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Rodney King

Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 –June 17, 2012) was an African-American man who was a victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was severely beaten by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) during his arrest after a high speed pursuit for driving while intoxicated on the I-210. An uninvolved resident, George Holliday, saw and filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and sent the footage, which showed Mr. King on the ground being beaten after initially evading arrest, to local news station KTLA. The incident was covered by news media around the world and caused a public uproar.

At a press conference, Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates announced that the four officers involved would be disciplined for use of excessive force and that three would face criminal charges. The LAPD initially charged King with "felony evading", but later dropped the charge. On his release, King spoke to reporters from his wheelchair, with his injuries evident: a broken right leg in a cast, his face badly cut and swollen, bruises on his body, and a burn area to his chest where he had been jolted with a stun gun. King described how he had knelt, spread his hands out, then slowly tried to move so as not to make any "stupid moves", being hit across the face by a billy club, and shocked. He said he was scared for his life as they drew guns on him.

Four officers were eventually tried on charges of use of excessive force. Of these, three were acquitted; the jury failed to reach a verdict on one charge for the fourth. Within hours of the acquittals, the 1992 Los Angeles riots started, sparked by outrage among racial minorities over the trial's verdict and related, longstanding social issues, overlaid with tensions between the African American and Korean American communities. The rioting lasted six days and killed 63 people, with 2,383 more injured; it ended only after the California Army National Guard, the Army, and the Marine Corps provided reinforcements to re-establish control. King advocated for a peaceful end to the conflict.

The federal government prosecuted a separate civil rights case, obtaining grand jury indictments of the four officers for violations of King's civil rights. Their trial in a federal district court ended in April 1993, with two of the officers being found guilty and sentenced to serve prison terms. The other two were acquitted of the charges. In a separate civil lawsuit in 1994, a jury found the City of Los Angeles liable and awarded King $3.8 million in damages.

Early life
King was born in Sacramento, California, in 1965, the son of Ronald and Odessa King. He and his four siblings grew up in Altadena, California. King attended John Muir High School and often talked about being inspired by his social science teacher, Robert E. Jones. King's father died in 1984 at the age of 42.

Marriage and family
King had a daughter with his girlfriend, Carmen Simpson. He later married Denetta Lyles (cousin to hate crime victim James Byrd Jr. and also cousin to rapper Mack 10) and had a daughter. King and Lyles eventually divorced. He later remarried and had a daughter with Crystal Waters. This marriage also ended in divorce.

1991 police assault in Los Angeles
Early in the morning of Sunday, March 3, 1991, King, with his friends Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms, were driving a 1987 Hyundai Excel west on the Foothill Freeway (Interstate 210) in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. The three had spent the night watching basketball and drinking at a friend's house in Los Angeles. At 12:30 a.m., officers Tim and Melanie Singer, husband and wife members of the California Highway Patrol, noticed King's car speeding on the freeway. They pursued King with lights and sirens, and the pursuit reached 117 mph (188 km/h), while King refused to pull over. King would later say he fled the police hoping to avoid a driving under the influence charge and the parole violation that could follow.

King left the freeway near the Hansen Dam Recreation Area and the pursuit continued through residential streets at speeds ranging from 55 to 80 mph, and through at least one red light. By this point, several police cars and a police helicopter had joined in the pursuit. After approximately 8 mi, officers cornered King in his car. The first five Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers to arrive were Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Rolando Solano.

Beating
Officer Tim Singer ordered King and his two passengers to exit the vehicle and to lie face down on the ground. Allen claims that he was manhandled, kicked, stomped, taunted and threatened. Helms was hit on the head while lying on the ground; he was treated for a laceration on the top of his head. His bloody baseball cap was turned over to police. King remained in the car. When he emerged, King was reported to have giggled, to have patted the ground and waved to the police helicopter overhead. King grabbed his buttocks, which Officer Melanie Singer took to mean King was reaching for a weapon, though he was later found to be unarmed. She drew her pistol and pointed it at King, ordering him to lie on the ground. Singer approached, gun drawn, preparing to arrest him. At this point, Koon, the ranking officer at the scene, told Singer that the LAPD was taking command and ordered all officers to holster their weapons.

According to the official report, LAPD Sergeant Koon ordered the four other LAPD officers at the scene—Briseno, Powell, Solano and Wind—to subdue and handcuff King using a technique called a "swarm", where multiple officers grab a suspect with empty hands, to overcome potential resistance quickly. The four officers claim King resisted attempts to restrain him when he stood up to remove Officers Powell and Briseno from his back. Both King and witnesses dispute that claim. The officers would also testify later that they believed King was under the influence of phencyclidine (PCP), although King's toxicology tested negative for the drug.

At this point, Holliday's video recording shows King on the ground after being tasered by Koon. He rises and rushes toward Powell—as argued in court, either to attack Powell or to flee—and King and Powell collided in a rush. Taser wire can be seen on King's body. Officer Powell strikes King with his baton, and King is knocked to the ground. Powell strikes King several more times with his baton. Briseno moves in, attempting to stop Powell from striking again, and Powell stands back. Koon reportedly said, "Stop! Stop! That's enough! That's enough!" King rises again, to his knees; Powell and Wind are seen hitting King with their batons.

Koon acknowledged ordering the continued use of batons, directing Powell and Wind to strike King with "power strokes". According to Koon, Powell and Wind used "bursts of power strokes, then backed off". The officers beat King. In the videotape, King continues to try to stand again. Koon orders the officers to "hit his joints, hit the wrists, hit his elbows, hit his knees, hit his ankles". Officers Wind, Briseno, and Powell attempted numerous baton strikes on King, resulting in some misses but with 33 blows hitting King, plus seven kicks. The officers again "swarm" King, but this time a total of eight officers are involved in the swarm. King is placed in handcuffs and cord cuffs, restraining his arms and legs. King is dragged on his abdomen to the side of the road to await the arrival of emergency medical rescue.

Holliday's video
Plumbing salesman and amateur videographer George Holliday's videotape of the beating was shot on his camcorder from his apartment near the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street in Lake View Terrace. Two days later (March 5), Holliday called LAPD headquarters at Parker Center to let the police department know that he had a videotape of the incident. Still, he could not find anyone interested in seeing the video. He went to KTLA television with his recording. Holliday, whose video camera was in another part of his residence, was unable to retrieve it until the officers were already in the act of beating King. The footage as a whole became an instant media sensation. Portions were aired numerous times, and it "turned what would otherwise have been a violent, but soon forgotten, encounter between the Los Angeles police and an uncooperative suspect into one of the most widely watched and discussed incidents of its kind".

Several "copwatch" organizations subsequently were started throughout the United States to safeguard against police abuse, including an umbrella group, October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality.

In 1992, these clips were added in the opening credits of Malcolm X.

Aftermath
King was taken to Pacifica Hospital after his arrest, where he was found to have suffered a fractured facial bone, a broken right ankle, and multiple bruises and lacerations. In a negligence claim filed with the city, King alleged he had suffered "11 skull fractures, permanent brain damage, broken [bones and teeth], kidney failure [and] emotional and physical trauma." Blood and urine samples were taken from King five hours after his arrest. At this time, King's blood alcohol content was measured to be 0.075%. This indicated that King was intoxicated during the initial arrest as defined by California law, but with the samples taken after a five hour delay, were then below the legal limit of 0.08%. The tests also showed traces of marijuana (26 ng/ml). Pacifica Hospital nurses reported that the officers who accompanied King (including Wind) openly joked and bragged about the number of times they had hit King. Officers obtained King's identification from his clothes pockets at that time. King later sued the city for damages, and a jury awarded him $3.8 million, as well as $1.7 million in attorney's fees. The city did not pursue charges against King for driving while intoxicated and evading arrest. District Attorney Ira Reiner believed there was insufficient evidence for prosecution. His successor Gil Garcetti thought that by December 1992, too much time had passed to charge King with evading arrest; he also noted that the statute of limitations on drunk driving had passed.

Charges against police officers and trial
At a press conference, announcing the four officers involved would be disciplined, and three would face criminal charges, Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates said: "We believe the officers used excessive force taking him into custody. In our review, we find that officers struck him with batons between fifty-three and fifty-six times." The LAPD initially charged King with "felony evading", but later dropped the charge.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney subsequently charged four police officers, including one sergeant, with assault and use of excessive force. Due to the extensive media coverage of the arrest, the trial received a change of venue from Los Angeles County to Simi Valley in neighboring Ventura County. The jury was composed of ten white jurors, one biracial male, one Latino, and one Asian American. The prosecutor, Terry L. White, was black. Mr. White was a Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County with 8 years of experience. The District Attorney's office denied that race was taken into account when selecting the prosecutor, and multiple trial attorneys from Los Angeles agreed that race likely played no role.

