Protocol data unit

# Protocol data unit

## Abstract

In telecommunications, a protocol data unit (PDU) is a single unit of information transmitted among peer entities of a computer network. It is composed of protocol-specific control information and user data. In the layered architectures of communication protocol stacks, each layer implements protocols tailored to the specific type or mode of data exchange.

For example, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) implements a connection-oriented transfer mode, and the PDU of this protocol is called a segment, while the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) uses datagrams as protocol data units for connectionless communication. A layer lower in the Internet protocol suite, at the Internet layer, the PDU is called a packet, irrespective of its payload type.

## Packet-switched data networks

In the context of packet switching data networks, a protocol data unit (PDU) is best understood in relation to a service data unit (SDU).

The features or services of the network are implemented in distinct layers. The physical layer sends ones and zeros across a wire or fiber. The data link layer then organizes these ones and zeros into chunks of data and gets them safely to the right place on the wire. The network layer transmits the organized data over multiple connected networks, and the transport layer delivers the data to the right software application at the destination.

Between the layers (and between the application and the top-most layer), the layers pass service data units (SDUs) across interfaces. The higher layer understands the structure of the data in the SDU, but the lower layer at the interface does not; moreover, the lower layer treats the SDU as the payload, undertaking to get it to the same interface at the destination. In order to do this, the protocol (lower) layer will add to the SDU certain data it needs to perform its function; which is called encapsulation. For example, it might add a port number to identify the application, a network address to help with routing, a code to identify the type of data in the packet and error-checking information. All this additional information, plus the original service data unit from the higher layer, constitutes the protocol data unit at this layer.

The SDU and metadata added by the lower layer can be larger than the maximum size of that layer's PDU (known as the maximum transmission unit; MTU). When this is the case, the PDU must be split into multiple payloads of a size suitable for transmission or processing by the lower layer; a process known as IP fragmentation.

The significance of this is that the PDU is the structured information that is passed to a matching protocol layer further along on the data's journey that allows the layer to deliver its intended function or service. The matching layer, or "peer", decodes the data to extract the original service data unit, decide if it is error-free and where to send it next, etc. Unless we have already arrived at the lowest (physical) layer, the PDU is passed to the peer using services of the next lower layer in the protocol "stack". When the PDU passes over the interface from the layer that constructed it to the layer that merely delivers it (and therefore does not understand its internal structure), it becomes a service data unit to that layer. The addition of addressing and control information (encapsulation) to an SDU to form a PDU and the passing of that PDU to the next lower layer as an SDU repeats until the lowest layer is reached and the data passes over some medium as a physical signal.

The above process can be likened to the mail system in which a letter (SDU) is placed in an envelope on which is written an address (addressing and control information) making it a PDU. The sending post office might look only at the postcode and place the letter in a mailbag so that the address on the envelope can no longer be seen, making it now an SDU. The mailbag is labeled with the destination postcode and so becomes a PDU until it is combined with other bags in a crate when it is now an SDU, and the crate is labeled with the region to which all the bags are to be sent, making the crate a PDU. When the crate reaches the destination matching its label, it is opened and the bags (SDUs) removed only to become PDUs when someone reads the code of the destination post office. The letters themselves are SDUs when the bags are opened but become PDUs when the address is read for final delivery. When the addressee finally opens the envelope, the top-level SDU, the letter itself, emerges.

## Examples

### OSI model

Protocol data units of the OSI model are:

- The Layer 4: transport layer PDU is the segment or the datagram.

- The Layer 3: network layer PDU is the packet.

- The Layer 2: data link layer PDU is the frame.

- The Layer 1: physical layer PDU is the bit or, more generally, symbol.

Given a context pertaining to a specific OSI layer, PDU is sometimes used as a synonym for its representation at that layer.

### Internet protocol suite

Protocol data units for the Internet protocol suite are:

- The transport layer PDU is the TCP segment for TCP, and the datagram for UDP

- The Internet layer PDU is the packet.

- The link layer PDU is the frame.

On TCP/IP over Ethernet, the data on the physical layer is carried in Ethernet frames.

### Internetwork packet exchange (IPX)

- For IPX, the IPX packet is the network layer PDU for IPX, and can simultaneously be used in the transport layer as well.

- The SPX packet on top of IPX, is a transport layer PDU.

- The link-layer PDU is the frame.

### ATM

The data link layer PDU in Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks is called a cell.

### Media access control protocol data unit

A media access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU or MPDU) is a message that is exchanged between media access control (MAC) entities in a communication system based on the layered OSI model.

In systems where the MPDU may be larger than the MAC service data unit (MSDU), the MPDU may include multiple MSDUs as a result of packet aggregation. In systems where the MPDU is smaller than the MSDU, then one MSDU may generate multiple MPDUs as a result of packet segmentation.


The Dead (1987 film)

# The Dead (1987 film)

## Abstract

The Dead is a 1987 drama film directed by John Huston, written by his son Tony Huston, and starring his daughter Anjelica Huston. It is an adaptation of the short story of the same name by James Joyce, which was first published in 1914 as the last story in Dubliners. An international co-production between the United Kingdom, the United States, and West Germany, the film was Huston's last as director, and it was released several months after his death.

The film takes place in Dublin in 1904 at an Epiphany party hosted by two sisters and their niece. The story focuses on the academic Gabriel Conroy (Donal McCann) and his discovery of his wife Gretta's (Anjelica Huston) memories of a deceased lover. The ensemble cast also includes Helena Carroll, Cathleen Delany, Dan O'Herlihy, Marie Kean, Donal Donnelly, Seán McClory, Frank Patterson, and Colm Meaney.

At the 60th Academy Awards, Tony Huston was nominated for the award for Best Adapted Screenplay and Dorothy Jeakins was nominated for Best Costume Design for their work on the film. John Huston posthumously won the award for Best Director at the 3rd Independent Spirit Awards, and Anjelica Huston won the award for Best Supporting Female at the same ceremony.

## Plot

On January 6, 1904, spinster sisters Kate and Julia Morkan and their unmarried niece, Mary Jane, host their annual Epiphany dinner party at their townhouse in Dublin. Horse-drawn carriages arrive with guests on the snowy night. Three of Mary Jane's music students, Miss O'Callaghan, Miss Furlong, and Miss Higgins, enter, accompanied by the young bachelors Joseph Kerrigan and Raymond Bergin, who Miss Furlong formally introduces to Kate and her frail older sister, Julia.

Dan Brown, the only Protestant invited to the party, arrives next, followed by Kate's favorite nephew, Gabriel Conroy, and his wife Gretta. Kate is worried that Freddy Malins will show up drunk, and when he does, Gabriel promptly escorts the man to the restroom to sober him up. After a few more drinks with Mr. Brown, Freddy goes to talk to his mother, who lives in Scotland with her daughter, and Mrs. Malins berates him for failing to meet her for tea earlier.

The guests dance, Mary Jane performs a virtuosic piece on the piano, and a guest named Mr. Grace recites a poem he calls "Broken Vows", which is a lament of lost love, during which Gretta's eyes grow misty. When the dancing restarts, Kate pairs Gabriel with Molly Ivors, an Irish nationalist colleague of his. She chides Gabriel for writing for an English newspaper and not learning Irish, and in response, he declares he is sick of Ireland.

While Gretta is attempting to persuade Gabriel that they should go on a summer trip to the Aran Islands that Molly mentioned, Kate announces that Julia is going to sing "Arrayed for the Bridal", an operatic piece from her "concert days". Despite her warbling voice, Freddy drunkenly gushes over the performance, and Kate complains about the Pope ending her sister's singing career in the church choir when he replaced the women with boys.

When it is time to eat, Molly leaves the party to attend a union meeting. During the sumptuous feast, conversation topics range from opera to morality. Freddy reliably utters the wrong things, but despite his nerves, Gabriel gives a rousing speech praising the wonderful Irish hospitality shown by Kate, Julia and Mary Jane.

As the guests are leaving, Mrs. Malins asks Gabriel to look after Freddy when she returns to Scotland, and Gabriel awakens Mr. Brown and puts him in a carriage with the Malins. When almost everyone is gone, Bartell D’Arcy, a "celebrated tenor " who had not sung anything all evening, sings " The Lass of Aughrim " to Miss O'Callaghan, and Gabriel watches Gretta as she listens transfixed from the stairs. Her pensiveness continues in the carriage on the way to the hotel where she and Gabriel are staying the night, and she dismisses Gabriel's attempts to cheer her.

In their hotel room, Gabriel asks Gretta what she is thinking, and she explains that when she was young and lived with her grandmother in Galway, a boy she knew named Michael Furey used to sing "The Lass of Aughrim". She says she feels responsible for his death at age seventeen as, on the night before she returned to the convent in Dublin where she went to school, Michael left his sick bed and stood outside her window in the cold and rain to say goodbye, and he died a week later. Gretta cries herself to sleep, and Gabriel thinks that he has never felt love like the love Michael must have felt for Gretta and that it is better to die young and passionate than to wither and fade away like Julia, and presumably he will. Looking out the window, he imagines the snow falling all over Ireland, "upon all the living and the dead."

## Cast

- Anjelica Huston as Gretta Conroy

- Donal McCann as Gabriel Conroy

- Helena Carroll as Aunt Kate Morkan

- Cathleen Delany as Aunt Julia Morkan

- Rachael Dowling as Lily, the maid

- Ingrid Craigie as Mary Jane, the niece

- Dan O'Herlihy as Dan Browne

- Marie Kean as Mrs Malins

- Donal Donnelly as Theodore Alfred "Freddy" Malins

- Seán McClory as Mr. Grace

- Frank Patterson as Bartell D'Arcy

- Katherine O'Toole as Miss Furlong

- Bairbre Dowling as Miss Higgins

- Maria Hayden as Miss O'Callaghan

- Cormac O'Herlihy as Joseph Kerrigan

- Colm Meaney as Raymond Bergin

- Maria McDermottroe as Molly Ivors

- Lyda Anderson as Miss Daly

- Paul Grant as 1st Young Gentleman

- Redmond Gleeson as Nightporter

## Adaptation

Tony Huston 's screenplay was a fairly close adaptation of the original story, with some alterations made to the dialogue to aid the narrative for cinema audiences. The most significant change to the story was the inclusion of a new character, Mr. Grace, who, in the film, recites an English translation of the eighth-century Middle Irish poem "Donal Óg".

