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Keith Olbermann

Keith Theodore Olbermann (born January 27, 1959) is an American sports and political commentator and writer. Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he was a producer and anchor for Fox Sports Net and a host for Fox Sports' coverage of Major League Baseball.

From March 2003 to January 2011, Olbermann hosted the weeknight political commentary program Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. He received attention for his pointed criticism of American conservative and right-wing politicians and public figures. Although he has frequently been described as a "liberal", he has often rejected being labelled politically, stating, "I'm not a liberal. I'm an American."

From 2011 to March 30, 2012, Olbermann was the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of a Current TV program also called Countdown with Keith Olbermann. From July 2013 until July 2015 he hosted a late-afternoon show on ESPN2 and TSN2 called Olbermann, as well as TBS's Major League Baseball postseason coverage. From September 2016 until November 2017, he hosted a web series for GQ, titled The Closer with Keith Olbermann, covering the 2016 U.S. presidential election, later renamed The Resistance with Keith Olbermann after the victory of Donald Trump.

In January 2018, Olbermann returned to ESPN's SportsCenter program, expanding in May to some baseball play-by-play work. On October 6, 2020, he again resigned from ESPN to start a political commentary program on his YouTube channel. On August 1, 2022, Olbermann relaunched Countdown with Keith Olbermann as a daily podcast with iHeartRadio. It is described as a news-driven show featuring his trademark "Special Comment" political analysis, "The Worst Persons in the World" segment, and readings from the works of humorist James Thurber.

Early life
Olbermann was born January 27, 1959, in New York City, the son of Marie Katherine (née Charbonier), a preschool teacher, and Theodore Olbermann, a commercial architect. He is of German ancestry. Olbermann and his younger sister Jenna (b. 1968), were raised in a Unitarian household in the town of Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester, New York. He attended the Hackley School, a private Ivy League Preparatory school in nearby Tarrytown.

Olbermann became a devoted fan of baseball at a young age, a love he inherited from his mother, who was a lifelong New York Yankees fan. As a teenager he often wrote about baseball card-collecting and appeared in many sports card-collecting periodicals of the mid-1970s. He is also referenced in Sports Collectors Bible, a 1979 book by Bert Sugar, which is considered one of the important early books for trading card collectors.

While at Hackley, Olbermann began his broadcasting career as a play-by-play announcer for WHTR. After graduating from Hackley in 1975, he enrolled at Cornell University at the age of 16. At college Olbermann served as sports director for WVBR, a student-run commercial radio station in Ithaca. Olbermann graduated from Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 1979 with a BS in communication.

Sports broadcasting
Olbermann began his professional career at UPI and the RKO Radio Network before joining then-nascent CNN in 1981. Among the early stories he covered was the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, including the "Miracle on Ice." In the early-to-mid 1980s he was a sportscaster on the old WNEW 1130-AM radio station in New York City. In 1984, he briefly worked as a sports anchor at WCVB-TV in Boston before heading to Los Angeles to work at KTLA and KCBS. His work there earned him 11 Golden Mike Awards, and he was named best sportscaster by the California Associated Press three times.

ESPN
In 1992 Olbermann joined ESPN's SportsCenter, a position he held until 1997 with the exception of a period from 1993 to 1994 when he was at ESPN2. He joined ESPN2 as its "marquee" personality to help launch the network. He often co-hosted SportsCenter's 11:00 p.m. show with Dan Patrick, the two becoming a popular anchor team. In 1995 Olbermann won a Cable ACE award for Best Sportscaster. he later co-authored a book with Patrick called The Big Show about their experiences working at SportsCenter; he also said that the short-lived ABC dramedy Sports Night was based on his time on SportsCenter with Patrick, ABC having been co-owned with ESPN since 1985 (ESPN now produces all sports coverage on ABC, which is branded ESPN on ABC). In his last year with KCBS before moving east to work for ESPN, Olbermann's salary was $475,000 but started at "just over $150,000" with ESPN. He made $350,000 at the end of his tenure at ESPN.

Early in 1997 Olbermann was suspended for two weeks after he made an unauthorized appearance on The Daily Show on Comedy Central with then-host and former ESPN colleague Craig Kilborn. At one point in the show he referred to Bristol, Connecticut (ESPN's headquarters), as a "Godforsaken place". Later that year he abruptly left ESPN under a cloud of controversy, apparently burning his bridges with the network's management; this began a long and drawn-out feud between Olbermann and ESPN. Between 1997 and 2007 incidents between the two sides included Olbermann's publishing an essay on Salon in November 2002 titled "Mea Culpa", in which he stated, "I couldn't handle the pressure of working in daily long-form television, and what was worse, I didn't know I couldn't handle it." The essay told of an instance when his former bosses remarked he had "too much backbone", a claim that is literally true, as Olbermann has six lumbar vertebrae instead of the normal five.

In 2004, Olbermann was not included in ESPN's guest lineup for its 25th anniversary SportsCenter "Reunion Week", which saw Craig Kilborn and Charley Steiner return to the SportsCenter set. In 2007, ten years after Olbermann's departure, in an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, he said, "If you burn a bridge, you can possibly build a new bridge, but if there's no river any more, that's a lot of trouble." During the same interview Olbermann stated that he had recently learned that as a result of ESPN's agreeing to let him return to the airwaves on ESPN Radio, he was banned from ESPN's main (Bristol, Connecticut) campus.

Post-SportsCenter
In 1999, Olbermann joined Fox Sports Net to be the star anchor for their sports news show Fox Sports News Primetime, which was an ill-fated competitor to SportsCenter. Olbermann later left that show to be an anchor and executive producer for The Keith Olbermann Evening News, a sportscast similar to SportsCenter that aired weekly on Sunday evenings. While at Fox he hosted the 2000 World Series as well as Fox Broadcasting's baseball Game of the Week. In May and July 1999, Olbermann also guest-starred ten times on Hollywood Squares.

According to Olbermann, he was demoted by Fox when he asked for a slight reduction in duties for health reasons, and then was fired from Fox in 2001 after reporting on rumors that Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns Fox, was planning on selling the Los Angeles Dodgers. Olbermann characterized the demotion as "blackmail." When asked about Olbermann, Murdoch said, "I fired him ... He's crazy." In 2004 Olbermann remarked, "Fox Sports was an infant trying to stand [in comparison to ESPN], but on the broadcast side there was no comparison—ESPN was the bush leagues."

After Olbermann left Fox Sports in 2001, he provided twice-daily sports commentary on the ABC Radio Network, reviving the "Speaking of Sports" and "Speaking of Everything" segments begun by Howard Cosell. In 2005, Olbermann made a return to ESPN Radio when he began co-hosting an hour of the syndicated Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio, a tenure that lasted until Patrick left ESPN on August 17, 2007. Olbermann and Patrick referred to this segment as "The Big Show", just as their book was known. Patrick often introduced Olbermann with the tagline "saving the democracy", a nod to his work on Countdown. On April 16, 2007, Olbermann was named co-host of Football Night in America, NBC's NFL pre-game show that precedes their Sunday Night NFL game, a position which reunited him in 2008 with his former SportsCenter co-anchor Dan Patrick. Olbermann left the show prior to the start of the 2010 season.

Shortly before rejoining ESPN, Olbermann signed a contract with TBS to host the studio show portions of its coverage of the Division Series and National League Championship Series. He replaced Matt Winer, who had been in this role since his departure from ESPN to join the Turner Sports family, and was originally supposed to host the show with TBS' Dennis Eckersley. Instead, Eckersley was sent to join Don Orsillo and Buck Martinez to call the Detroit-Oakland series. TBS later hired Dirk Hayhurst, Pedro Martínez, and Mark DeRosa to provide analysis. Tom Verducci also joined the studio crew, as he was replaced by Rachel Nichols as a field reporter.

Return to and departure from ESPN
It was announced on July 17, 2013, that Olbermann would host his own one-hour nightly show on ESPN2. The two-year contract would allow him to deviate from the topic of sports into realms such as "pop culture and current events", as well as politics, which was a right Olbermann claimed he did not intend to exercise.

Olbermann was suspended by ESPN in 2015 for the week following Penn State University's annual philanthropy THON due to a Twitter exchange he had with Penn State supporters. THON is the world's largest student-run philanthropy, raising over $160 million for pediatric cancer research since 1977. In the Twitter exchange, Olbermann stated, "PSU students are pitiful." Later, prior to apologizing, Olbermann stated, "I'd like to thank the students and alums of Penn State for proving my point about the mediocrity of their education and ethics." Olbermann apologized on his program upon his return March 2, but noted, "I'm much more sorry about batting practice [i.e. trolling or cyber bullying]. So for me, batting practice ends."

