Sunday, May 24, 2009

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Jack Hidary: Hey Steve! Where's Brooklyn? Top
Steve Wolfram's new search engine is powered by a huge database and a supercomputer, but can't find some pretty easy things. WoframAlpha is a new search engine that launched to great fanfare this past week. It is supposed to track down all kinds of data that can be calculated in some way: population of a city, exports of a country, a stock price, etc. The site claims to have amassed 10+ trillion pieces of data including lots of geographical knowledge. Somehow in all that amassing, nobody told the engine that there is a place called Brooklyn, NY. Wolfram comes up with Brooklyns in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa! But not the biggest one in NYC. When you type in Queens, the answer is even better - it doesn't know about Queens, NY; instead Wolfram gives back: Leaders - President - Barack Obama, Vice President, Joe Biden. Queen Elizabeth must be miffed. Searching for Manhattan gives the population of the entire city of NY; some Manhattanites may feel that way, but this is supposed to be a very accurate, mathematically-driven search engine. Here's hoping for WolframBeta. More on Google
 
Carol Felsenthal: The Pinnacle for Lou Susman: A Mansion in Regent's Park, London Top
When President Obama named Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr., a Republican, as ambassador to China last week, the appointment was greeted with cheers. Another Republican would bolster Obama's promise of bipartisanship. Democrats and Republicans praised Huntsman's obvious qualifications--from fluency in Mandarin to being the father of a girl adopted from China to having actually lived in China and served as ambassador to Singapore. Some saw the hand of Rahm Emanuel for in a pick as smart as Hillary for Secretary of State, Obama was bringing his potential 2012 rivals inside the tent. (Huntsman regularly appeared on the wish list of Republican presidential nominees; perhaps he was the Republicans' ticket back to the White House.) Last March I posted here that Obama's probable pick for the most prestigious of ambassadorships--the Court of St. Jame's- was going to Chicagoan and retired investment banker Louis B. Susman . Susman, 71, is so talented at raising money for Democrats--he was John Kerry's national finance chairman and an early money man for Obama--that he was nicknamed "the Vacuum Cleaner" or "the Hoover" during the Kerry campaign, and "the Big Bundler" during the Obama campaign. The Washington Post had tipped the choice of Susman in February; Mike Sneed, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist, had tipped it in March. Having interviewed Susman in his Chicago office in 2006 when he was vice chairman of Citigroup Global Markets--he retired last February--I weighed in here with my observations on the man. I described the outrage among British journalists and pundits who felt that Susman wasn't worthy of the job--and that his choice was another in a series of Obama insults to the Brits (removing a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office, etc.). When the Guardian of London and then CNN reported on May 21 that diplomatic documents had been submitted to and approved by Buckingham Palace and an announcement of Susman's appointment was imminent, I decided to take another look at how the news was greeted in England. The British press remains outraged: The Daily Telegraph headlined its brief report, "Ultimate prize for `Vacuum Cleaner'" This is how The Guardian lead its report on the Susman selection : A little bit of Chicago's ruthless and combative political machine is soon to descend on the decorous calm of the Court of St James. Despite promising to end cronyism in Washington, Barack Obama is about to appoint one of his home town friends and financial backers to the plum London posting. The next ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary will be Louis Susman, a lawyer and financier with little experience of foreign affairs." The paper noted that Obama seemed to be breaking his promise "to offer more of the top jobs to demoralized career diplomats. The Guardian did concede that for three years Susman served on the state department's advisory commission on public diplomacy and that he is active in the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Susman is a respected figure in Chicago--he was born and bred in St. Louis and arrived in Chicago in 1989--and his critics do not doubt his intelligence and energy, but some complain that he is a name dropper--he dropped many during my interview with him-- and social climber. His days of dropping names and/or social climbing are likely over. Others will want to court him as he dines at Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, as he entertains at his new home, Winfield House, with 35 rooms on twelve acres in Regent's Park. Some of those critics will undoubtedly be dropping his name because, assuming he wins Senate approval, he appears to have climbed almost as high as anyone could hope to go. One thing has to be said for Lou Susman that cannot be said for all money men turned ambassadors: at least he speaks the language.
