method acting and Stanislavski's system until landing her first film role in the 2004 Shane Meadows directed Crime Drama Thriller film "Dead Man's Shoes" as 'Marie'.


title: Jo Hartley

text: Hartley has made appearances in many British productions, including films such as "Northern Soul" and "Me and Her" both in 2004; "Terra Firma" and "Flushed" in 2008; and "The Crossing", "Janet and Bernard" and "I Don't Care" in 2014. Hartley has been a character actor in many TV films and TV series since 2004, with her most notable roles in "This Is England '86", "This Is England '88" and "This Is England '90", the follow-on TV mini-series to the film.


title: Jo Hartley

text: In movies Hartley has appeared in "This Is England" (2006) as Cynthia, and the feature film "The Young Victoria" in 2009, with Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend.


title: Jo Hartley

text: In 2016 Hartley appeared as Janette, Eddie's mother in the film "Eddie the Eagle" appearing alongside Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman. She co-starred in the David Cross series "Bliss" opposite Heather Graham as one of two partners of a fraudulent travel writer. Hartley also appeared in the comedy horror film "Slaughterhouse Rulez", alongside Asa Butterfield and Simon Pegg.


title: Jo Hartley

text: After a successful pilot episode, Hartley played the role of Bethan's mum `Katrina' who suffers from bipolar disorder in the BBC series "In My Skin" which aired on BBC1 in 2020. In April 2020, Hartley returned as June in the second series of Ricky Gervais's "After Life".


title: Jo Hartley

text: In January 2021, Hartley joined the Rising Star Award jury of the EE British Academy Film Awards to select the shortlist for the 2021 award, alongside Alicia Vikander, Naomi Ackie and several other prominent figures of the industry. In September 2021, Hartley plays the lead character in the upcoming British comedy film "Swede Caroline", the first for Deadbeat Studios.


title: Jo Hartley

text: In November 2021, Hartley was nominated for the BIFA Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Tina in the Marley Morrison directed British drama film "Sweetheart".


title: Jo Hartley

text: In December 2021, Hartley had a guest-role appearance in the BBC TV special — "We Wish You A Mandy Christmas" alongside Diane Morgan and Johnny Vegas.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is a caucus made up of most African-American members of the United States Congress. Representative Karen Bass from California chaired the caucus from 2019 to 2021; she was succeeded by Representative Joyce Beatty from Ohio as chair. The caucus has historically been non-partisan; however, with Republican Representative Byron Donalds being blocked from joining in 2021, that status has been made unclear.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The predecessor to the caucus was founded in January 1969 as the Democratic Select Committee by a group of black members of the House of Representatives, including Shirley Chisholm of New York, Louis Stokes of Ohio and William L. Clay of Missouri. Black representatives had begun to enter the House in increasing numbers during the 1960s, and they had a desire for a formal organization. Further, Congressional redistricting and other factors in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement resulted in the number of black Congressmembers increasing from nine to thirteen. The first chairman, Charles Diggs, served from 1969 to 1971.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: This organization was renamed the Congressional Black Caucus in February 1971 on the motion of Charles B. Rangel of New York. The thirteen founding members of the caucus were Shirley Chisholm, Bill Clay, George W. Collins, John Conyers, Ron Dellums, Charles Diggs, Augustus F. Hawkins, Ralph Metcalfe, Parren Mitchell, Robert N.C. Nix Sr., Charles Rangel, Louis Stokes, and Washington, D.C. delegate Walter E. Fauntroy. Chisholm referred to the group as "unbought and unbossed". Five founding members of the CBC were also members of Prince Hall Freemasonry, an African-American branch of Freemasonry that became involved in civil rights: Stokes, Conyers, Rangel, Hawkins and Metcalfe.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: President Richard Nixon refused to meet with the newly formed group, and so the CBC chose to boycott the 1971 State of the Union address, leading to their first joint press coverage. On March 25, 1971, Nixon finally met with the CBC, who presented him with a 32-page document including "recommendations to eradicate racism, provide quality housing for black families, and promote the full engagement of blacks in government". All the members of the caucus were included on the master list of Nixon political opponents.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: On June 5, 1972, shortly before the 1972 Democratic National Convention would nominate George McGovern for president, the CBC wrote and released two documents: the Black Declaration of Independence and the Black Bill of Rights. Louis Stokes read a preamble and both documents into the record of the House of Representatives. The Black Bill of Rights includes sections on jobs and the economy, foreign policy, education, housing, public health, minority enterprise, drugs, prison reform, black representation in government, civil rights, voting rights in the District of Columbia, and the military. These documents were inspired by the National Black Political Convention and its own manifesto, "The Gary Declaration: Black Politics at the Crossroads" (also called the Black Agenda).


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: In 1977, the organization was involved in the founding of TransAfrica, an education and advocacy affiliate that was formed to act as a resource on information on the African continent and its Diaspora. They worked closely with this organization to start the national anti-apartheid movement in the US, Free South Africa Movement (characterized by sit-ins, student protests, it became the longest lasting civil disobedience movement in U.S history) and to devise the legislative strategy for the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 that was subsequently passed over Ronald Reagan's veto. The organization continues to be active today and works on other campaigns.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: In late 1994, after Republicans attained a majority in the House, the House passed House Resolution 6 on January 4, 1995, which prohibited “the establishment or continuation of any legislative service organization..." This decision was aimed at 28 organizations, which received taxpayer funding and occupied offices at the Capitol, including the CBC. Then-chairman Kweisi Mfume protested the decision. The CBC reconstituted as a Congressional Member Organization.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The caucus is sometimes invited to the White House to meet with the president. It requests such a meeting at the beginning of each Congress.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: During the 2020 George Floyd protests, the CBC provided House members with stoles made from kente to be worn for an 8:46-long moment of silence before introducing the Justice in Policing Act of 2020.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The caucus describes its goals as "positively influencing the course of events pertinent to African Americans and others of similar experience and situation", and "achieving greater equity for persons of African descent in the design and content of domestic and international programs and services."


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The CBC encapsulates these goals in the following priorities: closing the achievement and opportunity gaps in education, assuring quality health care for every American, focusing on employment and economic security, ensuring justice for all, retirement security for all Americans, increasing welfare funds, and increasing equity in foreign policy.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The Congressional Black Caucus is one of the world's most esteemed bodies, with a history of positive activism unparalleled in our nation's history. Whether the issue is popular or unpopular, simple or complex, the CBC has fought for thirty years to protect the fundamentals of democracy. Its impact is recognized throughout the world. The Congressional Black Caucus is probably the closest group of legislators on the Hill. We work together almost incessantly, we are friends and, more importantly, a family of freedom fighters. Our diversity makes us stronger, and the expertise of all of our members has helped us be effective beyond our numbers.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African-American studies and popular culture at Duke University, wrote a column in late 2008 that the Congressional Black Caucus and other African-American-centered organizations are still needed, and should take advantage of "the political will that Obama's campaign has generated."