In July 2015 ESPN announced that it would be Olbermann's last month with the network. ESPN said that it was a "business decision to move in another direction".

The Ringer
In 2016, Olbermann wrote an article for Bill Simmons' company "The Ringer" after Muhammad Ali's death.

Third tenure with ESPN
In January 2018, Olbermann returned to ESPN once again, presenting occasional commentaries on SportsCenter throughout the first half of 2018. In May 2018, Olbermann's role at ESPN expanded to include a return to the role of SportsCenter host and the addition of occasional ESPN Major League Baseball play-by-play.

News journalism
In 1997, Olbermann left ESPN to host a prime-time show on MSNBC, The Big Show with Keith Olbermann (ESPN objected to the use of the title). The news-driven program, with substantial discussion, relied on Olbermann to carry the 8:00–9:00 pm hour. The show typically covered three or four topics in a one-hour broadcast. Olbermann also hosted two Sunday editions of NBC Nightly News and once co-anchored a Saturday edition of the Today show. During that period Olbermann, along with Hannah Storm, also co-hosted NBC Sports' pre-game coverage of the MLB 1997 World Series. Olbermann became frustrated as his show was consumed by the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In 1998, he stated that his work at MSNBC would "make me ashamed, make me depressed, make me cry."

Olbermann left MSNBC for Fox Sports Net shortly thereafter. After leaving Fox Sports in 2001, Olbermann returned once more to news journalism. In 2003, his network won an Edward R. Murrow Award for writing on the "Keith Olbermann Speaking of Everything" show. In addition, Olbermann wrote a weekly column for Salon.com from July 2002 until early 2003, worked for CNN as a freelance reporter, and was a fill-in for newscaster Paul Harvey. Olbermann revived his association with MSNBC in 2003 briefly as a substitute host on Nachman and as an anchor for the network's coverage of the war in Iraq.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Olbermann's own show, Countdown, debuted on MSNBC on March 31, 2003, in the 8 p.m. ET time slot previously held by programs hosted by Phil Donahue and, briefly, Lester Holt. Countdown's format, per its name, involved Olbermann ranking the five biggest news stories of the day or sometimes "stories my producers force me to cover", as Olbermann put it. This was done in numerically reverse order, counting down with the first story shown being ranked fifth but apparently the most important.

The first few stories shown were typically oriented toward government, politics, and world events; the segments ranked numbers two and one were typically of a lighter fare than the preceding segments. These lighter stories sometimes involved celebrities, sports, and, regularly and somewhere in the middle, the bizarre, in a segment he called "Oddball." Opinions on each were offered by Olbermann and guests interviewed during the segment. Olbermann had been criticized for only having guests that agree with his perspective. Former Los Angeles Times television critic Howard Rosenberg stated that "Countdown is more or less an echo chamber in which Olbermann and like-minded bobbleheads nod at each other."

On October 13, 2004, Olbermann launched Bloggermann, his Countdown blog, hosted on MSNBC's website. Olbermann used the open format of the blog to expand on facts or ideas alluded to in the broadcast, to offer personal musings and reactions. However, in February 2007, Olbermann launched a new blog, The News Hole.

In a technique similar to that of former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite in connection to the Iran Hostage Crisis, for the last six years of the program, Olbermann closed every show by announcing the number of days passed since President George W. Bush had declared the end of "major combat operations" in Iraq under a banner that read "Mission Accomplished" (May 1, 2003). Olbermann would then crumple up his notes, throwing them at the camera and saying "Good night and good luck", echoing another former CBS newsman, Edward R. Murrow. (Yet Olbermann himself discounted this gesture to his hero as "presumptuous" and a "feeble tribute.")

On February 16, 2007, MSNBC reported that Olbermann had signed a four-year extension on his contract with MSNBC for Countdown which also provided for his hosting of two Countdown specials a year to be aired on NBC as well as for his occasional contribution of essays on NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams.

Olbermann co-anchored, with Chris Matthews, MSNBC's coverage of the death of fellow NBC News employee Tim Russert on June 13, 2008. He presented a tribute, along with several fellow journalists, in honor of Russert.

During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Olbermann co-anchored MSNBC's coverage with Chris Matthews until September 7, 2008, when they were replaced by David Gregory after complaints from both outside and inside of NBC that they were making partisan statements. This apparent conflict of interest had been an issue as early as May 2007, when Giuliani campaign officials complained about his serving in dual roles, as both a host and a commentator. Despite this, Countdown was broadcast both before and after each of the presidential and vice-presidential debates, and Olbermann and Matthews joined Gregory on MSNBC's Election Day coverage. Olbermann and Matthews also led MSNBC's coverage of the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

In November 2008, it was announced that Olbermann had signed a four-year contract extension worth an estimated $30 million.

Feud with Bill O'Reilly
After beginning Countdown ' s "Worst Person in the World" segment in July 2005, Olbermann repeatedly awarded Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel, the dubious honor. The feud between the anchors originated with Olbermann's extensive coverage of a 2004 sexual harassment suit brought against O'Reilly by former Fox News Channel producer Andrea Mackris during which Olbermann asked Countdown viewers to fund the purchase of lurid audio tapes allegedly held by Mackris. In 2008 O'Reilly decided to avoid mentioning Olbermann's name on the air, and once cut off a caller who mentioned Olbermann. O'Reilly has also criticized MSNBC's news commentary and political coverage without ever specifically mentioning Olbermann. The rivalry continued when in 2006 at Television Critics' Association in California, Olbermann donned a mask of O'Reilly and made a Nazi salute, leading to a letter of protest from the Anti-Defamation League.

In an article on "perhaps the fiercest media feud of the decade", The New York Times' Brian Stelter noted that in early June 2009 the "combat" between the two hosts seemed to have abruptly ended as a result of instructions filtered down to Olbermann and O'Reilly from the chief executives of their respective networks. On the August 3, 2009, edition of Countdown, Olbermann asserted that he had made statements to Stelter before the article was published denying that he was a party to such a deal, or that there was such a deal between NBC and Fox News, or that any NBC executive had asked him to change Countdown's content. Olbermann maintained that he had stopped joking about O'Reilly because of O'Reilly's attacks of George Tiller, and soon resumed his criticism of O'Reilly.

Suspension
On October 28, 2010, days before the 2010 U.S. elections, Olbermann donated $2,400 each to three Democratic candidates for Congress: Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway, and Arizona Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabby Giffords. Grijalva had appeared on Olbermann's show immediately before Olbermann mailed the donations. In response, on November 5, MSNBC President Phil Griffin suspended him indefinitely without pay for violating a network policy which required employees to obtain approval from management before making political contributions. An online petition calling for his reinstatement received over 250,000 signatures; two days after the suspension began, Griffin announced that Olbermann would return to the air on November 9.

Departure
On January 21, 2011, Olbermann announced his departure from MSNBC and that the episode would be the final episode of Countdown. MSNBC issued a statement that it had ended its contract with Olbermann, with no further explanation. Additional reporting in the days immediately following suggested that the negotiations for the end of Olbermann's tenure at MSNBC had begun soon after the end of his suspension.

Current TV and FOKNewsChannel.com
On February 8, 2011, it was announced that Olbermann had become the chief news officer for the public affairs channel Current TV and would begin hosting a one-hour prime time program on the network at 8 pm Eastern – the same time slot that Countdown had been on MSNBC. On April 26, 2011, it was announced that Olbermann's new show would debut on June 20 and would be named Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Olbermann was also heavily involved in the development of the rest of the network's news programming. The deal also included an equity stake in Current TV.

During the interim between shows, Olbermann launched an "official not-for-profit" blog called FOKNewsChannel.com, "FOK" being an abbreviation for "Friends of Keith". The blog featured political commentaries by Olbermann—including viral video versions of Countdown's "Special Comment" and "Worst Person" segments, as well as photographs of his outings at professional baseball games. On May 29, 2011, the FOKNewsChannel.com domain redirected to the Current website promoting the June 20 launch.

Olbermann was fired from Current TV on March 30, 2012. In a statement from Current TV, they stated that "Current was [...] founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it." Olbermann released his own statement, apologizing for "the failure of Current TV" and "that the claims against me implied in Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently." The two parties sued each other over Olbermann's firing. On March 12, 2013, it was announced that Olbermann settled his $50 million legal claim. In a joint statement, Olbermann and Current TV said: "The parties are pleased to announce that a settlement has occurred, and that the terms are confidential. Nothing more will be disclosed regarding the settlement." According to Politico, Olbermann's professional reputation suffered greatly as a result of his dispute with Current, which accused Olbermann of making "material breaches of his contract, including the failure to show up at work, sabotaging the network and attacking Current and its executives." Purportedly, despite actively shopping other networks for offers, Olbermann was unable to find an outlet interested in hiring him. According to Politico, the fact Olbermann had been rendered unemployable as a result of the dispute, factored heavily during settlement negotiations between his attorneys and representatives from CurrentTV.

The Closer with Keith Olbermann/The Resistance
On September 12, 2016, GQ magazine announced that Olbermann would, as a special correspondent, host a web series covering the 2016 US presidential election. The series, titled The Closer with Keith Olbermann, aired twice weekly on GQ.com. It was retitled The Resistance after Donald Trump's victory. , it had nearly 170 million views on GQ's YouTube and Facebook. In mid-October 2017, Penguin Random House issued a hardcover book by Olbermann, Trump is F*cking Crazy (This is Not a Joke), consisting of 50 essays based on The Resistance commentaries. On November 27, 2017, in episode 147 of The Resistance, Olbermann announced his retirement from political commentary, citing his belief that "this ... presidency of Donald John Trump will end prematurely and end soon, and I am thus also confident that this is the correct moment to end this series of commentaries".

Countdown with Keith Olbermann Podcast
On August 1, 2022, Olbermann began producing and hosting a weekday podcast titled "Countdown with Keith Olbermann", for iHeart Media. It usually consists of a similar five block show from the TV days with three blocks changed out. The main, a dog in need, a headlines section, worst person, a sports rundown and the number one story either being a story of Olbermann's (usually his experience in the news media) or a short story from James Thurber on Fridays.

Acting
Olbermann has made several acting appearances either as himself or simply as a sports/newscaster, most notably as Tom Jumbo-Grumbo (a blue whale newscaster on the MSNBSea network) in several episodes of BoJack Horseman.

Viewpoints
Although it began as a traditional newscast, Countdown with Keith Olbermann eventually adopted an opinion-oriented format. In a Countdown interview with Al Franken on October 25, 2005, Olbermann noted that in 2003, after having Janeane Garofalo and Franken on his show, a vice president of MSNBC had questioned him on inviting "liberals" on consecutive nights, contrasting that occurrence to the apparent ideological latitude he enjoyed at the time of the second Franken interview.

In January 2007, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote that Olbermann was "position[ing] his program as an increasingly liberal alternative to The O'Reilly Factor." Much of the program featured harsh criticism of prominent Republicans and right-leaning figures, including those who worked for or supported the George W. Bush administration, 2008 Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain and running mate Governor Sarah Palin, and rival news commentator Bill O'Reilly, whom Olbermann has routinely dubbed the "Worst Person in the World".

The October 2007 edition of Playboy carried an Olbermann interview in which he stated, "Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda — worse for our society. It's as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was."

In November 2007, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph placed Olbermann at No. 67 on their Top 100 list of most influential US liberals. It said that he used his MSNBC show to promote "an increasingly strident liberal agenda." It added that he would be "a force on the Left for some time to come." Avoiding ideological self-labeling, Olbermann described his reporting in 2006 to Salon.com, "I don't think in these issues that I'm a liberal; I think that I'm an American. I think I'm acting almost as a historian on these particular things". During the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, Olbermann frequently chastised presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton for her campaign tactics against her principal opponent, Senator Barack Obama, and made her the subject of two of his "special comments". Olbermann has also posted on the liberal blog Daily Kos.

Before the 2010 Massachusetts special election, Olbermann called Republican candidate Scott Brown "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, Tea Bagging supporter of violence against women, and against politicians with whom he disagrees". This was criticized by his colleague Joe Scarborough, who called the comments "reckless" and "sad". Yael T. Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star said that Olbermann "crossed the line in a major way with his comments". The next night, Olbermann chose to "double down", as The Huffington Post's Danny Shea described it, on his criticism of Brown by adding the word "sexist" to his original description of the Republican candidate. Jon Stewart criticized Olbermann about this attack on his show, The Daily Show, by noting that it was "the harshest description of anyone I've ever heard uttered on MSNBC". Following Stewart's critique, Olbermann apologized by noting, "I have been a little over the top lately. Point taken. Sorry."

Olbermann accused the Tea Party movement of being racist due to what he views as a lack of racial diversity at the events, using photos that show overwhelmingly white crowds attending the rallies. In response, the Dallas Tea Party invited him to attend one of their events and also criticized his network for a lack of racial diversity, pointing out that an online banner of MSNBC personalities that appears on the website shows only white personalities. Olbermann declined the invitation, citing his father's prolonged ill health and hospitalization and stated that the network has minority anchors, contributors and guests.

In October 2020, Olbermann called for supporters and what he described as "enablers" of Donald Trump, including United States Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and conservative political commentator Sean Hannity, to be "prosecuted" and "removed from our society". Additionally. Olbermann labeled Trump "a terrorist" and called his supporters "a blight that will be with us for generations", further stating that Trump's "only barely-human delight comes from the morons in the crowd."

In March 2024, Olbermann called for the United States Supreme Court to be dissolved following the court's unanimous decision in Trump v. Anderson to allow Trump to remain on the ballot in the 2024 election.

Criticism of the Bush administration
In Olbermann's "Special Comment" segment on July 3, 2007, he called George W. Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence the "last straw" and called for the resignation of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. On his February 14, 2008, "Special Comments" segment, Olbermann castigated Bush for threatening to veto an extension of the Protect America Act unless it provided full immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies. During the same commentary, Olbermann called Bush a fascist. In a special comment on May 14, 2008, Olbermann criticized Bush for announcing that he had stopped playing golf in honor of American soldiers who died in the Iraq War. He stated that Bush never should have started the war in the first place, and he accused Bush of dishonesty and war crimes.

Personal life
Olbermann suffers from a mild case of celiac disease, as well as restless legs syndrome. In August 1980, he also suffered a head injury while leaping onto a New York City Subway train. This head injury permanently upset his equilibrium, resulting in his avoidance of driving. Along with Bob Costas, he supports the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation as an honorary board member.

Olbermann's father, Theodore, died on March 13, 2010, of complications from colon surgery the previous September. His mother had died several months before. Olbermann had cited the need to spend time with his father for taking a leave of absence shortly before his father's death, occasionally recording segments to air at the beginning of the shows which Lawrence O'Donnell guest hosted in his absence, giving his views on the state of the American health care system and updating viewers on his father's condition.

Olbermann is a dedicated baseball fan and historian of the sport, with membership in the Society for American Baseball Research. In 1973, when he was 14 years old, The Card Memorabilia Associates (TCMA) published his book The Major League Coaches: 1921–1973. The September issue of Beckett Sports Collectibles Vintage included a T206 card that depicted Olbermann in a 1905-era New York Giants uniform. He argues that New York Giants baseball player Fred Merkle has been unduly criticized for his infamous baserunning mistake. He contributed the foreword to More Than Merkle, a book requesting amnesty for "Merkle's Boner". Olbermann was also one of the founders of the first experts' fantasy baseball league, the USA Today Baseball Weekly League of Alternative Baseball Reality, and he gave the league its nickname "LABR". Olbermann wrote the foreword to the 2009 Baseball Prospectus Annual. In March 2009, Olbermann began a baseball-related blog entitled Baseball Nerd. He has also written a series of articles on baseball cards for the Sports Collectors Digest.

