Problem: Simon was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy Simon (nee Ligeti), a homemaker, and Bernard Simon, a former journalist and then public relations director for B'nai B'rith for 20 years. In March 1977, when Simon was still in high school, Simon's father was one of a group of over 140 people held hostage (and later released) in Washington, D.C. by former national secretary of the Nation of Islam Hamaas Abdul Khaalis in the Hanafi Siege. Simon was raised in a Jewish family with roots that originated in Eastern Europe and Hungary (his maternal grandfather had changed his surname from "Leibowitz" to "Ligeti"). He has a brother, Gary Simon, and a sister, Linda Evans, who died in 1990.

Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. He spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience. Later in his career he aimed to tell the best possible story without "cheating it". Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon. In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual." In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book.

Did he win any awards?

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Background: Linda Maria Ronstadt was born in 1946 in Tucson, Arizona, daughter to Gilbert Ronstadt (1911-1995), a prosperous machinery merchant who ran the F. Ronstadt Co., and Ruth Mary (Copeman) Ronstadt (1914-1982), a homemaker. Ronstadt was raised on the family's 10-acre (4 ha) ranch with her siblings Peter (who served as Tucson's Chief of Police for 10 years, 1981-1991), Michael J., and Gretchen (Suzy). The family was featured in Family Circle magazine in 1953. Linda's father came from a pioneering Arizona ranching family and was of German, English, and Mexican ancestry.
Context: Ronstadt's early family life was filled with music and tradition, which influenced the stylistic and musical choices she later made in her career. Growing up, she listened to many types of music, including Mexican music, which was sung by her entire family and was a staple in her childhood. Ronstadt has remarked that everything she has recorded on her own records - rock 'n' roll, jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, opera, country, choral, and mariachi - is all music she heard her family sing in their living room, or heard played on the radio, by the age of 10. She credits her mother for her appreciation of Gilbert and Sullivan and her father for introducing her to the traditional pop and Great American Songbook repertoire that she would, in turn, help reintroduce to an entire generation. Early on, her singing style had been influenced by singers such as Lola Beltran and Edith Piaf; she has called their singing and rhythms "more like Greek music ... It's sort of like 6/8 time signature ... very hard driving and very intense." She also drew influence from country singer Hank Williams. She has said that "all girl singers" eventually "have to curtsy to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday". Of Maria Callas, Ronstadt says, "There's no one in her league. That's it. Period. I learn more ... about singing rock n roll from listening to Maria Callas records than I ever would from listening to pop music for a month of Sundays. ... She's the greatest chick singer ever." She admires Callas for her musicianship and her attempts to push 20th-century singing, particularly opera, back into the bel canto "natural style of singing". A self-described product of American radio of the 1950s and 1960s, Ronstadt is a fan of its eclectic and diverse music programming.
Question: anything else which was influential?
Answer: She admires Callas for her musicianship and her attempts to push 20th-century singing,

Question:
Rose Marie "Rosemary" Kennedy (September 13, 1918 - January 7, 2005) was the oldest daughter born to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and was a sister of President John F. Kennedy, and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy. Rosemary experienced mental disabilities, and displayed less academic and sporting potential than her siblings; however, her disabilities were carefully concealed from the public by her prominent family. In her early young adult years, she also had behavioral problems. Her father arranged one of the first prefrontal lobotomies for her at the age of 23, but it failed and left her permanently incapacitated.
Kennedy was presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father's service as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Her father presented his daughters instead of, more customarily, choosing about thirty young American debutantes, a decision which earned him favor in the press. Kennedy's "slowness" was also unconventional and daring for a debut (two of the queen's nieces remained in a mental hospital because they were mentally ill). Young women would practice the rather complicated royal curtsey, sometimes learning the performance at the Vacani School of Dancing near Harrods. She practiced for hours. She wore a gown made of white tulle with a net train and carried a bouquet of lilies of the valley. Her sister Kathleen was described as "stunning, but she was only a shadow of Rosemary's beauty." Just as Rosemary was about to "glide off" by stepping to the right, she tripped and nearly fell. Rose Kennedy never discussed the incident and treated the debut as a triumph. The crowd made no sign, the King and the Queen smiled as if nothing had happened, and it is unknown whether Rosemary was aware of her own stumble. One Kennedy family biographer termed her "absolutely beautiful" with "a gorgeous smile." At twenty, she was "a picturesque young woman, a snow princess with flush cheeks, gleaming smile, plump figure, and a sweetly ingratiating manner to almost everyone she met." She enjoyed dancing, such as at her sister Kathleen's coming-out party. Kennedy's parents told Woman's Day that she was "studying to be a kindergarten teacher," and Parents was told that while she had "an interest in social welfare work, she is said to harbor a secret longing to go on the stage." The Boston Globe wrote requesting an interview which was refused, but her father's assistant Eddie Moore prepared a response, which Rosemary copied out laboriously, letter by letter: I have always had serious tastes and understand life is not given us just for enjoyment. For some time past, I have been studying the well known psychological method of Dr. Maria Montessori and I got my degree in teaching last year.
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What else did you find interesting about this?

Answer:
She enjoyed dancing, such as at her sister Kathleen's coming-out party.