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The Congressional Black Caucus PAC is a political action committee founded as a political arm of the caucus, aiming "to increase the number of Black Members of the US Congress...support Non-Black Candidates who will champion the needs and interests of the Black Community" and increase the "participation of Black Americans in the political process". Gregory Meeks (D-NY-5) chairs the PAC. The CBCPAC is known for its moderate-lean. The PAC caused controversy when it backed incumbent Michael Capuano, a white man, over challenger Ayanna Pressley, a black woman who ultimately defeated him. Two years later, it backed Eliot Engel, a white incumbent, over Jamaal Bowman, a black challenger who went on to defeat him.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: HuffPost reporters questioned how endorsements were made, noting that the executive board included corporate lobbyists over CBC members. Representative Brenda Lawrence (D-MI-14) criticized the PAC's endorsement policies in 2020 and called for it to be reevaluated. Color of Change, a civil rights advocacy nonprofit group, released a letter in 2016 calling on the CBCPAC to cut ties with lobbyists from industries that are "notorious for the mistreatment and exploitation of Black people" including private prisons, pharmaceutical companies, student loan creditors, and big tobacco.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The caucus has grown steadily as more black members have been elected. At its formal founding in 1971, the caucus had thirteen members. As of 2019, it had 55 members, including two who are non-voting members of the House, representing the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: As of 2021, there have been nine black senators since the caucus's founding. The seven black U.S. senators, all Democrats, who are or have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus are Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, elected in 2013 (currently serving), Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, elected in 2021 (currently serving), and Senator Kamala Harris of California, elected in 2016, who resigned in 2021 to take on the Vice Presidency; former senators Carol Moseley Braun (1993–1999), Barack Obama (2005–2008), and Roland Burris (2008–2010), all of Illinois; and former senator Mo Cowan (2013) of Massachusetts.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Burris was appointed by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in December 2008 to fill Obama's seat for the remaining two years of his Senate term after Obama was elected president of the United States. Cowan was appointed to temporarily serve until a special election after John Kerry vacated his Senate seat to become U.S. secretary of state.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Senator Edward Brooke, a Republican who represented Massachusetts in the 1960s and 1970s, was not a member of the CBC. In 2013, Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, also chose not to join the CBC after being appointed to fill Jim DeMint's Senate seat.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The caucus is officially non-partisan; but, in practice, the vast majority of African Americans elected to Congress since the CBC's founding have been Democrats. Ten African American Republicans have been elected to Congress since the caucus was founded in 1971:


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Of these twelve, only Evans, Franks, West, and Love joined the CBC; currently, the caucus includes no Republicans, although Byron Donalds has applied to join the CBC.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Edward Brooke was the only serving African American U.S. senator when the CBC was founded in 1971, but he never joined the group and often clashed with its leaders. In 1979 Melvin H. Evans, a non-voting delegate from the Virgin Islands, became the first Republican member in the group's history. Gary Franks was the first Republican voting congressman to join in 1991, though he was at times excluded from CBC strategy sessions, skipped meetings, and threatened to quit the caucus.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: J. C. Watts did not join the CBC when he entered Congress in 1995, and after Franks left Congress in 1997, no Republicans joined the CBC for fourteen years until Allen West joined the caucus in 2011, though fellow freshman congressman Tim Scott declined to join. After West was defeated for re-election, the CBC became a Democrat-only caucus once again in 2013.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: In 2014, two black Republicans were elected to the House. Upon taking office, Will Hurd from Texas declined to join the caucus, while Mia Love from Utah, the first black Republican congresswoman, joined.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: All past and present members of the caucus have been African-American. In 2006, while running for Congress in a Tennessee district which is 60% black, Steve Cohen, who is Jewish, pledged to apply for membership in order to represent his constituents. However, after his election, his application was refused. Although the bylaws of the caucus do not make race a prerequisite for membership, former and current members of the caucus agreed that the group should remain "exclusively black". In response to the decision, Cohen referred to his campaign promise as "a social faux pas" because "It's their caucus and they do things their way. You don't force your way in. You need to be invited."


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Representative Lacy Clay, a Democrat from Missouri and the son of Representative Bill Clay, a co-founder of the caucus, said: "Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. He is white and the caucus is black. It is time to move on. We have racial policies to pursue and we are pursuing them, as Mr. Cohen has learned. It is an unwritten rule. It is understood." Clay also issued the following statement:


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Quite simply, Representative Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept—there has been an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and now it is our turn to say who can join 'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Later the same week, Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado, objected to the continued existence of the CBC as well as the Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Republican Congressional Hispanic Conference arguing that "It is utterly hypocritical for Congress to extol the virtues of a color-blind society while officially sanctioning caucuses that are based solely on race. If we are serious about achieving the goal of a colorblind society, Congress should lead by example and end these divisive, race-based caucuses."


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: Prior to 2017, no one had attempted to be in both the CBC and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC). In the 2016 House elections, Afro-Dominican State Senator Adriano Espaillat was elected to an open seat after twice trying to unseat CBC founder Charlie Rangel (who also has Puerto Rican ancestry) in the Democratic primary. Espaillat signaled that he wanted to join the CBC as well as the CHC, but it was reported that he was rebuffed, and it was insinuated that the cause was bad blood over the attempted primary challenges of Rangel.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: In the 2018 elections, Afro-Latino Democrat Antonio Delgado was elected and joined the CBC, making no public effort to join the CHC as well. In the 2020 elections, Afro-Puerto Rican Democratic candidate Ritchie Torres published an Op-ed claiming that he was prevented from joining both the CBC and CHC as he wished to do, a claim which was denied by then-CBC chair Karen Bass. After being elected to Congress, Torres successfully joined both the CBC and CHC.