## Production

Weiland Schulz-Keil and Chris Sievernich, the producers of the film, had previously raised the money for Huston 's 1984 film Under the Volcano. Screen rights to "The Dead" were purchased from the Joyce estate for $60,000.

Filming began on 19 January 1987. According to Pauline Kael, "Huston directed the movie, at eighty, from a wheelchair, jumping up to look through the camera, with oxygen tubes trailing from his nose to a portable generator; most of the time, he had to watch the actors on a video monitor outside the set and use a microphone to speak to the crew. Yet he went into dramatic areas that he'd never gone into before - funny, warm family scenes that might be thought completely out of his range. Huston never before blended his actors so intuitively, so musically."

Anjelica Huston said her father remained a filmmaking virtuoso despite his ill health: "He was so sick, but he could literally do it with his eyes closed. He knew when we were going to get a take way long before the camera rolled. I mean the timing was so precise that he could tell everything, exactly how it was going to go." The pressures of filming and watching her father's health deteriorate had an adverse effect on her own health, and she developed Epstein-Barr syndrome during production.

## Release

The Dead was released on DVD by Lionsgate on November 3, 2009, but the initial pressing was missing nearly ten minutes of footage from early in the film. After word of this was posted on various websites, Lionsgate eventually corrected the mistake and released the full-length version.

## Reception

The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited The Dead as one of his 100 favorite films.

The Dead received mostly positive critical reviews. The film holds a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 31 reviews.

## In popular culture

Audio samples from this movie were used in the song 6:00 by the band Dream Theater in the 1994 album Awake.

## Awards

Winner

- 1987: Tokyo International Film Festival Special Achievement Award – John Huston

- 1988: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film

- 1988: Independent Spirit Award for Best Director – John Huston

- 1988: Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female – Anjelica Huston

- 1989: Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film (awarded by the Danish Film Critics Association)

- 1989: Fotogramas de Plata for Best Foreign Film (awarded by the Spanish film magazine Fotogramas)

- 1989: London Critics Circle Film Award for Director of the Year – John Huston

Nominated

- 1988: Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium – Tony Huston

- 1988: Academy Award for Best Costume Design – Dorothy Jeakins

- 1988: Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay – Tony Huston

- 1988: Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography – Fred Murphy


The Dead (2014 film)

# The Dead (2014 film)

## Abstract

The Dead (Spanish: Los muertos) is a 2014 Mexican drama film written, directed and co-produced by Santiago Mohar Volkow. Starring Elena Larrea, Florencia Ríos, Ignacio Beteta, Jorge Caballero and Santiago Corcuera. The film was named on the shortlist for Mexico's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not selected.

## Synopsis

In one weekend the lives of 5 apathetic wealthy young people will be distorted when they collide with national violence and the accidental death of one of them.

## Cast

The actors participating in this film are:

- Elena Larrea as Elena

- Florencia Ríos as Elsa

- Ignacio Beteta as Ignacio

- Jorge Caballero as Diego

- Santiago Corcuera as Santiago

- Aldo Escalante Ochoa as Gabo

- David Perlo as David

- Marcos Manuel Radosh as Federico

- José Miguel Puig as José

- Patricia Amalia Volkow as Elena's aunt

- Natalia Volkow as Elena's mom

- Juana Ochoa as Nacho's mom

- Juan Antonio Correa as Car thief

- Oscar Enrique Serrano as Muggle man

- Patricia Kurczyn as Muffle woman

- Néctor Ulises Chavez as Diego's driver

- Anna Paola Mansi as Santiago's mom

- Daniel Bello Torres as Gardener

- Paloma Corcuera Mansi as Santiago's sister

- Mariana Alagon as Mariana

- Lorena Del Pino as Mariola

- Marcos Radosh

## Release

It had its world premiere on October 23, 2014, at the 12th Morelia International Film Festival. It had its commercial premiere on April 22, 2016, in Mexican theaters.

## Reception

### Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of 8 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.0/10.

Carlos Bonfil from La Jornada highlights that the director captures the monotony in youthful behavior very well, even pointing out that he manages to make the best of an expressive and captivating soundtrack, resulting in a novel film. On the other hand, Salvador Franco Reyes from Excelsior describes it as empty, superficial and obvious in regards to the theme of the story and the characters, he also regrets the use of music and some sequences.


Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding

# Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding

## Abstract

MUSE (Multiple sub-Nyquist Sampling Encoding), commercially known as Hi-Vision (a contraction of HI gh-definition tele VISION) was a Japanese analog high-definition television system, with design efforts going back to 1979.

It used dot-interlacing and digital video compression to deliver 1125 line, 60 field-per-second (1125i60) signals to the home. The system was standardized as ITU -R recommendation BO.786 and specified by SMPTE 260M, using a colorimetry matrix specified by SMPTE 240M. As with other analog systems, not all lines carry visible information. On MUSE there are 1035 active interlaced lines, therefore this system is sometimes also mentioned as 1035i. It employed 2-dimensional filtering, dot-interlacing, motion-vector compensation and line-sequential color encoding with time compression to "fold" an original 30 MHz bandwidth Hi-Vision source signal into just 8.1 MHz.

Japan began broadcasting wideband analog HDTV signals in December 1988, initially with an aspect ratio of 2:1. The Sony HDVS high-definition video system was used to create content for the MUSE system, but didn't record MUSE signals. By the time of its commercial launch in 1991, digital HDTV was already under development in the United States. Hi-Vision was mainly broadcast by NHK through their BShi satellite TV channel, although other channels such as WOWOW, TV Asahi, Fuji Television, TBS Television, Nippon Television, and TV Tokyo also broadcast in MUSE.

On May 20, 1994, Panasonic released the first MUSE LaserDisc player. There were also a number of players available from other brands like Pioneer and Sony.

Hi-Vision continued broadcasting in analog until 2007.

## History

MUSE was developed by NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories in the 1980s as a compression system for Hi-Vision HDTV signals.

- Japanese broadcast engineers immediately rejected conventional vestigial sideband broadcasting.

- It was decided early on that MUSE would be a satellite broadcast format as Japan economically supports satellite broadcasting. MUSE was transmitted at a frequency of 21 GHz or 12 GHz.

- Japanese broadcast engineers had been studying the various HDTV broadcast types for some time. It was initially thought that SHF, EHF or optic fiber would have to be used to transmit HDTV due to the high bandwidth of the signal, and HLO-PAL would be used for terrestrial broadcast. HLO-PAL is a conventionally constructed composite signal (based on Y {\displaystyle Y} for luminance and C {\displaystyle C} for chroma like NTSC and PAL) and uses a phase alternating by line with half-line offset carrier encoding of the wideband/narrowband chroma components. Only the very lowest part of the wideband chroma component overlapped the high-frequency chroma. The narrowband chroma was completely separated from luminance. PAF, or phase alternating by field (like the first NTSC color system trial) was also experimented with, and it gave much better decoding results, but NHK abandoned all composite encoding systems. Because of the use of satellite transmission, Frequency modulation (FM) should be used with power-limitation problem. FM incurs triangular noise, so if a sub-carrierred composite signal is used with FM, demodulated chroma signal has more noise than luminance. Because of this, they looked at other options, and decided to use Y / C {\displaystyle Y/C} component emission for satellite. At one point, it seemed that FCFE (Frame Conversion Fineness Enhanced), I/P conversion compression system, would be chosen, but MUSE was ultimately picked.

- Separate transmission of Y {\displaystyle Y} and C {\displaystyle C} components was explored. The MUSE format which is transmitted today, uses separated component signalling. The improvement in picture quality was so great, that the original test systems were recalled.

- One more power saving tweak was made: lack of visual response to low frequency noise allows significant reduction in transponder power if the higher video frequencies are emphasised prior to modulation at the transmitter and de-emphasized at the receiver.

## Technical specifications

MUSE's "1125 lines" are an analog measurement, which includes non-video scan lines taking place while a CRT 's electron beam returns to the top of the screen to begin scanning the next field. Only 1035 lines have picture information. Digital signals count only the lines (rows of pixels) that have actual detail, so NTSC's 525 lines become 486i (rounded to 480 to be MPEG compatible), PAL's 625 lines become 576i, and MUSE would be 1035i. To convert the bandwidth of Hi-Vision MUSE into "conventional" lines-of-horizontal resolution (as is used in the NTSC world), multiply 29.9 lines per MHz of bandwidth. (NTSC and PAL/SECAM are 79.9 lines per MHz) - this calculation of 29.9 lines works for all current HD systems including Blu-ray and HD-DVD. So, for MUSE, during a still picture, the lines of resolution would be: 598-lines of luminance resolution per-picture-height. The chroma resolution is: 209-lines. The horizontal luminance measurement approximately matches the vertical resolution of a 1080 interlaced image when the Kell factor and interlace factor are taken into account. 1125 lines was selected as a compromise between the resolution in lines of NTSC and PAL and then doubling this number.

MUSE employs time-compression integration (TCI) which is another term for time-division multiplexing, which is used to carry luminance, chrominance, PCM audio and sync signals on one carrier signal/in one carrier frequency. However, TCI achieves multiplexing by compression of the contents in the time dimension, in other words transmitting frames of video that are divided into regions with chrominance compressed into the left of the frame and luminance compressed into the right of the frame, which must then be expanded and layered to create a visible image. This makes it different from NTSC which carries luminance, audio and chrominance simultaneously in several carrier frequencies. Hi-Vision signals are component video signals with 3 channels: they were RGB initially, and later YP P.