Career timeline

 * United Press International Radio Network, sports reporter (1979)
 * RKO Radio Network, sports reporter (1980)''
 * CNN, sports reporter (1981–1984)
 * WCVB-TV Boston, sports reporter (1984)
 * KTLA-TV Los Angeles, sports director (1985–1988)
 * KCBS-TV Los Angeles, sports director (1988–1992)
 * SportsCenter, co-anchor (ESPN, 1992–1997)
 * The Big Show, anchor (MSNBC, 1997–1998)
 * White House in Crisis, anchor (MSNBC, 1997–1998)
 * Major League Baseball on Fox, studio host (1999–2000)
 * National Sports Report, co-anchor (Fox Sports Net, 1999–2000)
 * The Keith Olbermann Evening News, anchor (Fox Sports Net, 2000–2001)
 * Speaking of Sports and Speaking of Everything, commentator (ABC Radio, 2001)
 * Countdown with Keith Olbermann, anchor (MSNBC, 2003–2011)
 * The Dan Patrick Show, co-host (ESPN Radio, 2005–2007)
 * Football Night in America, co-host (NBC, 2007–2010)
 * Countdown with Keith Olbermann, anchor (Current TV: 2011–2012)
 * MLB on TBS, studio host (2013)
 * Olbermann, host (ESPN2, 2013–2015)
 * The Resistance with Keith Olbermann, host (GQ, 2016–2017)
 * SportsCenter, anchor and ESPN Major League Baseball, play-by-play (2018–2020)
 * Countdown with Keith Olbermann, host (iHeart Radio, 2022–present)

Publications

 * The Major League Coaches: 1921–1973 (Card Memorabilia Associates, 1973).
 * The Big Show: Inside ESPN's Sportscenter (Atria, 1997) (coauthor: Dan Patrick). ISBN 0-671-00918-4.
 * The Worst Person in the World and 202 Strong Contenders (Wiley, September 2006). ISBN 0-470-04495-0.
 * Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values (Random House, December 2007). ISBN 978-1-4000-6676-6.
 * Pitchforks and Torches: The Worst of the Worst, from Beck, Bill, and Bush to Palin and Other Posturing Republicans (Wiley, October 25, 2010). ISBN 0-470-61447-1.
 * Trump Is F*cking Crazy: (This Is Not a Joke) (Blue Rider Press, October 17, 2017) ISBN 978-0-525-53386-3.

title: Keith Olbermann


text:
Milton County, Georgia

Milton County was a county of the U.S. state of Georgia from 1857 to 1931. It was created on December 18, 1857, from parts of northeastern Cobb, southeastern Cherokee, and southwestern Forsyth counties. The county was named for John Milton, Secretary of State of Georgia from 1777 to 1799. Alpharetta was the county seat until the end of 1931, when Milton was merged with Fulton County to save it from bankruptcy during the Great Depression. At that time, Campbell County, which had already gone bankrupt, was also ceded to Fulton, giving it its 70-mile (110 km) long irregular shape along the Chattahoochee River.

Following the 1932 merger, the Cobb County town of Roswell was also ceded to Fulton four months later on May 9, 1932. The cession of Roswell (including everything east of Willeo Creek) made the new county more contiguous, though a very narrow strip (what is now the Dunwoody Panhandle of Sandy Springs, ceded to Milton from DeKalb) actually already connected the two sections.

In 1900, there were several other post offices besides Alpharetta: Arnold, Coker, Dinsmore, Field's Cross Roads, Freemansville, McClure, Mazeppa, Ocee, Skelton, Stono, and Warsaw. Milton totaled 147 sqmi or 94,080 acres. There was a population of 6,763, which was 555 more than at the previous (1890) census. Alpharetta had 310 residents; 1,529 lived in and around it. Methodists and Baptists were the dominant religious denominations.

 * Adjacent Counties*

Re-creation proposals

 * See Secession section of Fulton County, Georgia for more in depth information

Fulton County has 10 percent of the state's population, being larger than eight U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The Fulton County school district is the only non-contiguous school district in the state, having a 17-mile (27 km) separation (Atlanta Public Schools) between the north and south.

In recent years, some residents of north Fulton County have sought to re-create Milton County. The proposed plan would include some of Georgia's largest cities in a new Milton County, such as Roswell (7th), Sandy Springs (8th), Johns Creek (12th), Alpharetta (13th), Milton (54th), as well as Mountain Park.

A February 2009 study completed in collaboration between the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government and Georgia State University's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies gave a positive analysis of the financial viability of the proposed Milton County.

A bill before the Georgia General Assembly in 2005 that proposed the inclusion of Sandy Springs would rename the remainder of Fulton County as "Atlanta County". The state's constitution, however, now prohibits any more than 159 counties, the number it has had since the merger in 1932. Any change would require a constitutional amendment, supported by two-thirds of each house in the General Assembly and by over half of all voters statewide in a referendum.

On January 9, 2007, state Representative Jan Jones, who represents the house district that includes Roswell, and representatives of adjacent districts introduced HR 12. Without mentioning Milton County by name, HR 12 proposed to amend the state constitution to allow the legislature to re-create previous counties regardless of the 159-county limit, if such an action is ratified by voters in the areas of the proposed re-created county. The amendment would disallow voters in the remaining parts of Fulton County from voting on the issue. Jones stated in November 2008 that she would reintroduce the bill in 2009, after the University of Georgia's study of the issue was completed.

A resolution to amend the Georgia Constitution to ease the political path for resurrection of the county was reintroduced by the area's legislators in the 2009 session as HR 21 and SR 392. As of 2009 February 18, HR 21 was reported favorably out of committee in a 7–1 vote. Reps. Jan Jones and Mark Burkhalter spoke in favor as well as Fulton County Commissioner Lynne Riley. Lobbyists for Fulton County and City of Atlanta, and Atlanta Dept of Watershed Management Commissioner Robert Hunter spoke against.

, Jan Jones (who lives in the new city of Milton, named for the former county) was the speaker pro tempore of the Georgia House, and was expected to make a strong push for the new county. The constitutional amendment would require two-thirds of each house and half of all voters in a statewide referendum to approve the re-creation of former counties (Milton and Campbell). As of October 2021 no proposals have been advanced.

Geography
Milton County originally bordered Gwinnett to the southeast, Forsyth to the northeast, Cherokee to the northwest, Cobb to the southwest, and DeKalb (Chamblee and Dunwoody) to the south. Because the Roswell area was formerly located in Cobb County, there was no border between Fulton and Milton counties before 1932. The northern edge of DeKalb also now no longer touches the river, as it did then. This section, north of Dunwoody Club Drive, is now the panhandle of Sandy Springs.

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

title: Milton County, Georgia


text:
SV Wacker Burghausen

SV Wacker Burghausen is a German football club based in Burghausen, Bavaria and is part of one of the nation's largest sports clubs with some 6,000 members participating in two dozen different sports.

History
The club was founded on 13 November 1930 and was made up largely of employees from the local chemical factory Wacker Chemie, which was established in 1914, and still sponsors the club today. The first football side in the city was part of the gymnastics club Turnverein Burghausen. In 1922, the footballers left TV to form 1. FC Burghausen which became part of SV at the time of its founding. Besides football, the new club had departments for shooting, athletics, and youth.

SV won the East Bavarian championship just three years later in 1933, but then afterwards toiled in anonymity in the local lower-level leagues until 1993 when they won the Landesliga Bayern-Süd (V) title, followed by the Bayernliga (IV) championship two years later, which advanced the club to the Regionalliga Süd (III). In 2002–03, the team played its way into the 2. Bundesliga where they competed until being relegated at the end of the 2006–07 campaign.

Wacker earned a seventh-place finish in the Regionalliga in 2007–08, which qualified the team for the new 3. Liga the following season. It finished the 2008–09 season in 18th place, on a relegation rank but was saved from having to step down to the Regionalliga by the withdrawal from the league of Kickers Emden for financial reasons.

The club finished in 18th place, on a relegation rank but was saved from having step down to the Regionalliga for a second time by the insolvency of Rot Weiss Ahlen. After good results in 2011–12 and 2012–13 the club finished 19th in the league in 2013–14 and was relegated to the Regionalliga Bayern.

Reserve team
The SV Wacker Burghausen II team played in the Bayernliga (IV) from 2005 to 2007, making Burghausen one of the few clubs to have had both first and second teams play at this level. The reserve team finished 15th in the Landesliga Bayern-Süd (VI) in the 2010–11 season, narrowly avoiding relegation. At the end of the 2011–12 season the team qualified directly for the newly expanded Bayernliga after winning the league championship in the Landesliga. It played in the Bayernliga until 2014 when the club decided to withdraw the team from competition at the end of the season.

