The Times in Print for November 15, 2008
big fat quick post from the NYTimes & DMN...
will try to post links...
Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage
By JESSE McKINLEY and KIRK JOHNSON
Mormons played an extraordinary role in the passage of a California ballot measure that once seemed close to defeat.
The Saturday Profile: As a Memoirist, a Chilean Diplomat Takes Off the White Gloves
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
High School Rugby Team Breaks Down Barriers
Mexico Crash Inquiry Points to Pilot Error in Turbulence
By ELISABETH MALKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/world/americas/15mexico.html?scp=3&sq=interior%20minister&st=cse
Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage
By JESSE McKINLEY and KIRK JOHNSON
Hospital Flooded in Storm to Cut Its Staff by a Third
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Dallas Schools Used False Hiring Data
By GRETEL C. KOVACH
Police Defend Shooting of Man Swinging a Chair
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
As First Plan Stalls, Mayor Tries New Push for Green Taxis
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Arts, Briefly: Silverman Book Deal
Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/hoop-wins-bike-rack-design-contest/?scp=1&sq=bike%20racks&st=cse
November 14, 2008, 11:20 AM
‘Hoop’ Wins Bike-Rack Design Contest
By SEWELL CHAN
| A simple circle, resting on the ground with a bar bisecting it. That concept, called “Hoop” — the brainchild of Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve, designers based in Copenhagen — is the winner of the CityRacks Design Competition and will be used as the new standard bicycle rack installed on New York City’s sidewalks, officials announced on Friday. Nearly 5,000 such racks are to be installed over the next three years./.../
Update | Several readers asked how the winning bike-rack design, the “Hoop,” will be attached to the ground. City Room asked Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the Transportation Department, for a response. He replied in an e-mail message, “The final securing mechanism hasn’t been decided, but we are evaluating the sturdiest and most cost-effective method. One option is to bolt it and add a protective flange at the base. The other is to fasten it to the ground using subsurface mounting components.”
comment.. one would think attachment and installation would be critical in integral to the design process!!
be sure to read the reader comments! average New Yorkers seem more in touch with "D"esign requirements!
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/10-finalists-picked-in-bike-rack-contest/
September 30, 2008, 4:49 PM
10 Finalists Picked in Bike-Rack Contest
By SEWELL CHAN
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/new-bike-racks-courtesy-of-david-byrne/?scp=3&sq=bike%20racks&st=cse
August 19, 2008, 4:54 PM
New Bike Racks, Courtesy of David Byrne
By SEWELL CHAN
Latest Marvel: Packages That Open Without a Saw
By BRAD STONE and MATT RICHTEL
Retailers are creating alternatives to infuriating plastic “clamshell” packages and cruelly complex twist ties.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/technology/internet/15packaging.html?ref=todayspaper
Impregnable packaging has incited such frustration among consumers that an industry term has been coined for it — “wrap rage.” It has sent about 6,000 Americans each year to emergency rooms with injuries caused by trying to pry, stab and cut open their purchases, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/sports/othersports/15rugby.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all
Jim Lo Scalzo for The New York Times
Playing a “white person’s game,” an all-black rugby team from a Washington charter school has cleared racial hurdles and learned valuable life lessons.
By WILL BARDENWERPER
Published: November 14, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/magazine/16rice-t.html
Welcome to My World, Barack
What the World Needs Now Is . . . Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice contemplates the state of the world — past, present and future.
Interviews by HELENE COOPER and SCOTT L. MALCOMSON
Published: November 13, 2008
On Jan. 20, Barack Obama will inherit a world very different from the one his predecessor found in January 2001. Over the past eight years, the Bush administration has faced great challenges and nurtured grand ambitions; it has tried hard to remake the world. Condoleezza Rice has been a central player in that effort since becoming the candidate Bush’s chief foreign-policy adviser in 2000, so we arranged to interview her at the State Department late last month. The interview turned into a wide-ranging discussion of where this government has taken the United States and what sort of world it will leave for the next president. The editors have culled the highlights of her remarks in the text that follows. We also spoke with other administration foreign-policy makers — Christopher Hill and Daniel Fried of the State Department and Gen. James L. Jones, former supreme allied commander, Europe — whose remarks supplement and illuminate those of Rice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/arts/design/15taxi.html?scp=1&sq=taxidermy&st=cse
From Ashes, Reviving a Place of Wild Dreams
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: November 14, 2008
PARIS — When a fire ripped through Deyrolle, the beloved taxidermy establishment here, early one morning last February, it was as if a dagger had been plunged into the heart of Paris.
Deyrolle has always been more than a shop on the classy Rue du Bac. Founded 177 years ago by Jean-Baptiste Deyrolle, a well-known entomologist, Deyrolle has been a natural history emporium with the look and feel of a museum, except that just about everything was for sale.
Deyrolle’s stuffed menagerie — from black crows to big-game animals — its cases of butterflies and beetles, its signature pedagogic posters and century-old prints have made it a place of pilgrimage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/world/americas/15munoz.html?scp=1&sq=memoirist&st=cse
THE SATURDAY PROFILE
As a Memoirist, a Chilean Diplomat Takes Off the White Gloves
HERALDO MUÑOZ weighed a dilemma when he sat down to write about his past, which included slinking through Santiago, Chile, with unstable sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest, girding for the insurrection that never materialized against the infamous 1973 military coup.
In the ensuing decades, after all, Mr. Muñoz had become not only Chile’s permanent representative to the United Nations, but also the head of a Security Council antiterrorism committee. Accomplished diplomats are not supposed to wield explosive verbs, much less actual dynamite.
But in writing “The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet,” a memoir published this fall, the ambassador decided that only the complete story would suffice.
“At that time, and it’s hard to say it, but I was ready to die because I was defending a constitutional government and a cause,” Mr. Muñoz, 60, said in an interview in his airy corner office overlooking the United Nations and the East River. “That is my life, and that is when everybody was crazy in the world.”
He overcame his initial reluctance to write the book, he said, when he realized that General Pinochet had affected an entire generation in Chile and all around the world — prominent leftist politicians and advocates told him the fight over Chile had inspired them to enter public life and still shaped their outlook. It took him two years of writing evenings and weekends to finish the work.
In addition, Mr. Muñoz wanted to examine the question of whether Chile’s free-market economic miracle was really the fruit of the Pinochet period — as General Pinochet’s die-hard supporters still claim — or whether it might have occurred without such a brutally anti-Socialist regime.
Although General Pinochet unleashed free-market policies inspired by the “Chicago boys,” young Chilean disciples of Milton Friedman and other economists of the Chicago School, the dictator was forced to retrench and even to nationalize much of the banking sector with a $7 billion bailout in the early 1980s.
It was only after the defeat of General Pinochet in a 1988 plebiscite and the establishment of democracy that the real economic boom occurred, Mr. Muñoz argues in the book, with the poverty level in Chile dropping to 13.7 percent in 2007 from 40 percent in 1990.
But Patricio Navia, who teaches Latin American studies at New York University, says the book underplays the extent to which modern Chile is a creature of what Pinochet wrought. “Chile today is much more what Pinochet had in mind than what Allende had in mind,” he said, referring to Salvador Allende, the Socialist president of Chile who was overthrown in the 1973 coup.
Paul E. Sigmund, a professor emeritus at Princeton and an expert on Chilean politics, said the book’s greatest value lay in its detailed descriptions of the policy fights of the Pinochet era. “He is a remarkable combination of political activist and political observer,” Mr. Sigmund said of the ambassador.
/.../
The Pinochet memoir is not the only book by Mr. Muñoz out this fall. He also wrote a critique of United States policy in Iraq, called “A Solitary War,” originally published in Spanish and drawn from his two years on the Security Council. The book laments that Americans do not recognize the value of the United Nations in assuring the United States’ central role in the world. In a rare flash of undiplomatic frankness, he pokes fun at President Bush’s Spanish accent.
To this day, Ambassador Muñoz said, Chileans of his generation do not entirely trust the United States as a force for democratic change in the world. The fight to end General Pinochet’s rule left a permanent mark on them. “It symbolized a sense of purpose, fighting for human rights and becoming politically active, never forgetting that democracy is feeble unless we are able to strengthen it,” he said. “That is a daily task.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/nyregion/15about.html?scp=1&sq=grade-a%20caper&st=cse
ABOUT NEW YORK
In 1978, a Faux Paper Was Real Genius
By JIM DWYER
Published: November 14, 2008
A spoof called “New York Times — Special Edition” was handed out in big cities around the country this week, full of news stories imagined by liberal pranksters. It was a Grade-A caper; people walked into their subways carrying a newspaper headlined, “Iraq War Ends,” thinking, well, how do you like that? Then they noticed the date on the paper was next July.
Enlarge This Image
Collection of Jonathan Becker/Random House
Created by a consortium of sharp wits, Not The New York Times was a spiritual companion to The Times.
Now, clever as it was, this week’s spoof will not do any damage to the reputation of liberals/progressives as being a little short in the humor leg. The faux paper was full of virtuous high-fiber material — universal health care, nation sets sights on building sane economy, apologies by a range of villains — and generally was all the fun of a steaming bowl of quinoa.
By way of completely unfair comparison, it should be noted that the modern standard for fake news was set in October 1978, with the publication of the one and only issue of Not The New York Times. It was a pitch-perfect replica, spiritually and physically. At that point, the actual newspaper had not been published for two months because of a strike, and the Internet did not yet exist.
After so long without the real thing, the public embraced Not The New York Times —from the first page to the last, packed with articles that were vaguely familiar. For instance, while there was no Living section with features on home decorating, there was The Having Section, which had handy how-to stories like “Insulating With Pâté: Winter Warmth With Good Taste.”
The front page carried both hard news articles and reports on important social trends.
“An Exotic Drug, ‘Cocaine,’ Appears Popular,” read one headline, deploying quotation marks around the word cocaine like a pair of tweezers. In keeping with the real newspaper’s expanding use of graphs to convey important facts at a glance, the cocaine article included a chart on its increased consumption, illustrated with little noses along a timeline. The trend was unmistakable: In 1976, one nose sufficed; by 1978, a full 15 noses were needed.
Of course, the most pressing issues of the day received the greatest attention. For instance, in real life, Pope Paul VI died in August of that year. His successor, Pope John Paul I, died 33 days after he was elected. The lead story in Not The New York Times reported that John Paul’s successor — John Paul John Paul, formerly the archbishop of Liverpool — lived only 18 minutes after his investiture.
“Pope Dies Yet Again;
Reign is Briefest Ever
Cardinals Return from Airport”
Having already picked two popes that summer, the article reported, many of the cardinals were fed up with their accommodations at the Vatican and so “were said to favor choosing John Paul John Paul’s successor in a conference call.”
In local news, a tragedy dominated the headlines: the Queensboro Bridge had collapsed under the weight of 10,000 runners in the “Rheingold Marathon.” The organizer of the race, Fred Lebow, said it was not his fault, but that of the runners. “I’ve never seen so many fat people in my life,” said the story’s Mr. Lebow. “You will remember that 5,026 runners in the field held graduate degrees. You sit around at a college for all those years, drinking beer and eating fruit pies, and you end up looking like a pig.”
Just like the real newspaper, Not The New York Times carried rich reports from correspondents around the world — “Sleepy Village’s Dull Anecdote is Grist for Reporters’ Mill” and “Rudolf Hess Riots in Spandau Prison” — along with a lively opinion section, under the lead editorial, “Whither Détente?”
Not The New York Times was masterminded by Christopher Cerf — a man of many talents, none mightier than as the composer of such “Sesame Street” classics as “Put Down the Duckie” — and the writers George Plimpton, Freddy Plimpton, Rusty Unger and Tony Hendra, who posed for the front-page picture of the short-lived pope from Liverpool. Among the contributors were Carl Bernstein, Frances FitzGerald, Michael Arlen, Jerzy Kosinski, Terry Southern and Nora Ephron.
“Frankie Fitzgerald called me to come over one night,” recalled Kevin Buckley, who had been a correspondent in Vietnam for Newsweek and was then the editor of New Times. He conjured an op-ed column in the manner of the longtime columnist James Reston, an interview with Genghis Khan — “not such a bad fellow” — that had originally appeared in October 1241 and was being rerun as the author’s favorite. It evoked a conversational tone with the powerful. “ ‘How are you, Scotty?’ asked the Khan, gnawing on a Kurd.”
This was all accomplished not only before the Internet, but before computers.
“I just remember being there that one night in a room where everyone was off in their own corners, typing madly,” Ms. Ephron said.
And what is this “typing”?
“If you need me for anything else, I’ll be useless,” Ms. Ephron said, signing off.
E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com
More Articles in New York Region »
A version of this article appeared in print on November 15, 2008, on page A17 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/opinion/15bate.html?scp=1&sq=antibiotic&st=cse
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Wrong Message in a Bottle
By ROGER BATE
Published: November 15, 2008
Washington
IN late September, the authorities in Belgium seized more than two million counterfeit painkillers and antimalarial drugs that had been manufactured in India and were en route to Africa. It was the largest seizure ever of fake pharmaceuticals in Europe.
The incident shines a light on one of the most pressing problems in delivering life-saving medicines to the world’s poorest patients: the proliferation of low-quality and counterfeit products, many of which are dangerous. If aid organizations are serious about combating the spread of deadly diseases in the developing world, they must do more to ensure the safety and quality of drugs.