title: Congressional Black Caucus

text: The Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls is a separate caucus of the United States Congress founded in 2016 to advance issues and legislation important to the welfare of women and girls of African descent.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: USS "Kidd" (DD-661), a , was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named after Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, who died on the bridge of his flagship during the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Kidd was the first US flag officer to die during World War II and the first American admiral ever to be killed in action. A National Historic Landmark, she is now a museum ship, berthed on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is the only surviving US destroyer still in her World War II configuration.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: "Kidd" (DD-661) was launched on 28 February 1943 by Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Kearny, New Jersey, sponsored by Mrs. Isaac C. Kidd, widow of Rear Admiral Kidd. The destroyer was commissioned on 23 April 1943. During her initial cruise to the Brooklyn Naval Shipyards, she sailed across New York Harbor with the Jolly Roger flying from the foremast. Subsequently, during outfitting, her crew adopted the pirate captain William Kidd as their mascot and commissioned a local artist to paint a pirate figure on the forward smokestack.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: After shakedown out of Casco Bay, Maine in June, "Kidd" cruised in the Atlantic and Caribbean escorting large combatant vessels until she departed for the Pacific in August 1943 in company with the battleships and . Arriving at Pearl Harbor on 17 September 1943, she got underway on 29 September, escorting aircraft carriers toward Wake Island for the heavy air attacks conducted on 6 October on Japanese installations located there, returning to Pearl Harbor on 11 October 1943.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: Mid-October "Kidd" was underway with a task force to strike Rabaul and support the Bougainville landings. Upon reaching a strike position south of Rabaul on the morning of 11 November, the task force launched attacks upon Japanese positions on the island. "Kidd" was ordered to rescue the crew of an aircraft from which had ditched astern of the formation. During this rescue, a group of Japanese aircraft attacked the destroyer; "Kidd" shot down three attacking aircraft and completed the rescue while maneuvering to dodge torpedoes and bombs. Cmdr. Roby, her commanding officer, received the Silver Star for gallantry during this action. The destroyer returned to Espiritu Santo on 13 November.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: "Kidd" next screened carriers making air attacks on Tarawa during the Gilbert Islands invasion from 19 to 23 November. On 24 November, she spotted 15 low-flying enemy bombers heading toward the heavy ships, gave warning, and shot down two Aichi D3A "Val" dive bombers. After Tarawa was secure, "Kidd" remained in the Gilbert Islands to support cleanup operations before returning to Pearl Harbor on 9 December.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: On 11 January 1944 "Kidd" sailed for the forward area at Espiritu Santo, then sailed the next day for Funafuti, arriving on 19 January. During the invasion of the Marshall Islands from 29 January to 8 February, "Kidd" screened heavy ships and bombarded Roi and Wotje, then anchored at Kwajalein 26 February.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: From 20 March to 14 April, "Kidd" guarded an airstrip under construction on Emirau and supported the occupation of Aitape and Hollandia in New Guinea 16 April to 7 May. She fought in the Marianas campaign from 10 June to 8 July and performed shore bombardment at Guam between 8 July and 10 August.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: In need of repairs, "Kidd" sailed for Pearl Harbor, arriving on 26 August 1944. On 15 September, she departed Pearl, reached Eniwetok on 26 September, and arrived at Manus on 3 October. There she became part of the giant Philippines invasion fleet and entered Leyte Gulf on 20 October. Here, she screened the initial landings and provided fire support for soldiers who fought to reconquer the island until she sailed on 14 November for Humboldt Bay, New Guinea, arriving on 19 November. On 9 December "Kidd" headed toward Mare Island Navy Yard for overhaul and moored at Mare Island on Christmas Day.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: "Kidd" sailed 19 February 1945, to join Task Force 58 (TF 58) for the invasion of Okinawa. Trained and battle-wise, "Kidd" played a key role during the first days of the Okinawa campaign, screening battleships, bombarding shore targets, rescuing downed pilots, sinking floating mines, providing early warning of raids, guarding the heavily damaged aircraft carrier , and helping to shoot down kamikazes.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: While on picket station 11 April 1945, "Kidd" and her division mates, , , and , with the help of Combat Air Patrol, repelled three air raids. That afternoon, a single enemy plane crashed into "Kidd", killing 38 men and wounding 55. As the destroyer headed south to rejoin the task group, her fire drove off further enemy planes that were trying to finish her off. Stopping at Ulithi for temporary repairs, she got underway on 2 May for the West Coast, arriving at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard on 25 May.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: On 1 August 1945, "Kidd" sailed to Pearl Harbor and returned to San Diego, California 24 September 1945 for inactivation. She decommissioned on 10 December 1946 and entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: When North Korea attacked South Korea, the United States called up a portion of its reserve fleet. "Kidd" was a part of that call and was recommissioned on 28 March 1951. The destroyer sailed to the Western Pacific on 18 June; and arrived at Yokosuka, Japan on 15 July. She joined Task Force 77 and patrolled off the Korean coast until 21 September, when she sailed for the East Coast of Korea. From 21 October to 22 January 1952, "Kidd" bombarded targets of opportunity from Wan-Do Island to below Koesong. She then sailed with Destroyer Division 152 to San Diego, arriving on 6 February 1952.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: "Kidd" again got underway for Korea on 8 September 1952; joined the screen of a hunter-killer group near Kojo; and, in November, was back on bombardment missions off North Korea. Shortly after that, truce talks began. "Kidd" continued to patrol the Korean coast during negotiations. She departed the Far East on 3 March 1953 via Midway and Pearl Harbor and arrived in San Diego for overhaul on 20 March. Once the overhaul was completed, "Kidd" proceeded to Long Beach, California on 20 April 1953. The next day, the Swedish freighter "Hainan" collided with "Kidd" in Long Beach harbor requiring repairs that lasted until 11 May 1953.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: With the onset of the Cold War, from late 1953 to late 1959 "Kidd" alternated between West Pacific anti-Soviet submarine patrols with operations on the West Coast, making stops at Pearl Harbor and various ports in Japan, Okinawa, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. She visited Sydney, Australia, on 29 March 1958 and later that year entered the Taiwan Strait.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: "Kidd" got underway on 5 January 1960 for the East Coast via the Panama Canal, arriving at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 25 January. From there, she made Naval Reserve training cruises to various East Coast ports. She joined fleet operating forces during the Berlin Crisis in 1961. December 1961 found "Kidd" patrolling off the Dominican Republic in a "show of force" patrol to provide an element of security in the troubled Caribbean.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: "Kidd" arrived at Norfolk, Virginia on 5 February 1962 and joined Task Force Alfa for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercises. On 24 April, she was assigned to the Naval Destroyer School at Newport, Rhode Island. After a cruise to the Caribbean, on 1 July 1962, she resumed Naval Reserve training. "Kidd" was decommissioned on 19 June 1964, entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, and was berthed at the Philadelphia Shipyard.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: The Navy set aside three "Fletcher"-class ships for use as memorials; , , and "Kidd". Louisiana congressman William Henson Moore selected "Kidd" to serve as a memorial for Louisiana World War II veterans. The other "Fletcher"-class museum ships; "The Sullivans" in Buffalo, New York; "Cassin Young" in Boston, Massachusetts; and in Palaio Faliro, Greece, HNS "Velos", formerly .


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: "Kidd" was towed from Philadelphia and arrived in Baton Rouge on 23 May 1982, where she was transferred to the Louisiana Naval War Memorial Commission. She is now on public view as a museum vessel and hosts youth group overnight encampments. "Kidd" was never modernized and is the only "Fletcher"-class museum ship to retain its World War II appearance; she was restored to her August 1945 configuration and armament, culminating on 3 July 1997 when her torpedo tubes were reloaded. "Kidd"s special mooring in the Mississippi River is designed to cope with the annual change in river depth, which can be up to forty feet. Half the year, she floats as the river rises; the other half, she sits on keel blocks, and her entire hull can be visible as the water is so low.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: In 1986 "Kidd" was designated a National Historic Landmark, as the best-preserved World War II destroyer of her class.


title: USS Kidd (DD-661)

text: In 2018, "Kidd" was used as a stand-in for the fictional USS "Keeling" (codenamed "Greyhound"), from C.S. Forester's novel "The Good Shepherd", in its appearance in the book's cinematic adaptation, "Greyhound".


title: Transparency and translucency

text: In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions are much larger than the wavelengths of the photons in question), the photons can be said to follow Snell's law. Translucency (also called translucence or translucidity) allows light to pass through, but does not necessarily (again, on the macroscopic scale) follow Snell's law; the photons can be scattered at either of the two interfaces, or internally, where there is a change in index of refraction. In other words, a translucent material is made up of components with different indices of refraction. A transparent material is made up of components with a uniform index of refraction. Transparent materials appear clear, with the overall appearance of one color, or any combination leading up to a brilliant spectrum of every color. The opposite property of translucency is opacity.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: When light encounters a material, it can interact with it in several different ways. These interactions depend on the wavelength of the light and the nature of the material. Photons interact with an object by some combination of reflection, absorption and transmission.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Some materials, such as plate glass and clean water, transmit much of the light that falls on them and reflect little of it; such materials are called optically transparent. Many liquids and aqueous solutions are highly transparent. Absence of structural defects (voids, cracks, etc.) and molecular structure of most liquids are mostly responsible for excellent optical transmission.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Materials which do not transmit light are called opaque. Many such substances have a chemical composition which includes what are referred to as absorption centers. Many substances are selective in their absorption of white light frequencies. They absorb certain portions of the visible spectrum while reflecting others. The frequencies of the spectrum which are not absorbed are either reflected or transmitted for our physical observation. This is what gives rise to color. The attenuation of light of all frequencies and wavelengths is due to the combined mechanisms of absorption and scattering.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Transparency can provide almost perfect camouflage for animals able to achieve it. This is easier in dimly-lit or turbid seawater than in good illumination. Many marine animals such as jellyfish are highly transparent.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: With regard to the scattering of light, the most critical factor is the length scale of any or all of these structural features relative to the wavelength of the light being scattered. Primary material considerations include:


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Diffuse reflection - Generally, when light strikes the surface of a (non-metallic and non-glassy) solid material, it bounces off in all directions due to multiple reflections by the microscopic irregularities "inside" the material (e.g., the grain boundaries of a polycrystalline material, or the cell or fiber boundaries of an organic material), and by its surface, if it is rough. Diffuse reflection is typically characterized by omni-directional reflection angles. Most of the objects visible to the naked eye are identified via diffuse reflection. Another term commonly used for this type of reflection is "light scattering". Light scattering from the surfaces of objects is our primary mechanism of physical observation.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Light scattering in liquids and solids depends on the wavelength of the light being scattered. Limits to spatial scales of visibility (using white light) therefore arise, depending on the frequency of the light wave and the physical dimension (or spatial scale) of the scattering center. Visible light has a wavelength scale on the order of a half a micrometer. Scattering centers (or particles) as small as one micrometer have been observed directly in the light microscope (e.g., Brownian motion).


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Optical transparency in polycrystalline materials is limited by the amount of light which is scattered by their microstructural features. Light scattering depends on the wavelength of the light. Limits to spatial scales of visibility (using white light) therefore arise, depending on the frequency of the light wave and the physical dimension of the scattering center. For example, since visible light has a wavelength scale on the order of a micrometer, scattering centers will have dimensions on a similar spatial scale. Primary scattering centers in polycrystalline materials include microstructural defects such as pores and grain boundaries. In addition to pores, most of the interfaces in a typical metal or ceramic object are in the form of grain boundaries which separate tiny regions of crystalline order. When the size of the scattering center (or grain boundary) is reduced below the size of the wavelength of the light being scattered, the scattering no longer occurs to any significant extent.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: In the formation of polycrystalline materials (metals and ceramics) the size of the crystalline grains is determined largely by the size of the crystalline particles present in the raw material during formation (or pressing) of the object. Moreover, the size of the grain boundaries scales directly with particle size. Thus a reduction of the original particle size well below the wavelength of visible light (about 1/15 of the light wavelength or roughly 600/15 = 40 nanometers) eliminates much of light scattering, resulting in a translucent or even transparent material.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Computer modeling of light transmission through translucent ceramic alumina has shown that microscopic pores trapped near grain boundaries act as primary scattering centers. The volume fraction of porosity had to be reduced below 1% for high-quality optical transmission (99.99 percent of theoretical density). This goal has been readily accomplished and amply demonstrated in laboratories and research facilities worldwide using the emerging chemical processing methods encompassed by the methods of sol-gel chemistry and nanotechnology.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Transparent ceramics have created interest in their applications for high energy lasers, transparent armor windows, nose cones for heat seeking missiles, radiation detectors for non-destructive testing, high energy physics, space exploration, security and medical imaging applications. Large laser elements made from transparent ceramics can be produced at a relatively low cost. These components are free of internal stress or intrinsic birefringence, and allow relatively large doping levels or optimized custom-designed doping profiles. This makes ceramic laser elements particularly important for high-energy lasers.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: The development of transparent panel products will have other potential advanced applications including high strength, impact-resistant materials that can be used for domestic windows and skylights. Perhaps more important is that walls and other applications will have improved overall strength, especially for high-shear conditions found in high seismic and wind exposures. If the expected improvements in mechanical properties bear out, the traditional limits seen on glazing areas in today's building codes could quickly become outdated if the window area actually contributes to the shear resistance of the wall.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Currently available infrared transparent materials typically exhibit a trade-off between optical performance, mechanical strength and price. For example, sapphire (crystalline alumina) is very strong, but it is expensive and lacks full transparency throughout the 3–5 micrometer mid-infrared range. Yttria is fully transparent from 3–5 micrometers, but lacks sufficient strength, hardness, and thermal shock resistance for high-performance aerospace applications. Not surprisingly, a combination of these two materials in the form of the yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG) is one of the top performers in the field.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: When light strikes an object, it usually has not just a single frequency (or wavelength) but many. Objects have a tendency to selectively absorb, reflect or transmit light of certain frequencies. That is, one object might reflect green light while absorbing all other frequencies of visible light. Another object might selectively transmit blue light while absorbing all other frequencies of visible light. The manner in which visible light interacts with an object is dependent upon the frequency of the light, the nature of the atoms in the object, and often the nature of the electrons in the atoms of the object.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Some materials allow much of the light that falls on them to be transmitted through the material without being reflected. Materials that allow the transmission of light waves through them are called optically transparent. Chemically pure (undoped) window glass and clean river or spring water are prime examples of this.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Materials which do not allow the transmission of any light wave frequencies are called opaque. Such substances may have a chemical composition which includes what are referred to as absorption centers. Most materials are composed of materials which are selective in their absorption of light frequencies. Thus they absorb only certain portions of the visible spectrum. The frequencies of the spectrum which are not absorbed are either reflected back or transmitted for our physical observation. In the visible portion of the spectrum, this is what gives rise to color.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Absorption centers are largely responsible for the appearance of specific wavelengths of visible light all around us. Moving from longer (0.7 micrometer) to shorter (0.4 micrometer) wavelengths: red, orange, yellow, green and blue (ROYGB) can all be identified by our senses in the appearance of color by the selective absorption of specific light wave frequencies (or wavelengths). Mechanisms of selective light wave absorption include:


title: Transparency and translucency

text: In electronic absorption, the frequency of the incoming light wave is at or near the energy levels of the electrons within the atoms which compose the substance. In this case, the electrons will absorb the energy of the light wave and increase their energy state, often moving outward from the nucleus of the atom into an outer shell or orbital.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: The atoms that bind together to make the molecules of any particular substance contain a number of electrons (given by the atomic number Z in the periodic chart). Recall that all light waves are electromagnetic in origin. Thus they are affected strongly when coming into contact with negatively charged electrons in matter. When photons (individual packets of light energy) come in contact with the valence electrons of atom, one of several things can and will occur:


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Most of the time, it is a combination of the above that happens to the light that hits an object. The states in different materials vary in the range of energy that they can absorb. Most glasses, for example, block ultraviolet (UV) light. What happens is the electrons in the glass absorb the energy of the photons in the UV range while ignoring the weaker energy of photons in the visible light spectrum. But there are also existing special glass types, like special types of borosilicate glass or quartz that are UV-permeable and thus allow a high transmission of ultra violet light.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Thus, when a material is illuminated, individual photons of light can make the valence electrons of an atom transition to a higher electronic energy level. The photon is destroyed in the process and the absorbed radiant energy is transformed to electric potential energy. Several things can happen then to the absorbed energy: it may be re-emitted by the electron as radiant energy (in this case the overall effect is in fact a scattering of light), dissipated to the rest of the material (i.e. transformed into heat), or the electron can be freed from the atom (as in the photoelectric and Compton effects).