Honours
The club's honours:

League

 * Regionalliga Süd (III)
 * Champions: 2002
 * Bayernliga (IV)
 * Champions: 1995
 * Landesliga Bayern-Süd (IV)
 * Champions: 1993
 * Runners-up: 1973, 1984
 * 2. Amateurliga Oberbayern A (IV)
 * Champions: 1962
 * Bezirksliga Oberbayern-Ost (V)
 * Champions: 1965, 1983

Cup

 * Bavarian Cup
 * Runners-up: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2017

Reserve team

 * Landesliga Bayern-Süd (V)
 * Champions: 2005, 2012
 * Bezirksoberliga Oberbayern (VI)
 * Runners-up: 2001
 * Bezirksliga Oberbayern-Ost (VII)
 * Runners-up: 1999

Youth

 * Bavarian Under 19 championship
 * Champions: 2006, 2013
 * Runners-up: 2011
 * Bavarian Under 17 championship
 * Champions: 2009
 * Runners-up: 2005

Recent managers
Recent managers of the club:

Recent seasons
The recent season-by-season performance of the club:

SV Wacker Burghausen II

 * With the introduction of the Bezirksoberligas in 1988 as the new fifth tier, below the Landesligas, all leagues below dropped one tier. With the introduction of the Regionalligas in 1994 and the 3. Liga in 2008 as the new third tier, below the 2. Bundesliga, all leagues below dropped one tier.

Retired numbers
11 – 🇸🇰 Marek Krejčí, Forward (2004–07) – posthumous honour.

title: SV Wacker Burghausen


text:
Phil Donahue

Phillip John Donahue (born December 21, 1935) is an American media personality, writer, film producer and the creator and host of The Phil Donahue Show. The television program, later known simply as Donahue, was the first talk show format that included audience participation. The show had a twenty-nine–year run on national television that began in Dayton, Ohio, in 1967 and ended in New York City in 1996.

Donahue's shows have often focused on issues that divide liberals and conservatives in the United States, such as abortion, consumer protection, civil rights and war issues. His most frequent guest was Ralph Nader, for whom Donahue campaigned in 2000. Donahue also briefly hosted a talk show on MSNBC from July 2002 to March 2003. Donahue is one of the most influential talk show hosts and has been called the "king of daytime talk". Oprah Winfrey has said, "If it weren't for Phil Donahue, there would never have been an Oprah Show". In 1996, Donahue was ranked #42 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Early life
Donahue was born into a middle-income, churchgoing, Irish Catholic family in Cleveland, Ohio; his father, Phillip Donahue, was a furniture sales clerk and his mother, Catherine (née McClory) was a department store shoe clerk. In 1949, he graduated from Our Lady of Angels elementary school in the West Park neighborhood of Cleveland. In 1953, Donahue was a member of the first graduating class of St. Edward High School, an all-boys college preparatory Catholic private high school run by the Congregation of Holy Cross in suburban Lakewood, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame, which is also run by the Congregation of Holy Cross, with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1957.

Early career
Donahue began his career in 1957 as a production assistant at KYW radio and television when that station was in Cleveland. He got a chance to become an announcer one day when the regular announcer failed to show up. After a brief stint as a bank check sorter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he became program director for WABJ radio in Adrian, Michigan, soon after graduating. He moved on to become a stringer for the CBS Evening News and later, an anchor of the morning newscast at WHIO-TV in Dayton, Ohio, where his interviews with Jimmy Hoffa and Billie Sol Estes were picked up nationally. While in Dayton, Donahue also hosted Conversation Piece, an afternoon phone-in talk show from 1963 to 1967 on WHIO radio. In Dayton, Donahue interviewed presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, late-night talk show host Johnny Carson, human rights activist Malcolm X and Vietnam war opponents including Jerry Rubin. In Chicago and New York City, Donahue interviewed Elton John, heavyweight boxing champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and author and political activist Noam Chomsky.

The Phil Donahue Show
On November 6, 1967, Donahue left WHIO, moving his talk program with The Phil Donahue Show on WLWD (now WDTN), also in Dayton. Initially, the program was shown only on other stations owned by the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation (which would later take the name of its parent Avco Company), which also owned WLWD. But, in January 1970, The Phil Donahue Show entered nationwide syndication. Donahue's syndicated show moved from Dayton, Ohio, to Chicago in 1974; then in 1984, he moved the show to New York City, where the show was shot at a studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

After a 29-year run—26 years in syndication and nearly 7,000 one-hour daily shows—the final original episode of Donahue aired on September 13, 1996.

While hosting his own program, Donahue also appeared on NBC's The Today Show as a contributor, from 1979 until 1988.

U.S.–Soviet Space Bridge
In the 1980s, during the Cold War period of openness by the USSR, Donahue and Soviet journalist Vladimir Posner co-hosted a series of televised discussions, known as the U.S.–Soviet Space Bridge, among everyday citizens of the Soviet Union and the United States. It was the first event of its kind in broadcasting history: Donahue hosted an audience in an American city while Posner hosted an audience in a Soviet city, all on one television program. Members of both audiences asked each other questions about both nations. While the governments of both nations were preparing for the possibility of nuclear war, Donahue said: "We reached out instead of lashed out". From 1991 to 1994 Donahue and Posner co-hosted Posner/Donahue, a weekly, issues-oriented roundtable program, which aired both on CNBC and in syndication. His wife Marlo Thomas created a children's version in 1988 entitled Free to Be... A Family. Donahue and Posner have been friends ever since.

MSNBC program
In July 2002, Phil Donahue returned to television after seven years of retirement to host a show called Donahue on MSNBC. On February 25, 2003, MSNBC canceled the show. Soon after the show's cancellation, an internal MSNBC memo was leaked to the press stating that Donahue should be fired because he opposed the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq and that he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war" and that his program could be "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda". Donahue commented in 2007 that the management of MSNBC, owned at the time by General Electric, a major defense contractor, required that "we have two conservative (guests) for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals".

Body of War
In 2006, Donahue served as co-director with independent filmmaker Ellen Spiro for the feature documentary film Body of War. The film tells the story of Tomas Young, a severely disabled Iraq War veteran and his turbulent postwar adjustments. In November 2007 the film was named as one of fifteen documentaries to be in consideration for an Oscar nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Other appearances
In June 2013, Donahue and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video showing support for Chelsea Manning.

Donahue was interviewed for the documentary film, Finding Vivian Maier (2013), about the posthumously recognized American street photographer of that name, an acquaintance of his from the 1970s.

On May 24 and May 25, 2016, Donahue spoke at Ralph Nader's "Breaking Through Power" conference, at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

Honors
Donahue was awarded 20 Emmy Awards during his broadcasting career, 10 for Outstanding Talk Show Host, and 10 for The Phil Donahue Show. He received the Peabody Award in 1980, and was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame on November 20, 1993. In 1987, he received the "Maggie" Award, highest honor of the Planned Parenthood Federation, in tribute to their founder, Margaret Sanger. In 2024, Donahue was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.

Personal life
Donahue's 1958 marriage to Margaret Cooney produced five children—Michael, Kevin, Daniel, Mary Rose, and James—but ended in divorce in 1975. She returned to her native New Mexico, remarried, and retired from public view. The family had lived in Centerville, Ohio, across the street from Erma Bombeck, a humorist who would become one of his contemporaries as a national voice in the 1970s and 1980s. For a brief period in the 1970s, Donahue employed Vivian Maier, an American street photographer, as a nanny for his children.

Donahue married actress Marlo Thomas on May 21, 1980. He and Thomas do not have any children together.

In 2014, Phil Donahue's youngest son, James Donahue, died suddenly at the age of fifty-one from a ruptured aortic aneurysm.

Regarding his religion, Donahue has stated: "I will always be a Catholic. But I want my church to join the human race and finally walk away from this antisexual theology". He also said that he is not "a very good Catholic", and that he did not think it was necessary to have his first marriage annulled. He has expressed admiration of Pope Francis.

title: Phil Donahue


text:
David Lavender

David Sievert Lavender (February 4, 1910 – April 26, 2003) was an American historian and writer who was one of the most prolific chroniclers of the American West. He published more than 40 books, including two novels, several children's books, and a memoir. Unlike his two prominent contemporaries, Bernard DeVoto and Wallace Stegner, Lavender was not an academic. Much of his writing was influenced by his first-hand practical knowledge of the American West and the historical realities and locations depicted in his books—in the mines, on the trails, in the mountains, and on the rivers. Lavender was a two-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, and was widely admired by scholars for his accuracy and objectivity.