Thirty percent of the world’s population lacks access to essential medicines, according to the World Health Organization. In some Asian and African countries, the number is as high as 50 percent. And this problem cannot by solved by supplying bogus medicines.
“Better to have lack of access,” Dora Akunyili, the head of Nigeria’s drug watchdog agency told me, “than access to counterfeits and substandard medicines.” In 1988, Ms. Akunyili’s sister died from taking fake insulin to treat her diabetes.
Imports of bad medicines like those seized in Belgium are only part of the problem. To deal with the scarcity of drugs, many poor governments have turned to local production. The international aid community has generally approved this move, because local manufacturing expands the supply, cuts down on transportation costs and creates jobs. But local producers often make low-quality drugs.
In Senegal, a 2002 study found that 21 out of 22 samples of the antibiotic ampicillin (of unknown origin) lacked the active ingredient and appeared to contain only flour. Thirty-eight percent to 52 percent of artesunate pills (an antimalarial drug) in Southeast Asia have been found to contain no active ingredient. The W.H.O. estimates that 20 percent of the Indian drug supply is either fake or adulterated. And one of my own studies found that 35 percent of malaria drugs in Africa are substandard.
That such a large share of the developing world’s drug supply is subpar should come as no surprise. Even countries with stringent regulatory systems sometimes turn up bad pharmaceuticals.
Just this year, at least 95 Americans died after taking heparin (a blood thinner) manufactured in China that had been contaminated with oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, an inexpensive substance that mimics heparin in basic chemical tests. And in September, the F.D.A. blocked the import of more than 30 drugs made by the Indian company Ranbaxy, citing its failure to meet acceptable manufacturing standards.
The W.H.O. keeps a list of essential drugs, and its Drug Prequalification Program does its best to keep a separate list of safe suppliers of these drugs, which aid organizations refer to when buying medicines for developing countries. But this list is both short and unreliable; in 2004, several H.I.V. drugs produced by Indian drug companies were taken off the list because of insufficient evidence that they were effective.
Many poor countries now allow local drug makers to produce cheaper copies of patented drugs through what are called “compulsory licenses.” But this strategy has led to the manufacture of poor-quality medicine. Thailand has issued many compulsory licenses to enable a state-financed company, the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, to make various patented medicines, including antiviral drugs used to treat AIDS. But the drugs it has made have been of such poor quality that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria stopped buying them.
Many poor countries lack the regulatory structure needed to monitor safety and effectiveness. Some do not even have laws against selling substandard drugs, and none have sophisticated agencies like the F.D.A. with the trained inspectors and laboratories needed to analyze pharmaceuticals. It is essential that poor countries establish the laws, agencies and scientific capacity they need to oversee drug manufacturing and conduct random checks on imports and local drugs.
There are three things that aid organizations could do to help: They should give technical and financial support to governments’ sincere efforts to maintain strict drug inspection standards. They should always refuse to subsidize any low-quality drugs. And in countries that consistently fail to ensure that locally produced pharmaceuticals are safe and effective, aid agencies should insist that only brand-name and generic products approved by stringent drug agencies like the F.D.A. be distributed.
Since taking over drug quality control in Nigeria seven years ago, Dora Akunyili has reduced the amount of substandard pharmaceuticals to 16 percent, from more than half. And if Nigeria can improve drug quality so drastically, other countries can, too. Thousands of lives depend on their efforts.
Roger Bate, a director of the health advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria, is the author of “Making a Killing: The Deadly Implications of the Counterfeit Drug Trade.” He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, which receives some support from pharmaceutical companies.
More Articles in Opinion »
A version of this article appeared in print on November 15, 2008, on page A21 of the New York edition.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Colin Powell speaks
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/10/powell-obama.html
Colin L. Powell, the former mud soldier, hurled his political grenade in defense of Barack Obama, but the collateral damage hit the Bush White House.
To be sure, he was opting for Obama, but the undercurrent of his message was a strong rejection of the direction the Republican Party -- and the nation -- have taken under President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. We won't even get into his quiet dis of Sarah Palin.
And 24 hours after President Bush's former secretary of State said he would vote for the Democratic presidential nominee, he has been given a cold shoulder, so to speak, from the Bushies.
"He's not heard anything from the White House types," said a close friend who spoke with Powell before and after his appearance on "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
On the other hand, he's heard from just about everyone else, this Powell friend said, and response has been "overwhelmingly positive."
The friend added:
He feels very good about what he said yesterday. He's very comfortable with it.
The White House non-reaction, so far, is not too surprising when you consider what Powell was saying in this mildly worded but devastating sentence from Sunday's TV performance: "I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years."
/.../
Colin L. Powell, the former mud soldier, hurled his political grenade in defense of Barack Obama, but the collateral damage hit the Bush White House.
To be sure, he was opting for Obama, but the undercurrent of his message was a strong rejection of the direction the Republican Party -- and the nation -- have taken under President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. We won't even get into his quiet dis of Sarah Palin.
And 24 hours after President Bush's former secretary of State said he would vote for the Democratic presidential nominee, he has been given a cold shoulder, so to speak, from the Bushies.
"He's not heard anything from the White House types," said a close friend who spoke with Powell before and after his appearance on "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
On the other hand, he's heard from just about everyone else, this Powell friend said, and response has been "overwhelmingly positive."
The friend added:
He feels very good about what he said yesterday. He's very comfortable with it.
The White House non-reaction, so far, is not too surprising when you consider what Powell was saying in this mildly worded but devastating sentence from Sunday's TV performance: "I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years."
/.../
myth of multi-tasking
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794&ft=1&f=1001
RESEARCH NEWS
Think You're Multitasking? Think Again
by Jon Hamilton
/.../
Humans, they say, don't do lots of things simultaneously. Instead, we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly.
/.../
RESEARCH NEWS
Think You're Multitasking? Think Again
by Jon Hamilton
/.../
Humans, they say, don't do lots of things simultaneously. Instead, we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly.
/.../
olio post of quick catch up
jeez! been moving and its been a month since last post!
here a few teasers I encourage you to explore
Snip snip
10-15 NYT
Booker prize
Tajikistan cotton farmers
Bush signing statements
Science News (magazine)
from Science News
MILKY WAY'S BLACK HOLE SEEN IN NEW DETAIL
By Ron CowenSeptember 27th, 2008; Vol.174 #
Sagitarius A* black hole
Radio telescope image
milky way center
NPR 10/20
link to story
Los alamos eccentric museum
The black hole (?)
search google
At 85, 'Atomic Ed' Is Still Ticking Off Los Alamos
by John Burnett
[photo]
"Atomic Ed" at the Black Hole, his government surplus store and museum on a 5-acre compound in Los Alamos, N.M.
“One bomb is too many, no matter who has it. They have to think a different way. I don't know whether humanity can get out of this nuclear trap.”
Ed Grothus
[photo]
Ed Grothus, seen here with one of his "Doomsday Stones" — on which will sit a 32-foot granite obelisk inscribed with a screed against nuclear bombs, translated into 15 languages.
Morning Edition, October 20, 2008 · The most visited attraction in Los Alamos is the Bradbury Science Museum, where visitors find replicas of the two most famous bombs in history, Little Boy and Fat Man — dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively.
The next most visited attraction is the Black Hole, a government surplus store and museum whose inventory comes from the nation's foremost nuclear weapons lab — the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. Compared to the Bradbury Science Museum, the Black Hole's proprietor offers a very different presentation.
"My name is Ed Grothus, and I've been here almost 60 years in Los Alamos," he says. "The first 20 of those years, from 1949 to 1969, I worked in the laboratory. I came as a machinist. And I had a key role in making better — put that in quotes — 'better' atomic bombs."
here a few teasers I encourage you to explore
Snip snip
10-15 NYT
Booker prize
Tajikistan cotton farmers
Bush signing statements
Science News (magazine)
from Science News
MILKY WAY'S BLACK HOLE SEEN IN NEW DETAIL
By Ron CowenSeptember 27th, 2008; Vol.174 #
Sagitarius A* black hole
Radio telescope image
milky way center
NPR 10/20
link to story
Los alamos eccentric museum
The black hole (?)
search google
At 85, 'Atomic Ed' Is Still Ticking Off Los Alamos
by John Burnett
[photo]
"Atomic Ed" at the Black Hole, his government surplus store and museum on a 5-acre compound in Los Alamos, N.M.
“One bomb is too many, no matter who has it. They have to think a different way. I don't know whether humanity can get out of this nuclear trap.”
Ed Grothus
[photo]
Ed Grothus, seen here with one of his "Doomsday Stones" — on which will sit a 32-foot granite obelisk inscribed with a screed against nuclear bombs, translated into 15 languages.
Morning Edition, October 20, 2008 · The most visited attraction in Los Alamos is the Bradbury Science Museum, where visitors find replicas of the two most famous bombs in history, Little Boy and Fat Man — dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively.
The next most visited attraction is the Black Hole, a government surplus store and museum whose inventory comes from the nation's foremost nuclear weapons lab — the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. Compared to the Bradbury Science Museum, the Black Hole's proprietor offers a very different presentation.
"My name is Ed Grothus, and I've been here almost 60 years in Los Alamos," he says. "The first 20 of those years, from 1949 to 1969, I worked in the laboratory. I came as a machinist. And I had a key role in making better — put that in quotes — 'better' atomic bombs."
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
some news bookmarks
(sorry these are not links.. you'll have to cut & paste)
DayLife : http://www.daylife.com
International Herald Tribune : http://www.iht.com/
Today's Paper NYTimes : http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html
Al Jazeera English - Front Page : http://english.aljazeera.net/English/
Reuters.com : http://www.reuters.com/
The New York Times : http://nytimes.com/
BBC NEWS : http://news.bbc.co.uk/
CNN.com : http://www.cnn.com/
Los Angeles Times : http://www.latimes.com/
CBS MarketWatch : http://cbs.marketwatch.com/
CNET News.com : http://news.com.com/
Google News : http://news.google.com/
The New York Times : feed://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml
CNN.com : feed://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss
Washington Post : feed://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/topnews/rssheadlines.xml
Yahoo! : feed://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories
BBC News : feed://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss091.xml
Time : feed://www.time.com/time/rss/top/0,20326,,00.xml
Wired News : http://www.wired.com/
Blogs Home - Wired Blogs : http://blog.wired.com/
Dallas Observer : http://www.dallasobserver.com/
The Huffington Post : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Marketplace : http://marketplace.publicradio.org/
Telegraph co uk Business : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/
Marketplace from American Public Media : http://marketplace.publicradio.org/
Political Friendster : http://www.politicalfriendster.com/
National Hurricane Center : http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml
artforum.com / home : http://www.artforum.com/
washingtonpost.com : http://www.washingtonpost.com/
swissinfo.ch : http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/
Latest Satellite Imagery : http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/satellite.shtml
On The Media: This Week : http://www.onthemedia.org/
PRI's The World | International news from your public radio station : http://www.theworld.org/
DayLife : http://www.daylife.com
International Herald Tribune : http://www.iht.com/
Today's Paper NYTimes : http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html
Al Jazeera English - Front Page : http://english.aljazeera.net/English/
Reuters.com : http://www.reuters.com/
The New York Times : http://nytimes.com/
BBC NEWS : http://news.bbc.co.uk/
CNN.com : http://www.cnn.com/
Los Angeles Times : http://www.latimes.com/
CBS MarketWatch : http://cbs.marketwatch.com/
CNET News.com : http://news.com.com/
Google News : http://news.google.com/
The New York Times : feed://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml
CNN.com : feed://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss
Washington Post : feed://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/topnews/rssheadlines.xml
Yahoo! : feed://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories
BBC News : feed://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss091.xml
Time : feed://www.time.com/time/rss/top/0,20326,,00.xml
Wired News : http://www.wired.com/
Blogs Home - Wired Blogs : http://blog.wired.com/
Dallas Observer : http://www.dallasobserver.com/
The Huffington Post : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Marketplace : http://marketplace.publicradio.org/
Telegraph co uk Business : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/
Marketplace from American Public Media : http://marketplace.publicradio.org/
Political Friendster : http://www.politicalfriendster.com/
National Hurricane Center : http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml
artforum.com / home : http://www.artforum.com/
washingtonpost.com : http://www.washingtonpost.com/
swissinfo.ch : http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/
Latest Satellite Imagery : http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/satellite.shtml
On The Media: This Week : http://www.onthemedia.org/
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Chinese Baby Formula Scandal Widens
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/world/asia/16milk.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
Chinese Baby Formula Scandal Widens as 2nd Death Is Announced
By JIM YARDLEY
Published: September 15, 2008
BEIJING — China’s Ministry of Health announced on Monday that a second baby had died in recent months and that 1,253 others had been sickened by contaminated milk powder in a widening food safety scandal that has exposed persistent weaknesses in the country’s regulatory system.
More than 340 infants remain hospitalized, including 53 in serious condition. Inspection teams are visiting dairy farms and processing centers in the country’s four main milk-producing provinces to ensure that producers are not violating safety standards.
The Chinese authorities have confirmed that the tainted baby formula was laced with melamine, a chemical additive sometimes used to make plastics and fertilizer. Last year, after thousands of pets became ill in the United States, the same chemical was found in pet food and traced to a Chinese ingredient.