title: Transparency and translucency

text: The primary physical mechanism for storing mechanical energy of motion in condensed matter is through heat, or thermal energy. Thermal energy manifests itself as energy of motion. Thus, heat is motion at the atomic and molecular levels. The primary mode of motion in crystalline substances is vibration. Any given atom will vibrate around some mean or average position within a crystalline structure, surrounded by its nearest neighbors. This vibration in two dimensions is equivalent to the oscillation of a clock's pendulum. It swings back and forth symmetrically about some mean or average (vertical) position. Atomic and molecular vibrational frequencies may average on the order of 10 cycles per second (Terahertz radiation).


title: Transparency and translucency

text: When a light wave of a given frequency strikes a material with particles having the same or (resonant) vibrational frequencies, then those particles will absorb the energy of the light wave and transform it into thermal energy of vibrational motion. Since different atoms and molecules have different natural frequencies of vibration, they will selectively absorb different frequencies (or portions of the spectrum) of infrared light. Reflection and transmission of light waves occur because the frequencies of the light waves do not match the natural resonant frequencies of vibration of the objects. When infrared light of these frequencies strikes an object, the energy is reflected or transmitted.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: If the object is transparent, then the light waves are passed on to neighboring atoms through the bulk of the material and re-emitted on the opposite side of the object. Such frequencies of light waves are said to be transmitted.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: An object may be not transparent either because it reflects the incoming light or because it absorbs the incoming light. Almost all solids reflect a part and absorb a part of the incoming light.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: When light falls onto a block of metal, it encounters atoms that are tightly packed in a regular lattice and a "sea of electrons" moving randomly between the atoms. In metals, most of these are non-bonding electrons (or free electrons) as opposed to the bonding electrons typically found in covalently bonded or ionically bonded non-metallic (insulating) solids. In a metallic bond, any potential bonding electrons can easily be lost by the atoms in a crystalline structure. The effect of this delocalization is simply to exaggerate the effect of the "sea of electrons". As a result of these electrons, most of the incoming light in metals is reflected back, which is why we see a shiny metal surface.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Most insulators (or dielectric materials) are held together by ionic bonds. Thus, these materials do not have free conduction electrons, and the bonding electrons reflect only a small fraction of the incident wave. The remaining frequencies (or wavelengths) are free to propagate (or be transmitted). This class of materials includes all ceramics and glasses.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: If a dielectric material does not include light-absorbent additive molecules (pigments, dyes, colorants), it is usually transparent to the spectrum of visible light. Color centers (or dye molecules, or "dopants") in a dielectric absorb a portion of the incoming light. The remaining frequencies (or wavelengths) are free to be reflected or transmitted. This is how colored glass is produced.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Most liquids and aqueous solutions are highly transparent. For example, water, cooking oil, rubbing alcohol, air, and natural gas are all clear. Absence of structural defects (voids, cracks, etc.) and molecular structure of most liquids are chiefly responsible for their excellent optical transmission. The ability of liquids to "heal" internal defects via viscous flow is one of the reasons why some fibrous materials (e.g., paper or fabric) increase their apparent transparency when wetted. The liquid fills up numerous voids making the material more structurally homogeneous.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Light scattering in an ideal defect-free crystalline (non-metallic) solid which provides "no scattering centers" for incoming light will be due primarily to any effects of anharmonicity within the ordered lattice. Light transmission will be highly directional due to the typical anisotropy of crystalline substances, which includes their symmetry group and Bravais lattice. For example, the seven different crystalline forms of quartz silica (silicon dioxide, SiO) are all clear, transparent materials.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Optically transparent materials focus on the response of a material to incoming light waves of a range of wavelengths. Guided light wave transmission via frequency selective waveguides involves the emerging field of fiber optics and the ability of certain glassy compositions to act as a transmission medium for a range of frequencies simultaneously (multi-mode optical fiber) with little or no interference between competing wavelengths or frequencies. This resonant mode of energy and data transmission via electromagnetic (light) wave propagation is relatively lossless.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: An optical fiber is a cylindrical dielectric waveguide that transmits light along its axis by the process of total internal reflection. The fiber consists of a core surrounded by a cladding layer. To confine the optical signal in the core, the refractive index of the core must be greater than that of the cladding. The refractive index is the parameter reflecting the speed of light in a material. (Refractive index is the ratio of the speed of light in vacuum to the speed of light in a given medium. The refractive index of vacuum is therefore 1.) The larger the refractive index, the more slowly light travels in that medium. Typical values for core and cladding of an optical fiber are 1.48 and 1.46, respectively.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: When light traveling in a dense medium hits a boundary at a steep angle, the light will be completely reflected. This effect, called total internal reflection, is used in optical fibers to confine light in the core. Light travels along the fiber bouncing back and forth off of the boundary. Because the light must strike the boundary with an angle greater than the critical angle, only light that enters the fiber within a certain range of angles will be propagated. This range of angles is called the acceptance cone of the fiber. The size of this acceptance cone is a function of the refractive index difference between the fiber's core and cladding. Optical waveguides are used as components in integrated optical circuits (e.g. combined with lasers or light-emitting diodes, LEDs) or as the transmission medium in local and long haul optical communication systems.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Attenuation in fiber optics, also known as transmission loss, is the reduction in intensity of the light beam (or signal) with respect to distance traveled through a transmission medium. Attenuation coefficients in fiber optics usually use units of dB/km through the medium due to the very high quality of transparency of modern optical transmission media. The medium is usually a fiber of silica glass that confines the incident light beam to the inside. Attenuation is an important factor limiting the transmission of a signal across large distances. In optical fibers the main attenuation source is scattering from molecular level irregularities (Rayleigh scattering) due to structural disorder and compositional fluctuations of the glass structure. This same phenomenon is seen as one of the limiting factors in the transparency of infrared missile domes. Further attenuation is caused by light absorbed by residual materials, such as metals or water ions, within the fiber core and inner cladding. Light leakage due to bending, splices, connectors, or other outside forces are other factors resulting in attenuation.


title: Transparency and translucency

text: Many marine animals that float near the surface are highly transparent, giving them almost perfect camouflage. However, transparency is difficult for bodies made of materials that have different refractive indices from seawater. Some marine animals such as jellyfish have gelatinous bodies, composed mainly of water; their thick mesogloea is acellular and highly transparent. This conveniently makes them buoyant, but it also makes them large for their muscle mass, so they cannot swim fast, making this form of camouflage a costly trade-off with mobility. Gelatinous planktonic animals are between 50 and 90 percent transparent. A transparency of 50 percent is enough to make an animal invisible to a predator such as cod at a depth of ; better transparency is required for invisibility in shallower water, where the light is brighter and predators can see better. For example, a cod can see prey that are 98 percent transparent in optimal lighting in shallow water. Therefore, sufficient transparency for camouflage is more easily achieved in deeper waters. For the same reason, transparency in air is even harder to achieve, but a partial example is found in the


title: Transparency and translucency

text: glass frogs of the South American rain forest, which have translucent skin and pale greenish limbs. Several Central American species of clearwing (ithomiine) butterflies and many dragonflies and allied insects also have wings which are mostly transparent, a form of crypsis that provides some protection from predators.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 19)

