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June 04, 2020
Submitted by: Francesca Rheannon
Posted: Nov 29, 2011 – 08:14 PM EST
Tags: ows, cop 17, climate change, environment, ecological commons, human rights, sustainability
By Francesca Rheannon
Part One of a Two-Part Series
With the climate talks in Durban seemingly headed for a train wreck, an innovative project is developing a new legal international framework for protecting the planetary ecosystem that could just be the most important legal initiative of our age.
The climate talks had not even started in Durban when their epitaph was already being written. It was revealed in a number of reports that at the two previous talks in 2009 and 2010, the big industrial nations of Europe and the US had bullied smaller nations into accepting no action on the climate and that the rich nations, including the UK, EU, Japan, US and the UN have already decided to quash any agreement until 2020 – at which time, no doubt it will be conveniently put off again.
It won't matter by then because it will be, in the memorable words of Dr. James Hansen, "game over for the planet." The narrow window we might just possibly still have to avert civilization-destroying climate change will close by 2015. To squeak through that window, we will have to begin ratcheting down our absolute emissions by then – in other words, reverse the direction we are currently on, which saw a 6% rise in emissions in 2010, despite the global economic downturn.
Some eternal optimists are putting their (desperate) hopes in voluntary agreements to rein in emissions. But I've got some beachfront property in Florida to sell them. Voluntary agreements won't work for the same reasons we can't get formal agreements on the climate: the world's governments are captive to Capitalism-Run-Amuck (otherwise known as neo-liberal capitalism because of its refusal to be regulated).
Such a system cannot protect the atmosphere nor any of the other vital systems on which human life depends: the oceans, forests and ability of the land to nurture and sustain us without being poisoned. In short, the ecological commons. That is the true Tragedy of the Commons: it is subject to a system that literally cannot see it, except as something to be enclosed for private exploitation and gain.
Let me say up front that the problem is not with markets, per se. The problem is privileging the so-called "free" market over everything else – markets that are free only in the sense that they give free rein to the most powerful (the 1%), but are rigged against everyone else. (How "free" is it, for example, that the Medicare prescription drug plan forbids the Federal government from negotiating prices with Big Pharma?) The fix is in because there are few national governments – or even prominent international bodies, like the UN – that are not captive to corporate interests, making the term "capitalist democracy" an oxymoron.
Many of the poorer nations – who are likely to be the most hammered the soonest by climate change – are getting angry and organized. Some are planning to "Occupy COP 17" in response to a call by the former president of Costa Rica for "all vulnerable countries to 'occupy' Durban." José María Figueres went on to say, "We need an expression of solidarity by the delegations of those countries that are most affected by climate change, who go from one meeting to the next without getting responses on the issues that need to be dealt with."
Refusing to leave the talks until "substantial progress is made," as the countries are threatening, may not accomplish what is needed, at least not right away. But, like the Occupy encampments all over the world, many of which are getting dismantled, success at this point lies in changing the frame of discussion. People aren't sleeping in Zucotti Park anymore, but their message – "human need not corporate greed" – is being heard loud and clear all over the world.
One of the working groups at the New York City General Assembly (the organizing/governing body of Occupy Wall Street) is the "Campaign For The Commons." If you click on the Working Group's "Documents" tab, you will find the transcript of a talk by David Bollier about the concept of the Commons.
Protecting our ecological commons may be the single most important arena to serve "human need, not corporate greed." It is an issue Bollier has been devoting most of his time to over the past several years (he wrote about it for CSRwire in 2010)—specifically, on developing an international legal framework to safeguard the ecological commons for present and future generations. He is joined in this work by Dr. Burns H. Weston, law professor emeritus at the University of Iowa and scholar at the UI Center for Human Rights.
Bollier and Weston's Commons Law Project could just be the most important legal initiative of our Anthropocene age. Right now, they are working on the final version of a paper, "Regenerating the Human Right To A Clean And Healthy Environment In The Commons Renaissance," which they expect to release publicly in time for The UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June. Bollier was kind enough to send me a draft copy – and it gave me hope, because it provided a kind of road map from the gridlocked mess we are in right now to a more sustainable future.
The initial question Bollier and Weston set out to answer is, "Is there already a legal basis for protecting the ecological commons?" The answer they give is "yes" and "no." First, the yes.
Bollier and Weston say the best place to ground "effective and just" jurisprudence to protect the ecological commons is in human rights law:
From a legal perspective, we believe that effective and just environmental protection is best secured via the rigorous application of a reconceptualized human right to environment. This right must both facilitate and function within a new paradigm of ecological governance that could help build a clean and healthy environment while meeting everyone's essential needs.
A reconceptualized human right to the environment could interpret already existing frameworks, like the UN Declaration on Human Rights from an environmental angle. For example, a human right to the environment could be derived from Articles #3 (the right to "life, liberty and security of person") and #25 ("Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family").
Or a human right to the environment could exist autonomously. The website Right To Environment informs the visitor: "At this time there are several regional human rights charters (African Charter and American Convention), other conventions like the Aarhus Convention, and multiple national constitutions that contain an explicit pronunciation of a human right to (a clean and healthy) environment. And late 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which in article 29 proclaims 'Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment...'"
But these rights are not robust, "limited in their legal recognition and jurisdictional reach," Bollier and Weston write. Expanding their reach and power will take a cultural change that privileges the environment over other considerations. That cultural change is already happening, with the rise of efforts for living local economies, fair trade, anti-globalization efforts, among others. But it hasn't reached critical mass. (The explosive birth and growth of the Occupy Movement – living and promoting radical democracy and values of caring for all – may be the first inkling of approaching critical mass.)
In my next post, I will explore how Bollier and Weston envision the coming together of this new human rights framework on the environment with increasing international awareness of the Commons – and how markets can take their rightful place to play a positive role within the Earth Community.
About Francesca Rheannon
Francesca is CSRwire's Talkback Managing Editor. An award-winning journalist, Francesca is co-founder of Sea Change Media. She produces the Sea Change Radio's series, Back to The Future, and co-produces the Interfaith Center of Corporate Responsibility's podcast, The Arc of Change. Francesca's work has appeared at SocialFunds.com, The CRO and E Magazine, and she is a contributing writer for CSRwire. Francesca hosts the nationally syndicated radio show, Writer's Voice with Francesca Rheannon.
This commentary is written by a valued member of the CSRwire contributing writers' community and expresses this author's views alone.
Readers: Will a human rights law protect our ecological commons? Share your thoughts on Talkback!
The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by CSRwire contributors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of CSRwire.
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In 2008 Pixar Animation Studios released "WALL•E", an animated movie that defied genre expectations. The film opens with a long chapter where the lead character is by himself, and throughout the movie, he and his romantic partner have limited verbal communication. It was a bold play, but done so well that audiences and critics responded overwhelmingly. "WALL•E" was an enormous success financially, scored 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and won the Oscar for best animated film. It is now one of the highest rated animated films in IMDb's top 250.
But the main thing was that it was so unique, it was a such an original effort… more than Pixar's prior exceptional offerings, even.
So when "Up" was released the next year, the question on everybody's mnd was, "Could Pixar do it again?"
The answer?
Yes. Yes they could.
Up begins with a romance.
A young boy and a young girl, both enamored of the adventures of explorer Charles Muntz, meet and form a "club" together. After a disastrous first meeting that leaves the boy in a cast, the two bond over dreams of adventure while he recuperates. A quick flash forward, and the two are married. The couple discuss having a child, but learn that they're unable to. Moving forward with their lives, they decide instead to save for a journey to Paradise Falls – the spot they dreamed of adventuring to as children. Which doesn't always go according to plan. Life has a way of creating other priorities, and their savings are often diverted to more mundane, domestic needs.
A held hand, watching clouds… "Up" shows us two people in love, living a life together. With a montage of her tightening his tie each morning, the years pass. Just as real years do. Day flows into day and year into year. Yet the two stay very much in love. A gaze in the mirror at each other, a waltz by candlelight. Their love stays strong their entire lives.
They never do make Paradise Falls, though. He buys them tickets, realizing their window of opportunity may be passing… but it's too late. They discover she's ill and soon thereafter, she passes on.
It's a segment that runs eleven and a half minutes. It's wordless, yet powerfully evocative. Tender. It may be one of the most touching segments in animated film history. The animators at Pixar encapsulated an entire life spent together, with all its sweetness and sorrow. It's a wonderful sequence, but also a unique one. It's not something you'd expect from an animated film – from what's ostensibly a children's move.
And yet Pixar let "Up" open with it, to great effect.
From that point forward, not only are you emotionally invested in the character, you're invested in his journey. As he embarks on his mission to reach Paradise Falls, you know exactly what that means to him. It's not simply some abject goal, some meaningless mission. It's a promise and a wish. It's about fulfilling a dream that he and his dearly beloved wife both shared. Instead of telling us that, Pixar patiently invests the time in showing it to us, so that we could feel it for ourselves.
It also establishes the thematic question that makes "Up" so unique in the realm of animated fare. What is life about, once the person you've lived for has passed? Without her, his daily existence is a monotonous one. A dreary exercise in dragging himself out of bed and downstairs in order to sit on his porch or in front of his tv.
Carl, left alone, stubbornly refuses to sell the house that he and his wife lived in, even though construction rages around him. Eventually, though he's unable to hold the construction team off any longer. Faced with being put in a retirement home after an altercation with a construction worker, Carl decides instead to do something adventurous. A balloon salesman by trade, Carl attaches thousands of helium balloons to his house and lets them lift the house into the sky.
His dream? To float the house to Paradise Falls.
What he doesn't realize is that he's not alone. Russell, who was asking to assist him earlier in order to earn a merit badge, was trapped on his porch during lift-off. A hyper-talkative young boy is the furthest thing from what Carl wanted, but there's nothing he can do. They're 20,000 feet in the air. He's stuck with him
Once they (quickly) arrive in South America, "Up" begins to shift towards an exciting action/adventure movie.
The house touches ground, tossing Carl and Russell overboard. They're barely able to hang on to it by grabbing the garden hose. What they discover is that they've landed near Paradise Falls, but not on Paradise Falls. Thus, Carl needs to walk the house around to his destination before the balloons lose their helium and the house lands permanently.
During their journey around the crescent-shaped plateau, however, they become embroiled in his idol's quest for redemption. Yes, Charles Muntz, whom he and his wife had idolized in their youth, is still alive and still pursuing the elusive bird that caused him to be scientifically discredited so many decades ago.
Muntz, who lives aboard his blimp, the "Spirit of Adventure", has bred a small army of dogs in order to hunt the elusive giant do-do-like creature. He's equipped them with tracking devices, communication systems, cameras, and perhaps most impressively, translators. Muntz's dogs are able to speak.
As fate would have it, Russell's innocence is able to bring them into contact with the bird that Muntz has spent decades hunting. He simply gives it some chocolate, and they become friends. None of this sits well with the cranky Carl, of course. Nor does the arrival of one of Muntz's dogs… the kindhearted Dug, who doesn't fit in well with his well-trained brethren, but fits right in with the ragtag band that Carl and Russell are developing.
Once the four of them have banded together, they're forced to evade and often escape Muntz and his dogs. The single-minded Muntz will stop at nothing to capture his prize, even if that means endangering Carl, Russell, and Dug. Action and excitement ensue. The floating house is dragged along as Carl, Russell, Dug flee pursuit. Eventually the action takes to the air as house-blimp meets balloon-house in the battle for the bird.
Given the shift in tone and pacing that "Up" undergoes, a detractor might say that "Up" degenerates into something closer to standard fare after its midpoint. But that's not the case at all. Not only is the action portion of "Up" phenomenally well done, it also serves to strengthen the film thematically.
Carl insists on dragging his house to the falls, until the events surrounding him cause him to make choices about what's important. The film's action serves to create situations where Carl needs to unburden himself of carrying so many memories in order to live in the now. At one point he has to discard his possessions in order to lighten the house for flight, and eventually, he has to part ways with the house itself. But unlike Muntz, who is consumed by his obsessions and his past, Carl's willingness to move on with his life rewards him handsomely.
He has found something to care about beyond his departed wife, their home, and the dream they once shared together.
"Up" won the Academy Award for Best Animated Film and Best Score. It was also nominated for Best Picture. It continued Pixar's string of massively successful and critically adored films. In fact, along with its predecessor "Wall*E", "Up" helped firmly establish the studio's reputation for high quality animated works that weren't pressed from the same mold as other animated movies.
"Up" bucks the boundaries of typical animated fare by presenting a lonesome, geriatric hero, on an atypical quest, who accepts the company of his motley crew begrudgingly at best. Yet the movie manages to be bright, colorful, exhilarating and optimistic. It's an beautiful, meaningful movie, with an abundance of soul. For a "children's" flim, it has amazing moments of tenderness and depth. It's a story that illustrates the power of keeping an open heart through every phase of life. How willingness and a spirit of adventure can lead to a fulfilling experience, no matter how old you are.
It's definitely a "Movie That Everyone Should See".