/..../
Chinese Baby Formula Scandal Widens as 2nd Death Is Announced
By JIM YARDLEY
Published: September 15, 2008
BEIJING — China’s Ministry of Health announced on Monday that a second baby had died in recent months and that 1,253 others had been sickened by contaminated milk powder in a widening food safety scandal that has exposed persistent weaknesses in the country’s regulatory system.
More than 340 infants remain hospitalized, including 53 in serious condition. Inspection teams are visiting dairy farms and processing centers in the country’s four main milk-producing provinces to ensure that producers are not violating safety standards.
The Chinese authorities have confirmed that the tainted baby formula was laced with melamine, a chemical additive sometimes used to make plastics and fertilizer. Last year, after thousands of pets became ill in the United States, the same chemical was found in pet food and traced to a Chinese ingredient.
/..../
quick dump of clips - lots of great snips to catch up on
NY Times lots of good Palin stuff
(PS if you haven't seen Tina Fey as Palin on SNL, its in YouTube & hilarious)
Film - Revisiting Coen Country for Odd Men in ‘Burn After Reading’ - NYTimes.com.pdf
‘Hounddog,’ With Dakota Fanning - A Heroine and a Movie Savagely Abused - NYTimes.com
Spanish town still haunted by its brush with Armageddon - International Herald Tribune.pdf
Wind-Power Politics - NYTimes.com
Saying “No” to Chemical Farming in India.pdf
Film - Wayne Wang, Bridging Generations and Hemispheres - NYTimes.com
Pope Visits Shrine at Lourdes, Focusing on Social Problems - NYTimes.com
Film - Revisiting Coen Country for Odd Men in ‘Burn After Reading’ - NYTimes.com
This Land - In the Wilds of New Jersey, a Legend Inspires a Hunt - Series - NYTimes.com.pdf
New election low_ distorting the fact-checking - Los Angeles Times.pdf
Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes - NYTimes.com
Active Role for Palin’s Husband in Alaska Government - NYTimes.com
organic India
Wind-Power Politics - NYTimes.com.pdf
dump:
9-14 NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/us/15crash.html?ref=todayspaper
Warning System Could Prevent Train Crashes
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: September 14, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Federal investigators said Sunday that a collision warning system they have long called for could have prevented the head-on crash here last week between a commuter train and a freight train that killed 25 people.
The system, known as positive train control and in use sporadically in parts of the country, “would have prevented this accident,” said Kitty Higgins, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident.
The board has long pressed for such a system on all trains, but the industry has resisted on the grounds that it is expensive and in some cases not reliable.
But Ms. Higgins, speaking at a news conference here Sunday evening, said she made her assessment after reviewing the preliminary evidence of the investigation, which she said showed that the commuter train bypassed a red signal and barreled through a switch, bending it “like a banana.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?sq=palin&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all
Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes
WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.
So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.
Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.
When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.
And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.
“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”
Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.
But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14todd.html?ref=politics
Active Role for Palin’s Husband in Alaska Government
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: September 13, 2008
ANCHORAGE — In voting to issue a subpoena to Todd Palin in an investigation of the firing of the Alaska public safety commissioner, state lawmakers on Friday signaled that Mr. Palin, the husband of Gov. Sarah Palin, might have played a central role in one of the most contentious episodes of her governorship.
While that suggestion goes beyond the image presented of Mr. Palin during the Republican convention as a blue-collar family man and sportsman, it echoes a widely held understanding among lawmakers, state employees and lobbyists about Mr. Palin’s heavy engagement in state government.
In the small circle of advisers close to the governor, these people say, Mr. Palin is among the closest, and he plays an unpaid but central role in many aspects of the administration of Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president.
Mr. Palin’s involvement in the governor’s office has prompted an irreverent quip by some capital staff members when decisions are to be made that might affect the governor: “What would Todd do?”
Mr. Palin has encouraged lawmakers to support his wife’s agenda, helped her review budget items and polish speeches, surprised some lawmakers by sitting in on meetings and received copies of top administration staff e-mail messages.
Mr. Palin also has stepped into personnel issues that have personal relevance, most notably his contact with Walt Monegan, then the public safety commissioner, to express concern about the continued employment of a state trooper who had gone through a bitter divorce and custody battle with the governor’s sister. Mr. Monegan was later fired, and it is that firing that prompted the vote Friday on the subpoena.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/movies/12burn.html?scp=2&sq=coen&st=cse
MOVIE REVIEW
Burn After Reading (2008)
Coens Ask the C.I.A. for a License to Laugh
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: September 12, 2008
Heart isn’t usually part of the discussion when we talk about movies, partly, I imagine, because it sounds too corny. And fuzzy. After all, what does it mean to say this or that director or film shows a lot of heart or too little? I ask only because “Burn After Reading,” the clubby, predictably self-amused comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen, has a tricky plot, visual style, er, to burn, but so little heart as to warrant a Jarvik 8.
Not that you probably won’t choke up a couple of ho-ho’s in between a few hee-hee’s whenever Big Daddy Brad Pitt, as a nitwit gym rat with a Pepe Le Pew two-tone hair-stack, twitches across the screen or the camera nuzzles one of the other goofy gargoyles so beloved by the Coens. Mr. Pitt’s Chad is the overripe second banana to Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand, Joel Coen’s wife), who has some vague job at the gym where the two sort of work. Chad’s a buffoon (the hard body as soft brain), and Mr. Pitt has been charged with delivering a caricature rather than a character, but because the actor loves playing sidemen and conveys such natural, irrepressible (irresistible) sweetness, he’s also one of the film’s saving graces.
It could use a few more. Like most of the Coens’ comedies, “Burn After Reading” is something of a shaggy sendup of an established genre and conventions, in this case the espionage flick. The film opens and closes with a Google Maps view of the Earth that has already become a cinematic cliché, a godly perspective that rapidly narrows in on the headquarters for the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. There, an analyst named Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) soon receives a demotion for boozing, the first knot in an increasingly and intentionally tangled thicket of contrivances and coincidences mostly involving three favorite American (and Hollywood) preoccupations: money, sex and self.
/.../
The biggest punch line is Linda, whom Ms. McDormand plays with a grin that tends to look more like a grimace, perhaps because she’s been saddled with yet another one of the Coens’ ghastly pageboy dos. (Really? Again?) It’s a punishing look for a cruelly unflattering character whose narcissism is matched only by her witlessness. Jerry Lewis has made a brilliant career out of playing stupid, but you never feel as if he loathes his disorderly orderlies because they’re slow on the uptake. The Coens in turn have made their careers with impeccable technique and an exaggerated visual style — they sure love their low-angle shots and traveling cameras — but it’s a wonder they keep making films about a subject for which they often evince so little regard, namely other people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/movies/14bloo.html?scp=2&sq=hounddog&st=cse
Like Its Heroine, a Movie Encounters Savage Treatment
By JULIE BLOOM
Published: September 12, 2008
IT was known as the “Dakota Fanning rape movie” at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. The press screening for “Hounddog” elicited actual boos, not to mention eviscerating reviews. Even before that, evangelical groups protested the film after someone involved in its early financing alleged publicly (and erroneously) that Ms. Fanning was naked in it.
Few movies recover from such a hostile reception, especially a low-budget Southern-gothic tale set in 1959 about a 12-year-old motherless girl obsessed with Elvis Presley who seductively sings for a teenager in exchange for tickets to a concert of the King’s. But thanks to a radically different cut of the movie and the coffers of a new independent film company listed on the Nasdaq’s over-the-counter market, “Hounddog” will finally make its way into 22 theaters across the country on Sept. 19.
Sitting in the Cupcake Café in Clinton this month, the film’s director, Deborah Kampmeier, sipped tea and reflected on the journey of her film, which cost just under $4 million. “The whole process was challenging from the beginning,” she said. “It’s a story about a girl whose voice and spirit are silenced, and then it’s about her reclaiming her voice on a deeper, truer level. It’s very interesting how the story that I’m trying to tell has been paralleled by the actual events of the making of the film.”
The criticism began in July 2006 after Lawrence Robins, the disgruntled producer involved in the early financing, went, Ms. Kampmeier said, to the news media with concerns. The director found herself on the receiving end of death threats. Meanwhile, petitions demanded that Ms. Fanning’s mother, Joy, be jailed on charges relating to child pornography.
“I did not set out to make a controversial film or a social commentary,” Ms. Kampmeier said. “If Dakota Fanning is so shamed for telling that story, what message does that give victims? I did not set out to make a statement, but in the 12-year process of trying to get this film made I have been unable to avoid facing the politics of being a woman filmmaker and telling women stories” — a reference to the industry’s few female directors.
Ms. Kampmeier, who is 43 and lives in upstate New York, wrote the script in 1996. For years she worked to secure financing, which kept falling through. In April 2006, when she finally packed her daughter and her dog and drove to Wilmington, N.C., to begin preproduction, she was still unsure if there would be sufficient backing. “We started with just enough money to get us through one week of production, and it continued that way through the entire shoot,” she said. “It was so stressful.”
Despite the brewing controversy and financial uncertainty, Ms. Kampmeier submitted the film to Sundance, unbeknownst to her cast (including Robin Wright Penn, David Morse and Piper Laurie). When the acceptance came in November, Ms. Kampmeier was forced to scramble. “It was insane what we had to do to get it ready,” she said. “It was a rough cut, I mean, really rough. All we were able to do was get a plot with a beginning, middle and end.”
Ms. Kampmeier does not regret the decision: “If I hadn’t gotten into Sundance, I don’t think this film would have gotten finished.” Eric Parkinson, chief executive of the distribution arm of Empire Film Group, which purchased the film with a $1 million advance, disagrees. “I feel that Deborah made a strategic error when she showed a rough cut at Sundance, and as a result many people who were expecting to see a finished film got something that was choppy, that was pretty long, that didn’t have music, effects, titles, and so it didn’t get the greatest of reviews.”
It hasn’t made finding theaters for “Hounddog” any easier. “I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had people actually sabotaging theatrical bookings,” Mr. Parkinson said, adding that three theater chains have not booked the film, presumably, he said, because of interest-group pressure. Wanda Whitson, a spokeswoman for the exhibitor National Amusements, said in an e-mail message that her company had heard from Empire but that “we have not yet previewed the film.” AMC and Cinemark, two other exhibitors, did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Parkinson said, “I know these same kind of arguments happened with ‘The Last Temptation of Christ,’ and every once in a while there is a movie that really irks some people, but this is America, you are supposed to be able to see movies if you want to.”
The ratings gods have not been helpful, either. The Motion Picture Association of America rebuffed attempts to secure a PG-13 rating. “I think you could argue that there’s nothing else in the film that’s any more exploitive than an episode of ‘Law & Order,’ ” Mr. Parkinson said.
The rape scene does remain in the new version, which also contains a major structural change. “I really wanted to make clear that she loses her voice,” Ms. Kampmeier said. “That she’s silenced, and that she then reclaims her voice, and once she’s reconnected to her true voice instead of the imitation of a man’s voice, Elvis’s voice, she’s able to walk away from this world. In thinking about that, I decided that I would take out after the rape any scene that she was talking in.”
Ms. Wright Penn, also an executive producer, said the delay actually helped the film. “The beauty of time is it destructs on one hand but it gives you an open vein that you didn’t know you had before, and you can be like, ‘Oh, my God, this is exactly what I wanted the film to say.’ ”
Now Ms. Kampmeier has enlisted several advocacy groups to support the film, including the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault and First Star, a children’s advocacy group in Washington.
Ms. Kampmeier said she never considered giving up on the film. “It’s my heart,” she added. “Even if people don’t like my heart, if my heart touches someone else’s, then it’s all worth it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/movies/14lim.html?ref=movies
FILM
Bridging Generations and Hemispheres
By DENNIS LIM
Published: September 12, 2008
IN Wayne Wang’s first feature, “Chan Is Missing” (1982), two taxi drivers go looking for an absent friend in San Francisco’s Chinatown. As they piece together contradictory testimonials from those who knew the missing man, what emerges is almost a composite sketch of Asian-American identity. But the film, which still feels fresh and insightful after all these years, is a mystery without a solution. Its conclusion, unencumbered by the foggy rhetoric of identity politics, is that identity is hard to pin down, up for grabs, something you make up as you go.
The point applies equally to this versatile director’s unpredictable career. For more than 25 years Mr. Wang, now 59, has reinvented himself time and again with apparent ease, zigzagging between America and Asia, big and small movies, safe bets and wild risks, insider and outsider status.
“The industry can really box you in, so you try to break the patterns,” he said over lunch in Manhattan in July.
“Chan Is Missing” and Mr. Wang’s second film, “Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart” (1985) established him as a central figure in two nascent movements: ’80s indie cinema and the Asian-American film scene. But he was eager to prove himself in the Hollywood idiom and followed up with the mainstream murder mystery “Slamdance” (1987). After his commercial breakthrough with “The Joy Luck Club” (1993), based on the Amy Tan best seller about two generations of Chinese women, he wanted to avoid being typecast as a China specialist or a director of weepies, and he collaborated with Paul Auster on “Smoke” (1995), a small, quiet drama set in a Brooklyn tobacco shop.
In recent years Mr. Wang has seemed content to play the role of studio journeyman, turning out smoothly anonymous movies like “Maid in Manhattan” (2002), a Jennifer Lopez fable of upward mobility; “Because of Winn-Dixie” (2005), a dog-centric family flick; and “Last Holiday” (2006), a Queen Latifah vehicle adapted from a 1950s Ealing comedy.
That phase of his career, he admits, went on longer than planned: “It was hard to get off the treadmill.”