text: The nineteenth season of the American medical drama television series "Grey's Anatomy" was announced on January 10, 2022, by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). It premiered on October 6, 2022, for the 2022–23 broadcast television season. Krista Vernoff returned for the season as executive producer and showrunner alongside her production company Trip the Light Productions. ABC Signature and Shondaland also co-produce the series.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 19)

text: The season sees Ellen Pompeo, who portrays the titular character, reduce her involvement in the series. Richard Flood does not return from the previous season. Kate Walsh will also appear in a recurring capacity. Jesse Williams and Greg Germann will also be returning as guest stars. This will be the first season to feature Alexis Floyd, Harry Shum Jr., Adelaide Kane, Midori Francis, and Niko Terho as series regulars.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 19)

text: Krista Vernoff, who serves as the showrunner and an executive producer of "Grey's Anatomy" and spin-off "Station 19" signed a two-year deal with ABC in 2021 to remain on both series through a potential nineteenth season. The deal also keeps Trip the Light Productions, Vernoff's production company, attached to the series. In December 2021 it was reported that negotiations for a renewal had begun between series star Ellen Pompeo, and production companies ABC Signature and Shondaland, the latter of which is run by series creator Shonda Rhimes. Network executives at ABC were interested in a nineteenth season due to its status as the longest-running primetime medical drama, high viewing figures, and profit generation. The season was officially renewed on January 10, 2022. As part of the renewal Pompeo received a promotion to executive producer, only previously being a co-executive producer. Betsy Beers, Debbie Allen, Meg Marinis and Mark Gordon also returned to executive produce. Zoanne Clack remained as the series' medical advisor and an executive producer, despite being hired as co-showrunner and executive producer on "Station 19" alongside Vernoff.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 19)

text: Kim Raver, Camilla Luddington, and Kevin McKidd each signed a three-year contract in July 2020 keeping them attached to the series through a potential nineteenth season to portray Dr. Teddy Altman, Dr. Jo Wilson, and Dr. Owen Hunt, respectively. When the series was announced it was also reported that Pompeo signed a one-year deal to return as Dr. Meredith Grey. Chandra Wilson who portrays Dr. Miranda Bailey and James Pickens Jr. who portrays Dr. Richard Webber also signed multi-year contracts to continue on the series. Caterina Scorsone confirmed in a tweet that she would be returning for the season as Dr. Amelia Shepherd, stating that she was memorizing lines for the first episode. On August 3, 2022, it was announced that Pompeo would be scaling back her work on the series, only appearing in a "limited capacity." in the first 8 episodes, as well as the season finale Pompeo will only star in eight of the 20–23 episodes, but will continue to narrate most other episodes of the seasons. The reduction in involvement on the series comes from Pompeo's casting in a Hulu series based on Natalia Grace and her adoption by U.S. parents, on which she will also be an executive producer. The role is the first new fictional character for Pompeo since her casting as Grey in 2005.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 19)

text: In July 2022, five new actors were added to the main cast to portray new surgical residents. Alexis Floyd, who previously starred "Inventing Anna", another Shondaland series; was the first of the five to be announced, and is set to play Simone Griffith. The character "never wanted to work at Grey Sloan because of a painful personal history with the hospital." Niko Terho was the next cast addition to be announced and will play Lucas Adams, a surgeon aiming to prove himself. Terho also starred in "Inventing Anna" and performed alongside Borelli in "The Thing About Harry". Mika Yasuda, a middle child used to being overlooked, will be portrayed by Midori Francis. Adelaide Kane joined the cast as Jules Millin, who's "not afraid to break the rules to save a life." Harry Shum Jr. was the last of five to be announced and is expected to portray Daniel “Blue” Kwan. Kwan is reportedly "generous by nature but competitive to a fault." When a promo trailer was released on September 6, 2022, it was revealed that the last name of Floyd's character was changed to Griffith and the first name of Shum's character had been changed to Benson.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 19)

text: ABC later confirmed that Kelly McCreary, Anthony Hill, Chris Carmack, and Jake Borelli would also be returning to the main cast. Of this group, only McCreary's contract had expired, but was renewed. Scott Speedman, who joined as a series regular in the previous season with a one-year contract, was set to be demoted to the recurring cast, but continued to receive main billing. Richard Flood is the only member of the ensemble cast to not return after departing in the latter half of the eighteenth season. On September 7, 2022, it was revealed that Kate Walsh would reprise her role as Dr. Addison Montgomery in a recurring role. On October 17, 2022, it was announced that Jesse Williams would return as a director, and guest star in the fifth episode of the nineteenth season.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 19)

text: When ABC revealed its fall schedule for the 2022–23 broadcast television season, it was reported that the season would hold its previous timeslot of Thursdays at 9:00pm Eastern Time (ET), serving as a lead-out of "Station 19". The season premiere was later scheduled for October 6, 2022.


title: Godflesh

text: Godflesh are an English industrial metal band from Birmingham. The group formed in 1982 under the title Fall of Because but did not release any complete music until 1988 when Justin Broadrick (guitar, vocals and programming) and G. C. Green (bass) renamed the band and decided to use a drum machine for percussion. Melding heavy metal with industrial music and later with electronic music and dub, Godflesh's sound is widely regarded as a foundational influence on other industrial metal and post-metal acts and as significant to both experimental and extreme metal.


title: Godflesh

text: The band signed to Earache Records in the late 1980s and released their debut album "Streetcleaner" (1989) to contemporary and lasting acclaim. After the release of their sophomore album "Pure" (1992) and their major label debut "Selfless" (1994), they started experimenting with live drums as well as hip hop and breakbeat sounds. The resulting albums, "Songs of Love and Hate" (1996) and "Us and Them" (1999), were followed by "Hymns" (2001), which saw a simplification of the band's style. Shortly after Green's departure in 2002, Broadrick ended Godflesh and pursued various other projects, such as Jesu. Broadrick and Green reformed Godflesh in 2010, releasing "A World Lit Only by Fire" (2014) and "Post Self" (2017) to critical acclaim.


title: Godflesh

text: As pioneers of industrial metal, Godflesh's early sound was defined by harsh machine beats, production-emphasised bass, distorted guitar and sparse vocals delivered in a low, guttural fashion. The band performed for most of their career as a duo with Broadrick and Green playing over preprogrammed percussion, normally to a backdrop of apocalyptic scenery and Christian iconography. Godflesh's music has been regarded as especially heavy and grim, with "Streetcleaner" being named by several publications as one of the heaviest and greatest metal albums.


title: Godflesh

text: The band that would eventually become Godflesh, Fall of Because, formed in 1982 when G. C. Green and Paul Neville, two young musicians living in cheap council estate housing in east Birmingham, started experimenting musically alongside a drum machine. Fall of Because, so named for a Killing Joke song and a chapter from an Aleister Crowley book, found a live drummer when Justin Broadrick, who lived in the same council housing as Green and Neville, joined the group in 1984 after organising a concert at The Mermaid in Birmingham. At that show, Fall of Because, Final (Broadrick's first musical act) and an early incarnation of Napalm Death performed before a crowd of twenty-five people. In the months following that concert, Broadrick joined Napalm Death as a guitarist and Fall of Because as a drummer and altered the latter's sound by introducing albums from Swans, Sonic Youth and Discharge to Green and Neville. Only fifteen at the time, Broadrick said he "usurped" their band.