subset: commoncrawl


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A year ago, Christina Beyor was content working out at her local Curves gym. After a significant weight loss, she was determined to keep the pounds off by exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy diet.
In January, however, at the urging of her friends, she broke out of her comfort zone and joined a new gym. Then she signed up for the Mud Hero obstacle race this June at Mont Habitant.
"A bunch of my friends were doing it, so I thought why not?" Beyor said of her decision to give obstacle racing a try.
Beyor knows that the 15-obstacle, six-kilometre course will be like nothing she has done before, which is why she signed up for a 10-week training program offered at her gym.
"It's tougher than I expected," Beyor, 34, said of her new workout regimen.
Beyor is one of the growing number of exercisers who have set their sites on completing an obstacle race, an event that demands endurance, strength and the mental toughness to not just go the distance, but to complete a number of physically challenging obstacles positioned between the start and finish lines.
Course lengths vary from five to 20 kilometres and feature from 15 to 25 obstacles, including climbing a rope, crawling under barbed wire, scaling a wall and jumping over fire.
Most start with a significant off-road climb that favours runners and follows with a series of obstacles that vary in difficulty and number according to the race.
Originally designed to test the mettle of the super-fit, the demographic of obstacle racing is changing to include a variety of ages and fitness levels.
To meet this boom in demand, fitness clubs are starting to offer specific training to better prepare participants like Beyor for the unique physical challenges of this increasingly popular sport.
Louise Brunet of Monkey Bar Gym in Pointe-Claire offers a 10-week prep course for obstacle racing. Knowing that traditional workouts won't transfer into success on the obstacle-course circuit, she created a workout plan that will make crossing the finish line easier. Fifty people, including Beyor, have signed up for the class, which started March 16.
"Our motto (at Monkey Bar Gym) is run, jump, crawl, climb, so it fits perfectly with what we do," Brunet said.
Held outdoors, no matter the weather, the training program begins with basic running drills mixed with callisthenics like squats, lunges and pushups, and progresses to pulling weighted sleds, piggyback races, rope climbing, throwing sandbags and hopping over and crawling under park equipment.
Andrew Ford signed up for three obstacle races this spring, so he has a lot invested in getting the right training. It's his first foray into obstacle racing and he's counting on Brunet's classes to get him in good enough shape not just to finish but to be competitive.
"I figured why not?" Ford said of his reason to tackle three obstacle races. "I'm trying to push myself to see if I can do it."
Ford is confident in his fitness, but admits that he needs to work on a few of the unique skills required to complete the course.
"I haven't climbed a rope since gym class in elementary or high school," he said with a laugh.
It's the diversity of the obstacles, and fitness needed to complete them, that appeal to Ford. It's also what makes Brunet's prep classes integral to success. Exercisers not only build overall strength and endurance, but they're better prepared for whatever comes their way.
Glenn Washer, 48, took the obstacle-course prep classes last year and had a great experience at the 2013 edition of the Montreal Spartan Race. This year, he's taking the classes again along with his wife and two sons, age 12 and 15, all of whom are participating in the Spartan race in May.
"We like to have something to train for," he said.
Despite a family who competes in triathlons and a wife who runs half-marathons, Washer notes that it takes more than aerobic endurance to finish an obstacle race.
"At the end of last year's course, we had to swing from monkey bars, swing from rings and climb up a rope all in sequence, which was all upper-body work," he said. "Anyone who didn't complete the obstacles had to do 30 burpees. I did quite a few burpees last year," he admitted.
Washer vowed to enter this year's race stronger and more prepared than last year.
It's that kind of competitive spirit that obstacle racing counts on to fill its calendar. And while the goal of obstacle racing is to cross the finish line, the real motivation to fill out a registration form is to test your physical limits. The other attraction is the training itself, which adds some much-needed change to the average gym routine.
But it's not just the physical benefits that keep obstacle racers coming back for more. There's a social aspect to the training that, like the race itself, focuses on teamwork and camaraderie.
"It's the highlight of my day," Ford said of his workouts. "The people there are my friends and we all motivate each other."
Beyor agreed. "It's hard work, but so much fun," she said. "It doesn't feel like exercise."
Twitter: jillebarker


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Giving Voice to Students Through "This I Believe" Podcasts
|9 – 12
|Lesson Plan Type
|Estimated Time
|Ten 50-minute sessions
|Lesson Author
Mason, Michigan
According to the National Public Radio website, the "This I Believe" series is "a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives." In this lesson, students participate by writing and recording their own essays. Students first complete a series of activities designed to get them thinking and writing about their experiences. They then write, read, and record their essays for a class blog. The final activity has students comment on each other's work. Designed specifically for disabled students, the lesson also includes suggestions for use in inclusive classrooms.
- The Top 10 Lessons I Learned From Charlie Brown: Students will find this handout inspiring and thought-provoking as they examine their own personal experiences to use in their essays.
- Creating, Editing, and Posting Podcasts handout: This helpful handout contains a detailed explanation of the steps to take to create a podcast.
Kajder, S. (2004). Plugging in: What technology brings to the English/language arts classroom. Voices from the Middle. 11, 6-9.
There are many reasons for "extending ideas about literacy and for teaching with new technologies and mass media" including the "prevalence of electronic media and popular culture in students' lives," the importance of making homeschool connections, and also simply the fact that these extensions can make both learning and teaching more fun and interesting.
Kajder, S. (2004). Enter here: Personal narrative and digital storytelling. English Journal. 93, 64-68.


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001. Its my brothers birthday today and we just celebrated with cake and champagne! Although I've saved my champers for later and opted for a mug of tea instead! We had this awesome meal (well mine was nice, everyone else said theirs was a bit blah!) last night at this little restaurant in town, with the lushet bit of steak I've ever had! I've been telling everyone he was 16 today, when he literally was like "Im 17" I was like... OH. Im a bad sister!
002. Went shopping earlier today too, Bought HD webcam because I figured I didnt really need a camcorder as I was literally only going to be using it for Youtube stuff. However being a total dunce I didnt check if it was fully compatible with a Mac. It does work but the settings arent fully accessible and wont record in full HD, despite its claims. I think Im going to take it back, Hopefully I can get one that works with a Mac, although its proving harder than I imagined! If all else fails I'll probably just spend the extra money and get a proper camcorder.
003. Didn't like this week's X factor one bit! Thought it was boring, lackluster and felt like it was just there. Of course my main man Matt Cardle did an amazing job, I actually have goose bumps! He has real star quality for sure! Fingers crossed Katie will go this week, The thing is I don't hate her voice, I just cant warm to her as a person, She seems like a fame hungry attention seeker, She comes across like a diva and then acts like a child when it comes around. I think Wagners time is up though, I dont think I can sit through another performance of his!
004. Just want to alert you all to a little cause called Movember! Its a cause that aims to bring awareness to forms of male cancer. Now as you may or may not know my best friend died of cancer earlier in the year. I think we don't hear half enough about cancer in men. Beth's boyfriend is growing a tash in aid of the cause this year, If you'd like to support him (and keep track of tash growth!) you can do it here. If i had the ability to grow one I totes would! I love moustaches!
005. Five to Follow: Lauren, Vicki, Boo, Ulrika & Lauren
PS. Will be doing my usual Sunday night BlogTV at 9pm (GMT) till 10pm! Follow me on Twitter for the link!


