Montel Brian Anthony Williams is an American television host and actor. He is known for hosting the daytime tabloid talk show The Montel Williams Show, which ran in syndication from 1991 to 2008. He currently hosts Military Makeover: Operation Career on Lifetime. Williams founded the Montel Williams MS Foundation after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999. He is noted for his service in both the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy, from which he retired after 22 years of service.
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with New Journalism, a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques. Much of Wolfe's work was satirical and centred on the counterculture of the 1960s and issues related to class, social status, and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites of New York City.
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist. He started working for The Washington Post as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the honorific title of associate editor though the Post no longer employs him.
An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of direct response television (DRTV), they are often program-length commercials, and are typically 28:30 or 58:30 minutes in length. Infomercials are also known as paid programming. This phenomenon started in the United States, where infomercials were typically shown overnight and early morning, outside peak prime time hours for commercial broadcasters. Some television stations chose to air infomercials as an alternative to the former practice of signing off, while other channels air infomercials 24 hours a day. Some stations also choose to air infomercials during the daytime hours, mostly on weekends, to fill in for unscheduled network or syndicated programming. By 2009, most infomercial spending in the U.S. occurred outside of the traditional overnight hours. Stations in most countries around the world have instituted similar media structures. The infomercial industry is worth over $200 billion.
Deep Throat is the pseudonym given to the secret informant who provided information in 1972 to Bob Woodward, who shared it with Carl Bernstein. Woodward and Bernstein were reporters for The Washington Post, and Deep Throat provided key details about the involvement of U.S. president Richard Nixon's administration in what came to be known as the Watergate scandal. In 2005, 31 years after Nixon's resignation and 11 years after Nixon's death, a family attorney stated that former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Associate Director Mark Felt was Deep Throat. By then, Felt was suffering from dementia and had previously denied being Deep Throat, but Woodward and Bernstein then confirmed the attorney's claim.
Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti was a philosopher and orator who questioned the state of spiritual liberation. Having pursued a religious path in his youth and eventually rejecting it, U.G. claimed to have experienced a devastating biological transformation on his 49th birthday, an event he refers to as "the calamity". He emphasized that this transformation back to "the natural state" is a rare, acausal, biological occurrence with no religious context. Because of this, he discouraged people from pursuing the "natural state" as a spiritual goal.
George Frederick Will is an American libertarian conservative writer and political commentator. He writes columns for The Washington Post on a regular basis, and provides commentary for NewsNation. In 1986, The Wall Street Journal called him "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America". Will won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977.
Robert Tilton is an American televangelist and the former pastor of the Word of Faith Family Church in Farmers Branch, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. At his ministry's peak in 1991, Tilton's infomercial-style program, Success-N-Life, aired in all 235 American television markets and brought in nearly $80 million per year; it was described as "the fastest growing television ministry in America."
Joel Scott Osteen is an American pastor, televangelist, businessman, and author based in Houston, Texas, United States. Known for his weekly televised services and several best-selling books, Osteen is one of the more prominent figures associated with prosperity theology and the Word of Faith movement.
Kevin Trudeau is an American author, salesman, and television personality known for promotion of his books and resulting legal cases involving the US Federal Trade Commission. His late-night infomercials, which promoted unsubstantiated health, diet, and financial advice, earned him a fortune but resulted in civil and criminal penalties for fraud, larceny, and contempt of court.
William Mark Felt Sr. was an American law enforcement officer who worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1942 to 1973 and was known for his role in the Watergate scandal. Felt was an FBI special agent who eventually rose to the position of Deputy Director, the Bureau's second-highest-ranking post. Felt worked in several FBI field offices prior to his promotion to the Bureau's headquarters. In 1980, he was convicted of having violated the civil rights of people thought to be associated with members of the Weather Underground, by ordering FBI agents to break into their homes and search the premises as part of an attempt to prevent bombings. He was ordered to pay a fine, but was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan during his appeal.
"Information wants to be free" is an expression that means either that all people should be able to access information freely, or that information naturally strives to become as freely available among people as possible. It is often used by technology activists to criticize laws that limit transparency and general access to information. People who criticize intellectual property law say the system of such government-granted monopolies conflicts with the development of a public domain of information. The expression is often credited to Stewart Brand, who was recorded saying it at a Hackers Conference in 1984.
Tyler Cowen is an American economist, columnist, and blogger. He is a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department.
Wendy Schaetzel Lesko is co-founder of Youth Infusion as well as co-founder of the Youth Activism Project. Lesko is an author of several books on youth-led advocacy, especially in the public policy arena, and recognized nationally as an expert on intergenerational collaboration.
On April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band Nirvana, was found dead at his home on Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle, Washington. Forensic investigators and a coroner later determined that Cobain had died on April 5, three days prior to the discovery of his body. The Seattle Police Department incident report stated that Cobain was found with a shotgun across his body, had suffered a visible gunshot wound to the head and that a suicide note had been discovered nearby. Seattle police confirmed his death as a suicide.
Anthony John Trenga is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia as well as the Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
Edward Joseph Snowden is an American former NSA intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2022.
Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff is a 2018 American satirical novel written by Sean Penn. Narrated from the point of view of Pappy Pariah, the book tells the story of Bob Honey, a supposed international assassin who kills elderly people with a mallet. Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, published the novel on March 27, 2018.
Mark Gauvreau Judge is an American author and journalist known for books about his suburban Washington, D.C. youth, recovery from alcoholism, and the role of music in American popular culture.