On April 29, 1992, the seventh day of jury deliberations, the jury acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force. The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force. The verdicts were based in part on the first three seconds of a blurry, 13-second segment of the videotape that, according to journalist Lou Cannon, had not been aired by television news stations in their broadcasts.

The first two seconds of videotape, contrary to the claims made by the accused officers, show King attempting to flee past Laurence Powell. During the next one minute and 19 seconds, King is beaten continuously by the officers. The officers testified that they tried to physically restrain King before the starting point of the videotape, but King was able to throw them off physically.

Afterward, the prosecution suggested that the jurors may have acquitted the officers because of becoming desensitized to the violence of the beating, as the defense played the videotape repeatedly in slow motion, breaking it down until its emotional impact was lost.

Outside the Simi Valley courthouse where the acquittals were delivered, county sheriff's deputies protected Stacey Koon from angry protesters on the way to his car. Movie director John Singleton, who was in the crowd at the courthouse, predicted, "By having this verdict, what these people did, they lit the fuse to a bomb."

Following a hung jury in Officer Laurence Powell's initial state court trial for assault, a retrial was postponed by Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg, pending the federal grand jury trial of Powell for violating King's civil rights. Judge Weisberg stated "I don't think that's in anyone's best interest, to have three trials on the same subject matter involving the same defendant." Subsequent to his trial by the federal grand jury, the assault charge against Officer Laurence Powell was dismissed in state court.

Christopher Commission
Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley created the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, also known as the Christopher Commission, in April 1991. Led by attorney Warren Christopher, it was created to conduct "a full and fair examination of the structure and operation of the LAPD", including its recruitment and training practices, internal disciplinary system, and citizen complaint system.

Los Angeles riots and the aftermath
Though few people at first considered race an essential factor in the case, including Rodney King's attorney, Steven Lerman, the Holliday videotape was at the time stirring deep resentment among black people in Los Angeles and other major cities in the United States, where they had often complained of police abuse against their communities. The officers' jury consisted of Ventura County residents: ten white, one Latino, one Asian. Lead prosecutor Terry White was black. On April 29, 1992, the jury acquitted three of the officers but could not agree on one of the charges against Powell.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley said, "The jury's verdict will not blind us to what we saw on that videotape. The men who beat Rodney King do not deserve to wear the uniform of the LAPD." President George H. W. Bush said, "Viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square with the video. Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I, and so was Barbara, and so were my kids."

Within hours of the acquittals, the 1992 Los Angeles riots began, lasting six days. African-Americans were outraged by the verdicts and began rioting in the streets along with the Latino communities. By the time law enforcement, the California Army National Guard, the United States Army, and the United States Marine Corps restored order, the riots had resulted in 63 deaths, 2,383 injuries, more than 7,000 fires, damage to 3,100 businesses, and nearly $1 billion in financial losses. Smaller riots occurred in other U.S. cities such as San Francisco, Las Vegas, Seattle, and as far east as Atlanta and New York City. A civil disturbance occurred on Yonge Street in Toronto, Canada when Canadians gathered to protest the acquittal in Los Angeles as well as a local police killing of a Black man in Toronto two days prior.

During the riots, on May 1, 1992, King made a television appearance pleading for an end to the riots:

"I just want to say – you know – can we, can we all get along? Can we, can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids? And ... I mean we've got enough smog in Los Angeles let alone to deal with setting these fires and things ... It's just not right. It's not right, and it's not going to change anything. We'll get our justice. They've won the battle, but they haven't won the war. We'll get our day in court, and that's all we want. And, just, uh, I love – I'm neutral. I love every – I love people of color. I'm not like they're making me out to be. We've got to quit. We've got to quit; I mean, after all, I could understand the first – upset for the first two hours after the verdict, but to go on, to keep going on like this and to see the security guard shot on the ground – it's just not right. It's just not right, because those people will never go home to their families again. And uh, I mean, please, we can, we can get along here. We all can get along. We just gotta. We gotta. I mean, we're all stuck here for a while. Let's, you know, let's try to work it out. Let's try to beat it, you know. Let's try to work it out."

The widely quoted line has been often paraphrased as, "Can we all just get along?" or "Can't we all just get along?"

Federal civil rights trial of officers
After the acquittals and the riots, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) sought indictments of the police officers for violations of King's civil rights. On May 7, federal prosecutors began presenting evidence to the federal grand jury in Los Angeles. On August 4, the grand jury returned indictments against the three officers for "willfully and intentionally using unreasonable force" and against Sergeant Koon for "willfully permitting and failing to take action to stop the unlawful assault" on King. Based on these indictments, a trial of the four officers in the United States District Court for the Central District of California began on February 25, 1993.

The federal trial focused more on the incident. On March 9 of the 1993 trial, King took the witness stand and described to the jury the events as he remembered them. The jury found Officer Laurence Powell and Sergeant Stacey Koon guilty, and they were subsequently sentenced to 30 months in prison. Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno were acquitted of all charges, but both were soon dismissed by the LAPD for their roles in the beating.

During the three-hour sentencing hearing, US District Judge John G. Davies accepted much of the defense version of the beating. He strongly criticized King, who, he said, provoked the officers' initial actions. Davies said that only the final six or so baton blows by Powell were unlawful. The first 55 seconds of the videotaped portion of the incident, during which the vast majority of the blows were delivered, was within the law because the officers were attempting to subdue a suspect who was resisting efforts to take him into custody.

Davies found that King's provocative behavior began with his "remarkable consumption of alcoholic beverage" and continued through a high-speed chase, refusal to submit to police orders and an aggressive charge toward Powell. Davies made several findings in support of the officers' version of events. He concluded that Officer Powell never intentionally struck King in the head, and "Powell's baton blow that broke King's leg was not illegal because King was still resisting and rolling around on the ground, and breaking bones in resistant suspects is permissible under police policy."

Mitigation cited by the judge in determining the length of the prison sentence included the suffering the officers had undergone because of the extensive publicity their case had received, high legal bills that were still unpaid, the impending loss of their careers as police officers, their higher risks of abuse while in prison, and their undergoing two trials. The judge acknowledged that the two trials did not legally constitute double jeopardy, but raised "the specter of unfairness".

These mitigations were critical to the validity of the sentences imposed because federal sentencing guidelines called for much longer prison terms in the range of 70 to 87 months. The low sentences were controversial and were appealed by the prosecution. In a 1994 ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected all the grounds cited by Judge Davies and extended the terms. The defense appealed the case to the US Supreme Court. Both Koon and Powell were released from prison while they appealed to the Ninth Circuit's ruling, having served their original 30-month sentences with time off for good behavior. On June 14, 1996, the high court partially reversed the lower court in a ruling, unanimous in its most important aspects, which gave a strong endorsement to judicial discretion, even under sentencing guidelines intended to produce uniformity.

Later life
Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley offered King $200,000 and a four-year college education funded by the city of Los Angeles. King refused and sued the city, and was subsequently awarded $3.8 million. Bryant Allen, one of the passengers in King's car on the night of the incident, received $35,000 in his lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles. The estate of Freddie Helms, the other passenger, settled for $20,000; Helms died in a car crash on June 29, 1991, age 20, in Pasadena. King invested a portion of his settlement in a record label, Straight Alta-Pazz Records, hoping to employ minority employees, but it went out of business. With help from a ghostwriter, he later wrote and published a memoir.

King was subject to further arrests and convictions for driving violations after the 1991 incident, as he struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction. In May 1991, King was arrested on suspicion of having tried to run down an undercover vice officer in Hollywood, but no charges were filed. In 1992, he was arrested for injuring his wife, Crystal King. Crystal ultimately declined to file a complaint. On August 21, 1993, King crashed his car into a block wall in downtown Los Angeles. He was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, fined, and entered a rehabilitation program, after which he was placed on probation. In July 1995, King was arrested by Alhambra police after hitting Crystal with his car and knocking her to the ground during a fight. King had previously been arrested twice on suspicion of abusing her. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail after being convicted of hit and run.