Early years
David Lavender was born and raised on a cattle ranch 20 miles north of Telluride, Colorado, then a fading mining town. During his early years, he worked as a gold miner and a cowboy. His love of the outdoors led to his becoming an avid mountaineer and dedicated conservationist. Although raised in the rustic mountains of western Colorado, Lavender came from a family that highly valued learning and education. His grandfather was a Colorado supreme court judge, and both his parents were college-educated. Lavender attended Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, and later studied the law and liberal arts at Princeton University.

After graduating in 1931, he briefly attended Stanford Law School before returning to western Colorado to help his stepfather Edgar Lavender run his cattle ranch. After his stepfather died in 1934, he lived on his sizable cattle ranch until the bank repossessed it in 1935. Lavender then moved to Denver, where he worked for an advertising agency and wrote fiction for popular pulp magazines and juvenile publications like Boys' Life.

Writing career
In 1939, Lavender moved to Ojai, California, where he took a teaching job. He sold three short stories to The Saturday Evening Post and went on to contribute to other publications. He began to write about the American West he had experienced growing up—wanting to record a way of life that he felt was slowly fading away. He began to write about his days working in the Camp Bird Mine near Ouray, Colorado, as a miner. The result was a memoir, One Man's West, which was published in 1943. That year, Lavender began teaching English at The Thacher School—a boarding school in Ojai—where he encouraged and supported many young writers. Lavender kept his teaching position at the Thacher School until 1970.

The American West of Lavender's early years was still a place of ranchers, miners, cowboys, prospectors, and mountaineers—for most men, a world of backbreaking, lonely, and dangerous work. In One Man's West, however, Lavender did not focus on "the cold and the cruel fatigue", but instead wrote about the "multitude of tiny things which in their sum make up the elemental poetry of rock and ice and snow". Lavender felt compelled to document his experiences in rugged southwest Colorado to preserve what he saw as a rapidly disappearing way of life. The book is filled with unique characters and personal stories, narrated in a warm conversational style.

In 1948, Lavender followed up his successful memoir with The Big Divide, a history of the Rocky Mountain region that established his reputation as a serious historian. The critical and commercial success of these two books launched Lavender's literary career.

In 1954, Lavender published Bent's Fort, an historic landmark of the American West on the upper Arkansas River in present-day southeastern Colorado. Built by Charles and William Bent, Bent's Fort was a massive private fort that stood until 1849 as the center of trade with the Indians of the central plains. Lavender's history of these men and their role in opening up the southwestern region of North America has been compared to the works of eminent historians such as Francis Parkman and William H. Prescott.

In 1958, Lavender wrote The Trail to Santa Fe, about Zebulon Pike and his exploration of the American Southwest in present-day Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. The book captures the turbulent adventures of the explorers, traders, and fighters who opened up this new country, and the hardships they faced during their westward expansion into uncharted land along the Santa Fe Trail, which ran from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Lavender wrote a series of histories of the American West, including Red Mountain in 1963, Westward Vision: The Story of the Oregon Trail in 1963, The Rockies in 1968 (Harper & Row), and The American West in 1969.

In the 1980s, Lavender expanded his focus as an historian, writing about the Pacific Northwest in Fort Vancouver (1981), Wyoming in Fort Laramie (1984), Utah and Arizona in Colorado River Country (1982) and River Runners of the Grand Canyon (1985), California in California: A Place, a People, a Dream (1986) and California: Land of New Beginnings (1987), and Colorado in The Telluride Story (1987). He also produced general histories of the American West in Overland Migrations (1981), Colorado River Country (1982), The Great West (1985), The Way to the Western Sea (1988), and the American Heritage History of the West (1988).

In 1992, Lavender published Let Me Be Free: The Nez Percé Tragedy (1992), the tragic story of the Nez Percé Indians' flight from their homeland to Canada to escape the United States cavalry. The clash between European-Americans and the American Indians was a subject Lavender covered in many of his previous works. "This goes back to The Big Divide. I always travel to the places I write about, so while I was researching The Big Divide I went to Santa Fé for the first time. I arrived in September, and found myself in the midst of the Fiesta and the burning of Zozobra, old man gloom. That was quite a time. Well, on that trip I got to meet a few Indians. I journeyed to Taos and Acoma Pueblos, and got interested in Canyon de Chelly. This was my first fascination with Indians. There were none around the ranch when I was growing up. That was just the beginning, and my research deepened my fascination."

In the last decade of his life, Lavender focused his writing on the American Southwest. His books De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo: Explorers of the Northern Mystery (1992), The Santa Fe Trail (1995), Pipe Spring and the Arizona Strip (1997), Mother Earth, Father Sky: Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest (1998), and Climax at Buena Vista: The Decisive Battle of the Mexican-American War (2003) all contributed to documenting the history of the region.

Honors and awards
Lavender was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He received numerous awards for his work, including awards from American Heritage and the Western Writers of America. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships to study the fur trade, and the Commonwealth Club of California gave him four medals for his histories of Colorado, the Pacific Northwest, early San Francisco, and the Lewis and Clark expedition. In 1997, he received the Wallace Stegner Award from the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado.

Personal life
In the early 1930s, Lavender married Martha Bloom, who gave birth to their only son David G. Lavender in 1934. After his wife died in 1959, he married his second wife, Mildred Moreland, and they remained together for 25 years before she too died. In 1990, on his 80th birthday, Lavender married his third wife, Muriel Sharkey, whom he first got to know on a river trip through the Grand Canyon. In 2003, his health began to fail. Lavender died of natural causes at his home in Ojai, California on April 26, 2003, at the age of 93. He was survived by his wife Muriel, his son David, and numerous grandchildren, stepchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Works

 * One Man's West (1943)
 * Andy Claybourne (1946)
 * The Big Divide: The Lively Story of the People of the Southern Rocky Mountains (1948)
 * Snowbound: The Tragic Story of the Donner Party (1948)
 * Bent's Fort (1954)
 * Trail to Santa Fe (1958)
 * Red Mountain (1963)
 * Westward Vision: The Story of the Oregon Trail (1963)
 * The American West (1969)
 * Penguin Book of the American West (1969)
 * The Great Persuader: The Biography of Collis P. Huntington (1970)
 * California (1972)
 * The Rockies (1975)
 * Nothing Seemed Impossible: William C. Ralston and Early San Francisco (1975)
 * David Lavender's Colorado (1976)
 * One Man's West (1977)
 * Winner Take All: The Trans-Canada Canoe Trail (1977)
 * Land of Giants: Drive to the Pacific Northwest, 1750-1950 (1979)
 * The Fist in the Wilderness (1979)
 * Overland Migrations: Settlers to Oregon, California, and Utah (1980)
 * Los Angeles, Two Hundred (1980)
 * Fort Vancouver (1981)
 * Overland Migrations (1981)
 * Colorado River Country (1982)
 * The Southwest (1984)
 * Fort Laramie: A Guide to Fort Laramie National Historic Site (1984)
 * River Runners of the Grand Canyon (1985)
 * The Great West (1985)
 * Fort Laramie and the Changing Frontier (1985)
 * California: A Place, a People, a Dream (1986)
 * California: Land of New Beginnings (1987)
 * The Telluride Story (1987)
 * The Way to the Western Sea (1988)
 * American Heritage History of the West (1988)
 * Let Me Be Free: The Nez Perce Tragedy (1992)
 * De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo: Explorers of the Northern Mystery (1992)
 * Mask Arts of Mexico (photographer) (1994)
 * The Santa Fe Trail (1995)
 * Pipe Spring and the Arizona Strip (1997)
 * Mother Earth, Father Sky: Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest (1998)
 * Fort Vancouver: Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Washington (2001)
 * Climax at Buena Vista: The Decisive Battle of the Mexican-American War (2003)

title: David Lavender


text:
Miya Masaoka

Miya Masaoka (born 1958, Washington, D.C.) is an American composer, musician, and sound artist active in the field of contemporary classical music and experimental music. Her work encompasses contemporary classical composition, improvisation, electroacoustic music, inter-disciplinary sound art, sound installation, traditional Japanese instruments, and performance art. She is based in New York City. Masaoka often performs on a 21-string Japanese koto (musical instrument), which she extends with software processing, string preparations, and bowing. She has created performance works and installations incorporating plants, live insects, and sensor technology. Her full-length ballet was performed at the Venice Biennale 2004. She has been awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (2021), the Doris Duke Award (2013) and the Herb Alpert Award (2004), and a Fulbright Fellowship for advanced research for Noh, gagaku and the ichi gen kin. She is an associate professor in the MFA Visual Arts Department at Columbia University, and the director of the MFA Sound Art Program.