Key features of the MUSE system:

- Scanlines (total/active): 1,125/1,035

- Pixels per line (fully interpolated): 1122 (still image)/748 (moving)

- Reference clock periods: 1920 per active line

- Interlaced ratio: 2:1

- Aspect ratio 16:9

- Refresh rate: 59.94 or 60 frames per second

- Sampling frequency for broadcast: 16.2 MHz

- Vector motion compensation: horizontal ± 16 samples (32.4 MHz clock) / frame, a vertical line ± 3 / Field

- Audio: "DANCE" discrete 2- or 4-channel digital audio system: 48 kHz/16 bit (2 channel stereo: 2 front channels)/32 kHz/12 bit (4 channel surround: 3 front channels + 1 back channel)

- DPCM Audio compression format: DPCM quasi-instantaneous companding

- Required bandwidth: 27 MHz

### Colorimetry

The MUSE luminance signal Y {\displaystyle Y} encodes Y M {\displaystyle YM}, specified as the following mix of the original RGB color channels:

The chrominance C {\displaystyle C} signal encodes B − Y M {\displaystyle B-YM} and R − Y M {\displaystyle R-YM} difference signals. By using these three signals (Y M {\displaystyle YM}, B − Y M {\displaystyle B-YM} and R − Y M {\displaystyle R-YM}), a MUSE receiver can retrieve the original RGB color components using the following matrix:

The system used a colorimetry matrix specified by SMPTE 240M (with coefficients corresponding to the SMPTE RP 145 primaries, also known as SMPTE-C, in use at the time the standard was created). The chromaticity of the primary colors and white point are:

The luma (E Y {\displaystyle EY}) function is specified as:

The blue color difference (E P B {\displaystyle EPB}) is amplitude-scaled (E B − E Y {\displaystyle EB-EY}), according to:

The red color difference (E P R {\displaystyle EPR}) is amplitude-scaled (E R − E Y {\displaystyle ER-EY}), according to:

### Signal and Transmission

MUSE is a 1125 line system (1035 visible), and is not pulse and sync compatible with the digital 1080 line system used by modern HDTV. Originally, it was a 1125 line, interlaced, 60 Hz, system with a 5:3 (1.66:1) aspect ratio and an optimal viewing distance of roughly 3.3H. In 1989 this was changed to a 16:9 aspect ratio.

For terrestrial MUSE transmission a bandwidth limited FM system was devised. A satellite transmission system uses uncompressed FM.

The pre-compression bandwidth for Y {\displaystyle Y} is 20 MHz, and the pre-compression bandwidth for chrominance is a 7.425 MHz carrier.

The Japanese initially explored the idea of frequency modulation of a conventionally constructed composite signal. This would create a signal similar in structure to the Y / C {\displaystyle Y/C} composite video NTSC signal - with the Y {\displaystyle Y} (luminance) at the lower frequencies and the C {\displaystyle C} (chrominance) above. Approximately 3 kW of power would be required, in order to get 40 dB of signal to noise ratio for a composite FM signal in the 22 GHz band. This was incompatible with satellite broadcast techniques and bandwidth.

To overcome this limitation, it was decided to use a separate transmission of Y {\displaystyle Y} and C {\displaystyle C}. This reduces the effective frequency range and lowers the required power. Approximately 570 W (360 for Y {\displaystyle Y} and 210 for C {\displaystyle C}) would be needed in order to get a 40 dB of signal to noise ratio for a separate Y / C {\displaystyle Y/C} FM signal in the 22 GHz satellite band. This was feasible.

There is one more power saving that appears from the character of the human eye. The lack of visual response to low frequency noise allows significant reduction in transponder power if the higher video frequencies are emphasized prior to modulation at the transmitter and then de-emphasized at the receiver. This method was adopted, with crossover frequencies for the emphasis/de-emphasis at 5.2 MHz for Y {\displaystyle Y} and 1.6 MHz for C {\displaystyle C}. With this in place, the power requirements drop to 260 W of power (190 for Y {\displaystyle Y} and 69 for C {\displaystyle C}).

## Sampling systems and ratios

The subsampling in a video system is usually expressed as a three part ratio. The three terms of the ratio are: the number of brightness (luma) Y {\displaystyle Y} samples, followed by the number of samples of the two color (chroma) components C b {\displaystyle Cb} and C r {\displaystyle Cr}, for each complete sample area. Traditionally the value for brightness is always 4, with the rest of the values scaled accordingly.

A sampling of 4:4:4 indicates that all three components are fully sampled. A sampling of 4:2:0, for example, indicated that the two chroma components are sampled at half the horizontal sample rate of luma - the horizontal chroma resolution is halved. This reduces the bandwidth of an uncompressed video signal by one-third.

MUSE implements a similar system as a means of reducing bandwidth, but instead of static sampling, the actual ratio varies according to the amount of motion on the screen. In practice, MUSE sampling will vary from approximately 4:2:1 to 4:0.5:0.25, depending on the amount of movement. Thus the red-green chroma component C r {\displaystyle Cr} has between one-half and one-eighth the sampling resolution of the luma component Y {\displaystyle Y}, and the blue-yellow chroma C b {\displaystyle Cb} has half the resolution of red-green.

## Audio subsystem

MUSE had a discrete 2- or 4-channel digital audio system called " DANCE ", which stood for Digital Audio Near-instantaneous Compression and Expansion.

It used differential audio transmission (differential pulse-code modulation) that was not psychoacoustics-based like MPEG-1 Layer II. It used a fixed transmission rate of 1350 kbp/s. Like the PAL NICAM stereo system, it used near-instantaneous companding (as opposed to Syllabic-companding like the dbx system uses) and non-linear 13-bit digital encoding at a 32 kHz sample rate.

It could also operate in a 48 kHz 16-bit mode. The DANCE system was well documented in numerous NHK technical papers and in a NHK-published book issued in the USA called Hi-Vision Technology.

The DANCE audio codec was superseded by Dolby AC-3 (a.k.a. Dolby Digital), DTS Coherent Acoustics (a.k.a. DTS Zeta 6x20 or ARTEC), MPEG-1 Layer III (a.k.a. MP3), MPEG-2 Layer I, MPEG-4 AAC and many other audio coders. The methods of this codec are described in the IEEE paper:

## Real world performance issues

MUSE had a four-field dot-interlacing cycle, meaning it took four fields to complete a single MUSE frame. Thus, only stationary images were transmitted at full resolution. However, as MUSE lowers the horizontal and vertical resolution of material that varies greatly from frame to frame, moving images were blurred. Because MUSE used motion-compensation, whole camera pans maintained full resolution, but individual moving elements could be reduced to only a quarter of the full frame resolution. Because the mix between motion and non-motion was encoded on a pixel-by-pixel basis, it wasn't as visible as most would think. Later, NHK came up with backwards compatible methods of MUSE encoding/decoding that greatly increased resolution in moving areas of the image as well as increasing the chroma resolution during motion. This so-called MUSE-III system was used for broadcasts starting in 1995 and a very few of the last Hi-Vision MUSE LaserDiscs used it (A River Runs Through It is one Hi-Vision LD that used it). During early demonstrations of the MUSE system, complaints were common about the decoder's large size, which led to the creation of a miniaturized decoder.

Shadows and multipath still plague this analog frequency modulated transmission mode.

Japan has since switched to a digital HDTV system based on ISDB, but the original MUSE-based BS Satellite channel 9 (NHK BS Hi-vision) was broadcast until September 30, 2007.

## Cultural and geopolitical impacts

- (1940s): The NTSC standard (as a 525 line monochrome system) was imposed by the US occupation forces.

- (1950s-1960s): Unlike Canada (that could have switched to PAL), Japan was stuck with the US TV transmission standard regardless of circumstances.

- (1960s-1970s): By the late 1960s many parts of the modern Japanese electronics industry had gotten their start by fixing the transmission and storage problems inherent with NTSC's design.

- (1970s-1980s): By the 1980s there was spare engineering talent available in Japan that could design a better television system.

MUSE, as the US public came to know it, was initially covered in the magazine Popular Science in the mid-1980s. The US television networks did not provide much coverage of MUSE until the late 1980s, as there were few public demonstrations of the system outside Japan.

Because Japan had its own domestic frequency allocation tables (that were more open to the deployment of MUSE) it became possible for this television system to be transmitted by Ku Band satellite technology by the end of the 1980s.

The US FCC in the late 1980s began to issue directives that would allow MUSE to be tested in the US, providing it could be fit into a 6 MHz System-M channel.

The Europeans (in the form of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)) were impressed with MUSE, but could never adopt it because it is a 60 Hz TV system, not a 50 Hz system that is standard in Europe and the rest of the world (outside the Americas and Japan).

The EBU development and deployment of B-MAC, D-MAC and much later on HD-MAC were made possible by Hi-Vision's technical success. In many ways MAC transmission systems are better than MUSE because of the total separation of colour from brightness in the time domain within the MAC signal structure.

Like Hi-Vision, HD-MAC could not be transmitted in 8 MHz channels without substantial modification – and a severe loss of quality and frame rate. A 6 MHz version Hi-Vision was experimented with in the US, but it too had severe quality problems so the FCC never fully sanctioned its use as a domestic terrestrial television transmission standard.

The US ATSC working group that had led to the creation of NTSC in the 1950s was reactivated in the early 1990s because of Hi-Vision's success. Many aspects of the DVB standard are based on work done by the ATSC working group, however most of the impact is in support for 60 Hz (as well as 24 Hz for film transmission) and uniform sampling rates and interoperable screen sizes.

## Device support for Hi-Vision

### Hi-Vision LaserDiscs

On May 20, 1994, Panasonic released the first MUSE LaserDisc player. There were a number of MUSE LaserDisc players available in Japan: Pioneer HLD-XØ, HLD-X9, HLD-1000, HLD-V500, HLD-V700; Sony HIL-1000, HIL-C1 and HIL-C2EX; the last two of which have OEM versions made by Panasonic, LX-HD10 and LX-HD20. Players also supported standard NTSC LaserDiscs. Hi-Vision LaserDiscs are extremely rare and expensive.