On August 27, 2003, King was arrested again for speeding and running a red light while under the influence of alcohol. He failed to yield to police officers and slammed his vehicle into a house, breaking his pelvis. On November 29, 2007, while riding home on his bicycle, King was shot in the face, arms, and back with pellets from a shotgun. He reported that the attackers were a man and a woman who demanded his bicycle and shot King when he rode away. Police described the wounds as looking as if they came from birdshot.

In May 2008, King checked into the Pasadena Recovery Center in Pasadena, California, where he filmed as a cast member of Season 2 of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, which premiered in October 2008. Dr. Drew Pinsky, who runs the facility, showed concern for King's life and said he would die unless his addictions were treated. King also appeared on Sober House, a Celebrity Rehab spin-off focusing on a sober living environment. During his time on Celebrity Rehab and Sober House, King worked on his addiction and what he said was lingering trauma of the beating. King and Pinsky physically retraced King's path from the night of his beating, eventually reaching the spot where it happened, the site of the Children's Museum of Los Angeles, which is now Discovery Cube Los Angeles.

In 2009, King and other Celebrity Rehab alumni appeared as panel speakers to a new group of addicts at the Pasadena Recovery Center, marking 11 months of sobriety for him. His appearance was aired in the third-season episode "Triggers." King won a celebrity boxing match against Chester, Pennsylvania, police officer Simon Aouad on September 11, 2009, at the Ramada Philadelphia Airport in Essington.

On September 9, 2010, it was confirmed that King was going to marry Cynthia Kelley, who had been a juror in the civil suit he brought against the City of Los Angeles. On March 3, 2011, the 20th anniversary of the beating, the LAPD stopped King for driving erratically and issued him a citation for driving with an expired license. This arrest led to a February 2012 misdemeanor conviction for reckless driving.

The BBC quoted King commenting on his legacy. "Some people feel like I'm some kind of hero. Others hate me. They say I deserved it. Other people, I can hear them mocking me for when I called for an end to the destruction like I'm a fool for believing in peace."

Memoir
In April 2012, King published his memoir, The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption. Co-authored by Lawrence J. Spagnola, the book describes King's turbulent youth as well as his personal account of the arrest, the trials, and the aftermath.

Death
On Father's Day, June 17, 2012, King's partner, Cynthia Kelley, found him dead underwater at the bottom of his swimming pool. King died 28 years to the day after his father, Ronald King, was found dead in his bathtub in 1984.

Police in Rialto received a 911 call from Kelley at about 5:25 a.m. PDT. Responding officers removed King from the pool and performed CPR on him. Still pulseless, King was then transferred to an advanced life support ambulance where paramedics attempted to revive him. King was transported to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, California, and was pronounced dead on arrival at 6:11 a.m. at the age of 47. The Rialto Police Department began a standard drowning investigation and said there did not appear to be any foul play.

On August 23, 2012, King's autopsy results were released, stating that he died of accidental drowning. The combination of alcohol, cocaine, and PCP found in his system were contributing factors, as were cardiomegaly and focal myocardial fibrosis. The conclusion of the report stated: "The effects of the drugs and alcohol, combined with the subject's heart condition, probably precipitated a cardiac arrhythmia, and the subject, incapacitated in the water, was unable to save himself."

Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy at King's funeral. King is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.

Legacy
King has become a symbol of police brutality, but his family remembers him as a "human, not a symbol." King never advocated for hatred or violence against the police, pleading, "Can we all get along?" Since his death, his daughter, Lora King, has worked with the LAPD to build bridges between the police and the black community. She also started a nonprofit, the Rodney King Foundation, on behalf of her father.

Films

 * The 1992 film Malcolm X includes a snippet of the Rodney King video.
 * The 1993 film Psycho Cop 2 parodies the King incident, in which the antagonist Joe Vickers is beaten down by bar patrons as a bystander videotapes the scene from his apartment balcony.
 * The 1994 film Natural Born Killers has a media montage that contains footage of King's plea to get along.
 * The 1996 film Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood depicts a parody, which shows police officers playing a "Beat Rodney King" arcade game in the police station.
 * The 1997 film Riot dissects the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict and the ensuing riots through four narratives.
 * An extended discussion on the subject led by Edward Norton is part of the 1998 film American History X.
 * The 1999 documentary film The Rodney King Incident: Race and Justice in America, produced and directed by Michael Pack, features an interview with Rodney King.
 * The 2003 American crime thriller Dark Blue starring Kurt Russell opens with footage of the assault on King.
 * The beating of King and the riots that followed were also mentioned in the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton, a biopic about the rap group NWA.
 * The 2017 film Rodney King, a one-man show produced by Spike Lee, alternately takes and opposes King's side.
 * The 2017 film Kings takes place in South Los Angeles during the riots.
 * The 2017 film LA 92 is a documentary film about the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Television

 * Doogie Howser, M.D. Season 4, Episode 1 titled "There's a Riot Going On" takes place during the aftermath of the riots. The episode was released September 23, 1992.
 * Boston Legal Season 1, episode 15, titled "Tortured Souls", features footage of King and discussion of the trials of the officers that followed. It aired in February 2005.
 * Roseanne Season 9, episode 9, titled "Roseambo", features King in a guest appearance in the tag scene. The scene can be found on the DVD's but has been edited out of syndication prints.
 * The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story opens with footage of the beating and subsequent riots in Los Angeles.
 * The beating was also depicted in Season 3, Episode 7 of the TV show 9-1-1.

Music

 * In 1991, Ice Cube's album; Death Certificate (album) featured a song titled "Alive On Arrival", in which Ice Cube mentions not wanting to go out like Rodney King.
 * In 1992, Dr. Dre released "The Day The Niggaz Took Over" on The Chronic, a song that refers to the looting, rioting, and anger that occurred after the police who had beaten King were found not guilty of most charges.
 * In 1992 again, Lucky People Center released 'Rodney King', a single featuring sampled dialogue & with the video including the footage of the incident.
 * Once again in 1992, Showbiz & A.G. released a song titled 'Represent' on their debut studio album; Runaway Slave, which included a line by Big L referencing the beating of Rodney King.
 * The Billy Idol song "Shock to the System" refers to what happened to Rodney King. It was featured in his 1993 album Cyberpunk.
 * In 1994, Dog Eat Dog released their album All Boro Kings which includes the song "Who's the King" that refers to Rodney King, his "Why can't we all get along" motto, and the police violence.
 * In 1996, Michael Jackson released as a second music video for his single "They Don't Care About Us". The music video features several references to human right violations, and contains real footage of police attacking African Americans including footage of King's assault.
 * The 1996 Sublime song "April 29, 1992" was written about the riots resulting from the King incident.
 * The 1997 song "Walkin' on the Sun" by Smash Mouth was written about the riots that followed King's assault.
 * The 1999 album The Battle of Los Angeles by Rage Against the Machine also refers to the riot which followed King's assault.
 * The 2004 song "Playboy" by Lloyd Banks on his debut album The Hunger For More mentions Rodney King.
 * The 2008 song "Mrs. Officer" by Lil Wayne on his sixth studio album, Tha Carter III mentions Rodney King.
 * The 2012 song "New God Flow" by Pusha T and Kanye West references him.
 * The 2012 song "A Wake" by Macklemore also refers to the King trial and subsequent riots.
 * The 2017 song "Send Me To War" by Dumbfoundead also refers to the riots and police brutality.
 * In 2018, Fever 333's song "Burn It" also mentions about Rodney King and the fights surrounding the assault.
 * In 2023, Fall Out Boy covered Billy Joel's 1989 hit song "We Didn't Start the Fire". Rodney King and the riots are mentioned in the cover.

Theatre

 * Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 is a one-woman play written and originally performed by Anna Deavere Smith about the riots following the Rodney King verdict.
 * The 2014 one-man play Rodney King by Roger Guenveur Smith is about King.

Literature

 * The 2020 novel Heal the Hood by Adaeze Nkechi Nwosu is about Rodney King's beating and the subsequent riots.
 * The 2020 short story "The Last Days of Rodney" by Tracey Rose Peyton takes on King's final days and his death.

Other

 * Neighbor Nahshon Dion Anderson, an award-winning writer, and a family friend observed the aftermath of the beating and recounted the details in an unpublished and untitled memoir.

title: Rodney King


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Flashdance

Flashdance is a 1983 American romantic drama dance film directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Jennifer Beals as a passionate young dancer, Alex Owens, who aspires to become a professional ballerina, alongside Michael Nouri, who plays her boyfriend and the owner of the steel mill where she works by day in Pittsburgh. It was the first collaboration of producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and the presentation of some sequences in the style of music videos was an influence on other 1980s films including Footloose, Purple Rain, and Top Gun, Simpson and Bruckheimer's most famous production. It was also one of Lyne's first major film releases, building on television commercials. Alex's elaborate dance sequences were shot using body doubles (Beals's main double was the uncredited French actress Marine Jahan, while a breakdance move was doubled by the male dancer Crazy Legs).