title: Godflesh

text: Fall of Because recorded a demo titled "Extirpate" in 1986, which contained several tracks that would become Godflesh songs. Due to these recordings not being widely available until 1999, they were retrospectively recognised as "eerily" ahead of their time by "Exclaim!". Later in 1986, Broadrick was invited to play drums for Head of David, leading to his departure from Napalm Death and soon after from Fall of Because in 1987. Then, in March 1988, he left Head of David for being, according to Broadrick, "too noisy of a drummer", and contacted Green in April to reform Fall of Because as a duo. In that reformation, Broadrick took over on guitar, and the band went back to employing a drum machine for percussion. It was then that the group was renamed Godflesh. Broadrick explained the new name by saying, "I heard someone once say that music is the voice of God. The word 'God' conjures something immense and inconceivable. The 'flesh' part is what effects you on a physical level. Our music is loud and destructive."


title: Godflesh

text: Inspired by the bleak urban landscape of Birmingham and the extreme music Broadrick introduced to Green, Godflesh took on a distinctly heavier tone than the primarily Cure-influenced Fall of Because. In 1988, the band established a presence in underground music by releasing their self-titled extended play (EP) through the Swordfish label. That EP, considered the source of industrial metal alongside Ministry's 1988 studio album "The Land of Rape and Honey", combined programmed industrial beats, distorted vocals, low guitar and driving bass riffs to create the sound that Godflesh would become known for.


title: Godflesh

text: Shortly after the "Godflesh" release, the band recorded another EP titled "Tiny Tears" comprising four short, rough songs. Before Swordfish could release this EP, though, Godflesh were acquired by Earache Records, and the label's founder, Digby Pearson, convinced Broadrick and Green to shelve "Tiny Tears" and use the songs as bonus tracks on their first full-length album. The band agreed, and in 1989 they released "Streetcleaner", which went on to receive critical acclaim and recognition as a landmark album in heavy metal music. "Streetcleaner" saw the reintroduction of Neville into the band, this time as the second guitarist, and it marked the band's first release of many on Earache. The album further defined Godflesh's sound, standing out from other metal releases with unusual production that emphasised mechanical beats and percussive bass over guitar. "Streetcleaner" is regarded as particularly heavy and bleak.


title: Godflesh

text: From February to March 1991, Godflesh were again in the studio, recording the "Slavestate" EP, which saw the band experimenting with dance and more electronic elements. Later that year in April, Godflesh embarked on their first tour of North America (a leg of Earache's Grindcrusher tour) with labelmates Nocturnus and Napalm Death. According to Mike Browning of Nocturnus, most of the shows of the 45-day tour were attended by 200 to 300 people. Godflesh missed the first concert due to permit issues, but they made it to the second date at the L'Amour in Brooklyn. The venue was full, and when Godflesh took the stage, their drum machine failed and the band could not continue. When a replacement machine was eventually found, Broadrick and Green hastily programmed in four songs to be ready for the tour's third show at the Channel in Boston. Despite these initial difficulties, the rest of the tour went well and Godflesh drew surprisingly positive reception. "Slavestate" was released in July after Grindcrusher had concluded. In August and October of 1991, both Broadrick and Green guested on "Buried Secrets" (1992), an EP by Painkiller.


title: Godflesh

text: With the successes of "Streetcleaner", "Slavestate", a concert opening for Nirvana and the Grindcrusher tour, Godflesh started on their second album, this time without Neville, who chose to focus on his other project, Cable Regime, which featured Broadrick as a recurring producer. To fill the void, Robert Hampson of Loop was brought in to play on half of the new album's tracks as well as on "Cold World" (1991), an EP recorded in the same sessions. The sophomore album, "Pure", was released in 1992 through Earache and has since been recognised as an influential release in the post-metal genre. Musically, "Pure" was even more mechanical than "Streetcleaner", further emphasising the drum machine and featuring production that augmented the percussion with a stark, bleak atmosphere. Though Godflesh's most overt experiments with hip hop and breakbeats occurred later in their career, "Pure" featured elements of both buried under the wailing guitar, shouted vocals and aggressively repetitive drumming. The album continued its experimentation with atypical song structures on its conclusion, "Pure II", a twenty-minute ambient drone piece with a submerged beat that, as AllMusic's Ned Raggett said, "hits like a distant cannon".


title: Godflesh

text: Despite Broadrick's dissatisfaction with the mixing on "Pure" being "not heavy enough", many critics regarded the album as unrelenting; in a positive review, "Spin" Mike Gitter wrote that "Hiroshima was probably more fun [than "Pure"]". In support of the album, Godflesh planned to open for Ministry on another tour of North America, but instead ended up opening for the electro-industrial band Skinny Puppy on their "Last Rights" (1992) tour. Due again to issues with entering the United States, Godflesh were forced to cancel a number of these dates; they later returned to those markets as headliners to make the missed shows up. Broadrick retrospectively said that this era of the band stands as "the most honest representation of what Godflesh set out to achieve."


title: Godflesh

text: After a year of minimal activity in 1993, Godflesh were approached by several record labels. According to Broadrick, Danny Goldberg of Atlantic Records invited them to London and expressed his desire to acquire the band. About this period, Broadrick said, "They really thought that Godflesh could be the next Nine Inch Nails and that we would be selling out fucking stadiums. The buzz at the time was ridiculous. It outweighed the sales, obviously. It was all hype." Ultimately, the band ended up with major record label Columbia for the release of the EP "Merciless" in 1994, the title track of which was originally a Fall of Because song. Another EP, "Messiah" was recorded during these sessions, but it was not released on a wide scale until 2003 through Relapse Records. Later in 1994, the band released their third album, "Selfless", which represented a shift in the group to a more high-end production approach and to a greater focus on traditional heavy metal riffs. Despite being the band's best-selling record with approximately 180,000 copies shipped, "Selfless" was deemed a commercial disappointment. This coupled with the ban of Godflesh's first major music video led to the end of their collaboration with Columbia.


title: Godflesh

text: Feeling abandoned after being abruptly dropped by Columbia, Godflesh were briefly directionless in 1995. In 1996, the band returned to Earache and created their fourth studio album, "Songs of Love and Hate", which was Godflesh's first music made with a human drummer since the early Fall of Because days; Bryan Mantia of Praxis provided the aggressive, non-mechanical drumming. In retrospect, Broadrick believed "Songs of Love and Hate" marked the point where Godflesh lost sight of their original goal and started making "self-conscious" music. When it came time for the album's 1996 tour, Mantia made the move to join Primus, and Godflesh recruited Ted Parsons of Prong and Swans to perform on the tour in his place. Along with the album's follow-up remix release, "Love and Hate in Dub" (1997), "Songs of Love and Hate" moved away from Godflesh's industrial roots into experimentation with conventional verse-chorus format, hip hop, dub and drum and bass. The remix album was supported by a one-off concert on 4 October 1997 at The Garage, London where Broadrick operated a mixing desk, Steve Hough played guitar, Green played bass and Diarmuid Dalton provided support on a Moog synthesiser.