The HDL-5800 Video Disc Recorder recorded both high definition still images and continuous video onto an optical disc and was part of the early analog wideband Sony HDVS high-definition video system which supported the MUSE system. Capable of recording HD still images and video onto either the WHD-3AL0 or the WHD-33A0 optical disc; WHD-3Al0 for CLV mode (up to 10 minute video or 18,000 still frames per side); WHD-33A0 for CAV mode (up to 3 minute video or 5400 still frames per side). These video discs were used for short video content such as advertisements and product demonstrations.

The HDL-2000 was a full band high definition video disc player.

### Reel to reel VTRs

For recording Hi-Vision signals, Three reel to reel analog VTRs were released, among them are the Sony HDV-1000, the NEC TT 8-1000 and the Toshiba TVR-1000. These analog VTRs had a head drum angular speed of 3600 RPM and are similar to Type C VTRs. They have a bandwidth of 30 Mhz for luma and 7 Mhz for both chroma channels each, with a signal to noise ratio of 41 dB. They accept luma and chroma signals with bandwidths of up to 30 Mhz for both. Signals are recorded onto the tape using FM modulation. Linear tape speed is 483.1 mm/s and writing speed at the heads is 25.9 m/s. The head drum is 134.5 mm wide and has 4 video record heads, 4 video playback heads and 1 erasing head. It could record for 45 minutes on 10.5 inch reels. The video heads are made of Mn-Zn ferrite material, those used for recording have a gap of 0.7 microns and a width of 80 microns and those for playback have a gap of 0.35 microns and a width of 70 microns. It records audio on 3 linear tracks, and control signals on a linear track. Unlike conventional type C videotape recorders, Vertical Blanking Intervals are not recorded on the tape. Helical tracks have groups of 4 signals length-wise with red chrominance, blue chrominance, and two green chrominance signals with luminance information. Two tracks for green chrominance plus luminance are used to increase the bandwidth of these signals that can be recorded on the tape.

In 1987, technical standards for digital recording of Hi-Vision signals were released by NHK, and Sony and Hitachi developed the HDD-1000 and the HV-1200 digital reel to reel VTRs respectively. Audio is recorded digitally similarly to a DASH (Digital Audio Stationary Head) digital audio recorder, but several changes were made to synchronize the audio to the video. These digital VTRs can record 8 channels of digital audio on linear tracks (horizontally along the entire length of the tape). According to the standards, these VTRs operate with a head drum speed of 7200 RPM, have a bit rate of 148.5 Mbit/s per video head, a linear tape speed of 805.2 mm/s and a writing speed at the heads of 51.5 m/s, are similar to Type C VTRs, have a head drum 135mm wide, 8 playback, 8 recording and 2 erase heads, with 37 micron wide helical tracks. Bandwidth is 30 Mhz for luma (Y) and 15 Mhz for chroma (P, P). Audio is recorded with a sampling rate of 48 kHz stored at 16 bits per sample in linear tape tracks, sampling rate for luma is 74.25 Mhz and 37.125 Mhz for chroma stored at 8 bits per sample. Signal to noise ratio is 56 dB for chroma and luma. Video fields are divided into 16 helical tracks on the tape. Total video bandwidth is 1.188 gigabits/s. Cue signals are recorded into 3 linear tape tracks. Video is recorded in groups of 4 tracks length-wise within each helical track, to allow for parallelization: high total data rates with relatively low data rates per head, and reduce the linear tape speed. Digital video signals are recorded line by line (1 row of pixels in every frame of video or 1 line of video at a time) with ECC (Error Correcting Code) at the end of each line and in between a number of vertical lines. Reed-Solomon code is used for ECC and each line also has an ID number for trick play such as slow motion and picture search/shuttle.

### Displays

Hi-Vision requires a display capable of handling 30 Mhz of video bandwidth simultaneously for each of the component video channels: Y, P and P. It was displayed on direct view color CRTs and CRT projectors, and plasma displays and Talaria projectors were explored to determine their ability to display Hi-Vision images.

### Cameras

Cameras based on Saticon tubes, Plumbicon tubes, Harpicon tubes and CCD image sensors were used to capture footage using the Hi-Vision format. A prototype based on Vidicon tubes was also created.

### MUSE decoders

A MUSE decoder is required for receiving MUSE broadcasts from satellites, and for viewing content in the MUSE format. The decoder converts MUSE format signals into Hi-Vision component video signals that can then be shown in a display.

### Video cassettes

W-VHS allowed home recording of Hi-Vision programmes.

For recording Hi-Vision video, NHK and 10 Japanese companies ("NEC, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Toshiba, Sharp, Sony, Hitachi, Sanyo Electric, JVC, Mitsubishi Electric, Canon") in 1989 released UniHi, a professional videocassette format. Recorders for the format were manufactured by Panasonic, Sony, NEC, and Toshiba. These machines were less expensive than their Type C counterparts. Both studio and portable versions were made. The head drum spins at 5400 RPM and uses tape that is 12.65 mm wide. It has a luminance (Y) bandwidth of 20 MHz and a chrominance (P, P) bandwidth of 7 MHz. The head drum is 76mm wide. It uses two video heads with azimuth recording and records each frame of video into 12 helical tracks; only 6 tracks are necessary for each video field if recording interlaced video. Audio is recorded digitally as a PCM signal, as a section on the helical tracks. Writing speed at the heads is 21.4 m/s. The tape also has 3 linear tracks, one for audio, control and time code each. Signal to noise ratio for luminance is 41 dB and for chrominance it is 47 dB. The tape is wrapped 180° around the head drum. Development began in 1987. It uses metal particle tape. It could record video for 1 hour (63 minutes). Linear tape speed is 120 mm/s. The cassette measures 205mm (width) x 121mm (depth) x 25mm (height). Signals are recorded using time-compression integration, in groups of two signals length-wise on each helical track. Grouping is used to increase the bandwidth that can be recorded on the tape. The cassette is intented to be air-tight with two flaps in the cassette's opening to protect the tape.

This videocassette format was developed in order to reduce the size of HD recording equipment. The Sony version of the UniHi VTR, the HDV-10, had a price of over 90,000 US dollars.


2024 São Paulo FC season

# 2024 São Paulo FC season

## Abstract

The 2024 season is São Paulo 's 95th season in the club's history and their 64th in the top-flight of Brazilian football. Along with Série A, São Paulo compete in the Campeonato Paulista, Copa do Brasil, Copa Libertadores and Supercopa do Brasil.

## First-team squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

### Youth players with first team numbers

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

### Other players under contract

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

### Out on loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

### Retired numbers

- 01 – Rogério Ceni, Goalkeeper (1990–2015)

## Transfers

## Competitions

### Overview

Source: Competitions

### Campeonato Paulista

#### Matches

#### Quarter-final

### Copa Libertadores

The draw for the group stage was held in 18 March 2024, 20:00 PYST (UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL Convention Centre in Luque, Paraguay.

#### Round of 16

The draw for the round of 16 was held in 3 June, 12:00 PYST (UTC−4), at the CONMEBOL Convention Centre in Luque, Paraguay.

#### Quarter-finals

### Série A

#### League table

#### Results summary

Source:

#### Results by round

#### Matches

The league fixtures were announced on 29 February 2024.

### Copa do Brasil

#### Third round

#### Round of 16

#### Quarter-finals

### Supercopa do Brasil

São Paulo qualified for the 2024 Supercopa do Brasil by winning the 2023 Copa do Brasil.


Kyffin Simpson

# Kyffin Simpson

## Abstract

Kyffin Simpson (/ ˈ k ɪ. f ə n / KIH -fən; born 9 October 2004) is a Caymanian racing driver competing in the IndyCar Series with Chip Ganassi Racing. He won the 2023 European Le Mans Series championship with Algarve Pro Racing.

## Personal life

Simpson was born in Bridgetown, Barbados; the son of Caymanian businessman David Simpson. Simpson competes as Caymanian, saying, "I really feel connected with the people of Cayman. It’s cool to fly the flag on the side of my car."

## Junior Career

### Formula 4 United States Championship

Simpson made his car racing debut in 2020 for Velocity Racing Development in the 2020 Formula 4 United States Championship after 9 years of karting across the Caribbean and United States.

### Formula Regional Americas Championship

Simpson would dovetail a season in the Formula 4 United States Championship with a season in the Formula Regional Americas Championship in 2020, and dominated the championship in his second season with podiums in all but five races.

Winning the FR Americas title awarded Kyffin with a Honda Performance Development scholarship fund worth $600,000 towards a Super Formula campaign in 2022, but Japan’s ongoing travel restrictions due to COVID-19 prevented these plans coming to fruition.

### Indy Pro 2000 Championship

Parallel to his Regional F3 campaign, Simpson also entered the Road to Indy ladder with IndyCar team Juncos Racing, competing in 16 of the 18-race Indy Pro 2000 Championship season, scoring three podiums.

### Indy Lights / Indy NXT

In 2022, Simpson signed a multi-year deal as a development driver with Chip Ganassi Racing, whilst also progressing to Indy Lights, partnering James Roe Jr. at TJ Speed Motorsports. Following eight races with the team, Simpson moved to HMD Motorsports. He finished ninth in the Indy Lights standings with a best result of fifth in Barber and Detroit.

Simpson confirmed a return to the newly rebranded Indy NXT series in 2023 with HMD Motorsports.

## SportsCar racing career

### IMSA SportsCar Championship

#### 2022

Alongside his Indy Lights duties, Simpson made his IMSA SportsCar Championship debut with Gradient Racing at the wheel of an Acura NSX GT3 EVO II at the 2022 24 Hours of Daytona. He, along with his teammates Mario Farnbacher and Till Bechtolsheimer, won the 2022 Petit Le Mans in the GTD class.

#### 2023

Simpson joined Tower Motorsports for a part-time role in the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship competing in LMP2. After finishing fifth at the 24 Hours of Daytona, Simpson, along with teammates Scott McLaughlin and John Farano, won the LMP2 class of the 12 Hours of Sebring, marking the Barbadian's second triumph in IMSA.