The film opened to negative reviews by professional critics, including Roger Ebert, who panned it as "great sound and flashdance, signifying nothing" (and eventually placed it on his "most hated" list). It was a surprise box-office success, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 1983 in the United States. Its worldwide box-office gross exceeded $200 million. The soundtrack, compiled by Giorgio Moroder, spawned several hit songs, including "Maniac" (performed by Michael Sembello), and the Academy Award–winning "Flashdance... What a Feeling", which was written for the film by Moroder, with lyrics by Keith Forsey and the singer Irene Cara. Flashdance is also often remembered for its film poster featuring Beals sporting a sweatshirt with a large neck hole (according to the actress, her look in the scene came about by accident after she simply cut a large hole at the top of one that had shrunk in the wash).

Plot
Alex Owens is an eighteen-year-old welder at a steel mill in Pittsburgh, who lives with her dog, Grunt, in a converted warehouse. She aspires to become a professional dancer, but has no formal dance training and works as a nightly cabaret performer at Mawby's, a neighborhood bar and grill.

Lacking family, Alex bonds with her coworkers at Mawby's, some of whom also aspire to greater artistic achievements. Jeanie, a waitress, is training to be a figure skater, while her boyfriend, short-order cook Richie, hopes to become a stand-up comic.

One night, Alex catches the eye of customer Nick Hurley, the owner of the steel mill where she works. After learning that Alex is one of his employees, Nick pursues her on the job, though Alex turns down his advances. Alex is also approached by Johnny C., who wants her to dance at his nearby strip club, Zanzibar.

After seeking counsel from her mentor, retired ballerina Hanna Long, Alex attempts to apply to the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory. She becomes intimidated by the scope of the application process, which includes listing all prior dance experience and education, so she leaves without applying. Leaving Mawby's one evening, Richie and Alex are assaulted by Johnny C. and his bodyguard, Cecil. Nick intervenes, and after following Alex home, the two begin a relationship.

In a skating competition, Jeanie falls twice during her performance and sits defeated on the ice before being helped away. Discouraged by her failure and the departure of Richie, who has decided to try his luck in Los Angeles, Jeanie begins dating Johnny C. and working as one of his strippers at Zanzibar. After finding out about Jeanie's situation from Jake, the owner of Mawby's, Alex finds her and drags her out of Zanzibar. Jeanie is angry, but she soon realizes her mistake.

After seeing Nick with a woman at the ballet one night, Alex throws a rock through a window of his house, only to discover that it was his ex-wife, whom he was meeting for a charity function. Alex and Nick reconcile, and she gains the courage to apply to the Conservatory. Nick uses his connections with the arts council to get Alex an audition. Upon discovering this, Alex is furious with Nick because she did not get the opportunity based on merit, and she decides not to go through with the audition. Seeing the results of others' failed dreams and after the sudden death of Hanna, Alex becomes despondent about her future, but finally decides to go through with the audition.

At the audition, Alex falters, but begins again and successfully completes a dance number composed of moves that she has studied and practiced, including breakdancing which she has seen on the streets of Pittsburgh. The board responds favorably, and Alex joyously emerges from the Conservatory to find Nick and Grunt waiting for her with a bouquet of roses.

Development
In April 1980, Thomas Hedley sold the film idea for development to Casablanca, a Los Angeles production company, for $300,000 and 5% of the net, as reported in The Globe and Mail. Hedley based the concept on the lives of exotic dancers he had met while editor of Toronto Life magazine such as Gina Healey and Maureen Marder. Marder and Healey were paid $2,500 each for their life stories.

Hedley's script was eventually sold to Peter Guber and Jon Peters for PolyGram Pictures, who took the script with them to Paramount Pictures. However, the latter studio had less confidence in the film and placed it into turnaround for two years. Development of the film resumed when Don Simpson, who believed the film could be successful, resigned from his executive post at Paramount Pictures to co-produce the film with Jerry Bruckheimer in their first collaboration. They got Paramount to greenlight the film by hiring Joe Eszterhas to rewrite Hedley's script.

Adrian Lyne was not the first choice as director of Flashdance. David Cronenberg had turned down an offer to direct the film, as had Brian De Palma, who instead chose to direct Scarface (1983). At the time, Lyne's background was primarily in directing television commercials, such as his 1970s UK commercials for Brutus Jeans (which may conceivably be seen as anticipating the visuals and style of Flashdance). Lyne agreed to direct because he wanted to establish enough confidence from studios in his directorial skills to get his next film 9½ Weeks (1986) approved. Executives at Paramount were unsure about the film's potential and sold 25% of the rights prior to its release.

Casting
Three candidates, Jennifer Beals, Demi Moore, and Leslie Wing, were the finalists for the role of Alex Owens. Two different stories exist regarding how Beals was chosen. One states that then-Paramount president Michael Eisner asked women secretaries at the studio to select their favorite after viewing screen tests. The other: the film's scriptwriter Joe Eszterhas claims that Eisner asked "two hundred of the most macho men on the [Paramount] lot, Teamsters and gaffers and grips ... 'I want to know which of these three young women you'd most want to fuck.'"

The role of Nick Hurley was originally offered to Kiss founding member Gene Simmons, who turned it down because it would conflict with his "demon" image. Kevin Costner, a struggling actor at the time, came very close for the role of Nick Hurley, which went to Michael Nouri.

Crew
Flashdance was the first success of a number of filmmakers who became successful in the 1980s and beyond. The film was the first collaboration between Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, who went on to produce Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Top Gun (1986). Eszterhas received his second screen credit for Flashdance, while Lyne went on to direct 9½ Weeks (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Lolita (1997). Lynda Obst, who developed the original story outline, went on to produce Adventures in Babysitting (1987), The Fisher King (1991), and Sleepless in Seattle (1993).

Filming
The film was shot between October 18, 1982 and December 30, 1982 in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.

The dimly lit cinematography and montage-style editing are due in part to the fact that most of Jennifer Beals' dancing in the film was performed by a body double. Her main dance double is the French actress Marine Jahan,   while the breakdancing that Alex performs in the audition sequence at the end of the film was doubled by the male dancer Crazy Legs. The shot of Alex diving through the air in slow motion during the audition sequence was performed by Sharon Shapiro, who was a professional gymnast. The producers of the film stated they had made no secret of having used a double for Beals, and that Jahan's name did not appear because Paramount Pictures shortened the closing credits. Marine Jahan was told that her involvement was hidden because "they didn't want to break the magic of the film".

Flashdance is often remembered for the sweatshirt with a large neck hole that Beals wore on the poster advertising the film. Beals said that the look of the sweatshirt came about by accident when it shrank in the wash and she cut out a large hole at the top so that she could wear it again.

Locations
Much of the film was shot in locations around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The opening sequence of scenes with Alex riding her bicycle starts in the Fineview neighborhood. The last scene of the sequence shows Alex riding east over the Smithfield Street Bridge, which is a continuity error. Alex's apartment was located in the South Side neighborhood. When Alex goes to visit Hanna, she is seen riding one of the Duquesne Incline cable cars. Hanna's apartment is located at 2100 Sidney Street at the southeast corner of South 21st Street.

The fictional Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory was filmed inside the lobby and in front of Carnegie Music Hall, a part of the Carnegie Museum of Art, located near the campuses of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

The interior of Alex's apartment was filmed in Los Angeles at what was the Feit Electric Building on Los Angeles Street. Additionally, the set for Mawby's was located in downtown Los Angeles. The ice skating rink scene on which Jeanie falls was filmed at Culver Ice Rink in Culver City, California.

Music
"Flashdance... What a Feeling" was performed by Irene Cara, who also sang the title song for the similar 1980 film Fame. The music for "Flashdance... What a Feeling" was composed by Giorgio Moroder, and the lyrics were written by Cara and Keith Forsey. The song won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as a Golden Globe and numerous other awards. It also reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1983. Despite the song's title, the word 'Flashdance' itself is not heard in the lyrics. The song is used in the opening title sequence of the film, and is the music Alex uses in her dance audition routine at the end of the film.