Early life and education
Masaoka began studying classical music at eight years old. In her early 20s, she moved to Paris, France, and upon returning to the US, she enrolled at San Francisco State University, and received her BA in Music, magna cum laude, where she studied with Wayne Peterson and Eric Moe. She holds an MA from Mills College where she received the Faculty Award in Music Composition. Her teachers included Alvin Curran, Maryanne Amacher and David Tudor.

Biography
Masaoka's work spans many genres and media. She has created works for voice, orchestra, installations, electronics and film shorts. She has sewn and soldered handmade responsive garments (LED KIMONO) and mapped the movement of insects and response of plants and brain activity to sound (Pieces For Plants, The Sound of Naked Men, Thinking Sounds).

Her works have been commissioned and premiered by Bang on a Can, So Percussion, Either/Or, Kathleen Supove, Joan Jeanrenaud, SF Sound, Volti, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Alonzo King’s Ballet, The Del Sol String Quartet and others. Her orchestral work “Other Mountain” was selected for a reading by JCOI Earshot for the La Jolla Symphony 2013.

She founded and directed the San Francisco Gagaku Society (1989-1996) under the tutelage of Master Suenobu Togi, a former Japanese Imperial Court musician who traced his gagaku lineage more than 1000 years to the Tang Dynasty.

Her love of nature and resonant outdoor space led her to record the migrating birds in the deep and naturally resonant canyons near the San Diego Airport, resulting in the work “For Birds, Planes and Cello,” written for Joan Jeanrenaud, formerly of Kronos Quartet. “While I Was Walking, I Heard a Sound” is scored for 120 singers, spatialized in balconies of the concert hall. During one movement, three choirs and nine opera singers are making bird calls and environmental sounds.

As a kotoist, she remains active in improvisation and has performed and recorded with Pharoah Sanders, Pauline Oliveros, Gerry Hemingway, Jon Rose, Fred Frith, Larry Ochs and Maybe Monday, Steve Coleman, Anthony Braxton, Reggie Workman, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Andrew Cyrille, George E. Lewis, Jin Hi Kim, Susie Ibarra, Vijay Iyer, Myra Melford, Zeena Parkins, Toshiko Akiyoshi, William Parker, Robert Dick, Lukas Ligeti, Earl Howard, Henry Brant and many others.

Masaoka describes herself, saying, “I am deeply moved by the sounds and kinetic energy of the natural world. People, history, memory, this geography and soundscape of nature and culture --from our human heart beat to the rhythms of the moon and oceans-- how infinitely complex yet so fundamental.”

She initiated and founded the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival in 1999.

In 2004, Masaoka received an Alpert Award in the Arts, and she previously was given a National Endowment for the Arts and a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Award.

The New York Times describes her solo performances as “exploring the extremes of her instrument,” and The Wire describes her own compositions as “magnificent…virtuosic…essential music…”

She has been a faculty member at the Milton Avery Graduate Program at Bard College in Music/Sound since 2002, and has taught music composition at NYU. She received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award in 2013, and a Fulbright Scholarship for Japan, 2016.

Works

 * Symphony orchestra
 * Other Mountain (2013)
 * Creative Orchestra
 * What is the Difference Between Stripping and Playing the Violin? (2 vlns, elec. bass, acoustic bass, elec. gtr, Asian instruments, turntable, electronics, saxophones, 2 drummers) (1997)
 * Off a Craggy Cliff, 2 large telematic ensembles (non-specific instrumentation) (2009)
 * Jagged Pyramid, large ensemble (non-specific instrumentation) (2009)
 * Choral works
 * While I Was Walking, I Heard a Sound…” 3 a cappella choirs, 9 soloists (2003)
 * Large ensemble: 7 or more players
 * Twenty Four Thousand Years is Forever, chamber orchestra and tape; 2 shengs, 2 saxophones, clarinet, percussion, 2 violins, cello, bass, koto (1997)
 * Dark Passages, a multi media oratorio, readers, string quartet, Buddhist chanters, actors, projected slides, video (1998)
 * It Creeps Along, clarinet, cello, guitar, percussion, bass, piano, Laser Koto (gestural controller) (2000)
 * What is the Sound of Naked Asian Men?, 8 musicians and streaming brain wave data, video projection (2001)
 * Chironomy, 5 players in 2 groups. clarinet, vocalist, synthesizer in group 1, 2 computers in Group 2, streaming audio and projected video of children's hands gesturing (2006)
 * Pieces for Plants, plants, EEG sensors, computer, (plant with sensors on leaves; data response is interpreted through sound (2007)
 * The Long Road, string quartet, percussion, koto, analog modular synthesis (2013)
 * Works for 2-6 players
 * Spirit of Goze, taiko, piano, koto (1990)
 * Ancient Art, tabla, flute, cello, 13 str koto (1991)
 * For Sho, Bassoon and Koto (1994)
 * The Wanderer and the Firefly; five hichi ricki and snare drum (1994)
 * Butterfly Logic, 4 percussionists, amplified metal percussion (2008)
 * LED Kimono, electronics, reader, dancer, custom designed and built responsive wearable electronics (2009)
 * Swimming Through Madness, duo 13 str. kotos (2010)
 * Warsaw, violin, cello, 2 vocalists, video projections, koto (2011)
 * Stemming, 1-4 players. Tuning forks, multi channel speakers (2011)
 * The Dust and the Noise, piano, percussion, violin, cello (2013)
 * Survival, string quartet (2013)
 * The Clattering of Life, string quartet and improvising trio (2013)
 * Tilt, string quartet #2 (2015)
 * Solo
 * Topaz Refractions, 21 str koto (1990)
 * Unearthed/Unbound, 21 str koto (1992)
 * Tripped, clarinet (1994)
 * Ritual for Giant Hissing Madagascar Cockroaches, performer, laser beams, interactive software, cockroaches. (Roaches’ movement interrupts sensors triggering audio samples of their hissing sounds) (1995-98)
 * Three Sounds of Tea, koto and electronics (1998)
 * Bee Project #1, koto, violin, percussion and live, amplified bees projected video (1996)
 * Music For Mouths, 4 saxophones (1999)
 * For Birds, Planes and Cello, cello, field recording (tape) (2004)
 * Things in an Open Field, Laser Koto and electronics (2006)
 * Balls, piano, Disclavier, ping-pong balls (2007)
 * A Crack in Your Thoughts, koto and electronics (2012)
 * Untitled, Bass solo (2015)
 * For dance
 * Clytemnestra, solo koto with metal, paper preparations (1993)
 * Koto, a full-length ballet, koto and tape (2004)
 * Installations/Exhibitions
 * The Black Room, collaboration with poet Richard Oyama…(1988)
 * Koto in the Sky, Interactive installation, with lasers beamed across two buildings over an alley triggered with broomsticks from fire escapes (2000)
 * Pieces for Plants #5, an interactive sound installation for houseplant, electrodes, computer and audience interaction (2001)
 * Inner Koto, Multi Channel sound installation, The Kitchen, NYC, The Winter Olympics, Torino, Italy (group show) (2005-7)
 * Between Thought and Sound: Graphic Notation in Contemporary Art, Group Show (2007)
 * Minetta Creek, Judson Church, NYC, multi-channel sound (2008)
 * Partials of Sound, of Light, Multi channel sound installation (2013–14)