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Ed Wood
I readily admit that among my favorite films some are more naturally enjoyable than others. I've enjoyed the films of Guy Maddin and Godard and Bergman I've seen, but their films are generally not those I'm going to put on after a few drinks on a Saturday night. That sacred time slot is reserved for The Girl Can't Help It or All about Eve or True Romance. A really brilliantly made film designed to be popular with lots of people is my favorite kind of film, truth be told. Ed Wood is a superb film that should have been a hit with audiences but was inexplicably not. I'd lump similarly marvelous entertainments, Quiz Show and L.A. Confidential, into this category as well. The fact that they were celebrated by critics and not particularly popular with the public is just another piece of evidence that I don't understand the American public very much at all.
Ed Wood is Tim Burton's lost classic. He was sent into movie director purgatory because of its dismal box office performance and it took several films (mostly remakes) to regain his stature as an auteur with box office clout. Ed Wood is Burton's ode to the auteur, in this case a hopeless kind of auteur. It's a celebration of the kind of director who stays defiantly, naively, but always sincerely true to his own cinematic vision. Ed Wood the man is notorious as one of the worst directors who ever made movies in Hollywood. Burton uses Wood's life and career as a means to examine the pressures on an artist as he tries to turn his vision into reality. The film is also a touching story of friendship between a Hollywood monster movie has-been (Martin Landau playing Bela Lugosi) and the ultimate Hollywood outsider working on the fringe of the poverty row film industry. It's also a love letter of sorts to a Hollywood that no longer exists—Hollywood the small town with its crazy hat-shaped restaurants and eccentric, seedy show people. Not since Edward Scissorhands had Burton made such a personal film about the life of an artist.Continue Reading
Ed Wood
Over the decades, Tim Burton has made himself into a brand name (mostly off the success of his earlier films). While he is a master of images and ideas inspired by comic books, B-movies and campy pop culture, the story and payoff rarely lived up to the potential. After an impressive run of films about outsiders like Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands (and the box office bonanza of Batman and Batman Returns), Burton peaked with what is still his best movie, a biography of the beloved, transvestite director of horrible films, Edward D. Wood, Jr., titled appropriately enough Ed Wood. The flick follows Wood in his "Golden Period" of the 1950s and his collaboration and friendship with has-been horror icon Bela Lugosi on three quickie cheapies, Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster and his Citizen Kane, Plan 9 from Outer Space. All three films are on the Mount Rushmore of so-bad-they-are-good movie classics. Wood's best qualities may have been his enthusiasm and an ability to build a stable of oddball friends who took part in his projects. Burton has managed to craft both a moving tribute to a talentless dreamer and a perfect scene-for-scene recreation of those hilarious films.
The film is shot in gorgeous black and white by cinematographer Stefan Czapsky (Last Exit to Brooklyn), and instead of the usual Danny Elfman score this one is provided by Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings), who brings a fun mix of sci-fi and conga room. Based on the book Nightmare of Ecstasy by Rudolph Grey, the script was written by the screenwriting duo of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (who were hot in the quirky bio business, also penning The People vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon, as well as the Problem Child movies and TV series). Ed Wood marks the second of at least seven films Burton has made with Johnny Depp. And the casting of Depp at the time was really ingenious; who knew the pretty-boy had such creative chops? Depp wonderfully infuses Wood with an ah-shucks charm; everything seems to give Wood zeal. Always the optimist, Wood believes in everything, whether it's his inept actors, sets, shots or his girlfriend's sweaters--or the belief in the stardom of Lugosi who, at this point, was a heroin addict with failing health and is played beautifully by Martin Landau. When Wood sees Criswell (Jeffrey Jones), a TV psychic, make ridiculous predictions, he believes him. He spots Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson (George "The Animal" Steele) in the ring, and instantly sees a great actor. And these random people that Wood meets along the way and in whom he believes join him in his own dream of making movies, and in turn believe in him. It's a motley group that includes Bunny Breckinridge (Bill Murray), a homosexual in search of a sex change operation who is most memorable as The Ruler in Plan 9 from Outer Space, and eventually the horror show hostess Vampira (Lisa Marie), plus assorted goofy crew members. They forge an "Island of Misfit Toys" style family; think Wes Anderson without all the preciousness.Continue Reading


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Bruckner, Symphony No. 5
BBC Symphony Orchestra, conduced by Günter Wand
ICA Classics DVD ICAD 5049
Bruckner, Symphony No. 7
Boston Symphony Orchestra, conduced by Klaus Tennstedt
ICA Classics DVD ICAD 5066
ICA Classics is the in-house label of the International Classical Artists artist management agency. It puts out historical recordings in its Legacy series, as well as live recordings of its own artists in its Live series. The Legacy series has four Bruckner DVD recordings – in addition to the two reviewed here, the catalog features Bruckner's 8th, played by the Boston Symphony under William Steinberg and the 7th, played by Charles Munch, also with the Boston Symphony. (Click here for my review of the Steinberg recording.) The Wand 5th was recorded live at the Proms in September 1990, when Wand was a sprightly 78, while the Tennstedt 7th was captured in November 1977, relatively early in Tennstedt's career outside East Germany (he had defected only in 1971).
The Günter Wand DVD has a bonus interview with the conductor – Michael Berkeley is the interviewer (although in 2'54" there is not much time for him to shape the conversation!). Wand says some very insightful things about Bruckner, and it is definitely worth watching the interview before listening to the performance. One thing Wand emphasizes is the importance of steady tempi in Bruckner – as he puts it, "rubato can make the whole edifice collapse".
The 5th Symphony, Bruckner's most austere work, is very well suited to Wand's architectural approach, particularly in the last movement where pride of place is taken by a fugue and then a magnificent double fugue. Wand delivers a very compelling performance. His conducting is light on gesture and emphasis, but communicates a clear vision of the 5th symphony's complex structure. The final coda rightfully brought the house down.
Tennstedt has a very different conducting style to Wand. He is much more prone to rubato and variable tempi. Some passages sound as slow as I can remember hearing them. The comparison between Wand and Tennstedt is very much between Wand's structural conception and Tennstedt's emphasis on shaping the individual phrase – wood vs. trees, one might put it, a little unkindly. Of the four movements, the Adagio emerged most clearly in Tennstedt's hands. The structure was brought out, while there was wonderful attention to sonic detail. The coda was played almost like a piece of chamber music. Overall, however, the performance does not convince.
The sound in the Wand recording is good, while the Tennstedt recording leaves something to be desired (with the strings sounding a little subdued, although the brass emerges clearly). Brucknerians will certainly want to add the Wand to their ever-expanding Wand discography. The Tennstedt is for enthusiasts only, however.


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Henrik's debut album Faction is out now. The digipak CD contains 2 exclusive bonus tracks.
The Wellingtons new album Heading North For The Winter is out now. The CD version contains 4 bonus tracks - 1 new song, 2 acoustic versions and a cover of The Posies classic "Conversations".
Farrah are currently in the studio and about half way through a new album. Should be out early-to-mid 2009.
We'd also like to welcome Caroline Lost to the family. Her debut album One More Nail will be out in 2009. In the meantime you can hear her song Stars covered by Morcheeba singer Skye in the trailer for The Secret Of Moonacre. Her own track "Still In The Game" is being used as the title music, and in the trailer, for the new Burt Reynolds / Imelda Staunton / Derek Jacobi film A Bunch of Amateurs, out later this year.


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Today the pop star, wife and mom turns 31-years-old. From her days in Destiny's Child to her transformation into Sasha Fierce, here's a look at five of her best looks over the years.
(Chris Weeks/Getty Images)
A young Beyonce shows some leg during her Destiny's Child days at the 2001 MTV Movie Awards.
(Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
Less than a year after their wedding, Beyonce plays it casual alongside her husband at the 58th NBA All-Star Game during the 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend.
(Ian Gavan/Getty Images)
Beyonce channels Tina Turner in her legendary Glastonbury performance in 2011.
(Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
Beyonce shows off her baby bump for the first time at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.
(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
Beyonce was the talk of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala this past May with her see-through number demonstrating that she still remains a fashion icon.
-Annie Reuter, CBS Local
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The Reformer (Austin, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 3, Ed. 1, Saturday, July 1, 1871
Description: Weekly newspaper from Austin, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with some advertising.
Date: July 1, 1871
Creator: Moore, William B. & Cassidy, James B.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Newspaper
Partner: The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History


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Word-of-Mouth Ads, for a Fee: Dynamic Signal Raises $13 Million From Venrock, Time Warner
No one's quite sure how social networks like Facebook will mesh with advertising.
But everyone is convinced they're going to be important, which has meant good things for a bunch of companies that help brands manage their social presence — ask the guys writing checks at Salesforce and Oracle, for starters.
Here's another: Dynamic Signal, which describes itself as a "social CRM" platform, has raised a $13.3 million B round led by Venrock. Time Warner's venture arm is also getting into the deal, and previous funders, who put $8 million into the company, including Trinity Ventures and Cox Enterprises, have re-upped.
Plain-English definition of "social CRM": Dynamic Signal offers a white-labeled community-management platform, which helps brands find and recruit online fans, and gives them tools that will let fans evangelize on behalf of their favorite products, across the Web.
Another way of thinking about it: Remember the brief vogue for "street teams," which were supposed to push stuff for record labels and other youth-liking brands at the end of the late '90s? This is a more formalized way of generating that "earned media," available via a software-as-service model.
Adify CEO Russ Fradin says he'll charge his largest customer north of $5 million next year, while his smallest will pay around $75,000.
Here, for instance, are some examples of stuff that fans of Oakley's women sports clothes have been posting about their favorite bras, swimsuits, yoga pants, etc. Among other things, Dynamic Signal helps Oakley and other brands run fan sites that make it easy to share that stuff (note the button on the top right), and push it out to platforms like Facebook and Twitter and blogs; it will also help them track the impact all those shares have.
There are a bunch of companies that take on some of the stuff Dynamic Signal is doing here, but the company is still worth paying attention to, at the very least because of its leadership. Fradin and his co-founders are best known as the guys who built and sold ad network Adify to Cox for $300 million in 2008, and Fradin commands a lot of respect from ad tech folks.