 
Scott Mendelson: Judgment Day for Terminator Salvation ($43 million in Fri-Sun grosses). Top
Unlike everyone else with a blog/web site, I do prefer to wait till the final numbers roll in before discussing box office at length (part of that is convenience, as I'm usually playing with my daughter when the Sunday estimates roll in). So here's the top-ten list for now , and I'll discuss everything non- Terminator related on Monday night or Tuesday. For now, it's time for to face facts about a certain beloved sci-fi franchise. There was no major Saturday bounce. Grosses actually went down 1.6% from Friday to Saturday. Terminator Salvation is officially in trouble. I was bending over backwards to be fair, not wanting to the be the sort of pundit to condemn a movie as a financial disappointment after just one or two days. But while the three-day total is $43 million, which is just below the three-day opening Fri-Sun for Terminator 3 , the five day total is expected to be a bit less than the $72 million that Rise of the Machines pulled in over July 4th weekend in 2003. The $56 million four-day total is already $3 million behind the Jonathan Mostow sequel, and it's only going downhill from here. Ironically, it may be a matter of expectations. Everyone expected that the third Terminator film was going to be a cash grab, designed to give Arnold Schwarzenegger one last payday before his California gubernatorial run. Unless I'm mistaken, it's near-record $170 million budget was caused partially by the actor's insistence on shooting in Los Angeles, in order to boost the economy of the business capital of the state he wanted to run. Cringe-inducing trailers highlighting the campier elements did not help. But the film shocked critics and audiences by actually being pretty good, with tight, low-key character interplay and some astonishing action beats (plus a stunningly powerful finale). So it was able to weather the one-two onslaught of Pirates of the Caribbean and Bay Boys 2 . The film pulled in $150 million in the US and nearly $300 million overseas for a profitable $433 million total. Comparitively, for whatever reason, expectations were high for the fourth installment. I'm honestly not sure why. Yes Christian Bale is a great actor, but he was no more suited to play John Conner than Kevin Costner was to play Robin Hood (Bale may have a reputation as a gloomy brooder, but most of his characters are lively mad men). While I have nothing against McG and rather enjoyed the first Charlies Angels , his name did not inspire confidence amongst the masses. So why did everyone expect this to be something other than a bigger budget variation on Reign of Fire , with robots filling in for dragons (and minus the character development)? Why didn't we expect Warner Bros. to (apparently) panic over the collapse of Watchmen and demand a PG-13, action-filled theatrical cut? The trailers promised atmosphere and action, and that's what the picture delivered on in spades. I'm not saying the movie is a wrongly condemned masterpiece, but I think the movie turned out about how we all should have known it would had we been thinking logically. So the film will likely end its first five days with about $66 million. After that, lousy word of mouth and negative press will keep it fighting to even approach the $150 million that part 3 reached. The official budget, which was funded by six private production companies, is 'only' $200 million but, and I mean this as a compliment, I don't believe that for a second. The ad campaign has been super-saturation level as well, so this very expensive marketing investment could hurt Warner Bros. in a mass-layoff kinda way, since Columbia has the rights for international distribution (and this film could very well double or triple its domestic take overseas). The saving grace for Warner's domestic investment may be the DVD/Blu Ray release that may or may not contained some kind of extended cut involving that 40 minutes of deleted footage. Here's hoping that WB Home Video doesn't wimp out Ala Speed Racer and just cancel all of the already completed bonus materials. With Terminator Salvation , Observe & Report , and Watchmen under performing to varying degrees, Warner Bros' decision to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to July is now an unmitigated stroke of genius. It's now up to 'the boy who lived' to save the studio, as well as the world. Who would have thought that Warner Bros' highest grossing picture of 2009, heading into July, would be Gran Torino ? Scott Mendelson
 
Woman in her 50s is NYC's 2nd swine flu death Top