Course-correcting yet again, Mr. Wang now returns to his first principles, even as he tries out some new tricks, with two of his most intimate films, “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” and “The Princess of Nebraska,” both based on stories by the Chinese-born author Yiyun Li (like Mr. Wang, a Bay Area resident).
“I felt I should go back to something smaller, more personal, something about the Chinese-American community,” he said. “Walking around Chinatown now, you feel how the community has changed, which has to do with the new immigrants and how China has changed.”
In “A Thousand Years,” opening Friday, a Chinese widower arrives in an American suburb for an extended stay with his divorced daughter, who has lived in the States since college and who resents her father’s intrusions into her private affairs. “The Princess of Nebraska,” which is being distributed free on the Web starting Oct. 17 (youtube.com/ytscreeningroom), concerns a newer arrival, a young woman from Beijing attending a university in Omaha who has traveled to San Francisco to get an abortion.
Both films are subtle updates of the immigrant story, revealing the complexities beyond the customary themes of alienation and assimilation. Mr. Wang’s own biography is hardly typical. Born in Hong Kong — and named after his father’s favorite movie star, John Wayne — he moved to California in the late ’60s for school. His parents, who were Christians, arranged for him to stay with a Quaker family, who turned out to be prominent radicals. “There were crazy meetings with Black Panthers and anti-draft protesters, and Jerry Garcia and his people were there all the time,” Mr. Wang said. “My eyes were completely opened.”
The initial plan, medical school, was soon abandoned in favor of the arts, a decision that did not please his father, a garment manufacturer. The relationship came under strain again in the ’80s when Mr. Wang married Cora Miao, an actress, without telling his parents. (“We didn’t want a banquet,” he said.) But because Ms. Miao was a celebrity in Hong Kong, they soon found out via the gossip columns.
The standoff in “A Thousand Years” between traditional parents and Westernized offspring, negotiating each other’s expectations and boundaries, holds personal resonance for Mr. Wang. He recalled a visit from his father shortly after the wedding: “One night he said to us, ‘How did you think you could get married with only $3,000 in your bank account?’ Clearly he’d been going through our things.”
Parent-child relationships figure prominently in Mr. Wang’s work. “Dim Sum,” “Joy Luck Club” and “Anywhere but Here” (1999) revolve around mother-daughter bonds; “Smoke” is about the search for a surrogate father. The rote psychological explanation would be that Mr. Wang is working through his relationship with his father, who died a few years ago. But it could also be, he suggested, because he and his wife do not have children.
“I don’t think I idealize parent-child relationships,” he said, “but maybe I’m interested in that conflict because I don’t have my own conflicts.” Besides returning him to familiar themes “A Thousand Years” was an opportunity to indulge in a more contemplative pace, a luxury he forfeited on his Hollywood films. “The Princess of Nebraska,” on the other hand, was an outlet for his experimental side, responsible for films like “Life Is Cheap ... but Toilet Paper Is Expensive” (1989), a rambunctious Hong Kong-set shaggy-dog thriller.
By habit Mr. Wang works efficiently, to the point of turning projects into two-for-one deals. With time to spare after wrapping “Smoke,” he dashed off “Blue in the Face,” a freewheeling companion piece. “Princess of Nebraska” came about when he finished under budget on “A Thousand Years” and convinced his producers that he could fill out a double bill.
With “Princess” he was keen to capture the particularities of younger Chinese immigrants, whom he jokingly called an “alien” species. (He is prone to goofy jokes, and his laugh, an infectious, high-pitched guffaw, is perhaps his most distinctive trait.) “They’re Westernized but also ethnocentric,” he said. “Princess” also serves as a bridge between two generations of Chinese-American filmmakers. In search of a younger collaborator for this micro-budgeted film, Mr. Wang approached the Center for Asian American Media in San Francisco and was introduced to Richard Wong, who had just directed a well-reviewed first feature, “Colma: The Musical.”
Mr. Wong, 31, was the cinematographer on “Princess,” which was shot on consumer-grade digital video, and is credited as co-director. “It must have been liberating for Wayne to do something so guerrilla, where you could make every decision on the fly,” Mr. Wong said.
Mr. Wang sees a younger version of himself in Mr. Wong. “There’s a rebellious creativity there,” he said, “and he brought that out of me.”
At his age Mr. Wang admits that he is increasingly wary of the traps of fogeyism. “In some ways I’m getting more conservative, but it’s also part of my makeup to take risks, and I hope I never lose that,” he said. “I never wanted to get old and become one of those 50-year-old guys who are comfortable doing whatever they’re doing.”
(PS if you haven't seen Tina Fey as Palin on SNL, its in YouTube & hilarious)
Film - Revisiting Coen Country for Odd Men in ‘Burn After Reading’ - NYTimes.com.pdf
‘Hounddog,’ With Dakota Fanning - A Heroine and a Movie Savagely Abused - NYTimes.com
Spanish town still haunted by its brush with Armageddon - International Herald Tribune.pdf
Wind-Power Politics - NYTimes.com
Saying “No” to Chemical Farming in India.pdf
Film - Wayne Wang, Bridging Generations and Hemispheres - NYTimes.com
Pope Visits Shrine at Lourdes, Focusing on Social Problems - NYTimes.com
Film - Revisiting Coen Country for Odd Men in ‘Burn After Reading’ - NYTimes.com
This Land - In the Wilds of New Jersey, a Legend Inspires a Hunt - Series - NYTimes.com.pdf
New election low_ distorting the fact-checking - Los Angeles Times.pdf
Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes - NYTimes.com
Active Role for Palin’s Husband in Alaska Government - NYTimes.com
organic India
Wind-Power Politics - NYTimes.com.pdf
dump:
9-14 NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/us/15crash.html?ref=todayspaper
Warning System Could Prevent Train Crashes
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: September 14, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Federal investigators said Sunday that a collision warning system they have long called for could have prevented the head-on crash here last week between a commuter train and a freight train that killed 25 people.
The system, known as positive train control and in use sporadically in parts of the country, “would have prevented this accident,” said Kitty Higgins, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident.
The board has long pressed for such a system on all trains, but the industry has resisted on the grounds that it is expensive and in some cases not reliable.
But Ms. Higgins, speaking at a news conference here Sunday evening, said she made her assessment after reviewing the preliminary evidence of the investigation, which she said showed that the commuter train bypassed a red signal and barreled through a switch, bending it “like a banana.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?sq=palin&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all
Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes
WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.
So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.
Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.
When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.
And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.
“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”
Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.
But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14todd.html?ref=politics
Active Role for Palin’s Husband in Alaska Government
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: September 13, 2008
ANCHORAGE — In voting to issue a subpoena to Todd Palin in an investigation of the firing of the Alaska public safety commissioner, state lawmakers on Friday signaled that Mr. Palin, the husband of Gov. Sarah Palin, might have played a central role in one of the most contentious episodes of her governorship.
While that suggestion goes beyond the image presented of Mr. Palin during the Republican convention as a blue-collar family man and sportsman, it echoes a widely held understanding among lawmakers, state employees and lobbyists about Mr. Palin’s heavy engagement in state government.
In the small circle of advisers close to the governor, these people say, Mr. Palin is among the closest, and he plays an unpaid but central role in many aspects of the administration of Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president.
Mr. Palin’s involvement in the governor’s office has prompted an irreverent quip by some capital staff members when decisions are to be made that might affect the governor: “What would Todd do?”
Mr. Palin has encouraged lawmakers to support his wife’s agenda, helped her review budget items and polish speeches, surprised some lawmakers by sitting in on meetings and received copies of top administration staff e-mail messages.
Mr. Palin also has stepped into personnel issues that have personal relevance, most notably his contact with Walt Monegan, then the public safety commissioner, to express concern about the continued employment of a state trooper who had gone through a bitter divorce and custody battle with the governor’s sister. Mr. Monegan was later fired, and it is that firing that prompted the vote Friday on the subpoena.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/movies/12burn.html?scp=2&sq=coen&st=cse
MOVIE REVIEW
Burn After Reading (2008)
Coens Ask the C.I.A. for a License to Laugh
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: September 12, 2008
Heart isn’t usually part of the discussion when we talk about movies, partly, I imagine, because it sounds too corny. And fuzzy. After all, what does it mean to say this or that director or film shows a lot of heart or too little? I ask only because “Burn After Reading,” the clubby, predictably self-amused comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen, has a tricky plot, visual style, er, to burn, but so little heart as to warrant a Jarvik 8.
Not that you probably won’t choke up a couple of ho-ho’s in between a few hee-hee’s whenever Big Daddy Brad Pitt, as a nitwit gym rat with a Pepe Le Pew two-tone hair-stack, twitches across the screen or the camera nuzzles one of the other goofy gargoyles so beloved by the Coens. Mr. Pitt’s Chad is the overripe second banana to Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand, Joel Coen’s wife), who has some vague job at the gym where the two sort of work. Chad’s a buffoon (the hard body as soft brain), and Mr. Pitt has been charged with delivering a caricature rather than a character, but because the actor loves playing sidemen and conveys such natural, irrepressible (irresistible) sweetness, he’s also one of the film’s saving graces.
It could use a few more. Like most of the Coens’ comedies, “Burn After Reading” is something of a shaggy sendup of an established genre and conventions, in this case the espionage flick. The film opens and closes with a Google Maps view of the Earth that has already become a cinematic cliché, a godly perspective that rapidly narrows in on the headquarters for the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. There, an analyst named Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) soon receives a demotion for boozing, the first knot in an increasingly and intentionally tangled thicket of contrivances and coincidences mostly involving three favorite American (and Hollywood) preoccupations: money, sex and self.
/.../
The biggest punch line is Linda, whom Ms. McDormand plays with a grin that tends to look more like a grimace, perhaps because she’s been saddled with yet another one of the Coens’ ghastly pageboy dos. (Really? Again?) It’s a punishing look for a cruelly unflattering character whose narcissism is matched only by her witlessness. Jerry Lewis has made a brilliant career out of playing stupid, but you never feel as if he loathes his disorderly orderlies because they’re slow on the uptake. The Coens in turn have made their careers with impeccable technique and an exaggerated visual style — they sure love their low-angle shots and traveling cameras — but it’s a wonder they keep making films about a subject for which they often evince so little regard, namely other people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/movies/14bloo.html?scp=2&sq=hounddog&st=cse
Like Its Heroine, a Movie Encounters Savage Treatment
By JULIE BLOOM
Published: September 12, 2008
IT was known as the “Dakota Fanning rape movie” at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. The press screening for “Hounddog” elicited actual boos, not to mention eviscerating reviews. Even before that, evangelical groups protested the film after someone involved in its early financing alleged publicly (and erroneously) that Ms. Fanning was naked in it.
Few movies recover from such a hostile reception, especially a low-budget Southern-gothic tale set in 1959 about a 12-year-old motherless girl obsessed with Elvis Presley who seductively sings for a teenager in exchange for tickets to a concert of the King’s. But thanks to a radically different cut of the movie and the coffers of a new independent film company listed on the Nasdaq’s over-the-counter market, “Hounddog” will finally make its way into 22 theaters across the country on Sept. 19.
Sitting in the Cupcake Café in Clinton this month, the film’s director, Deborah Kampmeier, sipped tea and reflected on the journey of her film, which cost just under $4 million. “The whole process was challenging from the beginning,” she said. “It’s a story about a girl whose voice and spirit are silenced, and then it’s about her reclaiming her voice on a deeper, truer level. It’s very interesting how the story that I’m trying to tell has been paralleled by the actual events of the making of the film.”
The criticism began in July 2006 after Lawrence Robins, the disgruntled producer involved in the early financing, went, Ms. Kampmeier said, to the news media with concerns. The director found herself on the receiving end of death threats. Meanwhile, petitions demanded that Ms. Fanning’s mother, Joy, be jailed on charges relating to child pornography.
“I did not set out to make a controversial film or a social commentary,” Ms. Kampmeier said. “If Dakota Fanning is so shamed for telling that story, what message does that give victims? I did not set out to make a statement, but in the 12-year process of trying to get this film made I have been unable to avoid facing the politics of being a woman filmmaker and telling women stories” — a reference to the industry’s few female directors.
Ms. Kampmeier, who is 43 and lives in upstate New York, wrote the script in 1996. For years she worked to secure financing, which kept falling through. In April 2006, when she finally packed her daughter and her dog and drove to Wilmington, N.C., to begin preproduction, she was still unsure if there would be sufficient backing. “We started with just enough money to get us through one week of production, and it continued that way through the entire shoot,” she said. “It was so stressful.”
Despite the brewing controversy and financial uncertainty, Ms. Kampmeier submitted the film to Sundance, unbeknownst to her cast (including Robin Wright Penn, David Morse and Piper Laurie). When the acceptance came in November, Ms. Kampmeier was forced to scramble. “It was insane what we had to do to get it ready,” she said. “It was a rough cut, I mean, really rough. All we were able to do was get a plot with a beginning, middle and end.”
Ms. Kampmeier does not regret the decision: “If I hadn’t gotten into Sundance, I don’t think this film would have gotten finished.” Eric Parkinson, chief executive of the distribution arm of Empire Film Group, which purchased the film with a $1 million advance, disagrees. “I feel that Deborah made a strategic error when she showed a rough cut at Sundance, and as a result many people who were expecting to see a finished film got something that was choppy, that was pretty long, that didn’t have music, effects, titles, and so it didn’t get the greatest of reviews.”
It hasn’t made finding theaters for “Hounddog” any easier. “I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had people actually sabotaging theatrical bookings,” Mr. Parkinson said, adding that three theater chains have not booked the film, presumably, he said, because of interest-group pressure. Wanda Whitson, a spokeswoman for the exhibitor National Amusements, said in an e-mail message that her company had heard from Empire but that “we have not yet previewed the film.” AMC and Cinemark, two other exhibitors, did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Parkinson said, “I know these same kind of arguments happened with ‘The Last Temptation of Christ,’ and every once in a while there is a movie that really irks some people, but this is America, you are supposed to be able to see movies if you want to.”
The ratings gods have not been helpful, either. The Motion Picture Association of America rebuffed attempts to secure a PG-13 rating. “I think you could argue that there’s nothing else in the film that’s any more exploitive than an episode of ‘Law & Order,’ ” Mr. Parkinson said.
The rape scene does remain in the new version, which also contains a major structural change. “I really wanted to make clear that she loses her voice,” Ms. Kampmeier said. “That she’s silenced, and that she then reclaims her voice, and once she’s reconnected to her true voice instead of the imitation of a man’s voice, Elvis’s voice, she’s able to walk away from this world. In thinking about that, I decided that I would take out after the rape any scene that she was talking in.”
Ms. Wright Penn, also an executive producer, said the delay actually helped the film. “The beauty of time is it destructs on one hand but it gives you an open vein that you didn’t know you had before, and you can be like, ‘Oh, my God, this is exactly what I wanted the film to say.’ ”
Now Ms. Kampmeier has enlisted several advocacy groups to support the film, including the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault and First Star, a children’s advocacy group in Washington.
Ms. Kampmeier said she never considered giving up on the film. “It’s my heart,” she added. “Even if people don’t like my heart, if my heart touches someone else’s, then it’s all worth it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/movies/14lim.html?ref=movies
FILM
Bridging Generations and Hemispheres
By DENNIS LIM
Published: September 12, 2008
IN Wayne Wang’s first feature, “Chan Is Missing” (1982), two taxi drivers go looking for an absent friend in San Francisco’s Chinatown. As they piece together contradictory testimonials from those who knew the missing man, what emerges is almost a composite sketch of Asian-American identity. But the film, which still feels fresh and insightful after all these years, is a mystery without a solution. Its conclusion, unencumbered by the foggy rhetoric of identity politics, is that identity is hard to pin down, up for grabs, something you make up as you go.
The point applies equally to this versatile director’s unpredictable career. For more than 25 years Mr. Wang, now 59, has reinvented himself time and again with apparent ease, zigzagging between America and Asia, big and small movies, safe bets and wild risks, insider and outsider status.
“The industry can really box you in, so you try to break the patterns,” he said over lunch in Manhattan in July.
“Chan Is Missing” and Mr. Wang’s second film, “Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart” (1985) established him as a central figure in two nascent movements: ’80s indie cinema and the Asian-American film scene. But he was eager to prove himself in the Hollywood idiom and followed up with the mainstream murder mystery “Slamdance” (1987). After his commercial breakthrough with “The Joy Luck Club” (1993), based on the Amy Tan best seller about two generations of Chinese women, he wanted to avoid being typecast as a China specialist or a director of weepies, and he collaborated with Paul Auster on “Smoke” (1995), a small, quiet drama set in a Brooklyn tobacco shop.
In recent years Mr. Wang has seemed content to play the role of studio journeyman, turning out smoothly anonymous movies like “Maid in Manhattan” (2002), a Jennifer Lopez fable of upward mobility; “Because of Winn-Dixie” (2005), a dog-centric family flick; and “Last Holiday” (2006), a Queen Latifah vehicle adapted from a 1950s Ealing comedy.
That phase of his career, he admits, went on longer than planned: “It was hard to get off the treadmill.”
Course-correcting yet again, Mr. Wang now returns to his first principles, even as he tries out some new tricks, with two of his most intimate films, “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” and “The Princess of Nebraska,” both based on stories by the Chinese-born author Yiyun Li (like Mr. Wang, a Bay Area resident).
“I felt I should go back to something smaller, more personal, something about the Chinese-American community,” he said. “Walking around Chinatown now, you feel how the community has changed, which has to do with the new immigrants and how China has changed.”
In “A Thousand Years,” opening Friday, a Chinese widower arrives in an American suburb for an extended stay with his divorced daughter, who has lived in the States since college and who resents her father’s intrusions into her private affairs. “The Princess of Nebraska,” which is being distributed free on the Web starting Oct. 17 (youtube.com/ytscreeningroom), concerns a newer arrival, a young woman from Beijing attending a university in Omaha who has traveled to San Francisco to get an abortion.
Both films are subtle updates of the immigrant story, revealing the complexities beyond the customary themes of alienation and assimilation. Mr. Wang’s own biography is hardly typical. Born in Hong Kong — and named after his father’s favorite movie star, John Wayne — he moved to California in the late ’60s for school. His parents, who were Christians, arranged for him to stay with a Quaker family, who turned out to be prominent radicals. “There were crazy meetings with Black Panthers and anti-draft protesters, and Jerry Garcia and his people were there all the time,” Mr. Wang said. “My eyes were completely opened.”
The initial plan, medical school, was soon abandoned in favor of the arts, a decision that did not please his father, a garment manufacturer. The relationship came under strain again in the ’80s when Mr. Wang married Cora Miao, an actress, without telling his parents. (“We didn’t want a banquet,” he said.) But because Ms. Miao was a celebrity in Hong Kong, they soon found out via the gossip columns.
The standoff in “A Thousand Years” between traditional parents and Westernized offspring, negotiating each other’s expectations and boundaries, holds personal resonance for Mr. Wang. He recalled a visit from his father shortly after the wedding: “One night he said to us, ‘How did you think you could get married with only $3,000 in your bank account?’ Clearly he’d been going through our things.”
Parent-child relationships figure prominently in Mr. Wang’s work. “Dim Sum,” “Joy Luck Club” and “Anywhere but Here” (1999) revolve around mother-daughter bonds; “Smoke” is about the search for a surrogate father. The rote psychological explanation would be that Mr. Wang is working through his relationship with his father, who died a few years ago. But it could also be, he suggested, because he and his wife do not have children.
“I don’t think I idealize parent-child relationships,” he said, “but maybe I’m interested in that conflict because I don’t have my own conflicts.” Besides returning him to familiar themes “A Thousand Years” was an opportunity to indulge in a more contemplative pace, a luxury he forfeited on his Hollywood films. “The Princess of Nebraska,” on the other hand, was an outlet for his experimental side, responsible for films like “Life Is Cheap ... but Toilet Paper Is Expensive” (1989), a rambunctious Hong Kong-set shaggy-dog thriller.
By habit Mr. Wang works efficiently, to the point of turning projects into two-for-one deals. With time to spare after wrapping “Smoke,” he dashed off “Blue in the Face,” a freewheeling companion piece. “Princess of Nebraska” came about when he finished under budget on “A Thousand Years” and convinced his producers that he could fill out a double bill.
With “Princess” he was keen to capture the particularities of younger Chinese immigrants, whom he jokingly called an “alien” species. (He is prone to goofy jokes, and his laugh, an infectious, high-pitched guffaw, is perhaps his most distinctive trait.) “They’re Westernized but also ethnocentric,” he said. “Princess” also serves as a bridge between two generations of Chinese-American filmmakers. In search of a younger collaborator for this micro-budgeted film, Mr. Wang approached the Center for Asian American Media in San Francisco and was introduced to Richard Wong, who had just directed a well-reviewed first feature, “Colma: The Musical.”
Mr. Wong, 31, was the cinematographer on “Princess,” which was shot on consumer-grade digital video, and is credited as co-director. “It must have been liberating for Wayne to do something so guerrilla, where you could make every decision on the fly,” Mr. Wong said.
Mr. Wang sees a younger version of himself in Mr. Wong. “There’s a rebellious creativity there,” he said, “and he brought that out of me.”
At his age Mr. Wang admits that he is increasingly wary of the traps of fogeyism. “In some ways I’m getting more conservative, but it’s also part of my makeup to take risks, and I hope I never lose that,” he said. “I never wanted to get old and become one of those 50-year-old guys who are comfortable doing whatever they’re doing.”
Sunday, September 7, 2008
news I can't snip
.. becasue its aural
http://www.onthemedia.org/
NPR
On The Media
WNYC
public radio
good news I cant snip but worth listening to!
http://www.onthemedia.org/
NPR
On The Media
WNYC
public radio
good news I cant snip but worth listening to!
news on news
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/liveblogging-the-republic_b_123699.html?page=2&show_comment_id=15310477#comment_15310477
BOB CESCA
Liveblogging The Republican Convention - Day Three
11:38PM
Brian Williams on MSNBC reading from Joe Klein's very important item today.
But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/angry_amateurs.html
SEPTEMBER 3, 2008 2:04
Angry Amateurs
Posted by Joe Klein
The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is the McCain campaign's war against the press. This has been building for some time. Those of us who have criticized the candidate--and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past--have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year. But things have gotten much worse in recent days: there was McCain's rude, bizarre interview with Time Magazine last week. Yesterday, McCain refused to an interview with Larry King, for God's sake, because Campbell Brown had been caught in the commission of journalism on CNN the night before, asking McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds what decisions Sarah Palin had made as commander-in-chief of the Alaska national guard. (There was an answer that the unprepared Bounds didn't have: she had deployed them to fight fires.)
So what's going on here? Two things. McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he's ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field...any intimations that he's gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable.
BOB CESCA
Liveblogging The Republican Convention - Day Three
11:38PM
Brian Williams on MSNBC reading from Joe Klein's very important item today.
But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/angry_amateurs.html
SEPTEMBER 3, 2008 2:04
Angry Amateurs
Posted by Joe Klein
The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is the McCain campaign's war against the press. This has been building for some time. Those of us who have criticized the candidate--and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past--have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year. But things have gotten much worse in recent days: there was McCain's rude, bizarre interview with Time Magazine last week. Yesterday, McCain refused to an interview with Larry King, for God's sake, because Campbell Brown had been caught in the commission of journalism on CNN the night before, asking McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds what decisions Sarah Palin had made as commander-in-chief of the Alaska national guard. (There was an answer that the unprepared Bounds didn't have: she had deployed them to fight fires.)
So what's going on here? Two things. McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he's ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field...any intimations that he's gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable.
Friday, September 5, 2008
oops
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/john-mccain-acc.html
McCain Uses Walter Reed Middle School, Not Army Hospital, as Backdrop
By Sarah Lai Stirland September 05, 2008 | 5:01:43 PM
In the run-up to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama was mocked mercilessly by John McCain's campaign staff for the grandiose stage set-up where he was scheduled to accept his party's presidential nomination.
Now it's the Democratic bloggers' turn.
Some watching McCain's nomination acceptance speech Thursday night wondered whether he was asking to be mocked when the screen turned green behind him as he spoke.
McCain became the butt of jokes online and on the The Colbert Report this June after delivering a speech in Louisiana where the stage backdrop was a nauseating green. That spawned Stephen Colbert's "Green Screen Challenge" to make McCain's presentation more exciting. Some of the rather entertaining results can be seen below.
This time around, the green that television viewers saw behind McCain was actually the lawn of the Walter Reed Middle High School in North Hollywood, the name of which can be seen faintly in this picture.
While the giant Hibino video screen was probably meant to give all the delegates within the stadium a sense of context for the proceedings, for many it turned out to be a giant distraction for television viewers.
As some posters on this audio visual experts' forum note, the stage designers probably should have thought more about how the background screen would affect television viewers' experience of the speeches during close-up shots since they're the prime audience.
And as for the use of Walter Reed Middle High School's image in the background? Neither the McCain campaign nor the convention organizers could be reached at the time of this posting. Bloggers suspect that the image that was meant to have been projected was the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, which would have made more sense since McCain spent a good deal of time talking about his injuries in Vietnam.
The high school's principal Donna Tobin declined to comment about the use of the school's image, but issued this statement, suggesting that she wasn't happy about it, on the school's blog:
“It has been brought to the school’s attention that a picture of the front of our school, Walter Reed Middle School, was used as a backdrop at the Republican National Convention. Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school’s picture an endorsement of any political party or view.”
Nevertheless, it's probably the McCain campaign that's having the last laugh.
Green screen or no, television audience measurement firm Nielsen says that the final night of the Republican National Convention drew 500,000 more viewers than Obama's spectacularly-staged nomination speech did: More than 38.9 million people watched McCain's speech while 38.4 million viewers watched Obama on the final night of the Democratic National Convention.
sex & death
MOVIES
Alan Ball Re-Emerges With Vampires, 'Towelhead'
Day to Day, September 5, 2008 · It's a big week for Alan Ball, the creator of the critically acclaimed death-obsessed series Six Feet Under. After several years out of the spotlight, his two major projects — the film Towelhead and HBO series True Blood — are emerging within a week of each other.
Like all Ball creations, both are dominated by the theme of sex.
Towelhead focuses on the story of 13-year-old Jasira, who goes to live with her strict Lebanese father in Houston during the Gulf War. There, she encounters racism, as well as a neighbor, played by Aaron Eckhart, who is eager to take advantage of her innocence.
"Between being on the receiving end of racism and totally inappropriate attention from an older man, it's the story of a young girl who does not have proper role models in her life," Ball tells Madeleine Brand. "She gets in situations that are pretty traumatic and abusive."
Ball sees his film as more of a tale of empowerment than victimization, unlike other tales of abuse.
What happens to Jasira resonates with him personally, he says, because he was abused when he was young. He also watched as his sister was killed in a car crash when he was just a teen.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has has urged Ball to change the title of the movie, which is the same as the title of the novel by Alicia Erian that inspired it. Using "towelhead" — a racial and religious slur against Muslims and Arab-Americans — in this way, the organization maintains, will only serve to increase its use.
Ball says he searched for a better title but couldn't come up with one.
"Ultimately, I feel like if you ban the use of such words — it's an unintended consequence, but those words are imbued with that much more power," he says.
Similarly, his new show, True Blood, is about discrimination … against vampires. He sets up a world in which vampires are outcasts fighting to have the same rights as humans.
"There's an anti-vampire church. They show up holding up a sign that says, 'God Hates Fangs,' " Balls says, laughing.
Vampires are often a metaphor for sex, and in Ball's show it's no different. Sex and death — the themes that dominated Six Feet Under — emerge yet again, but this time with fangs.
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=17
(listen to the entire segment !)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94321662
AND
Related NPR Stories
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94320825
On Television
by David Bianculli
'True Blood,' Tasty New TV From Alan Ball And HBO
Fresh Air from WHYY, September 5, 2008 · Ever since The Sopranos cut to black, HBO has been searching for the next big thing.
The show that replaced it, John from Cincinnati, sure wasn't it. Not only was that David Milch series a big disappointment, but its appearance meant the disappearance of Milch's Deadwood — the HBO series that, at the time, was the best drama on television.
Showtime, meanwhile, captured lots of attention — and deserved every drop of it — with Dexter, its creepy, funny, bloody drama about a serial killer who kills other serial killers.
So it makes sense that HBO, which was in need of a creative transfusion anyway, went with its own creepy, funny, bloody drama series — and went back to one of its successful producers, Alan Ball, who spent years on Six Feet Under surrounded by death and the dead.
In True Blood, which premieres Sept. 7, he's surrounded by death and the un-dead. Adapted from a series of novels by Charlaine Harris, True Blood is set in a small Louisiana town — small enough to be near both bayous and run-down plantation mansions. It's based on the premise that vampires, two years earlier, finally admitted they were real, not myth, and started to mainstream into regular society. They "came out of the coffin," as one character describes it, because of the invention of a synthetic blood that could sustain vampires, so they no longer had to drink human or animal blood.
They can even go into bars and diners and order some — which is just what one vampire does in the opening episode of True Blood. His name is Bill, he's played by Stephen Moyer, and he's served by Sookie, a charming young waitress played by Anna Paquin.
Sookie has her own secrets and hidden strengths; she's telepathic, for one thing. But Sookie can't hear Bill's thoughts at all — so when he enters Sam's Diner, she knows he's different. And she's not scared. She's fascinated, and as excited as a preteen girl meeting a Jonas Brother.
If you were a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I hope you were, you're already familiar with the idea of mixing terror and humor in a vampire story. Buffy was better, and actually a lot more subtle, but True Blood approaches things differently.
Buffy, like a David Lynch drama, was about finding darkness hidden in the sunniest of places — it was set, after all, in Sunnydale. And more than anything else, Buffy was about the epic, endless struggle between good and evil.
True Blood has other things on its mind. It's big on allegory, and the tension about accepting vampires into society is an obvious play on civil rights in general, and gay rights in particular. (Sometimes too obvious, but it's interesting anyway.)
Even better is the idea that just as vampires can feed on humans, certain humans in True Blood like to feed on vampires: They either seek them out as exciting, dangerous sexual partners or synthesize vampire blood as a potent new black-market drug.
So while some outlaw vampires continue to hunt humans, there are some outlaw humans hunting vampires. Others, like Sookie and Bill, just want to get along.
But what chance do you have to love one another "till death do you part," when loving a vampire means it's death at the start?
True Blood explores that question, and others, in a show that builds slowly but surely. Stay with it for a few episodes, and you'll be craving your weekly dose of True Blood.
It's not going to replace The Sopranos — but as a synthetic substitute, it'll do for now.
David Bianculli is TV critic for Broadcasting & Cable magazine and TVWorthWatching.com.
Alan Ball Re-Emerges With Vampires, 'Towelhead'
Day to Day, September 5, 2008 · It's a big week for Alan Ball, the creator of the critically acclaimed death-obsessed series Six Feet Under. After several years out of the spotlight, his two major projects — the film Towelhead and HBO series True Blood — are emerging within a week of each other.
Like all Ball creations, both are dominated by the theme of sex.
Towelhead focuses on the story of 13-year-old Jasira, who goes to live with her strict Lebanese father in Houston during the Gulf War. There, she encounters racism, as well as a neighbor, played by Aaron Eckhart, who is eager to take advantage of her innocence.
"Between being on the receiving end of racism and totally inappropriate attention from an older man, it's the story of a young girl who does not have proper role models in her life," Ball tells Madeleine Brand. "She gets in situations that are pretty traumatic and abusive."
Ball sees his film as more of a tale of empowerment than victimization, unlike other tales of abuse.
What happens to Jasira resonates with him personally, he says, because he was abused when he was young. He also watched as his sister was killed in a car crash when he was just a teen.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has has urged Ball to change the title of the movie, which is the same as the title of the novel by Alicia Erian that inspired it. Using "towelhead" — a racial and religious slur against Muslims and Arab-Americans — in this way, the organization maintains, will only serve to increase its use.
Ball says he searched for a better title but couldn't come up with one.
"Ultimately, I feel like if you ban the use of such words — it's an unintended consequence, but those words are imbued with that much more power," he says.
Similarly, his new show, True Blood, is about discrimination … against vampires. He sets up a world in which vampires are outcasts fighting to have the same rights as humans.
"There's an anti-vampire church. They show up holding up a sign that says, 'God Hates Fangs,' " Balls says, laughing.
Vampires are often a metaphor for sex, and in Ball's show it's no different. Sex and death — the themes that dominated Six Feet Under — emerge yet again, but this time with fangs.
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=17
(listen to the entire segment !)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94321662
AND
Related NPR Stories
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94320825
On Television
by David Bianculli
'True Blood,' Tasty New TV From Alan Ball And HBO
Fresh Air from WHYY, September 5, 2008 · Ever since The Sopranos cut to black, HBO has been searching for the next big thing.
The show that replaced it, John from Cincinnati, sure wasn't it. Not only was that David Milch series a big disappointment, but its appearance meant the disappearance of Milch's Deadwood — the HBO series that, at the time, was the best drama on television.
Showtime, meanwhile, captured lots of attention — and deserved every drop of it — with Dexter, its creepy, funny, bloody drama about a serial killer who kills other serial killers.
So it makes sense that HBO, which was in need of a creative transfusion anyway, went with its own creepy, funny, bloody drama series — and went back to one of its successful producers, Alan Ball, who spent years on Six Feet Under surrounded by death and the dead.
In True Blood, which premieres Sept. 7, he's surrounded by death and the un-dead. Adapted from a series of novels by Charlaine Harris, True Blood is set in a small Louisiana town — small enough to be near both bayous and run-down plantation mansions. It's based on the premise that vampires, two years earlier, finally admitted they were real, not myth, and started to mainstream into regular society. They "came out of the coffin," as one character describes it, because of the invention of a synthetic blood that could sustain vampires, so they no longer had to drink human or animal blood.
They can even go into bars and diners and order some — which is just what one vampire does in the opening episode of True Blood. His name is Bill, he's played by Stephen Moyer, and he's served by Sookie, a charming young waitress played by Anna Paquin.
Sookie has her own secrets and hidden strengths; she's telepathic, for one thing. But Sookie can't hear Bill's thoughts at all — so when he enters Sam's Diner, she knows he's different. And she's not scared. She's fascinated, and as excited as a preteen girl meeting a Jonas Brother.
If you were a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I hope you were, you're already familiar with the idea of mixing terror and humor in a vampire story. Buffy was better, and actually a lot more subtle, but True Blood approaches things differently.
Buffy, like a David Lynch drama, was about finding darkness hidden in the sunniest of places — it was set, after all, in Sunnydale. And more than anything else, Buffy was about the epic, endless struggle between good and evil.
True Blood has other things on its mind. It's big on allegory, and the tension about accepting vampires into society is an obvious play on civil rights in general, and gay rights in particular. (Sometimes too obvious, but it's interesting anyway.)
Even better is the idea that just as vampires can feed on humans, certain humans in True Blood like to feed on vampires: They either seek them out as exciting, dangerous sexual partners or synthesize vampire blood as a potent new black-market drug.
So while some outlaw vampires continue to hunt humans, there are some outlaw humans hunting vampires. Others, like Sookie and Bill, just want to get along.
But what chance do you have to love one another "till death do you part," when loving a vampire means it's death at the start?
True Blood explores that question, and others, in a show that builds slowly but surely. Stay with it for a few episodes, and you'll be craving your weekly dose of True Blood.
It's not going to replace The Sopranos — but as a synthetic substitute, it'll do for now.
David Bianculli is TV critic for Broadcasting & Cable magazine and TVWorthWatching.com.
inappropriate reactions
Angry Argentine commuters torch train in rush hour
Thu Sep 4, 2008 2:13pm EDT
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Furious rail commuters in Argentina set fire to a train on Thursday in anger over delays during the morning rush hour....
Many passengers said the delays, caused by a broken down train, had cost them a day's work.
Argentina's dilapidated rail services are plagued by delays and travelers' anger sometimes erupts into violence....
http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSN0448099220080904
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Frisco Tar Art 2
channel 5 also did a piece on the artist's work, but nothing national like I hoped.
tar art channel 5
http://www.nbc5i.com/news/17385059/detail.html
FRISCO, Texas --
Some residents have found art in an unlikely place after a Frisco city worker took it upon himself to get creative as he patched up the street.
With a quick glance at the street, there appears to be just a lot of squiggly lines, but closer inspection reveals what some are calling tar art.
"Might as well have fun with, it's not like those squiggly lines look good," resident Margie Calder said.
The designs include a picture of a dog, sailboat, flower and a sun.
The new additions to the neighborhood went unnoticed for months, until someone called the city of Frisco with questions about how the city's tax dollars were being spent.
"It probably took about five minutes to do the pieces of art, and the materials were probably $5, $10 at the most," Gary Hartwell of Frisco Public Works said.
A city street worker confessed to creating the art in December as he patched up the street.
"We've talked to the employee and told him not to do it again and that will be the extent of the discipline," Hartwell said.
The city of Frisco said the overwhelming response from neighbors has been positive, so they have no plans to remove the artwork.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Frisco Tar Art
05:27 PM CDT on Saturday, August 30, 2008
By MONIKA DIAZ / WFAA-TV
http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=277738
Video
Monika Diaz reports
August 30, 2008
FRISCO - If you look at something long enough -- sometimes you see a picture.
But it doesn't take a second glance to see the creations on one Frisco road.
A worker added his own personal touch -- that slipped through the cracks -- until now.
At first glance, the maze of black patch work on Sunset Drive looks like any repair work on any street in North Texas. But follow the lines.
There are a few surprises along the road. A sailboat with a sun, and so much more. A flower in a pot and even a dog.
"It appears as if someone got a little artistic," said one passerby.
That someone works for the city - a street repair employee assigned to seal the cracks with tar, took the motto, "Keep Frisco Beautiful" into his own hands.
The city found out about the drawings this week after a neighbor called in to make a report.
The incident which happened back in December is now under review.
"It's the first time I have ever heard of something like this happening," said Gary Hartwell, from Frisco Public Works.
It's not Picasso but some neighbors say they don't mind.
"There should be more art on the road," said one.
City officials haven't decided yet if they'll fix it or leave it.
No action has been taken against the worker because the incident is still under review.
E-mail mdiaz@wfaa.com.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
India dam burst & flood
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090201419.html
2.5 Million Indians Stranded by Floods
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 3, 2008; Page A09
NEW DELHI, Sept. 2 -- Close to 2.5 million Indians remained stranded, homeless and hungry in flood-ravaged villages in the eastern part of the country Tuesday, 17 days after a river burst a dam in neighboring Nepal and changed course.
Heavy rains and the swelling waters of the Kosi, known as the "river of sorrow" and worshipped by local people, caused havoc in almost 1,000 villages in Bihar state. Panic-stricken people fled to higher ground, tree tops and cramped makeshift camps.
About 117 people are reported dead, but officials in Bihar said the death toll could rise sharply as receding waters reveal more bodies.
Monsoon floods are an annual feature of Indian life, but some officials say the damage has been catastrophic this year.
"The river changed its course and inundated areas where people have not seen floods in 50 years. They were completely unprepared," said Mahesh Puri, an emergency specialist with UNICEF, speaking from Patna, the capital of Bihar. "What is worse is that many of these people will never be able to go back to their homes because the river has changed its course. Now there are streams where there were none before."
The Kosi River is infamous for failing to keep to its bed. This year the river breached a dam in Nepal that was built in 1954 and is maintained by India .
Several Indian newspapers have alleged that India failed to remove silt at the site of the dam, allowing the water to rise to dangerous levels, and did not respond even after the breach was reported.
On Tuesday, waters also rose in the northeastern state of Assam, where the Brahmaputra River gushed into a national park that is home to elephants and endangered one-horned rhinoceroses.
The Assam relief camps "are unhygienic and overcrowded," Puri said. "There is not enough clean drinking water. People are drinking the dangerous river waters that is carrying disease."
About 3,000 soldiers and several naval divers have been deployed to rescue people and bring them to the camps. The army is using six helicopters and 450 boats, and it has set up 37 clinics at the camp sites.
Puri said scores of volunteers are distributing water purification tablets and anti-diarrhea packets. Disease surveillance teams have been sent to the scene in a state where more than half the children are undernourished even in normal times.
Hundreds of thousands of frightened villagers have been making the perilous trek across flooded farmland, often carrying wailing children on their shoulders. Goats and buffalos were being herded along.
Some people have perched themselves on tree tops as they waited for boats to rescue them. The boats have often been overwhelmed by desperate crowds.
The acute shortage of food and other supplies triggered riots and looting in several parts of Bihar. Television images showed people scrambling to grab sacks of grains dropped from military aircraft.
A high-ranking team of officials from New Delhi toured the affected areas Tuesday. The chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, said plugging the dam breach and returning the river to its original course would be "a long-term project."
2.5 Million Indians Stranded by Floods
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 3, 2008; Page A09
NEW DELHI, Sept. 2 -- Close to 2.5 million Indians remained stranded, homeless and hungry in flood-ravaged villages in the eastern part of the country Tuesday, 17 days after a river burst a dam in neighboring Nepal and changed course.
Heavy rains and the swelling waters of the Kosi, known as the "river of sorrow" and worshipped by local people, caused havoc in almost 1,000 villages in Bihar state. Panic-stricken people fled to higher ground, tree tops and cramped makeshift camps.
About 117 people are reported dead, but officials in Bihar said the death toll could rise sharply as receding waters reveal more bodies.
Monsoon floods are an annual feature of Indian life, but some officials say the damage has been catastrophic this year.
"The river changed its course and inundated areas where people have not seen floods in 50 years. They were completely unprepared," said Mahesh Puri, an emergency specialist with UNICEF, speaking from Patna, the capital of Bihar. "What is worse is that many of these people will never be able to go back to their homes because the river has changed its course. Now there are streams where there were none before."
The Kosi River is infamous for failing to keep to its bed. This year the river breached a dam in Nepal that was built in 1954 and is maintained by India .
Several Indian newspapers have alleged that India failed to remove silt at the site of the dam, allowing the water to rise to dangerous levels, and did not respond even after the breach was reported.
On Tuesday, waters also rose in the northeastern state of Assam, where the Brahmaputra River gushed into a national park that is home to elephants and endangered one-horned rhinoceroses.
The Assam relief camps "are unhygienic and overcrowded," Puri said. "There is not enough clean drinking water. People are drinking the dangerous river waters that is carrying disease."
About 3,000 soldiers and several naval divers have been deployed to rescue people and bring them to the camps. The army is using six helicopters and 450 boats, and it has set up 37 clinics at the camp sites.
Puri said scores of volunteers are distributing water purification tablets and anti-diarrhea packets. Disease surveillance teams have been sent to the scene in a state where more than half the children are undernourished even in normal times.
Hundreds of thousands of frightened villagers have been making the perilous trek across flooded farmland, often carrying wailing children on their shoulders. Goats and buffalos were being herded along.
Some people have perched themselves on tree tops as they waited for boats to rescue them. The boats have often been overwhelmed by desperate crowds.
The acute shortage of food and other supplies triggered riots and looting in several parts of Bihar. Television images showed people scrambling to grab sacks of grains dropped from military aircraft.
A high-ranking team of officials from New Delhi toured the affected areas Tuesday. The chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, said plugging the dam breach and returning the river to its original course would be "a long-term project."
César Chávez, Texas
this from Jim Schutze's regular column in The Dallas Observer, Dallas' free weekly, in response to a city street-re-naming ballot/survey, controversy, lamentable baffoon-ish reaction by city government, and over-the-edge commentary in Dallas' OTHER newspaper and media monopoly:
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-08-28/news/c-eacute-sar-ch-aacute-vez-texas/
César Chávez, Texas
Forget about renaming Industrial Boulevard or Ross Avenue or the Dallas North Tollway. The city should go all the way.
By Jim Schutze
published: August 28, 2008
[ ...lots omitted.. please read the entire article ]
I propose that we change the name of the city from Dallas, Texas, to César Chávez, Texas.
Now, wait a minute. Don't start getting all helter-skelter on me. If you can get your breathing under control and give this idea just a moment or two of reasonable consideration, you will see what a wonderful thing it could be for the future of our fair city.
Who are we named for now? We don't even know. Presumably we are named for some rum-soaked, raccoon-wearing, frog-gigging denizen of the 19th century wilderness. César Chávez was actually a great man, someone whose life and accomplishments we know well and in detail.
His name, because it is Mexican, would be emblematic of the enormous contribution to and improvement of our community rendered by the influx of immigrants from Mexico in the last half-century. Think about it.
These are hard-working, family-centered, ambitious people, courageous enough to leave all that they know and venture into a strange and hostile land in order to provide better lives for their children. We have Anglos in this city of all social stripes, up and down, who wake up in the morning and can't even remember that they have children until their second cup of coffee. How can we not be better off for having more Mexicans?
Think of the fanfare for César Chávez, Texas, if this happened. Imagine what the world will think when all of the other contingent name changes begin inevitably to fall into place: Audiences around the world will thrill to the sounds of the excellentCésar Chávez Civic Orchestra. Critics will rave about exciting new exhibitions at the César Chávez Museum of Art.
Much of the unfortunate baggage that has plagued this city's current name for so long will fall by the wayside. I speak of the president whose last name began with a K, not to reopen a wound or anything. This would be clean break.
The truth is that Dallas has never been a city of tradition. The great strength of this city has always been its forward movement. This has always been a place where people come to shed their pasts and make a fresh start. That's what's cool about Dallas. You are what you say you are. Well, that and what you've got in your pocket.
When the suggestion was made to rename Ross Avenue after César Chávez, some of the bloggers complained that we must not dishonor the Ross Brothers for whom it is named now. I laugh out loud every time I read one of those comments.
The who brothers?
César Chávez really is somebody. He stands for the courage and dignity of humankind digging its way up from penury to a better life and a better world for children. He really is a hero.
Think of the attention we would get all over the world. "Dallas Renamed César Chávez, Texas." There isn't a newspaper in any language in any country that would not put that headline on page one.
And even if we don't get there, even if it's too big a bite, I hope that making the suggestion will at least help point people in the right direction. You don't take a thing like "know your place" sitting down in this country. You push back that much harder, demand that much more, make that much more trouble. It's what makes this a great country.
Man! Think of it. The most famous sports team on Earth will be the César Chávez Cowboys!
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-08-28/news/c-eacute-sar-ch-aacute-vez-texas/
César Chávez, Texas
Forget about renaming Industrial Boulevard or Ross Avenue or the Dallas North Tollway. The city should go all the way.
By Jim Schutze
published: August 28, 2008
[ ...lots omitted.. please read the entire article ]
I propose that we change the name of the city from Dallas, Texas, to César Chávez, Texas.
Now, wait a minute. Don't start getting all helter-skelter on me. If you can get your breathing under control and give this idea just a moment or two of reasonable consideration, you will see what a wonderful thing it could be for the future of our fair city.
Who are we named for now? We don't even know. Presumably we are named for some rum-soaked, raccoon-wearing, frog-gigging denizen of the 19th century wilderness. César Chávez was actually a great man, someone whose life and accomplishments we know well and in detail.
His name, because it is Mexican, would be emblematic of the enormous contribution to and improvement of our community rendered by the influx of immigrants from Mexico in the last half-century. Think about it.
These are hard-working, family-centered, ambitious people, courageous enough to leave all that they know and venture into a strange and hostile land in order to provide better lives for their children. We have Anglos in this city of all social stripes, up and down, who wake up in the morning and can't even remember that they have children until their second cup of coffee. How can we not be better off for having more Mexicans?
Think of the fanfare for César Chávez, Texas, if this happened. Imagine what the world will think when all of the other contingent name changes begin inevitably to fall into place: Audiences around the world will thrill to the sounds of the excellentCésar Chávez Civic Orchestra. Critics will rave about exciting new exhibitions at the César Chávez Museum of Art.
Much of the unfortunate baggage that has plagued this city's current name for so long will fall by the wayside. I speak of the president whose last name began with a K, not to reopen a wound or anything. This would be clean break.
The truth is that Dallas has never been a city of tradition. The great strength of this city has always been its forward movement. This has always been a place where people come to shed their pasts and make a fresh start. That's what's cool about Dallas. You are what you say you are. Well, that and what you've got in your pocket.
When the suggestion was made to rename Ross Avenue after César Chávez, some of the bloggers complained that we must not dishonor the Ross Brothers for whom it is named now. I laugh out loud every time I read one of those comments.
The who brothers?
César Chávez really is somebody. He stands for the courage and dignity of humankind digging its way up from penury to a better life and a better world for children. He really is a hero.
Think of the attention we would get all over the world. "Dallas Renamed César Chávez, Texas." There isn't a newspaper in any language in any country that would not put that headline on page one.
And even if we don't get there, even if it's too big a bite, I hope that making the suggestion will at least help point people in the right direction. You don't take a thing like "know your place" sitting down in this country. You push back that much harder, demand that much more, make that much more trouble. It's what makes this a great country.
Man! Think of it. The most famous sports team on Earth will be the César Chávez Cowboys!
Monday, September 1, 2008
Russian Politics
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/01/europe/EU-Russia-Dissident-Slain.php
Magomed Yevloyev died Sunday after a police car picked him up from an airport in the Ingushetia province and then dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in the head.
Regional prosecutor Yuri Turygin said a police officer "accidentally" shot Yevloyev after the journalist allegedly tried to take away the officer's gun, the Interfax news agency reported.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magomed_Yevloyev
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24272873-5001028,00.html
Kremlin critic found dead
Article from: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Moscow
August 31, 2008 11:10pm
THE founder of a website that has criticised the Kremlin's policies in the Caucasus was found dead today in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, according to prosecutors quoted by Interfax.
Prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into the death of Magomed Yevloyev, who ran the website ingushetia.ru, said the news agency.
The website reported that Yevloyev was killed while in police custody.
"Magomed Yevloyev was arrested today in Ingushetia and was killed,'' said a report posted on his website www.ingushetia.ru.
Interfax quoted spokesman Vladimir Markin of the prosecutor's office as saying that "an incident'' took place after he was taken into a police car "resulting in a shooting injury to the head and he later died in hospital''.
The website is among the most visited for news on Ingushetia, a republic bordering Chechnya, and was openly opposed to Ingush president Murat Zyazikov, who had more than once threatened to shut it down.
Ekho Moskvy radio separately quoted local opposition activist Magomad Khazbiyev as saying that the website founder was arrested at gunpoint after his arrival in Narzan.
Yevloyev arrived on a flight that was also carrying the Ingush president.
"Yevloyev was arrested as he stepped off the plane,'' Khazbiyev said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/world/europe/01ingushetia.html?ref=todayspaper
A Journalist in Russia Is Shot Dead After Arrest
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: August 31, 2008
MOSCOW — A Russian journalist known for his opposition views was arrested at an airport in southern Russia on Sunday, then fatally shot in the head in what authorities said was an accident but human rights groups said was suspicious.
The shooting, in Ingushetia, and other recent violence in southern Russia suggested a possible further clampdown on domestic dissent, such as it is, in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus border region in the wake of the war in Georgia. The area has been under tight police control for years.
The Russian prosecutor general’s office said the journalist, Magomed Yevloyev, was shot in the temple while being driven from the airport to a police station, and said it would open an investigation into an accidental death.
Magomed Yevloyev died Sunday after a police car picked him up from an airport in the Ingushetia province and then dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in the head.
Regional prosecutor Yuri Turygin said a police officer "accidentally" shot Yevloyev after the journalist allegedly tried to take away the officer's gun, the Interfax news agency reported.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magomed_Yevloyev
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24272873-5001028,00.html
Kremlin critic found dead
Article from: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Moscow
August 31, 2008 11:10pm
THE founder of a website that has criticised the Kremlin's policies in the Caucasus was found dead today in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, according to prosecutors quoted by Interfax.
Prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into the death of Magomed Yevloyev, who ran the website ingushetia.ru, said the news agency.
The website reported that Yevloyev was killed while in police custody.
"Magomed Yevloyev was arrested today in Ingushetia and was killed,'' said a report posted on his website www.ingushetia.ru.
Interfax quoted spokesman Vladimir Markin of the prosecutor's office as saying that "an incident'' took place after he was taken into a police car "resulting in a shooting injury to the head and he later died in hospital''.
The website is among the most visited for news on Ingushetia, a republic bordering Chechnya, and was openly opposed to Ingush president Murat Zyazikov, who had more than once threatened to shut it down.
Ekho Moskvy radio separately quoted local opposition activist Magomad Khazbiyev as saying that the website founder was arrested at gunpoint after his arrival in Narzan.
Yevloyev arrived on a flight that was also carrying the Ingush president.