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The Drive to 25
The road conditions have suddenly become unsafe for driving. Please stay in your houses. And stay out of your living rooms, because I might crash through those. That's right, I can drive. Well, I am allowed to drive. Whether or not I am able to is still being questioned.
This week, just about a month before my 25th birthday, I got my driver's license. For those of you just tuning in, I grew up in New York and never needed one. For those of you who have been with me a while, I know I promised I'd get one by New Year's. What I didn't realize is that my friends were terrified of me practicing in their cars. (Good call, guys).
I tried to get my license earlier. I got my New York permit four years ago, and drove occasionally with my father. My mother wouldn't ride in a car with me. Which makes sense because she gets nervous riding with someone who DOESN'T have the potential to kill everyone in a fiery crash.
So I kept driving with my father whenever he could, and took the test this May--WAY before I was ready. I took it again a few weeks later, which was only a little bit less WAY before I was ready. It was like a 12-year-old taking the SAT. Sure, he might be able to finish the test. But he's not getting into Harvard at 12. Penn, maybe, but not Harvard. (Sorry. That's just leftover spite from losing so many basketball games.)
After that second time, I decided I would actually pay for some lessons. I had not yet had any official car lessons. When I went for my 5-hour certification class (a requisite of a New York license), I was the only one who showed up. So the instructor signed my papers without the class and told me to go home and not tell anyone about it. So keep that quiet, okay?
I took two lessons once I moved to California for $85 a piece. The lessons consisted of one hour of lesson and one hour of sitting in traffic while we went to pick up the next student. My friend Heather was nice enough to give me one last day of driving before she took me to my test. She also took me home once her turn signal burnt out ON THE WAY TO THE TEST, preventing me from taking it. In New York, you don't need a working turn signal to take the driver's test, but you do in California. That's odd, since no one uses them anyway.
So I scheduled another exam, and this time I paid $70 to have a driving school take me there. I failed that one when I didn't stop for a fire engine traveling in the opposite direction three lanes away. I didn't know that rule, and so I learned to stop the next time. And I also learned that taking the test with a driving school also included an hour of lesson before the test. Which was $15 cheaper than straight up paying for a lesson. So it was cheaper to just keep taking the exam until I passed. So I did that. A few times.
That's right - I failed the road test four times. Is that a record? Possibly. I've never heard of anyone failing it more. Probably because the people who failed it five times either keep quiet about it or stop driving when they crash into someone's living room.
I had to go to the DMV ten times to complete this process. There were the five tests, the time I couldn't take the test, the time I got my New York permit, the time I got my California permit, the time I tried to get my California permit but went to a DMV that no longer gives permit tests, and the time I tried to get my California permit but didn't have a CERTIFIED copy of my birth certificate. I did bring a "copy of a birth certificate" like the instructions said. When I asked if they understood how that can be taken to mean a "copy of a birth certificate" they agreed, and said that they'll change it as soon as I go home and leave them alone.
10 visits to the DMV. And wow, was it worth it. I love the freedom of driving, and I love not having to ask people for a ride. But what I love most is not being made fun of anymore.
When I was 20, I made a list of things I wanted to do by the time I was 25. I posted the list on my wall, and would check things off as they happened. Interview a hall of fame baseball player, visit more than 30 states, write a book. Sometimes someone would see the list. Everytime, they'd skip right over the cool stuff I did accomplish and say, "Woah, you don't know how to drive? What's wrong with you?" And this was in New York.
So a big middle finger to everyone who thought I couldn't do it, especially several driving examiners. I finally passed (thanks in big part to my friend Neil, who let me co-opt his car for a weekend) and I rented a car for a few weeks while I look for something more permanent. I've already put almost 300 miles on it, and I intend to put a few more.
How many miles is it from here to your living room?


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Melbourne goes mexican
Sophistication is not generally the hallmark of Mexican food, which is known for its heat and heaviness, as in chili con carne and cheese nachos, which are substantial to say the least. Paco's Tacos does things differently. The newly opened restaurant in Melbourne's Ringwood suburb serves fresh, healthy Mexican street food in a family atmosphere. Drinks naturally include the classic Frozen Margarita


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OAKLAND (AP) — Brandon Moss hit a two-run homer and a solo shot for his third career two-homer game, and the Oakland Athletics beat the New York Yankees 5-2 on Wednesday night to win their 10th straight home game.
Moss' power stroke helped Dan Straily (4-2) win his third consecutive decision.
Moss hit his 10th homer in the second inning and 11th with a solo drive in the eighth. He also connected twice April 29 against the Angels. Of his five hits over 40 at-bats in his last 19 games, all are home runs.
John Jaso added an RBI double and a run-scoring single in Oakland's 10th consecutive home victory. The A's (40-27) won for the 20th time in 25 games and are off to their best start since 1990.
Brett Gardner drew a one-out walk in the sixth to end a stretch of 11 straight Yankees retired by Straily. Robinson Cano singled and Mark Teixeira hit a sacrifice fly.
New York missed a scoring chance during an odd sequence in the seventh.
Jayson Nix hit a two-out RBI single and stole second. With Nix as the potential tying run, Lyle Overbay came out to pinch-hit with a 1-0 count already against Austin Romine. A's manager Bob Melvin then made his own switch, to reliever Sean Doolittle.
Chris Stewart came on to pinch-hit for Overbay, who never reached the batter's box but was credited for appearing in the game. Stewart struck out to end the inning.
Doolittle then pitched a perfect eighth before Grant Balfour finished for his 17th save of the season and 35th in a row dating to April 29, 2012. He retired Nix on a broken-bat comebacker to end it with runners on first and second.
Straily, coming off a pair of no-decisions, allowed two or fewer runs for the fourth time in five outings. He gave up two runs and three hits in 6 2/3 innings.
Oakland owns its longest unbeaten streak at home since another 10-game run from Aug. 11 to Sept. 1, 2006. The A's secured their first season series victory against the Yankees since going 4-2 in 2007.
Moss sent the first pitch he saw from Phil Hughes (3-5) over the right-field scoreboard in the second following Josh Reddick's leadoff single.
After a 1-2-3 fourth inning, Hughes issued a leadoff walk to Eric Sogard in the fifth. Jaso's double one out later and another walk to Seth Smith ended the right-hander's night.
Hughes walked a season-high five and lost for the third time in four decisions. He allowed three runs on four hits and struck out three in 4 1-3 innings. He hadn't walked more than two batters all season before this game.
The Yankees haven't hit a home run in a season-high five straight games — the club's longest drought since also going five games from May 17-21, 2006.
NOTES: Yankees RHP Michael Pineda, working his way back from shoulder surgery 14 months ago, threw a 75-pitch bullpen session. He had been set to pitch in a minor league game this weekend but instead will throw a simulated game Friday at the team's complex in Tampa, Fla. "This way we can control it," manager Joe Girardi said. "The other day he had one long inning. If Tampa would have been at home he would have pitched in that game." ... A's CF Coco Crisp is nursing a bruised heel — which happened sometime after his first-inning home run Tuesday before his next at-bat — and sat out after hitting home runs the previous two games. "He felt it when he got up this morning," Melvin said. "He felt better when he got to the park and got some treatment. We won't take any chances with him but if he comes in tomorrow and feels like he's close to 100 percent, there's the potential for him to play." ... A's LF Yoenis Cespedes also was sidelined because of tightness in his left hamstring that forced him to leave after the second inning Tuesday. ... RHP Jarrod Parker (5-6) pitches the series finale for the A's on Thursday afternoon opposite Hiroki Kuroda (6-5). ... Gardner failed to get a hit for just the third time in 19 games since May 24.
OAKLAND (AP) — Brandon Moss hit a two-run homer and a solo shot for his third career two-homer game, and the Oakland Athletics beat the New York Yankees 5-2 on Wednesday night to win their 10th straight home game.


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- Live Stats (vs. Penn)
- Ivy League Digital Network (vs. Penn)
- Live Stats (at CCSU)
- Video (at CCSU)
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Unbeaten over the last four games, Harvard women's soccer heads into Ivy League play this weekend, matching up against Penn on Friday, Sept. 27 at 5 p.m. The Crimson then head to Central Connecticut State University for a 6 p.m. kickoff Sunday at CCSU Soccer Field.
Ivy League Digital Network
Four of Harvard's home matches – including Friday's contest against Penn – will be streamed in HD quality featuring a live scoreboard, new graphics package and play-by-play commentary through the Ivy League Digital Network. Subscribers to the network can watch contests both live and on-demand at their convenience, and will have access to live and on-demand content for all home Harvard athletics events throughout the duration of their subscription.
Home Cookin'
The Crimson holds a 16-4-5 record since moving to Soldiers Field Soccer Stadium.
Last Time Out
The Crimson took down UMass Lowell, 5-0, Sunday afternoon at Cushing Field Stadium Complex. The five scores marked the most for Harvard since 2004 and four players posted their first career points for Harvard. On Friday, freshman Midge Purce posted her first multi-goal game as Harvard defeated Rhode Island, 2-0, at Soldiers Field Soccer Stadium.
Follow Harvard Athletics on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay connected with all the breaking news from around Cambridge and to get inside access to your favorite Crimson programs.
Fresh Faces
Six Crimson freshmen have started at least one game this season, led by Bailey Gary who has started all seven at back. Eight rookies have seen action and freshmen Purce (nine) and Joan Fleischman (three) sit atop the team lead in points. Freshmen and sophomores have combined for 17 of the Crimson's 31 points through seven games this season.
Share the Wealth
Twelve (12) Crimson athletes have registered a point this season. Six Harvard players – Purce, Fleischman, Garrido, Aguilar, Margolius and Zlatic – all recorded their first career points this season.
Depth in Net
Three goalkeepers have started between the pipes for the Crimson and will rotate in net. Junior Bethany Kanten has earned four starts, seeing 225 minutes in net and posting a 1.60 GAA. Junior Cheta Emba has started two games, maintaining a 0.37 GAA (245 minutes). Freshman Lizzie Durack (1-0) – coming off an UEFA finals appearance with England's U19 team – earned her first career win in 90 minutes against LIU and has logged 180 minutes with a 0.50 GAA.
All-Time Against...
Harvard holds the all-time advantage over Penn (16-6-2) in a series that dates back to 1982, although the competition has been heated as of late. The Quakers have maintained a 3-2 advantage over the last five meetings (since 2008). Last season, Penn escaped with a 1-0 victory in Philadelphia, but Harvard earned the win in 2011, 2-0. Against the Blue Devils, the Crimson holds a 5-2-1 edge, playing to a 0-0 draw last season.
Scouting Penn (4-0-2)
Pacing the Quakers is senior Kerry Scalora with eight points (3 g, 2 a) through six games. Freshman Tahirih Nesmith has added three goals, including one game winner. Sophomore Kalijah Terilli has seen the most action between the pipes, allowing just two goals this season (both against Old Dominion). Before a 2-2 draw with ODU on Sunday, Penn had not allowed a score this season, shutting out five-straight opponents. Head coach Darren Ambrose, the program's all-time winningest coach, has 13 years of experience and an overall record of 132-67-30.
Scouting CCSU (2-6)
CCSU will have a seven-day rest before facing off against the Crimson, holding a 2-6 overall record. The Blue Devils are paced by junior Julie Lavoie with four points, while Jewel Robinson and Morgan Santoro each have a goal and an assist apiece. Nikola Deiter will be between the pipes, maintaining a 1.87 GAA with 40 saves. Head coach Mike D'Arcy, the winningest coach in CCSU program history, holds a 128-98-23 record in his 13th season.
Close Calls
Five of Harvard's seven matches have been decided by one goal or less.
Looking Ahead
A four-game road trip continues Saturday, Oct. 5 at Yale. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. at Reese Stadium.