title: Godflesh

text: This experimentation continued and increased with Godflesh's next album, "Us and Them" (1999). While live drumming was dropped again in favour of percussive machines, "Us and Them" saw the group going further with electronics and drum-and-bass-oriented sound than ever before. Broadrick was quick to admit that he "hated" the album and that it was an "identity crisis". Retrospectively, though, he revised his thoughts, saying that his hatred was overstated despite him still having issues with the album. Shortly after releasing "Us and Them" in 1999, Godflesh began work on a proposed remix album, "Us and Them in Dub". While this album was never released, two tracks from it appeared on the 2001 compilation "In All Languages". Also in 1999, "Life Is Easy", an album compiling Godflesh's recordings as Fall of Because, was released on the Alleysweeper label and distributed via Martin Atkins' Invisible Records label.


title: Godflesh

text: Following the release of the double album compilation "In All Languages", Godflesh released their sixth studio album, "Hymns" (2001) through several different labels. The album again saw Godflesh with a human drummer; Parsons returned to provide the live percussion and, according to Broadrick, the inspiration for Godflesh to continue. "Hymns" marked a dramatic shift away from Godflesh's recent experimentation, moving instead into the realm of direct heavy metal, with only a few tracks revealing hip hop or electronic influence; Broadrick wanted "Hymns" to be more of a rock album than any other Godflesh releases. The album was recorded in a professional studio and a producer outside of the band was brought in to oversee the process, two firsts for Godflesh that Parsons believed to be mistakes. Despite receiving positive reviews, the final product of "Hymns" was ultimately dissatisfying for Broadrick, so much so that he restored it to a state resembling its demos on the 2013 reissue. With the band disheartened by "Hymns"' troubled production and dreading an upcoming tour, the direct future of Godflesh was unclear.


title: Godflesh

text: In October 2001, the same month "Hymns" was released, Broadrick received a call from Green just two weeks before Godflesh were set to tour with Strapping Young Lad and Fear Factory. Over the phone, Green expressed frustration at having to open for young bands despite being in the business since 1982, as well as being forced into a tour for an album that was manipulated from the outside. Green tearfully left Godflesh to return to university and focus on his relationship with his partner. To cope with the departure of his friend, Broadrick devoted all of his effort to maintaining the band. It was quickly announced that Green would be replaced by former Killing Joke and Prong bassist Paul Raven. Though this configuration of Godflesh came up with some ideas for another studio album (namely the usage of a rhythm from Public Enemy's "Shut 'Em Down"), Broadrick was "always aware that a new album was never going to happen". Not long after this short-lived incarnation of Godflesh performed a handful of shows that Broadrick later said "felt completely wrong", he experienced a nervous breakdown the day before departing for another tour of North America, this time with High on Fire and Isis. He recalled the breakdown as a "real Brian Wilson moment" and said, "I felt paralyzed by the stress, which had been building for several months, and I literally couldn't get out of bed. I was numb and couldn't move, so when the car came to pick me up to take me to the airport, I ran and hid at another friend's house in Birmingham." All of the shows were called off, and Godflesh officially disbanded on 10 April 2002.


title: Godflesh

text: The cancelled tour caused a number of problems for Broadrick; his thirteen-year relationship with his girlfriend dissolved, and a bus driver who had been hired for the tour threatened his life. In a panic, Broadrick remortgaged his house and amassed approximately US$35,000 to pay the driver and everyone else who had been affected by the cancellation. Broadrick, at a low point in his life, was left with little to do but work on new, different music. About the period, he said, "My only solace, my only escape at that time was recording the first Jesu album." "Jesu", the closing track of "Hymns" and, until 2014, the last original Godflesh song, ended with a hidden passage of unusual peacefulness and melodicism. Broadrick's next project, bearing the same title of Jesu, adopted that shoegaze sound and the new band's first EP, "Heart Ache", was released in 2004. On promotional material for "Heart Ache", a message from Broadrick read, "Godflesh is dead, long live Jesu."


title: Godflesh

text: After Godflesh's dissolution, Broadrick and Green rarely spoke. Though there was no falling out between the two members, Broadrick assumed the project permanently dead, believing that Green's interest in it was gone. Regardless, Broadrick decided in 2009 to approach Green with an offer to reform, something that promoters had been pushing for years. Green responded to Broadrick's call within a few hours, saying he would love to do it. Both members quickly agreed that the most important thing for the reunion's integrity was that they return to a drum machine for percussion. In November 2009, the reunion was made public when Godflesh announced they would perform at the 2010 edition of the Hellfest Summer Open Air in Clisson, France. Asked in a February 2010 interview about Godflesh's future, Broadrick replied, "Godflesh will not commit to anything but Hellfest currently. I am unsure as to where we will go from there, if we go anywhere at all." He also revealed that the likelihood of new material was "fairly minimal", but that the possibility still existed; though later, in 2014, he insisted that "ultimately, the whole reformation thing was pretty much fundamentally about wanting to make new music". On 18 June 2010, Godflesh performed for their first time since 2001 at Hellfest. The show was fraught with technical difficulties, ending up as a forty-minute set instead of the intended sixty minutes. Despite the frustration of the return performance, Godflesh continued to play festivals throughout 2010 and 2011, including the 2011 edition of the Roadburn festival in Tilburg, Netherlands, where they performed their first album, "Streetcleaner", in its entirety. This performance was later released as the group's first in 2013.


title: Godflesh

text: In December 2010, Broadrick revealed to "Decibel" magazine that Godflesh were gradually assembling new ideas for a studio album. He explained, "It's something we're discussing all the time, and I do have bits and pieces of material. But it's something we'd really like to develop. It'd be quite easy to knock out eight to ten in-character songs and release it as quickly as possible to capitalise on the popularity of the group, but it would feel entirely wrong." In 2011, Godflesh (along with Black Sabbath, Napalm Death, Judas Priest and Led Zeppelin) were recognised by the UK-based "Home of Metal" archival project as significant contributors to the heavy metal genre. With this accolade absorbed, Broadrick continued to confirm the existence of a new Godflesh album throughout 2012, saying it would most likely be out in 2013 after a new EP. In 2013, Godflesh released their first new recording in over twelve years, a cover of Slaughter's "F.O.D. (Fuck of Death)", through "Decibel" magazine's flexi disc Series. The flexi disc was included in the November 2013 issue of "Decibel". Later in 2013, Godflesh performed "Pure" in its entirety at Roadburn, featuring Hampson on guitar for part of the set. In 2014, Broadrick said that disbanding Godflesh was the best thing they had ever done and stated that the upcoming album was his favourite since 1994's "Selfless".


title: Godflesh

text: From 2012 to 2014, Godflesh were in Broadrick's private studio, working on their seventh album. The process was slow due to Broadrick's commitment to making a proper Godflesh album instead of a hollow exploitation of the reformation's media attention. After a long revision process, the 2014 EP "Decline & Fall" and the 2014 album "A World Lit Only by Fire" came out of those sessions, both of which featured Broadrick on an eight-string guitar. The album was the band's first to chart in the U.S., and it was met with critical acclaim, drawing praise for its extreme weight and being lauded as the ideal return for Godflesh. Musically, Broadrick stated "A World Lit Only by Fire" was most similar to "Streetcleaner" and "Pure", and Green added that it was "spiritually" close to those first few releases. About the album's sound, Broadrick said, "It's extremely minimal and very, very brutal — a fairly unforgiving record, really, I think." "Decline & Fall" and "A World Lit Only by Fire" were heavy, distorted, riff-driven industrial releases that Broadrick saw as a return to the direct simplicity of Godflesh's original form. All of the recording, engineering, artwork and packaging was done by Godflesh through Broadrick's own label, Avalanche Recordings.