NEW YORK — A woman in her 50s is New York City's second confirmed death linked to swine flu. A spokeswoman for the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene says the woman died over the weekend and had underlying health conditions. Assistant public school principal Mitchell Wiener (WEE'-ner) became the city's first death from the virus a week ago. The city's first outbreak of swine flu occurred about a month ago, when more than 1,000 teenagers at a Catholic high school in Queens began falling ill following the return of several students from vacations in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak. More on Swine Flu
 
Vivian Norris de Montaigu: Cannes 2009: A Return to Normalcy Top
I spent a few years working with film festivals, and because of the stress, the endless needing to schmooze, entertain, deal with egos etc etc, I simply checked out. It did not seem to be enough about the movies and filmmakers and creative talent, but more about buzz and parties and G-d knows what going on behind the scenes. But this year was different...and it reminded me why film festivals are special...because they are truly international, and bring together people from all over the globe, not just to make money, but also to share ideas, and creative visions, wisdom and stories. So this year Cannes, even with its behind the scenes chicanery, was also pure pleasure. It seemed that the tone was more human, you could actually have a real conversation with people about passion for projects, collaboration, and all kinds of possibilities again. There were still the beautiful blonds on arms of older men, still the glitzy boats looking like discotheques, but it seemed less like plastic and more like wood again. The weather cooperated for the most part, even if the local unions did not and turned off the electricity and Internet for a few hours, causing screenings to be halted and everyone to have to chill for a while and stop fiddling with their Blackberries long enough to actually enjoy the weather and say "hello". Human beings are not machines meant to just work all the time and produce profits, and film festivals are not just about "deals" but also about meetings between people from different cultures, good meals and rose wine to be shared, and my favorite, the annual boules tournament held by groups of legal and financial folks from the US, UK and Holland. I just wish that the financial folks met the creative folks more often... that is where things could begin shaping up in interesting ways. I still managed to see only half of one film as I ran between meetings...but the meetings were more pleasant, more relaxed and yet good work was done and projects advanced. The most interesting meetings were held on sailboats, and up in the hills in the garden of a small villa, and at tiny restaurants in the Old Town. You could actually get a table at the last minute, and even a hotel room on the Croisette, but this did not feel like an "off" year, but rather the beginning of a new direction...and quality. The one film I did see I saw by accident, and I loved it. I had advanced to the quarter finals in the boules tournament, was late to the BBC party, and missed out on a great dinner in Mougins. While waiting for the next event I killed some time in a lounge chair at the Cinema on the Beach and watched a concert film from the 70s, David Bowie's Spiders from Mars tour. It was fantastic and I found myself singing along, while a French guy jumped up on stage and began playing air guitar (and was hauled away by the police). I watched the audience singing along to all the songs and I was transported back to high school, purple stockings and punk earrings...and I remembered what cinema is all about. More on CANNES
 
$2 Million Bail For Cop Charged In Fatal DUI Hit And Run Top
CHICAGO (AP) -- A judge has set bail at $2 million for an off-duty Chicago police officer facing reckless homicide, DUI and hit-and-run charges after allegedly striking and killing a boy riding his bicycle. Richard Bolling's accused of killing 13-year-old Trenton Booker early Friday morning on the South Side. Relatives say Booker sneaked out with friends after going to bed. Family members have said they didn't realize he wasn't home until police told them he was dead. Bolling remains in jail and is due in court again Tuesday. The police department has said the 39-year-old officer has been relieved of his police powers and is under internal investigation. -ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
Andy Borowitz: Cheney Urges Obama to Appoint Bitter Psycho to Bench Top