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• Jan. 2, 2004 | 9 p.m. ET
Hunt for a Martian Beagle: Has the Beagle landed? Scientists at the European Space Agency and Britain's Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council haven't yet given up on the hunt for their Beagle 2 lander, which has been silent since well before its scheduled Christmas Day landing on Mars. The next best opportunity to make contact comes at 7:13 a.m. ET next Wednesday, when Europe's Mars Express orbiter is due to pass directly over Beagle's supposed landing site, says Mars Express project scientist Agustin Chicarro.
In the week since it entered into Martian orbit, Mars Express hasn't gotten as much ink as Beagle or the NASA rover assault that is due to begin Saturday. But European controllers have been steadily working to get the orbiter ready to join the Beagle hunt and conduct its own scientific observations. The probe's first picture taken from Martian orbit could be released as early as this weekend, Chicarro said during a Planetary Society teleconference with journalists today.
On Sunday, Mars Express will fire its thruster to settle into its regular polar orbit, and then try making contact with Beagle 2. Past attempts, using NASA's Mars Odyssey and Britain's Jodrell Bank radio telescope, have been unsuccessful — either because the Beagle has broken, or because its 5-watt antenna is pointing the wrong way, or because the frequencies don't match up as expected.
Mars Express, however, is specifically designed to communicate with Beagle 2, and there won't be any better opportunity than the one next Wednesday. "Even if the antenna is not pointing exactly vertically, the orbiter should be able to pick it up," Chicarro said.
Controllers won't give up if contact isn't made on Wednesday. In fact, the flyover opportunity will come up every three or four days, and the Beagle is designed to take care of itself for several weeks.
"Maybe by now things will have worked, and it's taken a few pictures and is just waiting to make contact," Chicarro said hopefully.
"The kind of data it will provide will be more similar to that which you get in, for example, oil prospecting," Chicarro said.
By March, Mars Express will settle into the scientific routine it will follow for the next two to four years, conducting a full-globe survey of the surface and subsurface. If all goes well this month, at least five spacecraft — the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, and the Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express orbiters — will be in action. Beagle would make six.
"We hope that in terms of global imaging of the surface, in terns of mineralogical mapping, in terms of atmospheric composition and circulation, and in terms of water reservoirs below the surface, we could certainly provide a significant step in our understanding of Mars," Chicarro said. "And hopefully also in the life question — if Beagle is still alive, as we still hope."
To get the full story on this year's Red Planet campaign, check out our special section. And if you want to watch the story of NASA's Spirit rover unfold in real time on Saturday night, tune into NASA TV via our Go to MSN Video to watch Live Coverage of the Mars missions offerings. Briefings are scheduled at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET. Live NASA commentary is due to start at 9:45 p.m. ET, with landing expected at 11:35 p.m.
• Jan. 2, 2004 | 9 p.m. ET
Robot vs. robot: The Grand DARPA Challenge is on track for March 13: Twenty-five teams are building autonomous all-terrain vehicles to make the trip between Los Angeles and Las Vegas without the aid of human navigation. Basically, this is a test that could pave the way for future robotic battle wagons. The robo-car that clocks the shortest travel time under 10 hours would earn its team a $1 million Pentagon-funded prize.
But the Pentagon's challenge isn't the only game in town: Scores of teams that had hoped to compete were excluded, sparking an outcry detailed in The Register and on Slashdot. The result: an alternative competition, organized by a group called the International Robot Racing Federation, backed by private sponsors and tentatively scheduled for September in the Las Vegas area. Will the federation outdo the feds? Stay tuned.
• Jan. 2, 2004 | 9 p.m. ET
Feedback Friday: We're closing the books on the old business of 2003 with some of the feedback relating to stone-skipping, e-voting and pop theology.
S.K.B. from Oil City, Pa., reports that Jerry Coleman-McGhee's stone-skipping record was successfully challenged in Franklin, Pa. — and indeed, there's a report that Kurt Steiner of Kane, Pa., bested the old 38-skip mark with a 40-skip showing in 2002.
Lance Curtis on e-voting: "There's an elegant and simple solution right at our collective fingertips. The one that was always around: paper ballots. The European Union has banned voting machines. ... We should take a cue from that action. Incidents such as the one you've reported will be impossible. As long as the ballots are not handed over to a private corporation to regulate/count, no 'scrub' list is tampered with, creating a false list of ineligible voters; it will be extremely difficult for voter fraud to be perpetrated. We'll only have to worry about 'hanging chads.'"
David Knowlton, Tampa, Fla., on pop theology: "Books like 'The Da Vinci Code' are good fun. Humans look for patterns in things, however mundane, and then think they have uncovered God! My mother notes acronyms in auto license plates that correspond to the names of friends from her school days. Just good fun, unless she starts believing God is trying to communicate with her via apparent order arising out of randomness. I search for God, laugh at myself when I get it wrong and try not to work too hard at overthinking. Asking children about God might be as revealing as reading Aquinas or Bonhoeffer."
Wade Whitlock, Aberdeen, Md.: "Nothing is so useless, albeit dangerous, as the theologist. They sit, speculate and dispute about something that they cannot prove even exists and then incite wars over the disagreements. Please note, I haven't said that gods don't exist, I just can't prove the negative! ... So, until the Cosmic Overlord or whatever, gets his/her/its own column, how about we set a ground rule that if you can't see it, measure it or at least describe it mathematically, we let it die."
• Jan. 2, 2004 | 9 p.m. ET
Weekend field trips on the Web:
• "Nova" on PBS: "Mars Dead or Alive"
• The Economist: Whaling wars
• Science News: Quarks take wrong turns
• Dec. 31, 2003 | 7:15 p.m. ET
The science of skipping stones: The Guinness world record for skipping stones across the water is held by Jerry Coleman-McGhee, who achieved 38 skips in 1994 at Texas' Blanco River. Do you think you could do better? Then remember this magic number: 20 degrees.
To find what they called the "magic angle," French researchers built a stone-skipping machine that hurled aluminum disks at various velocities and angles.
"By monitoring the collision of a spinning disk with water, we have discovered that an angle of about 20 degrees between the stone and the water's surface is optimal with respect to the throwing conditions and yields the maximum possible number of bounces," the researchers wrote in the New Year's Day issue of the journal Nature.
For reasons not yet fully known, the 20-degree angle minimized the time of collision between the test disks and the water. "The amount of energy dissipated during a collision is directly proportional to the collision time," the researchers reported, and thus the disks conserved more energy to keep on skipping.
They said more analysis was needed to develop a "more detailed description of the time-dependent hydrodynamic flow around the stone."
Twenty degrees may be the "magic angle," but past research conducted by one of the members of the research team, the University of Lyon's Lydéric Bocquet, shows that other factors enter into a record-setting skip: The flat stone has to be spun with enough force to get a stabilizing gyroscopic effect, and the velocity has to be high enough to keep the stone skipping and skipping. Bocquet calculated that a 38-skip showing would require flinging a rock at 25 mph, with a spin of 840 rpm.
Humans have thrown stones at the water since time immemorial, but the researchers said their study showed there were still some things to learn about the pastime. "The ancient art of stone-skipping may therefore benefit from modern scientific insight," they said.
• Dec. 31, 2003 | 7:15 p.m. ET
Galaxies on the edge: The latest imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope targets two galaxy clusters from the young universe — in one case, 9 billion years ago, and in the other, more than 12 billion years ago.
"These findings further support observations and theories that galaxies formed relatively early in the history of the cosmos," the Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute says. "The existence of such massive clusters in the early universe agrees with a cosmological model wherein clusters form from the merger of many sub-clusters in a universe dominated by cold dark matter. The precise nature of cold dark matter, however, is still not known."
Check out the report at HubbleSite.org for more on the findings and the imagery.
• Dec. 31, 2003 | 7:15 p.m. ET
More light on dark energy: Speaking of dark matters, Nature also has published new research supporting the idea that most of the universe's content consists of a mysterious dark energy that is causing galaxies to fly apart at an accelerating rate. During the past year, astronomical surveys confirmed the existence of dark energy, and the editors of the journal Science rated such research the top scientific breakthrough of 2003. The new findings, based on an analysis of radio galaxies and X-ray galaxy clusters, help fill out the time line for dark energy's effect. To learn more, check out the University of Portsmouth's report.
• Dec. 31, 2003 | 7:15 p.m. ET
Ringing out the old: Cosmic Log will go dark on New Year's Day, but you can expect to see e-mail feedback on e-voting , pop theology and more on Friday. In the meantime, keep an eye out for Saturn and Stardust .
• Dec. 31, 2003 | 7:15 p.m. ET
Quick scientific skips to ring in the new:
• Nature: Dead comet spawned New Year meteors
• National Geographic's top 10 stories of 2003
• Discovery.com: Champagne bubble mystery uncorked
• Dec. 30, 2003 | 8 p.m. ET
Putting Mars on the Web: When the Mars Pathfinder probe and its Sojourner rover landed on the Red Planet in 1997, NASA was overwhelmed by 17.3 million Web visits during the first month of the mission. Next month, two NASA rovers are scheduled to hit Mars, and the Web traffic is sure to be even heavier. But this time around, the space agency is benefiting from what's been learned about managing Internet data in the past six and a half years.
This time around, when you click onto NASA's portal for the Mars missions, you'll be routed automatically to the data server that can best handle your traffic. If you're in Sydney, for example, you might well snag the rovers' latest panorama from a computer in Australia without ever being routed through the States.
"It's a little like mirror sites, but it will be invisible to the public," said Michelle Viotti, manager for Mars public engagement at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "They will be routed to whichever server worldwide has the least amount of traffic."
To plan for the Web rush, NASA reviewed Internet traffic patterns from Feb. 1, when the shuttle Columbia was lost, as well as the Olympic Games. The load could surge dramatically, based on how the images come in and how the missions are covered on TV, said Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect for NASA Web infrastructure.
"We expect that we could see as many as 200,000 simultaneous people coming in. ... We expect to see this very spiky kind of traffic, and that's typical for NASA events," she said. "We've prepared our infrastructure to handle that dynamic flexibility."
In the course of an hour, millions of Internet users might surf through NASA's network, she said — reaching levels comparable to the 3 million users per hour during the height of the Columbia tragedy.
The setup for the Mars missions involves eTouch Systems, the agency's prime contractor for the NASA portal; Sprint, whose servers host NASA's data; and Speedera Networks, whose global network of 1,300 servers will distribute the goodies from Mars.
"We are expecting this to be one of the biggest events that has ever occurred," said Ajit Gupta, Speedera's chief executive officer, president and founder.
Gupta compared the Mars landings to a movie release: "If everyone had to go to Hollywood to watch a movie, you can imagine what's going to happen. Instead, you go to your local theater. We offload the resource requirement to our distributed network, which is worldwide."
Assuming that NASA's show is a hit, what will those millions of Internet users see? "We're going to be having the raw images come back from the spacecraft, and we'll be putting those up on the Web in near-real time," Viotti said.
Those raw images will be in black and white, but NASA teams also will be processing the data to produce full-color panoramas, 3-D pictures and other imagery for daily release. The Web site also will offer behind-the-scenes feature stories, daily status reports and diary entries from scientists and students.
Mars' greatest hits"Once the rover is off the lander, we hope to have Web videos of what the rover did on the surface during the day," Viotti said. "They can take the surface data and emplace a model of the rover on the surface, and chart its path across the landscape."
As the scheduled 90-day missions continue, NASA would also provide a public version of its science applications planning tool. "That will be on the Web as well so that folks can see how the scientists make decisions on where the rover goes, what it studies, and how they plan to do that," Viotti said.
In addition to serving up Mars on your desktop, NASA will be sending high-resolution imagery to more than 70 facilities via the Internet as part of the Mars Visualization Alliance, Viotti said: "The hope there is that beyond looking at your computer screen, people can go to their local museum or science center and get a big-screen experience firsthand."
• Dec. 30, 2003 | 8 p.m. ET
Scientific stops on the World Wide Web:
• Wired.com: The fantasy and reality of 2004
• Nature: Prion proteins may store memories
• Scientific American: Why machines should fear
• SciScoop: Interview with a skeptic, part 1
• Dec. 29, 2003 | 9:15 p.m. ET
Rewriting Holy Writ: For our second annual Christmas "science and religion" symposium, I pointed to the rising popularity of books and TV shows that blended scripture, speculation and scientific findings to come up with new perspectives on the New Testament. Are hybrids like "The Da Vinci Code" good, bad, or really nothing more than a good yarn? Here is a selection of the feedback:
John Newman, Columbus, Ohio: "If one considers the impact of the Indiana Jones movie series on archaeology, then pop articles or programs about religious issues do more good than harm. But unlike archaeology, a science, theology is difficult to quantify or provide empirical evidence to reach objective conclusions. The public will be better served if the media and scientists identify references (a bibliography) used in these articles or programs."
Brian Wood, Denver: "I would say that all history, anthropology and archaeology only reveals more about truth and about God and His providence. Mixing with fiction would be a dangerous thing. After all, he is a God of Truth, and cannot lie. He has revealed himself in the Holy Scriptures, which were not decided upon by men, but discovered by men, which were preserved by the Hebrew people and the church."
Janet Sullins: "The search for truth is never-ending. 'Good or evil,' really??? I think the chances for misinterpretation are immense, based on who's interpreting it. If it agrees with your ideas fine, but if it doesn't, it's evil??? I think there is enough of this type of prejudice in the world right now. Is there a good reason why we can't let people believe what they want to believe? I think all the Holy Scriptures are or were based on truth. Our truths may have changed with wisdom, but others may still need to learn those lessons, and who are we to say 'No, you can't learn it for yourself because we don't think it is truth, so it's evil.'"
Adam Crowl, Brisbane, Australia: "Pop religion tackles the questions that the entrenched opinion-mongers of the established religions are afraid to handle — it's lateral thinking on the subversive, marginal heresies of the past. Is it truth? History? Or reinterpretation run rampant? Good or evil is too polarizing. It's what you make of it in the end, and it can inspire holiness or wickedness. Having read a lot of emphatic, dogmatic claims on the Web, presented by ever more marginal, fragmented religious groups, I think if all of us learned how to greet new ideas with a certain tolerant skepticism then we'd all be better off. ..."
Ed, Dayton: "Since most people believe what they see or hear, mixing fact and fiction ('Da Vinci Code') does more harm than good (just look at how many people believe wrestling is real). While the critical approach to historical research has its benefits, too much is read into the past using today's knowledge."
Jason Alexander Hefner: "It's a horrible idea to blend religion, anyone's religion, and fiction. There is enough dissension and agitation in the world today without attacking someone's core beliefs. What seems like fun to one person is just plain maliciousness to the person who truly believes in their truth. Many people don't appreciate having their religion belittled by others, particularly those simply seeking profit. The more fiction that gets heaped on top of religion the harder it is to actually determine any type of worldly truth that may be there."
Shen Michael: "I think that with the network of information we have available to us on the planet now, we should be trying to reconstruct the various pieces of our history, and to get as close as we can to knowing the truth of these stories which so many people take for granted as fact, when we know that the stories presented in mainstream scripture are synthesized through the writing of men with strong opinions and doctrines. Personally, in my studies, I have come across many sources indicating that Miriam of Magdala was in fact the bride of Yeshua, which was the correct name for Jesus the Christ, and I have never read 'The Da Vinci Code,' though I know of its contents. It is important for there to be a rebalancing of the feminine and masculine energies on the planet, and women must be given the credit they deserve for their part in the creation of our collective reality, and begin to see themselves in a more positive and self-respectful light. ..."
Duane Jones: "I think it is always good when mankind devotes serious thought and discussion about God. He doesn't want us to be robots."
Lisa J. Nunez: "...I have a very hard time with blind faith because I have a scientist's mind. But I work on it constantly because I don't have all the answers. Having expressed that, I contend that any information which supports or refutes any dogma (religious or otherwise) is significant. Since religion is a human construct, it is vitally important that it be as effective as possible. If we are in need of it, then we should feel that its ideals are irrefutable. However, because it is a human construct, religion is inherently flawed. Humans see everything colored by personal perspective. Culturally, women (with few exceptions) were insignificant politically and economically until very recently (within the scope of written history). So it stands to reason that women are less significant in the Bible because it was written by men. Obviously, women's stories are not entirely excluded (after all, there is Mary, Mother of God). However, the Bible does not recount the role of women in the inception and growth of the church, and many stories have been twisted by the church to suit specific needs. (There is no mention of Mary Magdalene's prostitution). Certainly men and women understand each other better when we have more information of any kind. It is imperative that we understand women's role in history as well as the early church. ..."
Larry M. Beasley: "'Is pop theology good or evil?' This subject ranges from suppressed bible verses all the way to fringe mythology (like Scientology) and beyond (if there is such a thing). That's way too broad a question to paste a blanket judgment across. Personally, I will treat every claim with healthy skepticism until someone manages to walk on water, raise the dead and feed the multitudes. Even then, I'll be looking for a second opinion."
R.P. Nettelhorst, academic vice president, Quartz Hill School of Theology, Quartz Hill, Calif: "Pop theology is pretty much like pop astronomy or pop geology, in my experience: rarely very well done. What I find surprising is the amount of credence that people will put into the fringe areas whether in science, history or theology, while ignoring the mainstream. If people want to think about theology, at least of the Christian variety, they'd do well to actually read the Bible through in a modern translation, perhaps read a bit of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and maybe delve into Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as examples, or most any standard systematic theology textbook. Just as if they were interested in astronomy they'd do well to take a look at a basic textbook on the topic, and then search out the works of some of the more respected astronomers in the field, and then maybe get a telescope or just go outside and look up with a nice star chart from Sky and Telescope. Simply sitting in a chair and deciding, without any research, that God is, say, 'ineffable mind' is about as intellectually rigorous and as reasonable as agreeing with the guy who decides that God is a baked potato he keeps under his bed."
• Dec. 29, 2003 | 9:15 p.m. ET
Your daily dose of science on the Web:
• N.Y. Times (reg. req.): Quest for the $1 billion telescope
• Science@NASA: Earth's inconstant magnetic field
• Discovery.com: Wildfires reset rock clocks
• BBC: 'Robot Tarzan' at work in Washington forest
The fine print: Looking for older items? Check the Cosmic Log archive. Share your perspective on cosmic subjects with Alan Boyle. If you link to this page, you can use http://cosmiclog.msnbc.com or http://www.cosmiclog.com as the address. MSNBC is not responsible for the content of Internet links.