Discography

 * Portrait recordings
 * Compositions Improvisations (1994, Asian Improv Records) (debut solo CD with James Newton, Frank Holder)
 * Monk's Japanese Folksong (1998, Dizim) (Miya Masaoka Trio with Andrew Cyrille, Reggie Workman)
 * What is the Difference Between Stripping and Playing the Violin? (1998, Victo) The Masaoka Orchestra, Masaoka conducts; Kei Yamashita, Jeff Lukas, Lee Yen, Carla Kihlstedt, Liberty Ellman, India Cooke, Francis Wong, Hafez Hadirzadeh, Toyoji Tomita, Robbie Kauker, Sciobhan Brooks, Glen Horiuchi, Vijay Iyer, George E. Lewis, Trevor Dunn, Mark Izu, Liu Qi Chao, Anthony Brown, Elliot Humberto Kavee, Thomas Day, Patty Liu, DJ Mariko + others
 * For Birds, Planes and Cello (2004, Solitary B) Composed by Masaoka for Joan Jeanrenaud
 * While I Was Walking, I Heard a Sound… (2004, Solitary B) (for three a cappella choirs and 9 soloists spatialized in balconies with 120 singers, Volti, San Francisco Choral Society, Piedmont Eastbay Children's Choir) Amy X Neuburg, Randall Wong + others
 * Collaborations
 * Crepuscular Music (1996, Rastascan) (as a trio with Gino Robair, Tom Nunn)
 * Séance (1996, VEX) (as a trio with Henry Kaiser, Danielle DeGruttola)
 * Sliding (1998, Noise Asia) (duets with Jon Rose)
 * The Usual Turmoil (1998, Music and Arts) (duets with George E. Lewis)
 * Guerrilla Mosaics (1999, 482 Music) (as a trio with John Butcher, Gino Robair)
 * Saturn's Finger (1999, Buzz Records) (as a trio with Fred Frith, Larry Ochs)
 * Digital Wildlife (2000, Winter + Winter) (as a trio with Fred Frith Larry Ochs)
 * Illuminations (2003, Rastascan Records) (as a trio with Peter Kowald, Gino Robair)
 * Klang. Farbe. Melodie (2004, 482 Music) (as a quartet with Biggi Vinkeloe, George Cremaschi, Gino Robair)
 * Fly, Fly, Fly (2004, Intakt Records) (as a trio with Larry Ochs, Joan Jeanrenaud)
 * Unsquare (Intakt 2008) Maybe Monday: Fred Frith, Larry Ochs, Carla Kihlstedt, Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori and Gerry Hemingway
 * Duets with Accordion and Koto (2008, Deep Listening) (duets with Pauline Oliveros)
 * Spiller Alley (2008, RogueArt) (as a trio with Larry Ochs, Peggy Lee)
 * Masaoka, Audrey Chen, Kenta Nagai, Hans Grusel(2009, Resipiscent)
 * Humeurs (2013, RogueArt) (As the quartet East West Collective with Didier Petit, Sylvain Kasaap, Larry Ochs, Xu Fengxia)

As a performer
Myths, Modes and Means, Mystic Rhythm Society (BMG/RCA 1996)
 * With Steve Coleman

What We Live (Black Saint 1996)
 * With Lisle Ellis

Suite for Koto and Jazz Orchestra (BMG, 1997. The work was composed for Miya Masaoka)
 * With Toshiko Akiyoshi

Twelve Minor (Avant 1998)
 * With Ben Goldberg

Global Fusion (Erato 1999)
 * With Dr. L. Subramaniam

Trancepatterns (Dendroica Music 2000)
 * With John Ingle, Dan Joseph

Burdocks (Tzadik 2001)
 * With Christian Wolff

Legends and Legacies (Asian Improv Records 2005)
 * With Glen Horiuchi

Cloud Plate (Cryptogramophone 2005)
 * With Alex Cline

Sequel (for Lester Bowie) (Intakt), 2006)
 * With George Lewis

Sound Body (samadhisound 2007)
 * With David Toop

 * With Earl Howard, Granular Modality (2012, New World Records)"

In compilation

 * Tom Djll; Tribute to Sun Ra, Rastascan 1995
 * Radim Zenkl; Strings and Wings, Shanachie 1996
 * Sounds Like1996: Music By Asian American Artists, Innocent Eyes + Lenses. 1996
 * Halleluia Anyway: Tribute to Tom Cora. Tzadik 1999
 * Azadi! RAWA, Fire Museum + Electro Motive Records 2000
 * President’s Breakfast III C. Disc Lexia Records 2001
 * soundCd no. 1, San Pedro Schindler House. Curated by Cindy Bernard, SASSAS 2001
 * Music Overheard. Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Curated by Bhob Rainey and Kenneth Goldsmith. Excerpt of “Ritual,” 2006

With Fred Frith and Maybe Monday
 * Digital Wildlife (Winter & Winter, 2002)
 * Unsquare (Intakt, 2008)

Films

 * 1999 – L. Subramaniam: Violin From the Heart. Directed by Jean Henri Meunier. (Includes a scene with Masaoka performing with L. Subramaniam.)
 * 2010 – The Reach of Resonance. Directed by Steve Elkins.

title: Miya Masaoka


text:
Jacques Santer

Jacques Santer (born 18 May 1937) is a Luxembourgish politician who served as the ninth president of the European Commission from 1995 to 1999. He served as the finance minister of Luxembourg from 1979 until 1989, and the 22nd prime minister of Luxembourg from 1984 to 1995, as a member of the Christian Social People's Party (CSV), which was the leading party in the Luxembourg government between 1979 and 2013. As Prime Minister of Luxembourg he also led the negotiations on the Single European Act, which effectively set aside the 20-year-old Luxembourg Compromise.

Career
He graduated in 1959 from the Paris Institute of Political Studies, and received his doctorate in law in 1961. From 1972 to 1974 he was a junior minister in the government. From 1979 to 1984 he was Minister of Finance, Minister for Work and Minister for Social Security, under Pierre Werner, in the coalition government between the Christian Social People's Party (CSV) and the liberal Democratic Party.

After the general election of 1984, Pierre Werner retired as Prime Minister and from political life in general, and Santer became the new Prime Minister. He and the CSV now formed a new coalition with the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP), which had come out of the elections as the second-largest party in the legislature, beating the Democratic Party into third place; the CSV remained the largest party. This CSV / LSAP coalition was to last until 1999.

On 10 November 1990 an article appeared in the newspaper vum Lëtzebuerger Vollek, which translates into "Five years of state secret – The bombing NATO terror commando" that caused a parliament inquiry in which Santer was forced to reveal the existence of a stay-behind army in Luxembourg and being politically responsible to call for its dissolution. The organisation was active since its creation by the then prime minister Pierre Werner in 1959 and was organised by the secret service of Luxembourg, the Service de Renseignement de l'Etat (SREL) and coordinated by the NATO. On 17 December 1990 he told the constitutional committee the organisation had never more than 12 members and was only foreseen to handle intelligence operations, as well as escape and evasion manoeuvers. There were weapons caches established in 1973, but direct access would not have been granted, according to Santer. On 14 October 1990 the remaining members of the organisation were informed and requested to return their radio communication equipment.

Presidency of the European Commission
Santer became the ninth President of the European Commission in 1995 as a compromise choice between the United Kingdom and a Franco-German alliance, after the Franco-German nominee Jean-Luc Dehaene was vetoed by British prime minister John Major. Santer's selection was barely ratified by a European Parliament upset with the process for which Commission presidents are selected.

In the same year, 1995, Santer became the first recipient of the Vision for Europe Award.

Allegations of corruption concerning individual EU-commissioners led to an investigation into administrative failings (incompetence and malpractice) by a so-called Committee of Independent Experts. Despite clearing most commissioners, the report stated that they had not found a single person showing the slightest sense of responsibility. Because the implicated commissioners refused to resign and the President of the European Commission did not have the power to dismiss individual commissioners, Santer and his entire commission resigned on 15 March 1999, the very day of the report's publication. As the Commission would only have lasted for half a year from then, he was replaced by Vice-President Manuel Marín on an interim basis.

Later career
From 1999 until 2004, Santer was a member of the European Parliament. He also was on General Mediterranean Holdings' board, a financial holding owned by Anglo-Iraqi Nadhmi Auchi. He is currently President of Group Europe, a member section of the Union of European Federalists. He also sits on the board of directors of RTL Group, an international TV broadcasting and production company.

On Monday 23 January 2012, Jacques Santer was appointed to head the board of the Special Purpose Investment Vehicle (SPIV), which is designed to boost the firepower of the European Financial Stability Facility, the eurozone rescue fund.

In May 2013, Santer became Honorary Member of SME Europe, the official pro-business organisation of the European People's Party.

Honours

 * 🇮🇸 Iceland : Grand Cross of the Order of the Falcon (1990)
 * 🇯🇵 Japan : Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (2015)
 * 🇱🇺 Luxembourg : Grand Cross of the Order of the Oak Crown
 * 🇱🇺 Luxembourg : Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
 * 🇵🇱 Poland : Golden Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis (2008)
 * 🇵🇹 Portugal : Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Henry (1990)
 * 🇵🇹 Portugal : Grand Cross of the Military Order of Christ (1988)
 * 🇷🇴 Romania : Grand Cross of the National Order of Faithful Service (2004)
 * 🇮🇹 Italy: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (26/10/1973)

title: Jacques Santer