Former Vice President Dick Cheney weighed in today on President Obama's impending choice to replace Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the President to name a bitter psycho to the bench. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Cheney said that the President's choice to replace Justice Souter "should send a strong message to bitter psychos across the country that they will have a voice" on the nation's highest court. Mr. Cheney's comments were widely interpreted as a sign that he himself was angling for a position on the Supreme Court, a charge he flatly designed. "I have no designs on the Supreme Court," Mr. Cheney said. "There are many other embittered psychotics out there who could do an excellent job." Mr. Cheney said that his own time was better spent "driving down the Republican Party's approval rating to zero." For a free subscription to the Borowitz Report, click here . More on Barack Obama
 
Michael Sigman: Next Chapter for Chrysler? Top
It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson You could call my first boss a visionary. Back in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was first elected president, he owned a magazine called Record World , where I'd worked since college days. A deep recession and plummeting record sales had decimated our ad revenues, and clients told us things would get worse before they got better. So, before anyone had heard of the Internet or downloadable music, before CDs made an impact, Record World stopped spinning. My boss considered Chapter 11 so we could keep publishing and reorganize our debts. But he feared the golden age of the record business was over and concluded he didn't have a viable business, reorganization or no. He chose Chapter 7, and one day the company simply evaporated -- no notice, no severance, no nothing. Eventually, of course, my boss would be proved right: The record business would collapse. He just got to the funeral a couple of decades early. Chrysler may be to cars what Record World was to publishing. It can already see its own death, and appears to be putting its affairs in order. Last week, my significant other and I tried our best to buy a car from Chrysler, which recently went into Chapter 11. She had her heart set on a Melbourne-green PT Cruiser, and the idea of buying American felt right. So, checkbook in hand, we made our way to the nearest Chrysler dealership. They didn't have the car we wanted on the premises, but the salesman said they could get it from another lot. We wanted to lease so we'd have more cash on hand for doctor bills, charitable donations and frozen yogurt with cookie dough. "A new lease on life" is what President Obama said bankruptcy would give Chrysler, but there would be no new lease for us, because, said the salesman, Chrysler is no longer in the leasing business. Still, the S.O. wanted her P.T., so we agreed to pay cash. All we needed to close the deal was to see the car -- to make sure the color was as fabulous in the real world as it had appeared online -- and take a quick test drive. You'd think the salesman would've showered us with free popcorn while fantasizing about how to spend his commission. Instead, he informed us -- to our astonishment -- that if we wanted that Cruiser, we had to fork over a non-refundable cashier's check for the full purchase price before we could see the car, let alone test-drive it. Incredulous, I demanded to speak to a supervisor, but there was nothing anyone could do. That was Chrysler's policy. Take it or leave it. This got us thinking about a Blackberry Fit we'd seen on Honda's website. ("Blackberry" refers to the car's amazing deep purple hue as opposed to the fruit, the PDA or the group famous for "Hush"; it's unclear which meaning of "fit" Honda is going for.). We beelined to Miller Honda in Van Nuys, where the salesman told us they, like Chrysler, didn't have the color we wanted on their lot. But that's where the similarity ended. We asked the Honda salesman the same questions we'd put to Chrysler. Do you have a great leasing program? Absolutely. When can you get it from another lot? Now. Can we take a look and a test-drive before making our decision? Of course. Do you need a cashier's check? A regular check will be fine. Done deal. Bailouts and Chapter 11 bankruptcies are supposed to help companies remain competitive. Chrysler wouldn't exist without them. But if our tax dollars and favorable bankruptcy proceedings "save" a company only to have its business practices drive away customers -- in Hondas! -- what's the point? To save jobs? Not if Chrysler continues to make Alice in Wonderland seem like an oasis of sanity. If they don't change their ways, their next chapter will be Unlucky 7.