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The driver of a bus that swerved off a North Texas highway, leaving two passengers dead and dozens injured, was at the wheel in another fatal accident 15 years ago, but an official Friday downplayed the importance of the earlier accident to the pending investigation.
The Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed that Loyd Rieve, 65, was driving the tour bus Thursday that veered across the highway in Irving and into the center median with 46 passengers aboard.
The bus was operated by a Mansfield company, Cardinal Coach Line Inc. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred as the group of seniors was heading to an Oklahoma casino.
Court records show that Rieve was driving for another company in 1998 when he struck and killed a man who was trying to render aid at an accident scene on a highway near Dallas.
DPS spokesman Lonny Haschel said authorities will interview Rieve and review his driving record. But Haschel said the 1998 accident will not have any bearing on the investigation into Thursday's wreck.
Rieve remained sedated and in intensive care Friday after suffering three broken ribs, according to his wife, Gail Rieve.
She said her husband, a bus driver for 32 years, remembers little about the accident.
"He came up on the barricade thing," she said. "The next thing he remembers is being in front of the bus."
A Dallas County grand jury declined to indict Rieve on a charge of negligent homicide stemming from the 1998 collision, but Rieve and his employer still faced two civil lawsuits that contended they were negligent.
One lawsuit, filed by the family of the man who was killed, alleged that Central West Motor Stages Inc. of Grand Prairie hired and retained Rieve when it knew or should have known he was unfit and incompetent.
It resulted in a jury finding that the company was negligent for employing Rieve. However, the jury awarded no damages, deciding that the good Samaritan, 22-year-old Chad Rosell of Detroit Lakes, Minn., was largely at fault.
Rosell's attorney, William Dunleavy, said Friday he was stunned when he learned Rieve was the driver of the bus involved in Thursday's accident.
"I thought, `Why is this guy still driving?'" Dunleavy said.
The other suit, which made similar allegations, was filed by a bus passenger who was badly injured, according to her attorney, George Otstott. The suit resulted in an out-of-court settlement, he said.
"If I owned a bus company and one of my drivers killed somebody, I might leave him in the garage, make him a mechanic," Otstott said. "Then again, that was 15 years ago. He may have a stellar record since then."
Gail Rieve said the bus struck Rosell because he jumped onto the road and the vehicle's brakes were faulty.
"Loyd did everything he could to save to those people on the bus and that young man," she said.
Messages for the company's general manager and the attorney who represented it in the lawsuits weren't immediately returned Friday.
Paula Hahn, 69, and Sue Taylor, 81, were killed in the Thursday accident. The other 44 passengers sustained various injuries, and some remained hospitalized Friday, officials said.
Taylor, known as "Casino Sue," organized trips to casinos all over Oklahoma and Mississippi, complete with treats for riders and prizes for the biggest loser.
"She simply said, `I'm going to have a bus. Would they pay me?' And they said, `Yeah, they pay you,'" her daughter, Pam Boynes, said. "And so she just got it going. And it just got bigger and bigger."
Haschel said the magnitude of the investigation - including interviews with passengers and witnesses, numerous state and federal agencies and an inspection of the bus - means it will take some time to complete.
"The Department of Public Safety has a lot of boots on the ground doing different pieces of the investigation," he said.
Associated Press writers David Warren and Nomaan Merchant contributed to this report.


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Weekly Wire: the Global Forum
These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.
Tech Crunch
How The Future of Mobile Lies in the Developing World
"In less than three decades, the mobile phone has gone from being a status symbol to being a ubiquitous technology that facilitates almost every interaction in our daily lives. One month after the world's population topped 7 billion in October 2011, the GSM Association announced that mobile SIM cards had reached 6 billion. A 2009 study in India illustrated that every 10 percent increase in mobile penetration leads to a 1.2 percent increase in GDP.
Yet patterns of mobile phone use in developing countries are vastly different from what you see on the streets of New York, San Francisco, and Berlin. This is a market underserved by technologists and startups. This is where the majority of future growth lies, and Silicon Valley has yet to realize the huge economic opportunities for network operators, handset developers, and mobile startups. Where are these opportunities?" READ MORE


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One of our local wineries served this bread , cut into small pieces and spread with sage butter on a pretty platter as a pairing with one of their exquisite wines. I love that they generously share their recipes.
It's unusual, and very good. Best served thinly sliced.
I baked it in a Moravian Ribbed Loaf Pan (also known as a Rehrücken Pan), or simply a Ribbed Loaf Pan. My friend Monique baked it in smaller pans, which I thought was the best idea (one to serve and another to freeze).
Sage Bread with Sage Butter
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons minced fresh sage, or 2 teaspoons dried sage
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
In a small saucepan, heat milk and sage just until warm. Set aside to cool. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, and add to the creamed mixture, alternately with the milk mixture. Pour/scrape into a greased 9x 5x 3-inch loaf pan, or two smaller pans.
Bake at 350-degrees (F) for 40-50 minutes (less for smaller pans), until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve with Sage Butter.
Sage Butter:
In the container of a food processor or blender combine softened butter with fresh or dried sage. Blend until smooth.
Serve at room temperature so it is easier to spread.
The photo below ... shows how they served it at the winery ~ slices were spread with the flavored butter; cut into very small pieces, with toothpicks inserted in each, then arranged on a tray for each person to help themselves. It's a good way to serve this at a party so your guests don't have to bother with spreading their own.
How they served it at the winery.