### Asian Le Mans Series

#### 2023

Alongside his duties in junior formulae, Simpson would compete full-time in the 2023 Asian Le Mans Series together with James Allen and John Falb as part of Algarve Pro Racing in preparation for a campaign in that year's European Le Mans Series. The season opener in Dubai yielded a perfect start, as the trio took victory despite a spin from Falb. Simpson played a major role in said victory, taking second place from Indy NXT rival Christian Bogle near half-distance, before closing the gap between himself and leader Ayhancan Güven from 25 to mere seven seconds by the end of their stints. The following day, a puncture prevented the #25 from battling for a win; they eventually settled for fourth. Race one at the Yas Marina Circuit saw Simpson battling the experienced Oliver Jarvis for a podium spot, however he would take himself out of contention owing to a spin into the turn 16 wall mere minutes before the end. On Sunday, fourth place meant that Simpson, Allen and Falb would end up third in the LMP2 classification.

### European Le Mans Series

#### 2023

Simpson would stay with Algarve Pro Racin to compete in the 2023 European Le Mans Series, where Simpson once again partnered James Allen, the pair being joined by Cadillac Hypercar driver Alex Lynn. An unspectacular maiden race in Barcelona was followed by a markedly improved showing at the Circuit Paul Ricard, where Simpson's ability to stay close to leader Vladislav Lomko throughout the opening stints - exemplified by the Bajan setting the race's fastest lap - enabled teammates Lynn and Allen to get embroiled in the battle for victory, with the latter executing a late-race pass on Louis Delétraz to bring first place to APR. Prior to the third race, held at MotorLand Aragón, Simpson received praise from Lynn, the Brit stating that "Kyffin is a fast learner" and praising him for his pace, whilst remarking that Simpson needed more experience.

## IndyCar

In January 2023, Kyffin completed his first NTT IndyCar Series test with Chip Ganassi Racing at Sebring International Raceway. Following the end of the 2023 IndyCar season, Chip Ganassi announced that Simpson, who had been the team's development driver over the past two years, would be stepping up to IndyCar in 2024. He started his season at St. Petersburg with a 12th place finish, ending up ahead of all other rookies and setting the fastest lap of the race. Following three further top-20 finishes, Simpson ended up 21st in his first appearance at the Indy 500, having qualified a then-record 18th.

## Racing record

### Career summary

Season still in progress.

### Complete Formula 4 United States Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

### Complete Formula Regional Americas Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

### American open-wheel results

#### Indy Pro 2000

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) (Races with * indicate most race laps led)

#### Indy Lights / Indy NXT

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) (Races with * indicate most race laps led)

#### IndyCar Series

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

### Complete IMSA SportsCar Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

### Complete Asian Le Mans Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)


Candace Owens

# Candace Owens

## Abstract

Candace Amber Owens Farmer (née Owens; born April 29, 1989) is an American political commentator and pundit. She has variously been described as conservative or far-right.

Owens has gained recognition for her conservative activism—despite being initially critical of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party —as well as her criticism of Black Lives Matter. Owens served as communications director for the conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA from 2017 and 2019. In 2018, Owens co-founded Blexit along with former Tucson police officer Brandon Tatum. In 2021, Owens joined The Daily Wire and began hosting Candace, a political talk show. She was dismissed in March 2024 following a series of comments widely regarded as antisemitic, and months of tensions with co-host Ben Shapiro and other Daily Wire staff.

Owens has expressed skepticism about the extent of white supremacy 's impact on society and has voiced opposition to both COVID-19 lockdowns and COVID-19 vaccines. She has promoted numerous conspiracy theories.

## Early life and education

Born in White Plains, New York, Owens was raised with her siblings by her grandparents from around the age of 11 or 12, after her parents divorced. She is the third of four children. She said her paternal grandfather Robert Owens, a black American, was born in North Carolina. Owens is also of Caribbean American heritage through her grandmother, who is originally from Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. She is a graduate of Stamford High School in Connecticut.

In 2007, while a 17-year-old senior at Stamford High School, Owens received three racist death threat voicemail messages, totaling two minutes, from a group of white male classmates which included the son of then-mayor and future Democratic governor Dannel Malloy. Joshua Starr, the city's superintendent of schools, listened to the voicemail messages and said that they were "horrendous". Owens's family sued the Stamford Board of Education in federal court, alleging that the city did not protect her rights, resulting in a $37,500 settlement in January 2008.

Owens pursued an undergraduate degree in journalism at the University of Rhode Island. She dropped out after her junior year because of an issue with her student loan. Afterwards, she worked as an intern for Vogue magazine in New York. In 2012, Owens took a job as an administrative assistant for a private equity firm in Manhattan, later moving up to become its vice president of administration.

## Early career

### Degree180 and anti-conservative blog

In 2015, Owens was CEO of Degree180, a marketing agency that offered consultation, production, and planning services that included a blog on a variety of topics written by Owens and other commentators. In a 2015 column that Owens wrote for the site, she criticized conservative Republicans, writing about the "bat-shit-crazy antics of the Republican Tea Party "; she also added that "The good news is, they will eventually die off (peacefully in their sleep, we hope), and then we can get right on with the OBVIOUS social change that needs to happen, IMMEDIATELY." In 2016, the blog featured an article mocking Donald Trump's penis size.

### Privacy violation, Gamergate, and political transformation

Owens launched SocialAutopsy.com in 2016, a website she said would expose bullies on the Internet by tracking their digital footprint. The site would have solicited users to take screenshots of offensive posts and send them to the website, where they would be categorized by the user's name. She used crowdfunding on Kickstarter for the website. The proposal was immediately controversial, drawing criticism that Owens was de-anonymizing (doxing) Internet users and violating their privacy. According to The Daily Dot, "People from all sides of the anti-harassment debate were quick to criticize the database, calling it a public shaming list that would encourage doxing and retaliatory harassment." Both conservatives and progressives condemned the website.

In response, people began posting Owens's private details online. With scant evidence, Owens blamed the doxing on progressives. Following that, she earned the support of conservatives involved in the Gamergate harassment campaign, including right-wing political commentators such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich. Subsequently, Owens became a conservative, saying in 2017, "I became a conservative overnight... I realized that liberals were actually the racists. Liberals were actually the trolls... Social Autopsy is why I'm conservative." Kickstarter suspended funding for Social Autopsy, and the website was never created.

## Conservative activism

By late 2017, Owens had started producing pro-Trump commentary and criticizing notions of structural racism, systemic inequality, and identity politics – all positions she herself had been publishing two years earlier. In August 2017, she began posting politically themed videos to YouTube. In September 2017, she launched Red Pill Black, a website and YouTube channel that promotes black conservatism in the United States.

On November 21, 2017, at the MAGA Rally and Expo in Rockford, Illinois, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk announced that Owens had been hired as the organization's director of urban engagement. Turning Point's hiring of Owens occurred in the wake of allegations of racism at Turning Point. In May 2019, Owens announced her departure as communications director for the organization. While at Turning Point USA, Owens received the support of prominent figures in the Republican Party. President Trump called her a "very smart thinker," while Republican National Committee chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said at CPAC "People like Candace Owens, like Charlie Kirk, we need more leaders like that." Ted Cruz expressed his admiration for Owens by jokingly suggesting in 2022 that she be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

In April 2018, Kanye West tweeted: "I love the way Candace Owens thinks." The tweet was met with derision on the part of many of West's fans. In May 2019, Owens hosted The Candace Owens Show on PragerU 's YouTube channel. She left PragerU in 2020 to host Candace, a show on The Daily Wire. The show premiered on the platform on March 19, 2021. Its episodes were filmed in front of a live studio audience and aired weekly. Notable guests included former United States president Donald Trump, UFC president Dana White, and U.S. Representative Jim Jordan. Jeremy Boreing announced Owens would be leaving The Daily Wire in March 2024, a move believed to be related to a string of comments considered to be antisemitic culminating in Owens liking a tweet referencing blood libel.

In April 2020, Owens announced her intention to either run for office in the U.S. Senate or to be a governor, and that she would only run against an incumbent Democrat, not a Republican. She did not reveal which specific office she would run for, or in which election cycle. In February 2021, Owens tweeted that she was considering a run for president in 2024.

### BLEXIT Foundation

"Blexit", a term originally coined by Me'Lea Connelly, is a portmanteau of " black " and "exit" that mimics Brexit, the word used to describe the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. The original Blexit movement was started in 2016 by Connelly with the goal of achieving black economic independence by encouraging black Americans to leave the traditional financial systems that have historically disadvantaged the black community.

In late 2018, Owens launched a different BLEXIT foundation, which featured a social media campaign to encourage ethnic minorities, including African Americans and Latinos, to leave the Democratic Party and register as Republicans. At the time, 8% of black Americans identified as Republicans. In 2023, Blexit foundation merged with Turning Point USA, the former non-profit organization for which Owens had worked.

At the launch in October 2018, Owens said that her "dear friend and fellow superhero Kanye West" designed merchandise for the movement; the following day, West denied being the designer and disavowed the effort, saying: "I never wanted any association with Blexit... I've been used to spread messages I don't believe in." After an apology, West continued to support Owens as of September 2020.

## Political views

Owens said she had no interest in politics whatsoever before 2015, but previously identified as liberal. In October 2018, she said that she had never voted and had only recently become a registered Republican. In January 2019, Owens stated: "The left hates America, and Trump loves it." She added that the left is "destroying everything through this cultural Marxist ideology."

The Washington Post has called Owens "the new face of black conservatism ". The Guardian has described her as "ultra-conservative", and New York magazine and the Columbia Journalism Review have described her as " right-wing ". Multiple media outlets have called Owens a far-right commentator. She was influenced by the works of Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Carson, and Thomas Sowell.