 
Susanna Speier: Memorial Day Politiku Top
Different sources make different claims regarding the origin of Memorial Day. Southern hymns, Union Generals and United States Presidents all claim to have officiated the holiday that my great-grandmother from Omaha used to insist on referring to as, "Decoration Day." While I'm still not quite clear on whether "Decoration Day" was the predecessor to our contemporary "Memorial Day" or whether they both emerged simultaneously, post Civil War, the challenge of pinpointing an origin could easily keep a team of historians busy through Memorial Day 2010 at least. Scrolling back through my personal associations with the holiday is considerably less daunting. I was born and raised a Beltway brat. This means that the memorials for honoring the people and events of the past were a routine fixture of my perpetual present. I was six years old when my parents first took me visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Not only was it the first military ceremony I ever witnessed but it was the first time I ever saw real soldiers. The fact that they could stand so still and move so precisely, made the experience seem all the more supernatural. The clicks of the taps of the shoes of the round the clock guards was utterly miraculous. Who was this soldier who remained "unknown?" No answers would satisfy me. The questions I bombarded my parents with were, in fact, almost exactly the same questions that I was recently bombarded with by eleven-year-old cousin, Max. "It's many soldiers -- not just one" I am now able to explain. "They're from different wars and could belong to any family that lost someone." Through the process of trying to explain I am reminded of the impossibility of defining, quantifying or comprehending a loss of this magnitude and this loss that will continue to remain. Don Bassman's Politiku bold untouchable implacable impartial honor code of Death Frankie Clogston's Politku All over the Mall. Memorial City, this. Crowded memories. Karen Goldner's Politiku Cheney/Obama Their talks remind me again I'm glad Bush is done Irene Gravina's Politiku No sense to be made Down on the grass by your grave Green bug on my wrist Peter Orvetti's Politiku Thousands of lost souls Fallen soldiers, orphaned young For rights we squander Susanna Speier's Politiku Tomb of the Unknown shoes that shine, that tap, that click Beltway Kids, witness
 
Geithner On GOP Socialism Charge: 'Ridiculous' Top
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admits private investors are worried about investing in new government-backed commercial mortgage securities and dismisses as "ridiculous" a recent Republican National Committee resolution stating that Democratic policies bordered on socialism. More on Timothy Geithner
 
Michael Giltz: Cannes 2009 Day Twelve: Haneke Triumphs With Top Prize Top
While the critics agreed overwhelmingly that Un Prophete was the best film in Cannes, the 2009 Palme d'or went to Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, amid strong applause from the French and German contingent in the press. Since the head of the jury was Isabelle Hubert and she scored one of her major triumphs by starring in Haneke's brilliant, corrosive The Piano Teacher (for which she won Best Actress at Cannes), it perhaps shouldn't have been a surprise. Un Prophete received the Grand Jury Prize, ie. the runner-up award. Charlotte Gainsbourg deservedly nabbed the Best Actress award for her primal turn in Lars Von Trier's Anti-Christ while Christoph Waltz got Best Actor for his star-making turn in Quentin Tarantino's WW II flick Inglourius Basterds. The Best Screenplay award went to China's Spring Fever, Best Director went to the Phillipine's Brillante Mendoza and a tip of the hat -- the Prixe Exceptionnel du Jury -- went to the great Alain Resnais who had his first film in decades appear in Competition. The third runner-up award -- the Prix du Jury -- was split between UK's Fish Tank and Korea's vampire flick Thirst . And the Camera d'or for best first feature went to the highly accomplished Warwick Thornton for his Aussie drama Samson & Delilah. The Oscars have nothing on Cannes for brevity and wit and fun. The remaining press corps tumbles into a side theater while the black tie audience numbering in the thousands fills the main theater, the Lumiere. In about 50 minutes, all the awards are handed out, with the press corps hooting and booing the choices it disapproves of and clapping loudly for its favorites. Strong boos greeted Thirst , but they were drowned out moments later by even stronger boos for Mendoza as the Best Director of the fest. While some agreed his film Kinatay was a step forward from Serbis , it was widely panned nonetheless. The muddled Chinese gay flick Spring Fever might have deserved recognition for daring (the director bended the rules just to get the film made and it broaches the taboo topic of homosexuality with frankness) or acting or cinematography but the one area it probably didn't deserve notice was its weak and