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Just next to where I fly my remote control aircraft at Nad al Sheeba RCM airfield in Dubai, there is a large electricity distribution center with a few dozen large pylons.
I've been wanting to photograph these steel monsters for a while and finally got around it! Even though they are not really the most photogenic models, they make for some interesting architectural photography! The image above was shot vertically from below the center of the pylon.
Image details:
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200 VR2
ISO 200, 70mm, f5.0
5 shot HDR developed with Photomatix 4
Nik SilverEfex 2 for Black and White conversion
Two more images with a different perspective of the same shoot can be found here.
Wherever you are, whatever you do, have a great weekend!
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Good Night, and Good Luck.
Most of the movies directly about the horrors and political terrorism of the McCarthyism of the 1950s usually center on a dim schmuck who accidentally finds himself involved in the blacklistings. They've ranged from the good (The Front with Woody Allen working as an actor-for-hire), the bad (Guilty by Suspicion, the beginning of Robert De Niro's slid towards mediocrity) and the terrible (Frank Darabont's awful The Majestic with Jim Carrey, a movie that makes "Capra-esqe" a mortal sin). The usually simplistic genre helps make mega-star actor George Clooney's second directing effort, Good Night, and Good Luck. (after the interesting but far from perfect Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), seem positively genius in comparison. Instead of piercing the blacklisting from the streets he sets it upstairs in the newsroom of the TV show See It Now, where the legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn in the performance of his career) dared to take on Senator Joseph McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities. Clooney (who also wrote the script with another one-time journeyman TV actor Grant Heslov) not only makes one of the most pointed films about this ugly period in American politics but also gives us a fascinating glimpse into the working of 1950s television. Shot in color and then transferred to a stunning black & white in post by cinematography all-star Robert Elswit (he's shot all the Paul Thomas Anderson joints up to There Will Be Blood), Good Night, and Good Luck. really is a marvelous film, beautifully realized in its simplicity and a triumph on all fronts.
Murrow and his trusty producer, Fred Friendly (Clooney), fluctuate their television news magazine show between lightweight celebrity interviews (Liberace!) and more meaningful political pieces, where their heart really is - the fluff is a way to appease their sponsors and the higher-ups at CBS. Knowing that it could start a battle, they decide to take on the dangerous bullying tactics of Senator McCarthy, who was at the height of his powers. He was ruining careers of American citizens by accusing them of being Communists unless they groveled and told McCarthy what a great job he and his Committee where doing, and they were often forced to name others who may be Communists, just to give more names and more power to the often drunk lout Senator. Murrow and Friendly have to walk a tightrope when the Government begins to hint at an investigation of the station's employees and McCarthy himself falls on his old standby trick, accusing Murrow of being a Communist. Meanwhile the head of CBS, William Paley (Frank Langella, wonderful in the role), is forced to defend his star but also tries to keep him on a short leash (the moments between Langella and Strathairn are the best in the movie). The staff is under their own pressure. Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson play a secretly married couple (CBS policy did not allow employees to wed), and in another captivating performance, Ray Wise plays CBS News Correspondent Don Hollenbeck who admires Murrow but lives in terror of having his own lefty political background exposed.Continue Reading
At the peak of the disco era, the film version of the so-so Broadway musical Grease managed to be the perfect vehicle to celebrate 1950s nostalgia while becoming an iconic relic of '70s pop culture. Since its release it has become a rite of passage for young people—a romanticized version of teen rebellion and young love. It's surprisingly raunchy, but very funny, with great music and very energetic choreography. More then Rebel Without a Cause or Blackboard Jungle it has actually taken over as the ultimate representation of 1950s teen life. While the earlier films were made by people who were afraid of that generation's American teenager, Grease was created to celebrate them.
After his breakout performance that turned him into a massive superstar in Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta was as hot as could be. Grease proved to be an almost equally popular follow-up for him (through critically it took a drubbing). In the role of Danny Zuko, high school greaser and heart throb, Travolta was able to continue to showcase his flashy dance moves and add "passable singer" to his resume. More importantly he showed his flare for light comedy. As time passes it's easier to recognize the fun Travolta was having with his own image. He's kinda a mix of Elvis and TV's Fonzie, but much more charming than both and, though cool, much more vulnerable. (Vulnerability proved to be a staple of Travolta's acting bag of tricks.)
Australian transplant Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) is just trying to fit in to her new Southern California school, Rydell High. Though she ha...
Kiss Me Deadly
In the world of noir a good mystery is so much more about the journey than the destination. I couldn't really explain to you what was happening through every scene of Mulholland Dr. or who did what in The Big Sleep but those films are such superb examples of atmosphere as a blueprint for understanding the director's vision that nothing is lost by not understanding every last scene or plot twist contained within. A first rate noir is more than the sum of its double crosses and knifed backs. In fact without that brilliantly unnerving atmosphere it's just another run-of-the-mill whodunit. Noir is atmosphere certainly more than it could be called a kind of plot which is why films as conceptually different as Sweet Smell of Success and The Killing are both considered to be part of the noir canon. Kiss Me Deadly is director Robert Aldrich's adrenaline charged mystery set in a mid-'50s Los Angeles of sun-seared nuclear paranoia. It's a detective story but it's also about an era of America defined by its paranoia over the possibility of impending nuclear holocaust.
Mike Hammer (played by Ralph Meeker) is a hot shot Private Investigator who makes his living snooping around and catching people with their pants down. He's the one that the jilted wives of L.A. go to when they want proof that their husbands are cheating. It's a dirty way to make a living or so he is constantly told but he doesn't seem to mind. He's out for his own gain. He likes cocktails, race cars, women, and his unbelievably cool apartment. If he had a code of ethics it probably boils down to "the ends justify the means." A woman on the run winds up in Mike's car one night and before too long he is embroiled in a mystery that ensnares gangsters, the FBI, a murderous blonde, and pretty soon the fate of the entire world. Everyone is after what Hammer's girlfriend terms, "the great whatsit." When it's found it takes the fatalism of noir to a whole new realm.Continue Reading
L.A. Confidential
In 1950s Los Angeles, three cops with very different styles, try solving a multiple homicide. Along the way, they face off against each other, as well as the corruption that runs rampant in the City of Angels.
The screen adaptation by Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland (Payback), beautifully translates a very complex multi-layered story, based on the crime novel by James Ellroy. The characterization is very strong, the dialogue is razor-sharp, and the plot structure is intricate, but aptly realized. The two men won an Academy Award for their efforts.Continue Reading
Pillow Talk
I enjoyed Pillow Talk but I'm wracking my brain on how to justify why I liked it. It shouldn't be that hard. It's a colossally stupid movie to be sure, but then is profundity really the hallmark of a well made Hollywood film? A lot of the best movies produced under the studio system were always the end result of a delicate interplay between cynical studio ridiculousness and genuine artistry. No one would confuse Pillow Talk for a work of art even by Hollywood standards. Frankly I'm not even sure I'd call it a smart romantic comedy. Doris Day and Rock Hudson aren't exactly Tracy and Hepburn. She is frighteningly perky and he has no comedic instincts whatsoever. What they embody isn't really depth or wit or chemistry, but instead I think what sold the public on them is how happily "normal" they seemed during a tumultuous era in American history. They were movie stars for the age of television. They weren't so much of the 1950s as of a perrenial 1950s mindset. If the fifties were the decade where conformity was next to godliness then conventional wisdom has it that Day and Hudson were its thoughtless, grinning poster children—Mr. & Mrs. McCarthy Era.
But their first onscreen pairing in Pillow Talk wasn't until 1959 which leads me to conclude that instead of being a kind of cultural apex for a dull decade, Pillow Talk was really a last gasp of a reactionary hold over Hollywood. Bonnie & Clyde and the rise of a more sophisticated European art house influenced American cinema were only 7 years away. By 1959 Americans in-the-know were already getting their first taste of cinema in a radically different idiom from the likes of Fellini, Antonioni, Godard, and Bergman to name a few. Pillow Talk, then, is retrograde even by 1959 standards and, as such, was already shorthand for how out-of-touch Hollywood filmmaking had become, fair dismissal or not.Continue Reading
Sweet Smell of Success
I tend to sum up Sweet Smell of Success by saying that it's sort of the alpha male version of All About Eve. It's a movie about men and envy and wanting to be numero uno at all costs. But really the star and thematic center of the film is New York. It's sharply written and gorgeously photographed as a city full of shysters, whores, crooked cops, and naïve cigarette girls, with the city's truly powerful people wielding their influence like back alley thugs. For all the neon-lit corruption it makes the New York of the late-1950s look like a terribly exciting place to be. It's an after-dark town with a hot Jazz score soundtracking a desperate populace thieving, scheming, and hustling—the quintessential Dark City that Noir dreams are made of. As the terrifyingly important J.J. Hunsucker, New York's most powerful gossip columnist (played by the imposing Burt Lancaster), says with true affection, "I love this dirty town."
Hunsucker's column attracts 60 million daily readers and he relishes his ability to make or break anyone he chooses. He's a sociopath in a nice suit who strikes fear into the hearts of the major players in the worlds of entertainment and politics. Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a hungry press agent desperate for a piece of the Hunsucker pie. His world is a 24-7 confidence game where he feeds the dupes on his payroll line after line about how they're next in line to get mentioned in Hunsucker's column. But J.J. likes making Sidney squirm for his supper—he cuts him out of the loop entirely so that Sidney will do just about anything to get back in J.J.'s favor.Continue Reading
Written on the Wind
My description of Written on the Wind that I stuck onto a copy of the DVD in the "Employee Picks" section at Amoeba is that it is a candy colored fever dream of violence and ecstasy. Dave Kehr, writing for the Chicago Reader, wrote that Written on the Wind was a "screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of the American family and business life." I like both descriptions and I especially like the word "screaming" as it applies to what these desperate characters are really doing.
The first thing you might notice about the film is the colors. They overwhelm. Even if the action of the film centers on the downfall of one of those big oil family dynasties from Texas and the renegade pair of lovers caught in the middle, you might ignore the untamed passions exploding before you and instead fall into a hallucinatory stupor from all the cherry reds and periwinkle blues that flood the action of each meticulously constructed scene. The film is supremely pleasurable to look at. That quality of a luxurious surface of beauty is central to all of director Douglas Sirk's best known works. The surface appearances—which are always gorgeous—are reflected back on themselves via mirrors used throughout his films and create a grotesquely ironic commentary on the desperate entrapment that materialism and expectations of conformity conspire to create in the lives of his characters. If we want to understand the 1950s in America and what they mean to us now we would do well to watch his films. They reveal a lot.Continue Reading


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Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum)
From The Aquarium Wiki
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Amazon Frogbit
Limnobium laevigatum
Max Height
5 cm (2")
Max Width
25.4cm (10 ")
Alternative Names and variants[edit | edit source]
- Amazon Frogbit, South American Frogbit
Other similar species[edit | edit source]
- Hydrocharis morsus-ranae - European Frogbit
- Limnobium spongia - American Frogbit
Environment Specifics[edit | edit source]
- Requires good light, a mature tank preferably receiving fertilisation and slow to medium water flow.
Notes[edit | edit source]
- Very handy plant to give shade and security to small fish or fry. The long roots provide a growth medium for infusoria an important food for small fish.


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Joseph Gordon-Levitt is joining the cast for the sequel to "The Dark Knight."
The "500 Days of Summer" actor is slated to star in "The Dark Knight Rises," whose scheduled release date is July 20 of next year, Variety reported. It will mark a reunion between Gordon-Levitt and director Christopher Nolan—both of whom collaborated on last year's "Inception."
The upcoming movie will again feature Christian Bale as Batman/Bruce Wayne, along with Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway and Gary Oldman.
What character Gordon-Levitt will play in the new Batman sequel is uncertain. Some of the possible names, according to the blogosphere , could be the Riddler or Deadshot.
U.S. & World
Variety also reported that indie star Juno Temple could play a "street-smart Gotham girl" in the film.
Representatives for the actors have not commented about the roles.