### Anti-black racism and Black Lives Matter

Owens is known for her criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement, and has described Black Lives Matter protesters as "a bunch of whiny toddlers, pretending to be oppressed for attention". Owens has argued that African Americans have a victim mentality, often referring to the Democratic Party as a " plantation ", stating in 2020: "Black lives only matter to white liberals every four years—ahead of an election." She has also argued that the American Left likes "black people to be government-dependent", and that black people have been brainwashed to vote for Democrats. Furthermore, Owens has argued that police brutality in the United States and instances of police killing black people are not sourced in racism, but typically occur when the officer feels his life is under threat, adding a police officer is eighteen-and-a-half times more likely to die at the hands of a black person than vice versa. She has also characterized abortion as a tool for the extermination of black babies.

She has said that "black Americans are doing worse off economically today than we were doing in the 1950s under Jim Crow ", adding that this is because "we've only been voting for one party since then." She has attributed economic improvements for African Americans, such as a low unemployment rate, to Trump's presidency. On several occasions, Owens has claimed that the effects of white supremacy and white nationalism are exaggerated and would not reach her own personal top 100 list of modern issues facing black America, especially when compared to other issues facing black Americans, such as black-on-black crime and illiteracy rates.

When asked if it was problematic that white supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), support Trump, Owens answered that antifa was more prevalent than the KKK. Owens has said that the media cover the KKK during Trump's presidency to hurt him. In a 2019 hearing on hate crimes, Owens referred to the KKK as a "Democrat terrorist organization". After the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Owens said that concern over rising white nationalism was "stupid". She has also called it "just election rhetoric" and "based on the hierarchy of what's impacting minority Americans, if I had to make a list of 100 things, white nationalism would not make the list." In 2018, Owens dismissed reports of a resurgence in hate crimes, saying "All of the violence this year primarily happened because of people on the left."

During her April 2019 testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the rise of hate crimes and white supremacists in the United States, Owens made the claim that the Southern strategy employed by the Republican Party to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans was a "myth" that "never happened". This was disputed by several historians who said that the existence of the Southern strategy was well documented in contemporaneous sources dating back to the Civil Rights era, with historian Kevin M. Kruse, who writes critically about modern conservatism, calling Owens's statement "utter nonsense". In June 2019, Owens said that African Americans had it better in the first 100 years after the abolition of slavery in the United States than they have since, and that socialism was at fault.

In June 2020, Owens claimed that George Soros paid people to protest the murder of George Floyd. Shortly afterwards, she argued that George Floyd "was not a good person. I don't care who wants to spin that." She said: "The fact that he has been held up as a martyr sickens me." Then-President Trump retweeted Owens's remarks about Floyd. In a Facebook video that garnered nearly 100 million views, Owens called Floyd a "horrible human being", citing his criminal record, and called racial biases among police a "fake narrative." On April 20, 2021, Owens claimed that the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was convicted of murdering Floyd was "mob justice". She added: "This was not a fair trial. No person can say this was a fair trial."

### Women's rights

Owens is critical of feminism and embraces the " trad wife " phenomenon of traditional gender roles. She has described the #MeToo movement, an international movement against sexual harassment and assault, as "stupid". Owens wrote that the movement was premised on the idea that "women are stupid, weak & inconsequential". She opposes abortion, which she has called a tool for the "extermination of black babies".

In May 2018, Owens suggested that "something bio-chemically happens" to women who do not marry or have children, and she linked to the Twitter handles of Sarah Silverman, Chelsea Handler, and Kathy Griffin, saying that they were "evidentiary support" of this theory. Silverman responded: "It seems to me that by tweeting this, you would like to maybe make us feel badly. I'd say this is evidenced by ur effort to use our twitter handles so we would see. My heart breaks for you, Candy. I hope you find happiness in whatever form that takes." Owens responded, accusing Silverman of supporting terrorists and crime gangs.

### LGBT rights

On July 28, 2017, Owens stated she was in favor of banning transgender individuals who are undergoing sex reassignment surgery from serving in the United States military but said that she did not oppose fully transitioned transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military. In her biography, Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation, in the chapter "On Overcivilization - The Trend Towards Overcivilization", she talks about her view between civilization, in which she described as when basic rights and liberties have been ensured for all, and "overcivilization" in the following quote:

Civilization was achieved for gay couples in the United States when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in 2015. Overcivilization, however, is the LGBTQ community's current quest for transgender rights, or, more accurately described, the demand that biological men who self-identify as women be granted legal permission to use ladies' restrooms and dominate women's sports competitions.

In April 2022, she called The Walt Disney Company "child groomers and pedophiles" and called for the boycott of the company, after Disney announced its opposition to Florida House Bill 1557, officially known as the "Parental Rights in Education Act" but commonly referenced as the "Don't Say Gay" legislation.

In May 2022, Owens falsely claimed on Twitter that the gunman involved in the Robb Elementary School shooting could be transgender and said that he was "cross-dressing". According to Owens, this was evidence that "there were plenty of signs that he was mentally disturbed". In June 2022, she described Drag Queen Story Hour as "child abuse", arguing that parents who take their children to a drag queen story hour "are underqualified to have children" and "should have their children taken away from them."

In January 2024, in a post on X (formerly Twitter) Owens accused transgender people of "mass drugging children" and claimed the "LGBTQ movement brought with it a sexual plague on our society". These comments were widely condemned by LGBT+ campaign groups as variously misinformed, homophobic, transphobic and genocidal.

### Donald Trump

Although in 2015 Owens posted anti-Trump and anti-conservative articles on her Degree180 blog, in 2017 she began describing herself as a conservative Donald Trump supporter. Owens has since characterized Trump as the "savior" of Western civilization. She has argued that Trump has neither engaged in rhetoric that is harmful to African Americans, nor proposed policies that would harm African Americans.

In May 2018, Trump said that Owens "is having a big impact on politics in our country. She represents an ever-expanding group of very smart 'thinkers', and it is wonderful to watch and hear the dialogue going on... so good for our Country!" She registered as a Republican in 2018, after the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. She objected to what she termed the "social lynching " of Kavanaugh, on the grounds that to " believe women " was the reason "our ancestors got lynched", as she told a journalist from Philadelphia magazine. She added: "No evidence, but believe all women." After Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and Trump refused to concede, Owens promoted Trump's claims of mass fraud, saying that "the American election was clearly rigged."

### Immigration

Owens is a proponent of the Mexico–United States border wall, and believes undocumented immigrants to the United States should be immediately deported. In 2018, Owens warned that "Europe will fall and become a Muslim-majority continent by 2050. There has never been a Muslim-majority country where sharia law was not implemented." She suggested that the United States would then be "forced to save" the British.

### Science

Owens has stated that she does not believe in science which she described as a pagan faith. She stated, "I'm not a flat-earther. I'm not a round-earther.' Actually, what I am is, I am somebody who has left the cult of science. I have left the megachurch of science because what I have now realized is that science—what it is actually, if you think about it—is a pagan faith."

### Climate change

In July 2018, Owens claimed that global warming is not real, calling it a lie used to "extract dollars from Americans". In 2021, she promoted paid ads on Facebook, calling the U.S. government "modern doomsayers" who have been wrongly predicting climate crises for decades.

### Welfare

Owens has expressed a critical stance on welfare programs, arguing that they can create dependency and discourage self-reliance among recipients. She believes that welfare reform is necessary to promote individual responsibility and empower individuals to break free from government assistance. Owens has said that welfare is a Democratic Party tool to keep black Americans dependent upon the government.

### Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany

At the launch of Turning Point's British offshoot Turning Point UK in December 2018, Owens made comments about Adolf Hitler. She was responding to an audience member who asked for a "long-term prognosis" about the terms " globalism " and " nationalism ". Owens said:

I actually don't have any problems at all with the word "nationalism". I think that the definition gets poisoned by elitists that actually want globalism. Globalism is what I don't want. Whenever we say "nationalism" the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler. You know, was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay, fine. The problem is that he wanted—he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German. Everybody to look a different way. That's not, to me, that's not nationalism.

Following heavy criticism for her comments, Owens clarified them on Twitter and in a Judiciary Committee hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives in February 2019. Owens said that " was a homicidal, psychopathic, maniac that killed his own people" and " was not a nationalist, murdered his own people; a nationalist would not kill their own people". She said that the point of her comments was to say that there is "no excuse or defense ever for... everything that did". She also said that her comments were about Hitler's crimes against Jews.

Owens's comments about Hitler were played in April 2019 by Representative Ted Lieu during testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee about the issue of increasing hate crimes and white supremacy in America. Lieu said that he did not know Owens and was just going to let her own words characterize her, before playing the audio clip. Owens responded that Lieu had deliberately omitted an interviewer's question that provided critical context to her words, with the intent of misrepresenting them as an endorsement of Hitler, to smear her reputation. She concluded this testimony by stating her opinion Lieu was "assuming that black people will not pursue the full two hour clip" and that the full clip had been "purposefully extracted" in order to "create a different narrative." Donald Trump Jr. praised Owens on Twitter for " out the Dems on their purposeful manipulation of facts for their narrative".

In July 2024, Owens released an episode of the Candace Show on YouTube entitled "Literally Hitler. Why Can't We Talk About Him?" During this episode, Owens criticized mainstream narratives regarding Nazi Germany, saying that education about the Nazis was indoctrination comparable to "Soviet tactics." Owens further denied that Nazi medical experiments were carried out by Josef Mengele on concentration camp inmates, claiming the fact that such experiments occurred was "bizarre propaganda. The idea that they just cut a human up and then sewed them back together. Why would you do that? Even if you're the most evil person in the world, that's a tremendous waste of time and supplies." Owens referred to the Holocaust as "an ethnic cleansing almost took place," while criticizing the expulsion of Germans after World War II, saying the Allies "actually did."

