Some context: Kevin Jeffrey Clash (born September 17, 1960) is an American puppeteer, director and producer whose characters include Elmo, Clifford, Benny Rabbit, and Hoots the Owl. Clash developed an interest in puppetry at an early age and began performing for local TV children's shows in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, as a teenager. In the early 1980s, he began working in Captain Kangaroo and began performing in Sesame Street in 1984. He was the fifth puppeteer to perform Elmo, the character he became the most famous for and became an executive producer and director for the show.
Kevin Clash was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 17, 1960, the third of four children born to George Clash, a flash welder and handyman, and Gladys Clash, who ran a small daycare center in their two-bedroom, one-bath home in the Turner Station of Dundalk, Maryland. Clash developed an interest in puppetry at an early age, inspired by children's shows like Kukla, Fran and Ollie and Sesame Street. He made his first puppet, a version of Mickey Mouse, at the age of 10. When he was twelve, he created a monkey puppet out of the lining of his father's coat. His first performances were for his mother's daycare children.  By the time he was a teenager, he had built almost 90 puppets, which he based upon commercials, popular music, and his friends. While still in high school, Clash performed at venues throughout Baltimore, including schools, churches, fundraisers, and community events. While appearing at a neighborhood festival, Clash was discovered by Baltimore television personality Stu Kerr, who became Clash's first mentor and hired him to perform in the children's show Caboose at Channel 2. Clash also built puppets for the Romper Room franchise. When he was 17, he contacted and met puppeteer Kermit Love, who became Clash's mentor, after seeing Love featured in an episode of the documentary Call It Macaroni. In 1979, on Love's recommendation, Clash appeared as Cookie Monster in the Sesame Street float during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and met Jim Henson, who later became his boss, mentor, and good friend.  When he was nineteen, Clash became a puppeteer for Captain Kangaroo, initially as a guest performer, in which he also made occasional on-camera appearances. The producers of Captain Kangaroo used some of Clash's puppet creations for the show. In 1984, Clash had to turn down Henson's offer to work on his film The Dark Crystal because he was working on two TV shows at the same time, Captain Kangaroo and Love's syndicated program The Great Space Coaster, in which he was producer for the first time.
How did Clash get his start?
A: Clash developed an interest in puppetry at an early age,
Some context: Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. was born in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, to Ada (nee Richards) and Alfred Charles Sharpton Sr. The family has some Cherokee roots. He preached his first sermon at the age of four and toured with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. In 1963, Sharpton's father left his wife to have a relationship with Sharpton's half-sister.
On November 28, 1987, Tawana Brawley, a 15-year-old black girl, was found smeared with feces, lying in a garbage bag, her clothing torn and burned and with various slurs and epithets written on her body in charcoal. Brawley claimed she had been assaulted and raped by six white men, some of them police officers, in the town of Wappinger, New York.  Attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason joined Sharpton in support of Brawley. A grand jury was convened; after seven months of examining police and medical records, the jury found "overwhelming evidence" that Brawley had fabricated her story. Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason had accused the Dutchess County prosecutor, Steven Pagones, of racism and of being one of the perpetrators of the alleged abduction and rape. The three were successfully sued for defamation, and were ordered to pay $345,000 in damages, with the jury finding Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Pagones, Maddox for two, and Mason for one. Sharpton refused to pay his share of the damages; it was later paid by a number of black business leaders including Johnnie Cochran.  In 2007, Sharpton said he would handle the case the same today, with the only difference being that he would not have made it so personal against Pagones. He said that he still felt Brawley had a good case to go to trial, saying in an interview: "I disagreed with the grand jury on Brawley. I believed there was enough evidence to go to trial. Grand jury said there wasn't. Okay, fine. Do I have a right to disagree with the grand jury? Many Americans believe O.J. Simpson was guilty. A jury said he wasn't. So I have as much right to question a jury as they do. Does it make somebody a racist? No! They just disagreed with the jury. So did I."
Did he pay the money for the damages?
A: Sharpton refused to pay his share of the damages; it was later paid by a number of black business leaders
Some context: Meir David HaKohen Kahane (; Hebrew: myr dvd khn; August 1, 1932 - November 5, 1990) was an American-Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in the Israeli Knesset. His work is influential on most modern Jewish militant and far right-wing political groups. Kahane spent years reaching out to Jews through published works, weekly articles, speeches, and debates on college campuses and in synagogues throughout the United States, and appearances on various televised programs and radio shows.
Martin David Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1932 to an Orthodox Jewish family. His father, Yechezkel (Charles) Kahane, the author of the "Torah Yesharah", studied at Polish and Czech yeshivas, was involved in the Revisionist Zionist movement, and was a close friend of Ze'ev Jabotinsky.  As a teenager, Kahane became an ardent admirer of Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Peter Bergson, who were frequent guests in his parents' home, and he joined the Betar (Brit Trumpeldor) youth wing of Revisionist Zionism. He was active in protests against Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary who maintained restrictions on the immigration of Jews (even Nazi death camp survivors) to Palestine after the end of the Second World War. In 1947, Kahane was arrested for throwing eggs and tomatoes at Bevin, as the latter disembarked at Pier 84 on a visit to New York. A photo of the arrest appeared in the New York Daily News. In 1954, he became the mazkir (director) of Greater New York City's sixteen Bnei Akiva chapters.  Kahane's formal education included elementary school at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, and he attended high school at both Abraham Lincoln H.S. and the Brooklyn Talmudical Academy. Kahane received his rabbinical ordination from the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn, where he was especially admired by the head, Rabbi Abraham Kalmanowitz, and he began going by his Hebrew name, Meir. He was fully conversant in the Tanakh (Jewish Bible), the Talmud, the Midrash, and Jewish law. Subsequently, Kahane earned a B.A. in Political Science from Brooklyn College, a Bachelor of Law - LL.B. from New York Law School, and an M.A. in International Relations from New York University.
What did he do after graduating from college?
A: