After being seen as a repeated failure of a company over the past couple years, Yahoo may just yet redeem itself with its latest search engine update, Search Direct. While this reminds most Google users of one of the latest and biggest Google updates, Google Instant, with its real-time results as you type, Search Direct is less about helping you find the most relevant links for your search query and much more about giving you the appropriate answer, right then and there, to what you are searching for, because the fact is, we all search to ultimately find an answer, information about the thing we're searching for. This is actually quite an exciting update to Yahoo's search index, which I first heard about after Anthony Ha reported it on VentureBeat.
This advancement in the usability of search engines is incredible. It was first thought that the Google Instant update was exciting because it eliminated the use of having to hit the search button to perform your search query. But now, you don't even need to click the first link in the results page to get the answers you want to the most common of queries, easily finding out things like the local weather forecast, stock performance, even where to find a local theatre playing the films you want.
More...
The GOP war on women has gone global. Contained in the Continuing Resolution (CR) passed by the House of Representatives, among the severe cuts in publicly-funded domestic programs affecting corporate oversight, legal aid for the poor, food safety, community health centers, education and teachers, police and firefighters (and on and on), are another set of drastic cuts and policy changes that would most severely affect women living in poverty and the children that depend on them.
The CR cuts funding for voluntary international family planning assistance by 15 percent at a time when the need for voluntary family planning grows, and when the U.S. fair share of global family planning efforts is estimated at well over $1 billion.
More...
On a particular Saturday afternoon at the Manhattan Theater Club production of his new play Good People, playwright David Lindsay-Abaire revealed to an exuberant matinee crowd that the compelling characters he created for this play were known to him from his upbringing in South Boston--even down to the detail of the bingo games his mother enjoyed, as well as the googly eyed rabbit figurines. He might have been in Los Angeles that weekend: nominated for an Independent Spirit writing award for the screenplay of his drama, Rabbit Hole, or to support Nicole Kidman who was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar in the film. But obvious to all, Lindsay-Abaire was happy to be at the talk back for Good People.
Of course the word good is edgy. When asked which character is good, he said all of them. Or, none of them. Or maybe Stevie at the end if you define a good person, as the play does, as one who will give money to someone who needs it. In this working class environment in tough times, Margie, as perfectly acted by Frances McDormand under the expert direction of Daniel Sullivan is trapped in "Southie": we see her, boldly honest, loyal, and, as in all great theater going back to Oedipus, proud to a fault; she is the instrument of her own fate. Margaret is a woman of such low expectations, you ask, could she have
More...
As billions of dollars are budgeted to reform health care, legislators in Washington are frantically looking for ways in which the money can truly change the broken health care system without too much of an upset to its key constituents: payers, providers, employers and patients. As in most industries, modernization by the (government-sponsored) introduction of technology sounds like the safe choice. Surprisingly, forcing physicians to implement electronic medical records and to share these records via statewide exchanges is facing a daunting practice to practice "docfight." With the unpleasant possibility of an unrealized promise for change, some suggest we turn the light on the other sleeping elephant in the room -- telemedicine. Brush the dust off this misunderstood (and often misused) technology and health care reform may just live up to its promise, in our lifetimes.
Simply defined, telemedicine refers to the delivery of medical care using telecommunications including: phone, email, Internet and other channels. Over the years, the application of telemedicine was interpreted narrowly to mean the use of technology to overcome physical distance. Specifically, it became synonymous with the use of video conferencing to bring the expertise of specialized physicians (who typically reside in urban America and work in large medical centers) into rural areas where such specialties were scarce or absent. While the supporting technologies have evolved, from ISDN lines to dedicated fiber optics, the principal promise (prejudice) of telemedicine remained frozen in time.
More...
Before there was a television show to idolize singers or a program to see who thinks they can dance, there was Miss America: a showcase for talented young women. And before social networking meant interacting through a website, there was Miss America: a pageant that brought together women from every state to share their hopes for our great country. Over the last 90 years, Americans have been mesmerized by the magic of Miss America. I personally have been enchanted for more years than I dare put in writing, and it started way before I married a Miss Mississippi or became Chairman of the Board of the Miss America Organization.
Growing up in my hometown of Amory, Mississippi, I always loved a good show: on TV, on the school stage, or in my community. A good show connects the audience, and I loved how a beauty pageant made ordinary girls into American princesses. I attended the Miss Mississippi Pageant for the first time when I was fifteen because my good friend Frank Page's sister, Sara, was Miss Amory. My mother drove me and my buddy Mike Burgess to Vicksburg to hang out with Frank and cheer Sara on. By the time I was a high school senior, I had called the pageant's producer, Don Barnes, and talked my way into the Miss Mississippi chorus; I would sing backup in the pageant production over the next several summers.
More...
Last week, Hapoel Tel Aviv F.C. won its first group stage game at the UEFA Champions League against S.L Benfica. It was an emotional moment, both good and bad; Israeli football reaching its European neighbors' threshold, as the apprehension of the rarity of the occasion slowly sunk in. While the main objective is our own Israeli league championship, and more particularly winning the games against our archenemy -- Maccabi Tel Aviv -- we were all elated to a certain extent. But in Israel, like in Israel, happiness is a short-lived event when people around us tend to bundle us all together, and refuse to understand that many of us have a different mentality, political view and beliefs.
The following morning, football forums and other blogs began publishing the objection of Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon, France) fans and other bandwagoners, to Israel, and their preparations for a sort of protest prior to the Champions' League game on December 7th. Casting Hapoel fans as representatives of Israel is quite frankly nothing short of criminal, especially by football fans who are all well aware of the allegiance to the club vs. representation of ones' country. In other words, I cannot imagine the doom these fans would have brought on any other group that would dare presenting them as representatives of France! Football fan 101 is you are your team, not your country. It is no different for Hapoel fans.
More...
In New York City everything changes within only a few blocks. For those that don't know the City, whole neighborhoods shift from block to block. It seems to this girl who grew up in the shadow of the twin towers that we've all been hoodwinked. Yet again the insidious spin doctors of the Right have stirred up "Islamophobia" around the world -- coined by Frank Rich in his New York Times Op Ed when he attempted to debunk all of the hoopla with the facts.
You'd think we might have figured this out a little sooner because once again we are ill prepared for the stealth swift boat attacks before an important election during the dog days of August. Yes, we know what the facts are or we could read Frank Rich's article that is exemplary among many in the ensuing media circus. The mosque is NOT a mosque, rather it is a community center modeled on the Jewish community centers throughout the nation. It is scheduled to be built NOT on sacred ground, but rather a vacant Burlington Coat Factory two blocks away. And the organizers are not partisan or violent religious zealots. They are esteemed members of the Muslim American community respected by all.
More...
I write a lot about how certain elite (pundits, politicians) have made it their quest to criminalize poverty. David Walker, a lackey of billionaire and Social Security pirate, Pete Peterson, openly pined for the days of debtors' prison, which is actually already a reality in six states. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) proposed an amendment that would demand mandatory drug tests for welfare and unemployment beneficiaries. A particularly enlightened commenter on my blog summarized the logic behind the amendment thusly: "you gotta make sure they're not on the crack pipe."
Previously, I have also written about hiring practices that act to preserve America's permanent underclass, and how some employers are now making it a practice to check potential employees' credit scores. Poor people are buried under extravagant loans, which they might never fully pay back, simply for attempting to pursue higher education. Some students actually resort to killing themselves to escape debt, but these are isolated instances that shouldn't overly concern anyone.
More...
I believe I was the 31,452nd person to "Like" Intel's "The Museum of Me" on Facebook. Using Facebook Connect, Intel takes users on a visually beautiful and informative tour of their life on the social network, inviting users to tour their Facebook life as a "journey of visualization that explores who I am." While it is hard not to be taken with the tool just by virtue of it being really cool, I found it inspiring for how we can perhaps teach people about their personal privacy.
The visualization brought up photos even I had completely forgotten I posted, friends that had likely been added back in 2005 when my college universe still dominated my Facebook existence (as it only used to be open to college students, how nostalgic) and links that even I forgot I posted a few weeks ago, like a video of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's visit to the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. The two-minute tour not only shows your friends, pictures, location, words, links and videos, it also depicts a spherical network of who you are connected to, a visual representation of one's Facebook universe that most users likely do not imagine when they are using the social network day-to-day.
More...
More...
My recent expose, "The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?" has ignited a long-overdue debate on how to stop Monsanto's earth killing, market-monopolizing, climate-destabilizing rampage. Should we resign ourselves to the fact that the Biotech Bully of St. Louis controls the dynamics of the marketplace and public policy? Should we seek some kind of practical compromise or "coexistence" between organics and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)? Should we focus our efforts on crop pollution compensation and "controlled deregulation" of genetically engineered (GE) crops, rather than campaign for an outright ban, or mandatory labeling and safety-testing? Should we prepare ourselves for a future farm landscape where the U.S.'s 23 million acres of alfalfa, the nation's fourth largest crop, (93% of which are currently not sprayed with toxic herbicides), including organic alfalfa, are sprayed with Roundup and/or genetically polluted with Monsanto's mutant genes?
Or should we stand up and say Hell No to Monsanto and the Obama Administration? Should we stop all the talk about coexistence between organics and GMOs; unite Millions Against Monsanto, mobilize like never before at the grassroots; put enormous pressure on the nation's grocers to truthfully label the thousands of so-called conventional or "natural" foods containing or produced with GMOs; and then slowly but surely drive GMOs from the market?
More...
Sir Harold Evans, host with biographer Amanda Foreman, at a private luncheon on Monday could not resist mentioning the rare honor of being in a room with not only the dashing if shy "Mr. Darcy," but the stubborn "Elizabeth Bennett," memorable roles for Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the fine actors who now share screen time in The King's Speech. If Mr. Darcy is every girl's crush, as played by Colin Firth, the fantasy increases exponentially. As the stuttering King George, father of the British queen, the actor is tall, handsome, and irresistible. He sweeps through award season, winning Best Actor accolades.
The event was not about heart throbs, but about history. Sir Harold remembered being a small boy glued to the radio in his air raid shelter, as were so many Brits, when Neville Chamberlain announced what the war meant to him, and when King George VI made the famed "king's speech." Firth emphasized the Aristotelian value of story-telling from the perspective of royalty, how the foibles of characters like Oedipus, Odysseus, and so on are human and moreso. Director Tom Hooper in the interest of research hoped he could have had tea with the queen to ask about her father; he joked at taking over the reign just to feel what that was like. Instead, he announced a valuable find, the diary of speech teacher Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) who brings about the king's epiphany.
More...
What happens when 17 artists, three gallerists, and hundreds of art groupies are all put on an island? It might sound like the making of Bravo's next reality show, but it's simply another day at Art Basel Miami Beach. (Sorry, Andy Cohen.) In this case, "The Island," a one-night only, site-specific exhibition presented by art collectives LAND and OHWOW, and held on Flagler Memorial Island was one of the most hotly anticipated events of the week. Organized by Shamin Momin, Al Moran and Aaron Bondaroff, the work included artists Terence Koh, Hanna Liden, Justin Lowe, Naomi Fisher and Scott Campbell among others who shipped sculptures, skeletons and even a band from New York to a remote island off the coast of Miami Beach.
Upon arrival at the Mondrian Hotel, guests were told "not to speak" and silently board a 40-person ferry off the dock of the hotel (the only method of transportation). Still, I could not help but hum the Gilligan's Island theme song while a band of gallerinas shipped off to this abandoned isle. As the song goes, "A millionaire, his wife, and a movie star..." We had our own Basel Version. An artist (Olympia Scarry), a semi movie star (China Chow), and plenty of millionaires--who traded the cravat and slacks for Comme des Garcons skorts. As an Adonis in short shorts passed around Café Bustelo refreshments, I began to ask, "What did I get myself into?"
More...
What happens when a woman doesn't use her voice to express herself fully? I have been thinking a lot about this question lately, and have been struggling with using my own voice in a way that feels aligned with the bigger picture that I feel inside of me. For those who know me, you might think this sounds silly since I am expressing myself all of the time - through writing, social media, and basically living life as a "talker." But the reality is that I feel there is so much more inside of me not being expressed ... and I wonder how many other women are going through this same thing?
More...
It dawned on me a few years ago that our rational lives are like a still pond and madness is the jagged rock thrown into it, creating odd ripples everywhere. And the most powerful madness of all, when it comes to the way the world turns, is psychopathy.
There's a consensus amongst psychologists that psychopaths -- with all their glib charm and grandiosity and the power to effortlessly manipulate -- do brilliantly in business and politics. Theirs is the brain anomaly that rules our world. Which is why I've written a book about them: "The Psychopath Test." As part of my research, I spoke to hundreds of people--everyone from the doctors who catalogue mental illness, to those who vehemently oppose them, to a Broadmoor Hospital inmate who says he faked a mental disorder. In the process, I learned that, during the courtship phase, psychopaths come across to the women they're targeting as potentially great husbands. What I'm saying is, you may have married a psychopath. It is really very possible. He might have not yet revealed the full extent of his astonishing malevolence. You might want to pack your bags and run screaming from the marriage before he does. Let me help. What follows are five telltale signs that your husband may be a psychopath.
More...
When Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head during a tragic mass shooting in Tucson, we all watched with deep sympathy as her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, sat by her side, holding her hand while maintaining his own composure. What must it be like to witness your spouse or someone you love receive a gunshot through the brain, and then face the reality that this kind of injury will change life as you both know it forever?
The kind of traumatic brain injury (TBI) sustained by Gabby Giffords, whether it is due to an accident, tumor or stroke, often results in life-changing consequences for the victim, as well as for the family members caring for them, because the brain is the organ that defines the true essence of a person -- how they think, feel, move, act and talk. The range of injuries and the degree to which a person recovers are extremely variable. Individuals with severe injuries can be left in long-term unresponsive states, and even mild TBI can greatly affect one's family, job and community interactions. Additionally, the path to recovery can be unpredictable, with frustrating setbacks along the way. For a family member caring for a TBI patient, recovery must be thought of not as an end in itself -- such as reclaiming their family member's former self -- but as a long-term process with the goal of maximizing function and independence.
More...
While it may be true that in the movie business nobody knows anything, although I imagine James Cameron begs to differ, what about other businesses? Steve Jobs seems to know exactly what we want in elegantly styled electronics products, even before we do and even if they aren't quite perfect. Jeff Bezos knows how to sell us almost everything we want online -- and we thought he'd never make it past books. And how about that guy at Groupon who just turned down $6 billion for a company that didn't exist 3 years ago and has zero barriers to entry in its business plan -- he must know something. Of course, you can forget about Jesse Eisenberg/Mark Zuckerberg -- he knows, what, about 600 million somethings.
So, what does this have to do with movie studios? Well, it's possible that the General Motors model of a studio -- to paraphrase Alfred P. Sloan, "a movie for every person and purpose" -- where one studio and its executives try to make a steady stream of comedies, dramas, genre pictures and those $200 million-plus things that hold up tents, is over. With studios' high overhead and proven inability to control costs on one hand, and the daily onslaught of new technology that takes their product from them in ways they can't understand and pays them less per viewing on the other, the very model of a modern major studio may just be dead.
More...
Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. -- Martin Luther King
"Joy comes in the morning," lets certainly hope so. We need hope right now, and not a hope which is falsely propped up by platitudes and declarations, but a hope that is anchored in the knowledge that we can't continue to operate with business as usual, we can't continue to speak hatred without impunity; can't continue to think violence will go away without us doing something about it; can't continue to wish things were different but not be willing to make the necessary changes, accept the necessary sacrifices and be willing to admit that certain things just can't be tolerated any longer. "Joy comes in the morning," but not without a night of hard work, a night of serious soul-searching, a night of tears and anguish that leads us to the realization that the joy we seek, the solace we need, the hope we crave will not be handed to us by God on a silver platter. It is up to us, with the support and love of our Creator, to help bring that joy. That is the work of being human, that is destiny of our existence, that is the challenge we all face. And now, more than ever, face it we must.
More...
One of the positive consequences of this weekend's "Safeway Massacre" in which Judge John Roll was killed and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords critically injured -- if it is even possible to speak of silver linings after such a horrific event -- appears to be a backlash against hateful political rhetoric. Another should be an increased effort to keep firearms out of the hands of mentally-unstable individuals. The easiest way to prevent psychotics from obtaining guns, in a manner that is low-cost, constitutional and minimally infringes upon the prerogatives of law-abiding gun owners, is to require a brief psychiatric examination and a prescription in order to purchase a gun.
The Gun Control Act of 1968, passed in response to the assassination of Robert Kennedy, bans gun ownership by anyone who "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution." In a rare act of bipartisanship in 2008, following deranged student Seung-Hui Cho's murder of thirty-two people at Virginia Tech, Congress passed legislation that essentially required states (through threat of lost funding) to provide data on psychiatrically-unfit individuals to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). These efforts are certainly commendable, but they have done far too little to protect the public. If we continue to stand back and wait for psychiatrically-disturbed individuals to come to the attention of authorities through their own actions, we will continue to have massacres like those in Virginia and Arizona.
More...
This week, I had the great honor of spending a few days working as a producer and writer on The USO Presents "VH1 Divas Salute The Troops" that airs tonight on VH1 at 9PM and internationally on the Armed Forces Network. The show itself is a real blast in a decidedly non-military sense that hosted hilariously by Kathy Griffin, and featuring winning musical performances by Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Sugarland, Keri Hilson, Paramore, Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, as well as appearances by literally everyone from our First Lady Michelle Obama to "Snooki" and "The Situation" from "Jersey Shore," including comedian Jeffrey Ross, MC Lyte and Brandy, who I think we all can agree is technically a better dancer than Bristol Palin.
Speaking of agreement, there is so little in America right now, but this playlist is dedicated to the thought that we should all agree to be respectful and thankful to our service people. Spending a few days at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar was an education for me, and a pretty inspiring one. I grew up the son of a father of former Naval Officer, and frequently during my childhood, my Dad would joke that he was going to send me off to military school, but that he didn't want to have to drive right back to whatever academy would have me when they threw me right out for insubordination.
More...
Last week, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer caused a tidal wave of outrage when he asserted that Americans have "feminized the Medal of Honor" and asked, "When are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?"
Fischer, on his AFA-sponsored radio show and blog, often makes comments that would be ridiculous if they weren't so offensive. He routinely directs his hate-filled rants at gay people, Muslims, and even select members of the animal kingdom. He last caused a minor splash on the Internet when he declared an intifada on grizzly bears. He has said that the fire fighters who stood and let a house burn down earlier this year did "the Christian thing." He has said multiple times that "gay sex is a form of domestic terrorism." He repeatedly says that the building of new mosques should be banned in the U.S.
More...
With a volley of artillery fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, the South started a war that nearly destroyed the United States in pursuit of a terrible cause. In that conflict more than 630,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in four years of hellish war. To place this in perspective consider that the entire population of the United States at war's end was 35 million, putting war casualties at nearly two percent of the total populace. Equivalent rates of casualties today would result in five million dead or wounded, dwarfing our losses in World War II, or any other war.
Why did two percent of our population suffer death or maiming? Over the issue of state sovereignty and the interpretation of the Tenth Amendment (ratified in 1791). The text is simple enough: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." But we also have the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, which say, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
More...
Who knows what Valentine's Day commemorates? Although its origins are somewhat cloudy, it seems that it was a pagan fertility day (actually on February 15) that the Pope assimilated for Christians and named for the saint who was martyred on February 14. It apparently became more romantic when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a 1382 poem on that day to celebrate the anniversary of the engagement of England's King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia, both fourteen years old. That's not something that I feel inclined to toast (call me cranky). Anyway, the actual date of their engagement was May 2. The holiday signifies very little indeed. For singles it is a gaudy reminder of their solitary status with hearts and cupids as far as the eye can see.
Even when I was happily coupled the holiday always paled in comparison to events that did signify something. My sentimental feelings are generated by events and milestones that have some significance in my life, not something manufactured by the deeply-romantic, advertisement-driven media. (Yes, that's an oxymoron.) In a free society, we get to choose what events are meaningful for us; we do not have to think or feel the way that others dictate. The holiday was once very low-key, usually involving a hand-written card and perhaps a small box of sweets. Now a pricey present and a romantic meal are often expected. (Of course, this is not the only holiday that has become commercialized beyond recognition.)
More...
Exactly two years ago today, I received a phone call from hell. My financial adviser and close friend, with whom I had invested all of my family's life savings, called to tell me that overnight we had lost 95 percent of our net worth. It turned out that our life savings had been invested in a fund that had been handled by Bernard Madoff. Because we weren't direct investors (I didn't even know who Madoff was prior to his arrest), there was no hope of our ever recovering a penny.
Tragically, what happened to my family overnight is happening to many, many people today, only more slowly. It is one of the darkest nightmares of our times that so many people are losing their homes, their pensions, their jobs, their savings, and any semblance of financial security. The official unemployment rate is 9.8 percent, but if you include the underemployed (those who have part-time work but can't find a full-time job, though they need one), and add in also the huge numbers of unemployed people who have given up looking for work because they feel the search is hopeless, the figure rises to above 22 percent. There are already 19 million vacant homes in the country, with another 10 million foreclosures in the pipeline. The average household credit card debt is nearly $16,000. And the U.S. dollar, which has been the world's reserve currency for almost 100 years, is losing value and appears increasingly unstable.
More...
For my first 30 Second Recipe on location, I cover one of my absolute favorite spots in all of LA, Wurstkuche. Sausage, fries, and beer: When you do these three things perfectly, you really don't need to do anything else. The sausages are juicy and just spicy enough, there's plenty of mustard to go around, the fries have the perfect amount of truffle flavor without over powering them, and the beer list is one of the best edited in the city. (For inquiring minds, I paired my rattlesnake, rabbit, jalapeno sausage with Schneider Wiesen Edel-Weisse Mein Grunes, a spicy, yeasty wheat beer). So watch, salivate, and enjoy! Wurstkuche from Claire Thomas on Vimeo.
More...
On Friday night, October 15, I participated in a community discussion with about fifty people at the Maysles Institute on Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem. I was invited to be part of a panel commenting on the ninety-minute opening segment of a documentary film Then I'll Be Free To Travel Home produced and directed by documentary filmmaker Eric Tait. Tait uses the struggle to reclaim the African burial ground in lower Manhattan as a vehicle for discussing the history of slavery in New York City from the colonial era through the Civil War.
I was invited to be on the panel although almost everyone else who attended was Black and I am White and although everyone else was local and I am from distant Brooklyn. I am not sure which was the deeper chasm to bridge. The people there were interested in what I had to say because of my work editing the New York and Slavery: Complicity and Resistance curriculum, which received an award from the National Council for the Social Studies but has never been adopted by New York State. I am also the author of a book, New York and Slavery: Time to Teach the Truth (SUNY, 2008).
More...
[this article was first run at thenation.com and co-written with Damian Smith]
Imagine if someone ran for senate on the strength of their experience as CEO of a billion dollar company. Now imagine if as an aside, their employees kept ending up dead. They would routinely die of heart attacks, drug overdoses, suicides, and strokes before the age of 50. Imagine if their company had a "death clause" in their contracts that prevented employees and their families from suing the company. Imagine if they had gag orders to prevent family members from speaking out against what could be fairly called the most dangerous working conditions in the United States. Imagine if this candidate was so sociopathic, that they would look at this billion dollar business built on broken bodies and death as a source of pride and even as a motivator for why they deserve the power of public office. And lastly, imagine the media happily joining in with the socio-pathology and giving them a free pass. Welcome to the race for Senator of Connecticut where Republican Linda McMahon is self-funding her campaign on the bodies of the dead wrestlers that have built the billion-dollar empire that is World Wrestling Entertainment.
More...
There's a choice quote in this Emily Browning interview over at Nylon Magazine, which was reported by Cinemablend that merits a mention. Its implications are kinda shocking. The crux is the discussion of changes that Zach Snyder had to make in order to ensure Sucker Punch (review) would win a PG-13 from the MPAA, which apparently took seven tries. I'll let Browning lay it out:
I had a very tame and mild love scene with Jon Hamm. It was like heavy breathing and making out. It was hardly a sex scene... I think that it's great for this young girl to actually take control of her own sexuality. Well, the MPAA doesn't like that. They don't think a girl should ever be in control of her own sexuality because they're from the Stone Age. I don't know what the f**k is going on and I will openly criticize it, happily. So essentially, they got Zack to edit the scene and make it look less like she's into it. And Zack said he edited it down to the point where it looked like he was taking advantage of her. That's the only way he could get a PG-13 (rating) and he said, 'I don't want to send that message.' So they cut the scene!"
More...
It took me 13 years of teaching asana, and over 17 years of practicing it, to finally take a seat for meditation. Until recently, if I managed to sit down to meditate, I felt the irresistible magnetism of the dishes, the inbox, laundry and the cabinet to reorganize. Nothing could make me sit still for more than a few minutes, and on the few occasions I did, I felt fake every time, as though I was missing something. Turns out I'd needed a manual to help me crack the code.
Anodea Judith's "Eastern Body, Western Mind" is shifting my relationship to, and my navigation of, meditation practice. Given practical details about each energy center (chakra) in the body (note: the word is pronounced with "ch" like "choice," rather than "sh" like "shall"), I've learned to be more specific and purposeful in the meditation seat. I'm learning to locate, in my actual physical body, the places where unresolved confusions have been stored, which activates a ready focus for my breathing when I sit -- in my own time, in my own words: the ultimate empowerment. Most importantly, I'm learning to generate more listening and respect for the closest people in my life -- the ones who'd become accustomed to getting the worst of me, while my students, teachers and friends got the best.
More...
These are frenzied days in Washington DC. They are also particularly dangerous ones for publicly-supported institutions that Republican politicians happen to dislike. With the threat of a complete government shut-down as their ultimate weapon, House Republicans are entering this year's budget round with some very clear targets in mind. High on that list of targets is the $445 million federal subsidy to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The President's 2011 budget proposed to increase that subsidy by a meager $6 million. By contrast, the finance bill passed by the Republican-controlled House in February proposed the entire elimination of the subsidy by 2013. The sums involved are minute, given the size of the federal budget as a whole. They amount to roughly $1.39 per American per year: so removing the entire $445 million from the federal accounts will affect the overall budget arithmetic hardly at all. But for the Republicans, if not for the Democrats, there is more than money at stake here. For Republicans, the budget provides an opportunity, rather than a reason: a cover under which to deal finally and decisively with a target that has long loomed large in conservative demonology. The danger before us therefore is that - in the give and take of this year's torrid budget round, with negotiators caught between a call for a modest increase and one for total elimination - the Administration will give and the Republicans will take, and will take totally.
We need to stop them.
More...