Another song used in the film, "Maniac", was also nominated for an Academy Award. It was written by Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky. A popular urban legend holds that the song was originally written for the 1980 horror film Maniac, and that lyrics about a killer on the loose were rewritten so the song could be used in Flashdance. The legend is discredited in the special features of the film's DVD release, which reveal that the song was written for the film, although only two complete lyrics ("Just a steel town girl on a Saturday night" and "She's a maniac") were available when filming commenced. Like the title song, it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1983.

Other songs in the film include "Lady, Lady, Lady", performed by Joe Esposito, "Gloria" and "Imagination" performed by Laura Branigan, and "I'll Be Here Where the Heart Is", performed by Kim Carnes.

The soundtrack album of Flashdance sold 700,000 copies during its first two weeks on sale and has gone on to sell over six million copies in the U.S. alone. In 1984, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special.

Release
Flashdance was released in the United States on April 15, 1983. On April 14, 1983, the night before the general release of the film, a special benefit premiere of Flashdance was shown at the Warner Theater in Pittsburgh. It was the last film at the theater. Several months later it was torn down to make way for The Warner Centre, a retail and office complex.

Home media
Flashdance has been issued originally on VHS and Laserdisc with a Paramount Pictures DVD release on October 8, 2002 and a Special Collector's Edition DVD in 2010. It was first released on Blu-ray Disc on August 13, 2013 by Warner Bros. with seven special features including a 15-minute featurette, "The History of Flashdance", a 9-minute featurette, "The Look of Flashdance", "Flashdance: The Choreography" and a teaser and theatrical trailers. The film was re-released on Blu-ray in the U.S. on May 19, 2020 by Paramount Presents with a new 4K remaster and packaging. It includes a new Filmmakers Focus interview with the director but excludes a few special features from the previous Blu-ray release.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 37% based on 49 reviews, with an average rating of 4.80/10. The site's consensus is: "All style and very little substance, Flashdance boasts eye-catching dance sequences—and benefits from an appealing performance from Jennifer Beals—but its narrative is flat-footed". On Metacritic the film has a score of 39% based on reviews from 11 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

Roger Ebert placed it on his list of Most Hated films, and in giving the film 1.5 out of 4 stars in his review, stated: "Jennifer Beals shouldn't feel bad. She is a natural talent, she is fresh and engaging here, and only needs to find an agent with a natural talent for turning down scripts". In his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert said "If Flashdance had spent just a little more effort getting to know the heroine of its story, and a little less time trying to rip off Saturday Night Fever, it might have been a much better film." Variety compared the film to a series of music videos, "Watching Flashdance is pretty much like looking at MTV for 96 minutes. Virtually plotless, exceedingly thin on characterization and sociologically laughable, pic at least lives up to its title by offering an anthology of extraordinarily flashy dance numbers." Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "With a score by Giorgio Moroder, and with ingenious costumes that are utterly au courant, Flashdance contains such dynamic dance scenes that it's a pity there's a story here to bog them down."

In a 1984 essay for the journal Jump Cut, critic Kathryn Kalinak questioned the characterization of Alex: "How could an 18 year-old woman land a skilled labor job as a welder in the unionized steel industry of an economically depressed union town? ... Not only are any other women missing in the factory, so are employees, male or female, under 30."

Accolades
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
 * 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
 * "Flashdance... What a Feeling" – #55

Legacy
There were discussions about a sequel, but the film was never made. Beals turned down an offer to appear in a sequel, saying: "I've never been drawn to something by virtue of how rich or famous it will make me. I turned down so much money, and my agents were just losing their minds."

In March 2001, a Broadway musical version was proposed with new songs by Giorgio Moroder, but failed to materialize. In July 2008, a stage musical adaptation Flashdance The Musical premiered at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, England. The book is co-written by Tom Hedley, who created the story outline for the original film, and the choreography is by Arlene Phillips.

In October 2020, Paramount announced plans to reboot the film as a TV series for its Paramount+ (formerly known as CBS All Access) streaming service.

Jennifer Beals' performance started her reputation as a lesbian icon.

Connection to MTV
Flashdance is not a musical in the traditional sense as none of the characters sing or dance, although the Alex character is portrayed as an amateur dancer, but rather the songs are presented in the style of self-contained music videos. Its success has been attributed in part to the 1981 launch of the cable channel MTV (Music Television) since it was the first feature film to exploit the new popularity of music videos effectively. By excerpting segments of the film and running them as music videos on MTV, the studio benefited from extensive free promotion, establishing the new medium as an important marketing tool for films. In the mid-1980s, it became almost obligatory to release a music video to promote a major motion picture—even if the film was not especially suited for one.

Suit against the filmmakers
Flashdance was inspired by the real-life story of Maureen Marder, a construction worker/welder by day and dancer by night at Gimlets, a Toronto strip club. Like Alex Owens in the film, she aspired to enroll in a prestigious dance school. Tom Hedley wrote the original story outline for Flashdance, and on December 6, 1982, Marder signed a release document giving Paramount Pictures the right to portray her life story on screen, for which she was given a one-off payment of $2,300. Flashdance is estimated to have grossed more than $200 million worldwide. In June 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco affirmed a lower court's ruling that Marder gave up her rights to the film when she signed the release document in 1982. The panel of three judges stated in its ruling: "Though in hindsight the agreement appears to be unfair to Marder—she only received $2,300 in exchange for a release of all claims relating to a movie that grossed over $150 million—there is simply no evidence that her consent was obtained by fraud, deception, misrepresentation, duress or undue influence." The court also noted that Marder's attorney had been present when she signed the document.

Suit against Jennifer Lopez and filmmakers over music video
In 2003, following the use of dance routines from the film by Jennifer Lopez in her music video "I'm Glad" (directed by David LaChapelle), Marder sued Lopez, Sony Corporation (the makers of the music video), and Paramount in an attempt to gain a copyright interest in the film. Although Lopez argued that her video for "I'm Glad" was intended as a tribute to Flashdance, Sony settled a copyright infringement lawsuit out of court for the use of dance routines and other story material from the film in the video.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Flashdance


text:
Talk:Canadian political party system

The body is small so I've moved it all here:
 * Canada's party system is characterized as a two-party system in the disguise of a pentapartito system. It is quite stable and pragmatic.

I haven't looked two-party system, but I have read one of the wikipedians original works on voting systems, so I have a high degree of confidence that this is a stable well thought out  entry. :-) That makes me happy to write :-) Can't wait to go there. Is pentapartio some kind of pentalectic jargon? ;-}

Political party system:Canada entry must acommodate:
 * CCF and NDP
 * Credites --that's bad spelling.But they were around for 50 years and held the balance of power during Joe Clark's minority government
 * PC wipe out under Kim
 * PQ the Bloc and  new emerging forces  in Quebec
 * the rise of regionalism and Reform
 * the first democatically elected one party state.(Atlantic Canada 1980s))

Just simply the doling out of patronage makes this arrangement more dynamic than a two party system. Thats why there is so much hoopla about uniting the right. Who wins passes out the spoils. Because the Canadain Prime Minister is one of the most powerful politians in the world combining unparralled Executive and Legislative authority a skillful pragmatic centerist has all the tools and levers off power to navigate changing currents of public opinion to  victory in carefully timed and  stagemanaged elections.

 * The parties closely coordiate with each other re: policy making. They reflect more of the zeigeist than the particular political ideologies purported to govern the party.

Working together is built right into the committee process; usually however, only government bills are given hearing in the house. When push comes to shove passing legislation : closure is invoked and every member goes on a time table of 15 minutes to address the issue before the vote is called. This article is a good start for a wonderful topic I would never think to start an entry about. Two16

---

These articles on 'political party system' of the US and Canada should not exist. There is already a substantial article on Political culture: Canada, and there should be a like article on the USA, and both of them must cover the party system as an embedded part of that political culture. Any other solution is obviously wrong. Most of what you say above is ALREADY IN THAT OTHER ARTICLE, please read it.

- Hey 142.177.972.15

May be you didn't read: "... a wonderful topic I would never think to start an entry about."

I simple arrived here from recent changes, looked at the article and left my comments. If this article "should not exist", it should get nominated for deletion. There is almost no information in the article so it is a no brainer for deletion: nothing will have to be merged. It would have been a help to me, if you had wikied that Political culture:Canada title cause it would save me time going there.

I'm sorry that you felt the need to shout "...already in that other article..".