"Yevloyev was arrested as he stepped off the plane,'' Khazbiyev said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/world/europe/01ingushetia.html?ref=todayspaper
A Journalist in Russia Is Shot Dead After Arrest
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: August 31, 2008
MOSCOW — A Russian journalist known for his opposition views was arrested at an airport in southern Russia on Sunday, then fatally shot in the head in what authorities said was an accident but human rights groups said was suspicious.
The shooting, in Ingushetia, and other recent violence in southern Russia suggested a possible further clampdown on domestic dissent, such as it is, in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus border region in the wake of the war in Georgia. The area has been under tight police control for years.
The Russian prosecutor general’s office said the journalist, Magomed Yevloyev, was shot in the temple while being driven from the airport to a police station, and said it would open an investigation into an accidental death.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
paper looking review 8-30-08
paper looking review 8-30-08
Izumo Shrine
every 60 years, the Shinto God is removed from Izumo Shrine for renovations & reroofing & the public allowed in.
spirafootwear
$900,000 judgement against Dallas County in favor of inmate for failure to provide necessary medical treatment
Photo / 6.7 tons of marijuana (in red packages) / Associated Press wire photo / Christian Escobar Mora
CHRISTIAN ESCOBAR MORA/The Associated Press
A soldier stands next to packages containing marijuana at an army base in Cali, Colombia. The Colombian army said 6.7 tons were seized from rebels near Cali.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
wasted food / wasted water
wasted food / wasted water :
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/tossed-food-is-also-lost-water/?scp=1&sq=wasted%20food&st=cse
August 22, 2008, 8:42 am
Tossed Food Is Also Lost Water
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The vast amounts of food lost to spoilage and insects in poor countries, and simply tossed in rich ones, also represent an enormous stream of wasted water, according to a new report that calls for big improvements in a world heading toward 9 billion hungry, thirsty mouths.
The report, “Saving Water: From Field to Fork — Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain,” was issued on Thursday by the Stockholm International Water Institute, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the International Water Management Institute (report pdf here). It outlines ways that governments could halve the amount of food lost between field and plate by 2025.
The amounts of waste are staggering. In the United States, nearly one-third of the food that is produced each year, worth about $48 billion, is discarded. The water it took to grow and process that wasted food amounts to about 10 trillion gallons, according to the analysis. Many European countries have similar losses, proportional to their size.
...[more]
http://www.siwi.org/documents/Resources/Papers/Paper_13_Field_to_Fork.pdf
http://www.siwi.org/
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/tossed-food-is-also-lost-water/?scp=1&sq=wasted%20food&st=cse
August 22, 2008, 8:42 am
Tossed Food Is Also Lost Water
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The vast amounts of food lost to spoilage and insects in poor countries, and simply tossed in rich ones, also represent an enormous stream of wasted water, according to a new report that calls for big improvements in a world heading toward 9 billion hungry, thirsty mouths.
The report, “Saving Water: From Field to Fork — Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain,” was issued on Thursday by the Stockholm International Water Institute, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the International Water Management Institute (report pdf here). It outlines ways that governments could halve the amount of food lost between field and plate by 2025.
The amounts of waste are staggering. In the United States, nearly one-third of the food that is produced each year, worth about $48 billion, is discarded. The water it took to grow and process that wasted food amounts to about 10 trillion gallons, according to the analysis. Many European countries have similar losses, proportional to their size.
...[more]
http://www.siwi.org/documents/Resources/Papers/Paper_13_Field_to_Fork.pdf
http://www.siwi.org/
Monday, August 25, 2008
aug 23 24 & 25 updates a bit delayed
hers the teaser:
NYT Posting List Aug 25 2008
NBC & the Oluympics schedule
"Timing in Everything"
"Architect Unshackled"
"Helping War Widows"
US Open Arthur Ashe anniversary
"Contributing to the Struggle"
related previously:
Tommie Smith & John Carlos @ 1968 Olympics (clenched fist protest)
"? Two Weeks After Stabbing "?
PREVIOUS:
Penobscot dam restoration
Penobscot River Restoration Trust
Previous:
Foster care drug
HOA frisco trucks
Offroad rage
Wind turbine lease frenzy
Previous:
Smithsonian
Thecompact.org. Huts cape cod seashore
Cherry springs state park Penn
68 olympics
Richard Misrach
Saola viet gazelle okapi eland
Ospop sneaker. Chinese but not Chinese
Website Thrillist
Nouriel Roubini economist
Architecture school. TV series Sundance
Mier bizanski library thief
Free Tibet L E D protest beijing
Catherine Opie. lesbian dyke artist
Kavli prize. Astrophysics nanoscience neuroscience
FUNAI. Unknown tribes Peru brazil
Photos
PAH DNA Tongliang China
1859 Super Solar Storm
NYT Posting List Aug 25 2008
NBC & the Oluympics schedule
"Timing in Everything"
"Architect Unshackled"
"Helping War Widows"
US Open Arthur Ashe anniversary
"Contributing to the Struggle"
related previously:
Tommie Smith & John Carlos @ 1968 Olympics (clenched fist protest)
"? Two Weeks After Stabbing "?
PREVIOUS:
Penobscot dam restoration
Penobscot River Restoration Trust
Previous:
Foster care drug
HOA frisco trucks
Offroad rage
Wind turbine lease frenzy
Previous:
Smithsonian
Thecompact.org. Huts cape cod seashore
Cherry springs state park Penn
68 olympics
Richard Misrach
Saola viet gazelle okapi eland
Ospop sneaker. Chinese but not Chinese
Website Thrillist
Nouriel Roubini economist
Architecture school. TV series Sundance
Mier bizanski library thief
Free Tibet L E D protest beijing
Catherine Opie. lesbian dyke artist
Kavli prize. Astrophysics nanoscience neuroscience
FUNAI. Unknown tribes Peru brazil
Photos
PAH DNA Tongliang China
1859 Super Solar Storm
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Texas makes BBC News
The story about the HARROLD School District allowing firearms into their school by CCL (Concealed Carry License) faculty and staff makes BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7564654.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7564654.stm
Thursday, August 21, 2008
2 elderly chinese women punished for applying for permit
NG HAN GUAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wang Xiuying, left, and Wu Dianyuan went to Chinese police five times to get a permit to protest during the Olympics in Beijing.
Elderly women face labor camp for asking to protest
Beijing officials accuse the pair of 'disturbing the public order'
By ARIANA EUNJUNG CHA Washington Post
Aug. 20, 2008, 10:03PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING — Two elderly women were sentenced to a year of "re-education through labor" after they applied for permits to demonstrate during the Olympics, according to the son of one of the would-be protesters.
Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, went to police five times between Aug. 5 and Aug. 18 to seek approval to protest against officials who evicted them from their homes in 2001.
The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau did not approve or deny their applications during the first three visits. On the fourth visit, the women were told that they would receive a year's punishment, until July 29, 2009, for "disturbing the public order."
According to a written order they received, they would not have to immediately go to a re-education labor camp, but their movements would be restricted. If they violated various provisions or regulations, however, they could be sent to a labor camp.
Wu and Wang tried to return a fifth time to inquire about their protest application but they were told that their right to apply had been stripped.
"When I first heard about the possibility of being allowed to protest, I was very happy. My issue could be resolved. But it turned out all to be cheating ... I feel stuck in my heart," Wu said by telephone. Li Xuehui said his mother, Wu, and her friend are outraged.
Usually labor re-education is reserved for "prostitutes and thieves," Li said. "What the two old ladies did is nowhere near that." He pointed out that Wang is nearly blind.
"We are a Communist society, with the people the leaders and owners, but basic citizens' rights cannot even be realized today. How sad it is. The way things are is the opposite of the 'people-oriented' ideology of the country when it was founded," Li said.
In response to international pressure, China said it would allow protests in three parks during the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games. Earlier this week, the official New China News Service reported that police had received 77 applications but none has been approved.
Wang Wei, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee, cast the empty protest zones in a positive light, telling reporters Wednesday that the disputes brought by would-be protesters had been resolved.
in only seconds
The tail of the Spanair jet that crashed on take off at Madrid airport is seen on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008. A Spanair airliner bound for the Canary Islands at the height of the vacation season crashed, burned and broke into pieces Wednesday while trying to take off from Madrid, killing 149 people on board, officials said. There were only 26 survivors in the mid-afternoon crash, said Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose department is in charge of civil aviation. It was Spain's most deadly air disaster in more than 20 years.
from AP Photo by AP
A part of the fuselage of the Spanair jet that crashed on take off at Madrid airport is lifted by a crane on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008. A Spanair airliner bound for the Canary Islands at the height of the vacation season crashed, burned and broke into pieces Wednesday while trying to take off from Madrid, killing 149 people on board, officials said. There were only 26 survivors in the mid-afternoon crash, said Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose department is in charge of civil aviation. It was Spain's most deadly air disaster in more than 20 years.
from AP Photo by AP
polygamist sect update
caption: Satan with a smile
tags: sick ick gross vile evil
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-polygamist_21tex.ART.State.Edition1.4dd8bec.html
More polygamist sect members may face charges
09:51 AM CDT on Thursday, August 21, 2008
Michelle Roberts, The Associated Press
SAN ANGELO, Texas – Five men from a polygamist sect raided by Texas authorities in April stand accused of sexually assaulting children, but they may not be the only ones.
Church documents disclosed as part of a separate child custody case over the last several months identify at least 10 other men as married to girls who were 16 or younger. The girls' fathers and stepfathers blessed the unions and sometimes presided over ceremonies between other young girls and adult men, the documents show.
In all, about 20 underage girls, a few as young as 12, are identified in the documents as married to jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs, 52, or one of his followers.
Underage marriages were not universal within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but the marriage certificates, Mr. Jeffs' journal entries, photos and family listings show they were not – as the church suggested early on – isolated events either.
Over six days in April, Texas authorities collected more than 400 boxes of documents from the sect's West Texas ranch, rifling through homes, offices and the towering limestone temple for evidence of girls forced into underage marriages and sex.
The Schleicher County grand jury that indicted five FLDS men on sexual assault and a sixth for failing to report abuse is scheduled to meet again today.
Under Texas law, girls younger than 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult.
Being married to more than one person or even "purporting" to be married to more than one person is also illegal. Texas investigators early on were working about 50 possible bigamy cases.
Rod Parker, a Utah attorney and spokesman for the church, said he believes the practice of underage marriages was "relatively limited" and continues to believe FLDS members have been unfairly treated by Texas authorities.
He said no marriage ceremonies of any kind have been conducted in the last two years.
Michelle Roberts,
The Associated Press
oops! (trees)
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/dallas/stories/DN-trees_21met.ART0.North.Edition1.4e07228.html
Untended trees withering without water in downtown Dallas
12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, August 21, 2008
By DAN X. McGRAW / The Dallas Morning News
dmcgraw@dallasnews.com
A grove of trees planted near North Central Expressway and Woodall Rodgers Freeway to help make downtown "green" is anything but green these days.
About half the trees are dead because of summer heat, heavy winds and insufficient watering, said Steve Houser, a certified arborist.
The rest are struggling.
"It's a graveyard out here," said Mr. Houser, chairman of the Dallas Urban Forest Advisory Committee, which reports to the City Council and the city's Park and Recreation Department.
"It's depressing for an arborist or a gardener, but it is also depressing to people driving and living along this area. It is just devastating. This is counterproductive."
Even this week's heavy rains won't help much, Mr. Houser said. The dead trees are dead. And the dying ones have gone into a self-induced dormancy, causing their needles to dry out and fall off.
"The problem doesn't go away just because they got some rain," he said.
Four years ago, Texas Trees Foundation, a private, nonprofit group, planted more than 1,100 trees, mostly bald cypress, near the intersection of the two freeways. The project was undertaken in collaboration with the Texas Department of Transportation.
The effort, paid for with $173,000 in TxDOT funds, was intended to reduce air pollution while adding a touch of nature to downtown, officials said.
But a mixup between TxDOT and the foundation left the trees unwatered for months.
According to a contract between the Texas Trees Foundation and TxDOT, the foundation is responsible for the maintenance of the trees – including watering – for five years. It's also responsible for mowing, pruning and picking up trash in the area.
"Apparently, there was a miscommunication," said Patrick Haigh, the landscape architect for the TxDOT's Dallas office. "We agreed to pay for the water. They were responsible for watering. That was our understanding."
Foundation officials said they thought the opposite – meaning the trees were never tended to.
Janette Monear, the foundation's executive director, said her group thought it was responsible for maintaining the irrigation system, but that TxDOT was supposed to do the actual watering – beyond whatever moisture came from rainfall.
In a statement issued this week, she said: "Mother Nature [was] responsible for keeping the site watered."
Ms. Monear added that she didn't become executive director of the foundation until last November, and doesn't know everything that transpired before then. "I wasn't here, so I'm not going to point fingers," she said.
With normal rainfall, the trees should have done well, Ms. Monear said. But the lack of rainfall through the first seven months of this year caused some trees to become stressed.
Another problem was that the trees were planted too close to one another, she said. Another was that vagrants ripped up the irrigation system.
TxDOT and the foundation are talking about replacement trees, but that wouldn't happen until the fall, when cooler temperatures would help foster growth, Mr. Haigh said.
While the two sides continue to argue about who was responsible, they agree that the trees are in distress.
"The water needs to be turned back on," said Ms. Monear.
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About all this:
I read the paper & see articles on issues I feel are important and want to share.. that's about it.
(First several posts will be out of chronological order. ...just me getting up to speed after an especially large and good batch of writing (and tragic events around the world)