### COVID-19 pandemic and vaccination

In April 2020, Owens said that COVID-19 deaths were overcounted; health experts said that it was more likely that COVID-19 deaths were undercounted. Regarding a COVID-19 vaccine, she said in June 2020 that "under no circumstances will I be getting any #coronavirus vaccine that becomes available. Ever. No matter what." She also referred to Bill Gates as a "vaccine-criminal", and said that he and the World Health Organization (WHO) used "African & Indian tribal children to experiment w/ non- FDA approved drug vaccines." On August 8, 2021, Owens said in a Facebook post: "I still have not received the COVID-19 vaccine and have not demanded that any of my employees get it either. I am proud that I committed myself to standing firm against the bribery, media propaganda, coercion, celebrity-peer pressure campaign, plus censorship... It is isn't easy to swim against such a polluted current but here I am. I trust my gut much more than trust Dr. Fauci." Also in August, Owens claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proposed "putting high risk people into camps to 'shield' low risk people from them".

In 2021, Owens attracted media attention when she stated that the United States should "invade Australia", saying that Australia had turned into a tyrannical Nazi -style police state due to its public health precautions against COVID-19. Owens said that the comments were made "in jest" and that they had been misinterpreted by the media. Owens has promoted misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. In a December 2021 interview, she asked Donald Trump about vaccine mandates, and he explained that he shared her views on mandates but said that "the vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind". He added: "The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take the vaccine. But it's still their choice. And if you take the vaccine, you're protected. Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get it, it's a very minor form. People aren't dying when they take the vaccine." In December 2022, Owens promoted the anti-vaccine film Died Suddenly.

### Russia and Ukraine

In 2022, after Russia 's full invasion of Ukraine, Owens promoted a quote by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which included the false assertion that the USSR created the modern country of Ukraine. Her views have received support and amplification from the Embassy of Russia, Washington, D.C., particularly following her tweet stating "Russian lives matter" after the start of Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In March 2022, Owens faced criticism from historian Anne Applebaum for claiming that Ukraine "wasn't a thing until 1989" and dismissing the notion of a Russian-led genocide in the country, prompting Applebaum to label Owens as ignorant of history.

In December 2022, Owens faced backlash and fact-checking on social media after making unfounded claims about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 's wife Olena Zelenska, with Twitter users debunking her allegations and highlighting the lack of evidence.

### Jews and Judaism

Following her departure from the Daily Wire after she was accused of antisemitism, Owens downplayed the prevalence of antisemitism, stating that "people who are now screaming 'antisemitism is everywhere!' are actually just racial supremacists." According to Media Matters, Owens criticized Jordan Peterson for calling far-right commentator Nick Fuentes a "psychopathic rat" after Fuentes tweeted that Jews control the Biden administration. Owens suggested that Fuentes could be correct based on the number of Jewish officials appointed to the Biden Administration, saying that "it seems a weird tweet for to be so disturbed about." Owens further referred to Fuentes as having "a very long background of focusing his attention on Israel and Zionism, and that's what he is reacting to." Fuentes had previously praised Owens, saying she was waging "a full-fledged war against the Jews." Owens falsely claimed in an interview with Tristan Tate, brother of Andrew Tate, that Joseph Stalin was Jewish, and that Sigmund Freud and Stalinists were part of a Jewish cabal. Owens claimed that Freud studied Kabbalah and promoted pedophilia through psychoanalysis.

In July 2024, Owens suggested that Ashkenazi Jews trace their origin to Khazars and are not related to "biblical Jews". According to her, descendants of Khazars were "so immoral and so corrupt" that they were forced to convert to Judaism by Persians and Russians in the eighth century. However, they did not "meaningfully convert" and "carried on their corruption, carried on their sexual deviancy". She suggested that "their religious teachings tell them to infiltrate everywhere" and " elites are disgusting, despicable people". Owens implied that the war in Ukraine is linked to the Khazars' desire to seek revenge on Russia and Iran. She went on to blame instances of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church on them.

During a live broadcast on August 18, 2024, Owens claimed that Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman who was wrongly convicted of murder and lynched in the US state of Georgia in August 17, 1915, had killed Mary Phagan as part of a ritual murder on Passover, again referencing blood libel. Owens further claimed there existed a " Frankish Cult...masquering behind Jews" that engages in pedophilia and incest "as sacramental rites". She stated that there are "tens of thousands of pedophiles hide from justice in Israel". Owens' father-in-law Lord Farmer has publicly repudiated her repeated antisemitic remarks. Owens was disinvited from a Trump campaign fundraiser in the summer of 2024 following criticism from Jewish groups.

Owens has suggested that AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group, was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

### Israel and Palestine

Owens is a critic of Israel and increasingly stridently expressed her negative views of the country during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. In October 2023, she criticized an Israeli strike on a church in Gaza, in which Christians were killed, tweeting "I have been disgusted by the propagandists pretending a Christian church was not bombed. Christians were killed. No Christian should stay silent", and later "If you think it's antisemitism to notice that innocent Christians were killed in an IDF bombing, then you need to log off." Clarifying her views in early November, Owens tweeted "No government anywhere has a right to commit a genocide, ever."

Her stance on Israel led to her break with Ben Shapiro, co-founder of The Daily Wire, the website for which Candace Owens then worked, contributing to her departing it in March 2024. Shapiro saw her position as increasingly antisemitic: Owens criticised US support for Israel, saying she did not believe "that American taxpayers should have to pay for Israel's wars or the wars of any other country", but also posted about "political Jews" and a "very small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism", comments Shapiro described as "absolutely disgraceful".

## Legal issues

### Kimberly Klacik lawsuit

During an Instagram livestream on June 22, 2021, Owens accused former Republican congressional candidate Kimberly Klacik of money laundering, tax fraud, illegal drug use, and misusing campaign funds. Owens also said that Klacik is a "madame" who recruits strippers for a strip club owned by her husband. Owens said she found out about this after talking with a woman who claimed to have worked as a stripper at Klacik's strip club.

Klacik denied the allegations and repeatedly asked for Owens to take down the video, which she refused to do. In July, Klacik filed a lawsuit against Owens seeking $20 million for defamation and claiming that the allegations have resulted in Klacik losing political support from donors, being removed from public events, a book deal cancellation, and harassment of Klacik and her family. In a statement, Jacob S. Frenkel, Klacik's attorney, said: "The defendant chose to use her huge social media platform to attack a respected Baltimore political figure" and that "We are using the proper forum — the power of the courts — to respond." The suit was dismissed with prejudice in December 2022 and Klacik had to pay Owens $115,000.

### Other

In October 2020, Owens sued Lead Stories and USA Today after they fact-checked Facebook posts she had made downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic, alleging their articles had led to her being unable to obtain advertising revenue from her Facebook page and the termination of a deal with Facebook to advertise her book Blackout. Owens created a website to solicit donations for the lawsuit. The lawsuit was dismissed in July 2021, with the judge ruling that her posts contained COVID-19 misinformation. The lawsuit's dismissal was upheld in February 2022.

In April 2022, a class-action lawsuit was filed in Florida against LGBcoin, a cryptocurrency company, Owens, stock car racing driver Brandon Brown, and NASCAR, alleging that the defendants had made false statements about the LGBcoin and that the founders of the company had engaged in a pump and dump scheme.

## Controversies

### Dispute with family of Mollie Tibbetts

In August 2018, Owens had a dispute with Sam Lucas, cousin of Mollie Tibbetts, who had been murdered by Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 24-year-old Mexican undocumented immigrant. Tibbetts's cousin said that Owens had exploited Tibbetts's death for "political propaganda". Owens responded by describing Lucas's criticism as a "strange" attack on Trump supporters. Later that month, the University of Iowa 's chapter of Turning Point USA criticized Owens for "public harassment" towards a member of Tibbetts's family, and the executive board members of the chapter all resigned in protest.

### Support of Kanye West

On October 3, 2022, during Adidas Yeezy SZN 9 fashion show in Paris, Owens posed for a photo with Kanye West wearing a matching shirt with the " WHITE LIVES MATTER " slogan. During Paris Fashion Week, West entered negotiations with Owens's husband, the CEO of social networking service Parler, to purchase the website. After West posted tweets declaring he would "go Death Con 3 on Jewish people"; Owens defended West, stating that "if you are an honest person, you did not find this tweet antisemitic". Owens further accused the Anti-Defamation League of instigating antisemitism following the organization's criticism of West and Kyrie Irving. Owens's comments were made before West praised Adolf Hitler in an InfoWars interview. After the interview, Parler announced that West had canceled his plans to buy the website. The Zionist Organization of America condemned Owens's defense of West, calling on her to "retract her offensive, dangerous statements."

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has repeatedly criticized Owens for her friendship with West. Owens condemned Boteach as a "monster", stating that "any person who defends him or his hag daughter is immediately suspicious." Owens has also claimed that in Hollywood, there is "a small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism" and that this ring "appears to be something that is quite sinister." In March 2024, Owens liked a tweet asking Boteach if he was "drunk on Christian blood again," an apparent reference to the antisemitic blood libel accusation. The Daily Wire announced they were ending their association with Owens a few days after Owens liked the tweet.

### Promotion of conspiracy theories

Owens has been criticized for promoting conspiracy theories, including claims that the Moon landings were faked, mostly through her social media profiles and television and media appearances. Addressing a 2022 tweet about the Moon landing being "faked", Owens stated on comedian Bill Maher 's Club Random podcast that she does not know or care enough about the Moon landing to call it a hoax, stating that she has "never cared about the topic." Owens has appeared on fringe conspiracy websites, such as InfoWars. In 2018, she was a guest host on Fox News, and began to distance herself from the far-right conspiracy websites, although she refused to criticize InfoWars or its hosts.

During the October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts targeting prominent Democrats, Owens took to Twitter to promote the conspiracy theory that the mailings were sent by leftists. After authorities arrested a 56-year-old suspect who was a registered Republican and Trump supporter, Owens deleted her tweet without explanation.

In March 2024, Owens endorsed the false conspiracy theory that Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, was secretly transgender. Owens stated she was "willing to stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man... The implications here are terrifying." In 2024, she criticized the government's unfulfilled promises regarding forced suicide in an article in Blast. In France, on RMC Story, she was described as a disgusting transphobic propagandist by feminist militant Yael Mellul.