I'm not familar with the process to nominate this page for deletion, could you take care of it for us. I promise that I will learn how to do it on monday.

216.129.198.41

Its flattering that somebody thinks my prose deserves to be in an encyclopedia article. They were, however, written as comments on a talk page. I do not consider them writtten in the style of an encyclopedia. I do not consider them to be encyclopedia quality. I was simply offering helpful comments about the writing of an article on Political party system:Canada.

beyond that

If this stub is developed in a fuller form in another article, then it needs to be nominated for deletion. Its death would be quick and painless, with no need to merge. Boy, I wish 142.177.97.215 had given us a link to that Canadain political culture article. It would make thinks faster and easier in this circumstance. And think if it became a habit of mind, how much time could we earn for others to write brillant prose.

142.177.97.215 why don't you take care of the nomination for deletion and put a message here saying that you've done so. After all, you were the one who brought the duplication to the attention of this page and stated emphatically that this page "should not exist". Allowing people work on  duplicated material would be a precious waste of time that could be better spent writing prose to last.

24.42.43.3 I have left a message for you on my user page. Two16

title: Talk:Canadian political party system


text:
Simple path

Simple path may refer to:

 * Simple curve, a continuous injective function from an interval in the set of real numbers $$\R$$ to $$\R^n$$ or more generally to a metric space or a topological space
 * Simple path (graph theory), a simple path is a path in a graph which does not have repeating vertices

title: Simple path


text:
Cycle (graph theory)

In graph theory, a cycle in a graph is a non-empty trail in which only the first and last vertices are equal. A directed cycle in a directed graph is a non-empty directed trail in which only the first and last vertices are equal.

A graph without cycles is called an acyclic graph. A directed graph without directed cycles is called a directed acyclic graph. A connected graph without cycles is called a tree.

Circuit and cycle

 * A circuit is a non-empty trail in which the first and last vertices are equal (closed trail).
 * Let G = (V, E, Φ) be a graph. A circuit is a non-empty trail (e1, e2, ..., en) with a vertex sequence (v1, v2, ..., vn, v1).

 * A cycle or simple circuit is a circuit in which only the first and last vertices are equal.
 * n is called the length of the circuit resp. length of the cycle.

Directed circuit and directed cycle

 * A directed circuit is a non-empty directed trail in which the first and last vertices are equal (closed directed trail).
 * Let G = (V, E, Φ) be a directed graph. A directed circuit is a non-empty directed trail (e1, e2, ..., en) with a vertex sequence (v1, v2, ..., vn, v1).

 * A directed cycle or simple directed circuit is a directed circuit in which only the first and last vertices are equal.
 * n is called the length of the directed circuit resp. length of the directed cycle.

Chordless cycle

A chordless cycle in a graph, also called a hole or an induced cycle, is a cycle such that no two vertices of the cycle are connected by an edge that does not itself belong to the cycle. An antihole is the complement of a graph hole. Chordless cycles may be used to characterize perfect graphs: by the strong perfect graph theorem, a graph is perfect if and only if none of its holes or antiholes have an odd number of vertices that is greater than three. A chordal graph, a special type of perfect graph, has no holes of any size greater than three.

The girth of a graph is the length of its shortest cycle; this cycle is necessarily chordless. Cages are defined as the smallest regular graphs with given combinations of degree and girth.

A peripheral cycle is a cycle in a graph with the property that every two edges not on the cycle can be connected by a path whose interior vertices avoid the cycle. In a graph that is not formed by adding one edge to a cycle, a peripheral cycle must be an induced cycle.

Cycle space
The term cycle may also refer to an element of the cycle space of a graph. There are many cycle spaces, one for each coefficient field or ring. The most common is the binary cycle space (usually called simply the cycle space), which consists of the edge sets that have even degree at every vertex; it forms a vector space over the two-element field. By Veblen's theorem, every element of the cycle space may be formed as an edge-disjoint union of simple cycles. A cycle basis of the graph is a set of simple cycles that forms a basis of the cycle space.

Using ideas from algebraic topology, the binary cycle space generalizes to vector spaces or modules over other rings such as the integers, rational or real numbers, etc.

Cycle detection
The existence of a cycle in directed and undirected graphs can be determined by whether a depth-first search (DFS) finds an edge that points to an ancestor of the current vertex (i.e., it contains a back edge). All the back edges which DFS skips over are part of cycles. In an undirected graph, the edge to the parent of a node should not be counted as a back edge, but finding any other already visited vertex will indicate a back edge. In the case of undirected graphs, only O(n) time is required to find a cycle in an n-vertex graph, since at most n − 1 edges can be tree edges.

Many topological sorting algorithms will detect cycles too, since those are obstacles for topological order to exist. Also, if a directed graph has been divided into strongly connected components, cycles only exist within the components and not between them, since cycles are strongly connected.

For directed graphs, distributed message-based algorithms can be used. These algorithms rely on the idea that a message sent by a vertex in a cycle will come back to itself. Distributed cycle detection algorithms are useful for processing large-scale graphs using a distributed graph processing system on a computer cluster (or supercomputer).

Applications of cycle detection include the use of wait-for graphs to detect deadlocks in concurrent systems.

Algorithm
The aforementioned use of depth-first search to find a cycle can be described as follows: For every vertex v: visited(v) = finished(v) = false For every vertex v: DFS(v) where DFS(v) = if finished(v): return if visited(v): "Cycle found" return visited(v) = true for every neighbour w: DFS(w) finished(v) = true

For undirected graphs, "neighbour" means all vertices connected to v, except for the one that recursively called DFS(v). This omission prevents the algorithm from finding a trivial cycle of the form v→w→v; these exist in every undirected graph with at least one edge.

A variant using breadth-first search instead will find a cycle of the smallest possible length.

Covering graphs by cycle
In his 1736 paper on the Seven Bridges of Königsberg, widely considered to be the birth of graph theory, Leonhard Euler proved that, for a finite undirected graph to have a closed walk that visits each edge exactly once (making it a closed trail), it is necessary and sufficient that it be connected except for isolated vertices (that is, all edges are contained in one component) and have even degree at each vertex. The corresponding characterization for the existence of a closed walk visiting each edge exactly once in a directed graph is that the graph be strongly connected and have equal numbers of incoming and outgoing edges at each vertex. In either case, the resulting closed trail is known as an Eulerian trail. If a finite undirected graph has even degree at each of its vertices, regardless of whether it is connected, then it is possible to find a set of simple cycles that together cover each edge exactly once: this is Veblen's theorem. When a connected graph does not meet the conditions of Euler's theorem, a closed walk of minimum length covering each edge at least once can nevertheless be found in polynomial time by solving the route inspection problem.

The problem of finding a single simple cycle that covers each vertex exactly once, rather than covering the edges, is much harder. Such a cycle is known as a Hamiltonian cycle, and determining whether it exists is NP-complete. Much research has been published concerning classes of graphs that can be guaranteed to contain Hamiltonian cycles; one example is Ore's theorem that a Hamiltonian cycle can always be found in a graph for which every non-adjacent pair of vertices have degrees summing to at least the total number of vertices in the graph.

The cycle double cover conjecture states that, for every bridgeless graph, there exists a multiset of simple cycles that covers each edge of the graph exactly twice. Proving that this is true (or finding a counterexample) remains an open problem.

Graph classes defined by cycle
Several important classes of graphs can be defined by or characterized by their cycles. These include:
 * Bipartite graph, a graph without odd cycles (cycles with an odd number of vertices)
 * Cactus graph, a graph in which every nontrivial biconnected component is a cycle
 * Cycle graph, a graph that consists of a single cycle
 * Chordal graph, a graph in which every induced cycle is a triangle
 * Directed acyclic graph, a directed graph with no directed cycles
 * Line perfect graph, a graph in which every odd cycle is a triangle
 * Perfect graph, a graph with no induced cycles or their complements of odd length greater than three
 * Pseudoforest, a graph in which each connected component has at most one cycle
 * Strangulated graph, a graph in which every peripheral cycle is a triangle
 * Strongly connected graph, a directed graph in which every edge is part of a cycle
 * Triangle-free graph, a graph without three-vertex cycles
 * Even-cycle-free graph, a graph without even cycles
 * Even-hole-free graph, a graph without even cycles of length larger or equal to 6

title: Cycle (graph theory)


text:
Morphine (band)

Morphine was an American rock band formed by Mark Sandman, Dana Colley, and Jerome Deupree in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1989. Drummer Billy Conway replaced Deupree as the band's live drummer in 1991. Deupree recorded the album Cure For Pain, with the exception of the title track which was recorded by Conway, before being permanently replaced by Conway in 1993. Both drummers appeared together during a 15 date US tour in March of 1999. After five successful albums and extensive touring, they disbanded after lead vocalist Sandman died of a heart attack onstage in Palestrina, Italy, on July 3, 1999 at the Nel Nome Del Rock Festival. Founding members have reformed into the band Vapors of Morphine, maintaining much of the original style and sound.