cliched screenplay. Terry Gilliam had fun when he was brought out to hand over the Best Director award: he pretended he had won and started making all his thank yous and then broke down in tears when the truth was told. But probably the most popular award of all was to Waltz for his mesmerizing turn as the "Jew hunter" in Tarantino's Inglourius Basterds . Tarantino says he came to believe he'd written a role impossible to cast and despaired of finding an actor who could speak five languages with aplomb until Waltz strolled in right before they were going to pull the plug on the film. Fittingly, he gave his thanks in English, French and German. Perhaps the best-reviewed film of the fest was Romania's Police, Adjective, which was in Un Certain Regard. But it didn't even win that category, whose top prize went to Dogtooth . another admired film. The Critics' Week winner was Farewell, Gary. And Xavier Dolan's I Killed My Mother dominated the Directors Fortnight, winning three top prizes. I also saw four movies on the final day of the fest: SPRING FEVER ** (out of four) -- I stayed with this gay drama longer than most of my fellow critics did, I believe. It was interesting just to see drag bars and punk bars in China and fascinating to see how a gay person might stand out while walking down the street but still not be pegged as "gay" because such a concept is so thoroughly stifled in that country. Unfortunately, what's not stifled is melodrama. A married man has a passionate romance with a boyfriend who is clearly gay because he wears a jaunty scarf everywhere and walks with a certain elan. The suspicious wife has them followed by a straight guy, who promptly falls for the gay lover after the wife confronts the man at work and drives him out of their lives. Then the private eye's girlfriend (or wife, it's not quite clear) gets wind of THEIR romance and takes matters into her own hands. It's just a plot twist too much, with a subplot about a off the books factory that's raided by the police adding to the confusion. I was thrilled that -- while people died for love -- they didn't die because they hated being gay. But only gay audiences and Asian cinema specialists will find this worth slogging through. Director Lou Ye's films remain more interesting for their political daring than their substance. IN THE BEGINNING ** -- Based on a true story, it follows a con man let out of prison who starts tracking down construction sites and then -- posing as a rep for the site -- bilking local stores out of equipment rentals and selling the machinery off for a quick buck. Quite unexpectedly, he stumbles on a really big site that hasn't happened. A small town still hasn't recovered from the day construction on Highway 61 was abruptly halted two years earlier. Just the presence of our anti-hero as a rep of the construction firm sends everyone from the beautiful female mayor down to the maid in the local hotel into nervous hope. Slowly but surely, the con man switches from building up a pile of kickback money for an easy getaway into a man determined to get the highway finished and everyone paid off so at least he can claim he did something with his life. It unfolds just as you'd expect, with no surprises and no revelation that might win your sympathy. Decently done, but unabsorbing. VISAGES ** -- Tsai Ming-Liang delivers his latest series of mournful vignettes, this time devoted to a movie shoot. The director is filming Salome in a Paris museum and along the way we see parents of crew members breathe their last, romances blossom, actors trudge behind the scenes with laborious costumes or lugging a deer's head and so on. Some of them work beautifully, such as the personal assistant who walks into his kitchen to get a glass of water and suddenly faces a burst pipe that grows worse and worse and worse with hilarious results. But the set-up of the film is unnecessarily vague: I knew that it was about a director filming Salome on location because I glanced at the press notes; otherwise I might still be scratching my head. Tsai undeniably has a vivid eye but this one is very hard going. COCO CHANEL AND IGOR STRAVINSKY * 1/2 -- Respectably muted, this film is based on a novel about Coco Chanel's affair with composer Igor Stravinsky. It begins with a riot at the premiere of Stravinsky's "Le sacre du Printemps," which should provide solace to all the Cannes directors like Von Trier and Gasper Noe who got booed at THEIR premieres. Their movies weren't bad: they're just misunderstood geniuses. Its all downhill from there: with nary a word spoken between them, Coco and Igor are suddenly making love non-stop at her country villa, never mind that the house is bursting with Igor's ailing wife and four children. Why should that stop them from mounting each other in the middle of the day in the study, which has gigantic bay windows looking out onto the gardens where the children play. Don't be bourgeious and suggest this is unrealistic. Igor's wife asks Coco at one point if she ever feels shame. "No," says Coco and that about sums it up. It would be nice to say this amoral indifference to others was fun, but it isn't. Coco merely slinks through rooms with all the panache of the model that actress Anna Mouglalis was for years (for Chanel, actually). He composes great music. She creates Chanel No 5 and history is made! Just not cinematic history. More on CANNES
 