### Mention in Christchurch shooter's manifesto

Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the terrorist who committed the Christchurch mosque shootings, produced a manifesto prior to committing the shootings in which he wrote that Owens had "influenced above all". According to journalist Robert Evans, it was "possible, even likely", that Tarrant was a fan of Owens, considering her rhetoric against Muslim immigrants but that, in context, his references to her may have been an example of " shitposting " intended to provoke political conflict. For instance, the line "Though I will have to disavow some of beliefs, the extreme actions she calls for are too much, even for my tastes" was assessed by The Root as trolling.

Hours after the shootings, Owens posted a tweet in reaction to allegations that she inspired the mass murder, saying that she never created any content espousing her views on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution or Islam. Her tweet was criticized as "glib" when it was reported that she actually had posted tweets about the Second Amendment and Islam. She later made formal statements rejecting any connection to the terrorist.

### Proposed 2024 Australasian tour

In late August 2024, Owens announced that plans for a speaking tour of five Australian cities and the New Zealand city of Auckland in November 2024. In response, local Jewish groups including the Zionist Federation of Australia, the Anti-Defamation Commission, Dayenu and the Holocaust Centre called for the Australian and New Zealand governments to deny Owens entry due to her anti-Semitic views and remarks. Annetta Able, who survived Mengele's experiments, also called for Owens to be blocked from entering the country saying that Owens' denial of Nazi medical experiments "is not just deeply offensive, it is a dangerous distortion of historical truth that I witnessed with my own eyes. I still bear the physical and emotional scars of Mengele's cruelty. The pain, fear, and trauma I experienced were very real and to hear someone deny these atrocities is a fresh wound to my heart and an insult to the memory of those who perished." Similar calls were echoed by Coalition immigration spokesperson Dan Tehan, who called upon Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to block Owen's visa application on character groups. New Zealand Acting Race Relations Commissioner Saunoamaali'i Dr Karanina Sumeo criticised Owens' Holocaust denial and said that "freedom of expression must be balanced against people's right to be free from discrimination, the right to safety and security, and the right to religious freedom and belief." By contrast, Juliet Moses of the New Zealand Jewish Council disagreed with calls to ban Owens' entry, citing free speech. Immigration New Zealand said that Owens' visa application would be subject to a character test. During an interview with Sydney radio station 2GB, Owens confirmed that she would not be canceling her travel plans to Australia, saying that her husband had cousins there.

## Personal life

Owens met her British husband, George Farmer, in 2018 at the launch event for Turning Point UK, a conservative student organization. George Farmer, the son of Lord Farmer, was the chairman of Turning Point UK at the time. The two developed a connection through their shared conservative values and eventually started dating before George's proposal to her just weeks after their first meeting. The two became engaged in 2019 and were married in August that year at the Trump Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia. Numerous guests were present at the ceremony, including Larry Elder and Charlie Kirk.

Since her marriage, Owens is now also (officially) known as The Hon. Mrs. George Farmer.

Owens gave birth to a boy in January 2021, a daughter in July 2022 and another boy in late November 2023.

In April 2024, Owens announced that she had converted to the Catholic Church and had been baptized in the Brompton Oratory.

## Filmography

- The Greatest Lie Ever Sold (documentary, 2022)

- A Shot in the Dark (documentary, 2023)

- Convicting a Murderer (documentary, 2023)

- Lady Ballers (2023)


Muscle of Love

# Muscle of Love

## Abstract

Muscle of Love is the seventh and final studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper. It was released in late 1973, the band played its last concert a few months later.

## Background

Cooper stated in an interview at the time of recording that the album marked a return to a basic rock sound. "It's not complicated in any sense and there's not a lot of theatricality on it. It's very basic rock and roll throughout." Cooper further explained, " Billion Dollar Babies was a studio effort all the way. So was School's Out. It was just so clean that after a few times of hearing it myself, it had no mystery to it. I really wanted this one to have more guts to it. More balls."

Muscle of Love is the first Alice Cooper album without Bob Ezrin as producer since the pre-stardom Easy Action. The explanation given at the time was that Ezrin was recovering from illness. However, bassist Dennis Dunaway revealed in a 2011 interview that the band split with the producer during an acrimonious rehearsal in which guitarist Michael Bruce stood up to Ezrin and refused to change the arrangement of "Woman Machine". Jack Richardson and Jack Douglas stepped in to share co-production duties. Author Bob Greene described his participation in the album's recording sessions, and his experiences touring with the band, in his 1974 book Billion Dollar Baby.

Dunaway recalled the album sessions as being very difficult. "The problems on that album were that we could tell that everything was being pulled out from underneath us. As hard as we tried to get it back to where it once was, we had that sinking feeling going on. We wanted to rekindle what the band was about but there was just too much exhaustion by then."

## Lyrical content

In a contemporary interview with Circus magazine, Cooper said that a loose concept of "urban sex habits" developed during the album's recording. The title of "Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo)' refers to the Hippopotamus club of New York City which the band used to frequent. "Never Been Sold Before" is the retort of a prostitute to the man she is supporting, and the title track is, according to Cooper, about "sexual awakenings". "It's about the kid who just learned how to masturbate, and what all those dirty books his father used to hide are all about." "Woman Machine" is a science fiction -themed song dating back to the band's early years and is, as Cooper explained, "basically a chauvinistic song. It's about a female robot, like Julie Newmar was on that TV program with Bob Cummings. If we had women robots, they could do anything, even sexual things, just by changing their tubes."

Not all of the songs have a sexual theme; "Crazy Little Child" tells the story of a youth criminal, and in " Teenage Lament '74 ", a teenager fails to find happiness even when doing everything to try to be "hip". "Man With the Golden Gun" was written with the intention of having it appear on the soundtrack of the then-upcoming James Bond film of the same name. Cooper recalled in a 2011 interview:

It was supposed to be the Bond theme, but it actually came in a day too late, and by the time they heard it, they'd already signed for Lulu's song. I went, "You're gonna take Lulu over this?" 'Cause it was perfect for The Man With The Golden Gun. It had helicopters, it had machine guns—it had the Pointer Sisters, Ronnie Spector, and Liza Minnelli doing background vocals! We went to every single one of those John Barry albums to try and invent the perfect James Bond song, and even Christopher Lee, who played Scaramanga in the movie, said, "Oh, man, why did we take the Lulu song? This song is the one!" So, yeah, we lost out on that one, but I still put it on the album. I said, "I don't care, I'm going to do a James Bond track no matter what."

## Personnel

Though credited as lead guitarist on Muscle of Love, Glen Buxton was "not invited" to play on the album according to drummer Neal Smith, Cooper, and others. His inclusion in the liner notes was mainly due to management's concerns about the band's image with fans. Smith stated the absence was due to "problems that Glen was having with the demons of rock and roll at that particular time... really, Billion Dollar Babies and Muscle of Love, Glen didn't really play on the (latter) album. By hook or by crook, the albums had to be put out." The band sought out other guitar players to fill in, including Dick Wagner, Steve Hunter, and fellow Cortez High School alum Mick Mashbir.

There is an additional suggestion that a session drummer was used on part of the album. Band member Michael Bruce refers, in his autobiography, to producer Jack Douglas bringing in a drummer specifically to play on "Crazy Little Child". This report is given some added support by the claims of session drummer Allan Schwartzberg, who says he played on several tracks.

## Packaging

In place of the usual record jacket, the original LP was packaged in a shallow corrugated cardboard carton, with a "stain" intentionally printed along the bottom. On the inner sleeve, the band members appear dressed as sailors. In the "before" daytime shot, they are about to enter a nude wrestling emporium; in the "after" nighttime shot on the other side of the sleeve, they appear beaten and sprawled out on the street, having been thrown out of the club, the joke being that the live nude female wrestler was a gorilla with a blonde wig. The front of the album cover design agency Pacific Eye & Ear was temporarily redecorated to serve as the setting for the photo session.

The original release also included a paper "book cover" sheet that could be folded and used as a book jacket. A photo on the sheet depicts the band members in their sailor uniforms looking dejected while peeling potatoes.

## Reception and chart performance

Muscle of Love received an uneven reception from critics. Writing in Rolling Stone, Lenny Kaye gave the album a mixed review, describing its content as "hit-or-miss" and believing that the group had lost focus with regard to its musical direction. Phonographic Record published a negative review and suggested that the group had been unable to overcome the loss of Ezrin. Creem, however, gave the album a positive review, calling it "a magnificent effort".

Although Muscle of Love went to No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and earned a gold certification, it was considered something of a commercial disappointment in light of its predecessor Billion Dollar Babies having reached No. 1 and attaining platinum.

Muscle of Love ' s songs have been rarities at Alice Cooper's subsequent concerts: apart from the title track (performed erratically in 1989, 1997 and since 2004) plus four performances of "Teenage Lament '74" in 1996 and 2004, nothing from Muscle of Love has been performed since 1974. "Never Been Sold Before", "Crazy Little Child", "Man with the Golden Gun" and "Woman Machine" have never been performed live.

## Covers

The song "Muscle of Love" was covered by Fireball Ministry for their 2001 FMEP release. "Teenage Lament '74" was covered by Big Country on their 2001 covers album Undercover, and by Tyla on the 1993 Various Artists tribute album Welcome to Our Nightmare. "Hard Hearted Alice" was covered by Chris Connelly on the Mutations: A Tribute to Alice Cooper compilation.

## Track listing

## Personnel

- Alice Cooper – vocals

- Glen Buxton – lead guitar

- Michael Bruce – rhythm guitar, backing vocals

- Dennis Dunaway – bass guitar, backing vocals

- Neal Smith – drums, backing vocals

with:

- Mick Mashbir – guitar

- Dick Wagner – guitar

- Bob Dolin – keyboards, background vocals

Additional musicians from the LP liner notes:

- Paul Prestopino – banjo

- Dave Libert with Dolly, Stu Daye, Dennis Ferrante, Joe Gannon, The Big Cheese, Liza Minnelli, Labelle, Ronnie Spector, The Pointer Sisters Janice Buxton - background vocals

- unnamed strings and horns