The band used an idiosyncratic set of instruments and combined blues and jazz elements with more traditional rock arrangements, which gave it an unusual and original sound. The instruments mainly consisted of baritone saxophone (played by Colley), two-string bass (played by Sandman), and drums. Sandman sang distinctively in a "deep, laid-back croon", and his songwriting featured a prominent beat influence. The band themselves coined the label "low rock" to describe their music, which involved "a minimalist, low-end sound that could have easily become a gimmick: a 'power trio' not built around the sound of an electric guitar. Instead, Morphine expanded its offbeat vocabulary on each album."

The band enjoyed positive critical appraisal, but met with mixed results commercially. In the United States, the band was embraced and promoted by the indie rock community, including public and college radio stations and MTV's 120 Minutes, which the band once guest-hosted, but received little support from commercial rock radio and other music television programs. This limited their mainstream exposure and support in their home country, while internationally they enjoyed high-profile success, especially in Belgium, Russia, Portugal, France and Australia.

Formation, independent years (1989–1996)
Morphine was formed in 1989 by bassist and vocalist Mark Sandman, a member of the bluesy alternative rock band Treat Her Right, saxophonist Dana Colley, a former member of the local Boston group Three Colors, and drummer Jerome Deupree, who had played with Sandman in the Hypnosonics. Sandman, a prolific musician who frequently experimented with home-made instruments, played a single-stringed bass guitar of his own devising with a slide, although he later added a second string. Deupree briefly left the group for health reasons in 1991 and was temporarily replaced by Treat Her Right drummer Billy Conway. These years found the group building a strong local audience and touring occasionally.

With Deupree returning, they recorded their debut album, Good, for the Boston-based Accurate/Distortion label in 1991. The album received positive reviews and increased the band's audience. The band subsequently signed to Rykodisc, who re-released Good under its own imprint.

Cure for Pain, 1993's followup, increased the band's audience outside of New England, and singles like "Thursday" and "Buena" picked up some college radio play. During the recording of Cure for Pain, Deupree was again replaced by Conway, although Deupree still played most of the percussion work on the album. After the album was completed, the band toured the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia.

In 1994, five songs from the album were prominently featured on the soundtrack of the film Spanking the Monkey. The band returned to the studio in 1995 and produced Yes. The album featured the single "Honey White," the music video for which appeared on the MTV animated series Beavis and Butt-head, as had "Thursday". It also included "I Had My Chance," which was featured on the soundtrack for the film Get Shorty.

DreamWorks Records years (1997–1999)
After two years of touring, Morphine signed with DreamWorks Records, who released their major label debut, Like Swimming, in 1997. It was a critical success, but did not break the band into the domestic mainstream as had been hoped. DreamWorks released a music video for the single "Early to Bed"; directed by Jamie Caliri and released in March 1997, the nightmarish yet humorous video became an instant favorite among fans and was later nominated for a Grammy award. The band also released B-Sides and Otherwise, a collection of B-sides and live recordings, on Rykodisc this same year.

In the following time, Deupree once again began performing live and in the studio with the band, making the group a four-piece. The band's final studio album, The Night, was completed in early 1999.

On July 3, 1999, Sandman collapsed on the stage of the Nel Nome del Rock festival at the Giardini del Principe in Palestrina, Italy, outside of Rome. He was soon pronounced dead of a heart attack and Morphine immediately disbanded. The Night was released in 2000. Posthumous Morphine releases followed shortly thereafter, including Bootleg Detroit, an "official live bootleg", and The Best of Morphine: 1992–1995, both on Rykodisc.

Posthumous projects (1999–present)
Within a year of Sandman's death, Colley and Conway created Orchestra Morphine, a group of Sandman's friends and colleagues who toured to celebrate the music of the band and to raise funds for the Mark Sandman Music Education Fund. Orchestra Morphine mostly performed music from The Night, but also included some other Morphine and Hypnosonics material as well. Orchestra Morphine still performs occasionally but no longer tours. Singer and guitarist Laurie Sargent, a member of Orchestra Morphine and former vocalist for the band Face to Face, later joined Colley and Conway in their first post-Morphine musical endeavor, Twinemen.

Conway and Colley also officially formed the Hi-n-Dry independent record label and studio, converting Sandman's workspace into a commercial enterprise. The label's roster includes a number of their friends, colleagues and other Boston-area musicians. In 2004, Hi-n-Dry released the Mark Sandman box set Sandbox, which contained two CDs and a DVD of previously unreleased material spanning Sandman's musical career. The DVD featured clips from early Sandman shows, interviews from the Morphine tours, and various videos from other Sandman solo and group projects, such as Treat Her Right. However, for copyright reasons the box set did not contain any previously released material found in the Morphine catalog, Morphine videos, or promotional material produced by Rykodisc or DreamWorks Records.

Deupree continued to record with various jazz musicians.

In 2009, Colley and Deupree began regularly performing Morphine songs and new material as Members of Morphine (alternately, the Ever-Expanding Elastic Waste Band), with singer, bassist and guitarist Jeremy Lyons of New Orleans. In July 2009, the group played at Nel Nome Del Rock Festival in Palestrina, Italy, marking the ten-year anniversary of Sandman's death at the location in which it occurred. As of 2014, the group was renamed Vapors of Morphine and regularly perform in Boston and New Orleans. They held a standing weekly gig at Atwood's Tavern in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until its closure after 16 years in March 2023.

In 2009, Rhino Records released the two-disc set At Your Service, composed of unreleased Morphine material.

As of 1999, Morphine has sold over 807,000 records in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

On December 19, 2021, drummer Billy Conway died from liver cancer, aged 65.

Band members

 * Mark Sandman – 2-string slide bass, vocals, organ, tritar (3-string slide guitar), guitar, piano (1989–1999; died 1999)
 * Dana Colley – baritone sax, tenor sax, double sax, triangle, backing vocals (1989–1999)
 * Jerome Deupree – drums, percussion (1989–1991, 1991–1993, 1998–1999)
 * Billy Conway – drums, percussion (1991, 1993–1999; died 2021)

 * Timeline

Instruments
Morphine's instrumentation was unusual for a rock band: Sandman's primary instrument was a two-string bass guitar (with the strings usually tuned to a 5th or octave interval) played with a slide; however, on the group's records he added touches of guitar, piano, electronic organ, and other self-invented guitar instruments such as the tritar, featuring two guitar strings and one bass string. Colley played primarily baritone saxophone, along with soprano or tenor saxes, and the rare bass saxophone, and he sometimes played two saxes at once, a la Roland Kirk; he also played occasional percussion, and Dobro on a B-side.

Discography

 * Studio albums
 * Good (1992)
 * Cure for Pain (1993)
 * Yes (1995)
 * Like Swimming (1997)
 * The Night (2000)

 * Live albums
 * Bootleg Detroit (2000)
 * Live at the Warfield 1997 (2017)

 * Compilations
 * B-Sides and Otherwise (1997)
 * The Best of Morphine: 1992-1995 (2003)
 * Sandbox: The Music of Mark Sandman (2004)
 * At Your Service (2009)

 * Singles
 * "Cure for Pain" (1993)
 * "Buena" (1993)
 * "Sexy X-Mas Baby Mine" (1993) (released as a vinyl-only single on the Singles Only Label)
 * "Thursday" (1994)
 * "Super Sex" (1995)
 * "Honey White" (1995) Alternative #44
 * "Early to Bed" (1997) Alternative #36
 * "Murder for the Money" (1997) (France)
 * "Potion" (1997) (Australia / New Zealand)
 * "Eleven O'Clock" (1997) (Japan)

title: Morphine (band)


text:
Throbbing Gristle

Throbbing Gristle were an English music and visual arts group formed in Kingston upon Hull by Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, later joined by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson and Chris Carter. They are widely regarded as pioneers of industrial music. Evolving from the experimental performance art group COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle made their public debut in October 1976 in the COUM exhibition Prostitution, and released their debut single "United/Zyklon B Zombie" and debut album The Second Annual Report the following year. P-Orridge's lyrics mainly revolved around mysticism, extremist political ideologies, sexuality, dark or underground aspects of society, and idiosyncratic manipulation of language inspired by the techniques of William S. Burroughs.