James Warren: This Week in Magazines: The "Test Madness" of Our Medical Lives Top
If President Obama truly wants to deal with our mess of a health care system, perhaps somebody should read June 8 Forbes and its concise dissection of our "test madness," namely endless and fear-ridden search for illness. "Eight Tests That Could Save Your Life" underscores that "only a precious few-disease screening tests make a difference in health adults." And when we do screening tests, says one government expert, five things can happen and four are bad: they can show you have a disease you don't; indicate you don't have a disease when you do; discover a slow-growing disease you'd be better off not knowing about; and they can waste lots of money with bad information. So this suggests sticking to tried-and-true tests: having your blood pressure checked; having your bad cholesterol monitored; make sure an internist calculates your overall heart risk level; get your body mass index since fatsos have a higher mortality rates, notably from cardiovascular disease; get your waist circumference (risky if above 40 inches for men, above 35 inches for women); check for osteoporosis through bone density screening if you're a woman 65 or older; test your blood sugar for diabetes; and test for cancer via pap smears for cervical cancer, a colonoscopy for colon cancer, and mammograms in women 40 or over. ---June 1 New Yorker 's "Slim's Time--Who is Carlos Slim, and Does He Want the Paper of Record?" is a very solid Lawrence Wright profile of the Mexican who may be the world's richest man and has helped the New York Times Co. in a time of travail with a $250 million loan at a 14 percent rate. Those who are suspicious of the de facto telecommunications monopolist will find much to be anxious about but there's also a seeming mix of passivity and plain ignorance about the paper (he only reads it when he's in the U.S.) that may bode well. And, if folks at the Times wonder how to play Slim, who seems just insecure enough intellectually to be malleable, dispatch columnist Tom Friedman as emissary. Slim appeared to be very much in his thrall when they first met many years ago, according to this account. As for future battles over newsroom resources, it wouldn't be bad to have gazillionaire Slim on the side of the anxious, if admirable, editorial department. ---June Fast Company 's " 100 Most Creative People in Business " starts, no great surprise, with Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of industrial design at Apple. But there are many others whom you probably don't know on what seems a fascinating list straying from many usual suspects. Indeed, even the Pentagon is lauded via John Garing, the chief information officer at the Defense Information Systems Agency, who is ranked No. 12 (he just beats fashion designer Stella McCartney, No. 13). "His version of cloud computing, called RACE (rapid-access computing environment), acts as an open-source innovation lab for military developers, complete with peer-review certification." Two of the more curious picks are Sheila Bair, chairman of the FDIC, and Dietrich Mateschitz, boss of Austria-based Red Bull, which sold four billions cans of its energy drink last year. This asserts he's "blurring the lines between retailing, sports marketing, and entertainment." ---May-June Elite Traveler , "the private jet lifestyle magazine," offers a look at the new Learjet 85, which seats up to 10 and can be yours for "about $17.2 million," and gives us an itinerary for sailing the Mediterranean on yachts for two weeks (the preferred boat comes your way for $56,600 a week, "fully inclusive," with your stays potentially including the "1,620-square-foot Gwyneth Paltrow Suite at the Capri Palace" on Capri). And there are also tips for overall security for the magazine's readers since "violent reprisals on the affluent are the product of mounting financial distress." ---June Vogue offers a photographic homage and solicitous profile of Cameron Diaz ; a stronger look at our United Nations ambassador, Susan Rice , who blows off steam about some of her UN counterparts when it comes to Darfur; and a slim look at a generally uncooperative, very protected, Rafael Nadal, the Spanish tennis prodigy. ---As for the reinvention of Newsweek , well, ah, let's wait a few issues before opining. ---June Harper 's is very much worth the provocative " Let Them Eat Cash ," Frederick Kaufman's look on the world's approach to famine and other food shortages, notably the role of the World Food Program and Bill Gates in trying to bring a more market-oriented, entrepreneurial set of responses. A tale of good intentions run amok tends to concur with