IN: William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 - August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, politician, and newspaper publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company Hearst Communications and whose flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father.

As biographer Ben Proctor explains: During the 1920s he became an avowed Jeffersonian Democrat, warning his fellow citizens against the dangers of big government, of unchecked federal power that could infringe on the individual rights of Americans, especially if a charismatic leader was in charge....[After supporting FDR in 1932] Hearst soon became highly critical of the New Deal. With increasing frequency Hearst newspapers supported big business to the detriment of organized labor. With unabated vigor they condemned higher income tax legislation as a persecution of the "successful." Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid 1930s, but they included much of the working class that Roosevelt had swept by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers--like most major chains--had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year. In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Goring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America.

Why were John and Jacqueline Kennedy at one of his homes?

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IN: Haruki Murakami (Cun Shang Chun Shu , Murakami Haruki, born January 12, 1949) is a Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country. The critical acclaim for his fiction and non-fiction has led to numerous awards, in Japan and internationally, including the World Fantasy Award (2006) and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (2006). His oeuvre received, for example, the Franz Kafka Prize (2006) and the Jerusalem Prize (2009).

Most of Haruki Murakami's works use first-person narrative in the tradition of the Japanese I Novel. He states that because family plays a significant role in traditional Japanese literature, any main character who is independent becomes a man who values freedom and solitude over intimacy. Also notable is Murakami's unique humor, as seen in his 2000 short story collection, After the Quake. In the story "Superfrog Saves Tokyo", the protagonist is confronted with a 6-foot tall frog that talks about the destruction of Tokyo over a cup of tea. In spite of the story's sober tone, Murakami feels the reader should be entertained once the seriousness of a subject has been broached. Another notable feature of Murakami's stories are the comments that come from the main characters as to how strange the story presents itself. Murakami explains that his characters experience what he experiences as he writes, which could be compared to a movie set where the walls and props are all fake. Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music, such as the three books making up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: The Thieving Magpie (after Rossini's opera), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann usually known in English as The Prophet Bird), and The Bird-Catcher (a character in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute). Some of his novels take their titles from songs: Dance, Dance, Dance (after The Dells' 1957 B-side song, although it is often thought it was titled after the Beach Boys' 1964 tune), Norwegian Wood (after The Beatles' song) and South of the Border, West of the Sun (after the song "South of the Border"). Some analyses see aspects of shamanism in his writing. In a 2000 article, Susan Fisher connected Japanese folk religion or Japanese shamanism with some elements of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, such as a descent into a dry well. At an October 2013 symposium held at the University of Hawaii, associate professor of Japanese Nobuko Ochner opined "there were many descriptions of traveling in a parallel world as well as characters who have some connection to shamanism" in Murakami's works.

What themes are in his writing?

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Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music,