The band released several subsequent studio and live albums—including D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (1978), 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979), and Heathen Earth (1980)—on their own record label Industrial Records, building a reputation with their transgressive and confrontational aesthetics; they included the extensive use of disturbing visual imagery, such as ironic fascist and Nazi symbolism and pornography, as well as that of noise and sound manipulation influenced by the works of Burroughs and Brion Gysin.

Throbbing Gristle dissolved in 1981 due to interpersonal differences; the individual members went on to participate in other projects, such as Psychic TV, Coil, and Chris & Cosey. The band was reformed in 2004, and released three more studio albums—TG Now (2004), Part Two (2007), and The Third Mind Movements (2009)—before disbanding again after P-Orridge's departure in October 2010 and Christopherson's death the following month. The band's final studio project, a cover version of the 1970 Nico album Desertshore entitled The Desertshore Installation, was released in 2012 under the moniker X-TG.

First era: 1976–1981
Throbbing Gristle evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions, formed in Kingston upon Hull by a group of performers including Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti. In 1973 COUM moved from Hull to Hackney, London, where P-Orridge and Tutti met Chris Carter, then working as a sound recordist in television, and Peter Christopherson, then a member of the graphic design collective Hipgnosis; the four built a recording studio in Hackney which they dubbed "The Death Factory" and began performing music together. The last known performance of COUM Transmissions—Prostitution, an exhibition held in October 1976 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London—was also the public debut of Throbbing Gristle. The provocative sexual content of the exhibition led Conservative Member of Parliament Nicholas Fairbairn to dub the group "wreckers of civilisation".

Throbbing Gristle's confrontational live performances and use of often disturbing imagery, including pornography and photographs of Nazi concentration camps, earned the group a notorious reputation, but they maintained that their mission was to challenge and explore the darker and obsessive sides of the human condition rather than to make attractive music. Throbbing Gristle made extensive use of pre-recorded tape samples and effects units, some of which they had designed or modified themselves, to produce a distinctive, highly distorted sound, usually accompanied by lyrics or spoken-word performances by Tutti or P-Orridge. Though they asserted that they wanted to provoke their audience into thinking for themselves rather than promote any specific political agenda, Throbbing Gristle frequently associated with the anarcho-punk scene. They appeared in the fanzine Toxic Grafity with a condensation of their own propaganda parody series, Industrial News.

In 1977, they released their debut single "United / Zyklon B Zombie", followed by the hybrid live/studio album The Second Annual Report. First pressed in a limited run of 786 copies on the band's Industrial Records label, it was rereleased on Mute Records following high demand; however, this later release was reversed, with all tracks playing backwards and in reverse order. This was followed by the albums D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (1978), 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979), and Heathen Earth (1980), along with a number of non-album singles.

In 1981 concert promoter and Transparency Records founder Michael Sheppard brought Throbbing Gristle to Los Angeles. On 29 May 1981 Throbbing Gristle performed at the Kezar Pavilion in San Francisco in what would be the group's final performance until reuniting in 2004. Throbbing Gristle announced their dissolution on 23 June 1981, mailing out postcards declaring that their "mission [was] terminated." In a 1987 interview, Tutti attributed the band's split to her own breakup with P-Orridge: "TG broke up because me and Gen broke up."

P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson went on to form Psychic TV, and Tutti and Chris Carter, now a couple, continued to record together as Chris & Cosey. Christopherson later formed Coil with fellow Psychic TV member John Balance; P-Orridge subsequently formed Thee Majesty and PTV3 with their wife Jacqueline "Jaye" Breyer.

Reunion: 2004–2010
In 2004, Throbbing Gristle briefly reunited to record and release the limited album TG Now. On 2 April 2007, TG released the album Part Two: The Endless Not, which the group had finished recording in Berlin. It was originally set to be released by Mute Records in September 2006 but was delayed for unknown reasons.

In March 2007, Side-Line announced Part Two ' s final release date, adding that a string of special live events would take place in 2007.

A seven-disc DVD set titled TGV was issued in 2007. The set contains old and new footage of the band. TGV came packaged in a deluxe box with a 64-page book, all designed by Christopherson.

The group performed a reinterpretation of their debut album The Second Annual Report twice in 2008 to mark the thirtieth anniversary of its release. The performance in Paris on 6 June was issued as a limited-edition framed vinyl set titled The Thirty-Second Annual Report.

The band then worked to record an album based on their interpretation of Nico's 1970 album Desertshore. The group issued the entirety of the recording sessions for the album as a limited edition 12-CD set packaged in a custom CD wallet, The Desertshore Installation, which was sold via mail order from the group's website.

In April 2009, Throbbing Gristle toured the United States, appearing at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. The Third Mind Movements, a new release, was made available at these shows, which was edited down from improvisations recorded during the Desertshore Installation sessions.

A collaborative installation with Cerith Wyn Evans titled A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N was displayed at Tramway in Glasgow from 7 August to 27 September 2009. Throbbing Gristle contributed a multi-channel soundtrack that was played through 16 hanging Audio Spotlight sound panels that Evans had incorporated into his sculpture.

In November 2009, Throbbing Gristle and Industrial Records released their version of the Buddha Machine loop player, designed by the group with Christiaan Virant of FM3.

On 29 October 2010, Throbbing Gristle announced on their website that P-Orridge had left the group; Carter, Cosey and Christopherson finished their current tour under the name X-TG. P-Orridge's website stated that they had not quit Throbbing Gristle and had merely stopped participating in the current tour. However, the band would dissolve for good on 24 November following Christopherson's death.

After dissolution: 2011–present
In 2011, Industrial Records had an official "re-activation" to reissue the group's studio albums, as Throbbing Gristle's contract with Mute Records had expired.

Industrial Records subsequently announced that a double album, titled Desertshore/The Final Report, would be released on 26 November 2012. Carter and Tutti produced the album with the participation of film director Gaspar Noé, former pornographic actress Sasha Grey, and guest vocalists Anohni, Blixa Bargeld, and Marc Almond.

The group had decided before Christopherson's death to re-record the album because they were not satisfied with the ICA recordings. Christopherson had been the driving force behind the project and had been working on the record in Bangkok with Danny Hyde. "It was Sleazy's project, then Cosey and Sleazy's, then I came in on it", Carter said in an interview with The Quietus. After Christopherson died, custom instruments built for the project by Christopherson were given to Carter and Tutti, and they began combining his recordings with the work they had done themselves. They announced plans to debut the album live at AV Festival on 17 March 2012 accompanied by a screening of Philippe Garrel's film The Inner Scar "for which Desertshore was the soundtrack and inspiration".

P-Orridge died from leukaemia on 14 March 2020.

Legacy
The band is widely viewed as having helped create the industrial music genre along with contemporaries Cabaret Voltaire and Einstürzende Neubauten. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by P-Orridge and Monte Cazazza; on Throbbing Gristle's debut album The Second Annual Report, they coined the slogan "industrial music for industrial people".

Alternative Press included Throbbing Gristle in their 1996 list of "100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years."

Wreckers of Civilization, a survey on COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle's original run written by Simon Ford, was published in 1999. A book in the 33⅓ series on 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Drew Daniel of Matmos was released in 2007.

Other, Like Me: The Oral History of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle, a documentary on both projects consisting of archival footage and photos and interviews with their members, was co-produced by BBC Television and aired on BBC Four in December 2021.

Members

 * Genesis P-Orridge – lead vocals, bass guitar, violin, guitars, percussion
 * Cosey Fanni Tutti – guitars, cornet, effects, vocals, tapes
 * Peter Christopherson – tapes, electronics, cornet, percussion
 * Chris Carter – synthesizers, tapes, electronics, drum machine, programming

Discography
During Throbbing Gristle's extensive career, they released numerous volumes of music, including studio albums, live releases, and box sets.

Studio albums

 * The Second Annual Report (1977)
 * D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (1978)
 * 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979)
 * Journey Through a Body (1982)
 * CD1 (untitled) (1986)
 * TG Now (2004)
 * Part Two: The Endless Not (2007)
 * The Third Mind Movements (2009)
 * Desertshore / The Final Report (2012) (as X-TG)

title: Throbbing Gristle