the cautionary notes of Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel Prize winner in economics and a food shortage expert who tends to believe that agricultural subsidies do not work and that market forces will aggravate and distribute shortages elsewhere. One needs quick emergency income-creation and employment programs, democracy and a free press (as an early-warning system). And though some of Sen's work has been funded by the Gates Foundation, when asked about a much-publicized Gates partnership with the World Food Program, Sen doesn't shill as he responds, "It can do a lot of good. But it's not the way of solving the problem." Sen might have similar qualms if he reads " Farm Futures " in May-June Foreign Affairs . Former World Food Program chief Catherine Bertini and former Agriculture Sec. Dan Glickman (now the movie industry's chief lobbyist in Washington) argue that the U.S. must put agriculture at the center of U.S. foreign policy. "The Obama administration should make agricultural development its number one priority for foreign aid and actively enlist support from other donors and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank." ---June 1 ESPN will bring joy to that beleaguered, soccer-loving Americans, with "Yo Lo Que Hago Es Jugar Al Futbol (What I Do Is Play Soccer)," a profile of FC Barcelona's Argentinean wunderkind, Lionel Messi, born with a growth hormone deficiency (he's just 5'6") and now the world's best player, whose legendary team confronts equally-celebrated Manchester United in Wednesday's European Champions League final in Rome. He's not a marketing powerhouse like David Beckham but he's a far better player. "With a ball at his feet, the 21-year-old Messi is a genius of self-expression, stringing together tricks ad techniques like words in impromptu poetry: right cut, left cut, give-and-go, between-the-legs...all at top speed." Even the soccer aficionado Kobe Bryant called out in the Olympics village last summer, "Messi, you are the best!" ---" What's a Friend Worth? " asks June 1 Business Week , as corporate America tries to make money by discerning insights about our online relationships. Marketers are "leading the way," based on the premise that if our chums buy something, it's likely that we'll buy it, too. This heralds "an immense new laboratory of human relations" that's playing out, with tons of data produced. A Columbia University sociologist working for Yahoo! says the data "could be as transformative as Galileo's telescope was for the physical sciences." Oh, one vaguely surprising fact is how potent Facebook is not yet an effective home for advertisers since visitors focus on friends, not ads, and Facebook "brings in scarcely a dime a month per member." ---And this week's journey to the obscure brings us to, "Glorifying the Jamaican Girl: The "' Ten Types - One People' Beauty Contest, Racialized Femininities, and Jamaican Nationalism " by Rochelle Rowe in Issue 103 of Radical History Review . It focuses on a 1955 beauty contest held in Jamaica to commemorate its 300 years as a British colony. The "Ten Types - One People" lured 3,000 entrants and constituted 10 different competitions, each based on specific skin tone. Thus, there were 10 winners, with titles including "Miss Apple Blossom," "Miss Allspice," and "Miss Ebony." They ultimately paraded alongside one another to symbolize a supposedly racially harmonious Jamaica. The present article seeks to build on this work that situates and explores questions of gender in the role of nation building within the context of African diaspora studies. The mid-twentieth-century Jamaican movement for self-government produced a flurry of cultural nationalist programs. This heightened activity in efforts to define the nation provoked a continuum of Jamaican beauty contests where political and cultural elites attempted to deliver a paradigmatic, racially harmonious New World identity through a parade of feminine bodies. At the same time, African-Jamaican cultural elites shared in a trajectory of African diaspora thought concerned with black advancement that problematized the figure of the black woman. They sought to refine an iconic black femininity by placing it in the service of an idea of modern nationhood that would be both proudly black and consummately Western. Send this to Donald Trump, the beauty pageant self-promoter. More on Magazines
 
Afghanistan's Rebuilding Looms As Sequel To Iraq's Top
WASHINGTON — The job of rebuilding Afghanistan is shaping up as an ominous sequel to the massive, mistake-riddled U.S. effort to get Iraq back on its feet. Since 2001, the U.S. has committed nearly $33 billion for reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Yet as President Barack Obama sends more troops and aid to quell a growing insurgency, there's been no detailed public accounting of where the money has gone and how effectively it's being spent. As in Iraq, where the U.S. has contributed $50 billion for rebuilding, the flow of money to Afghanistan outpaces the ability to track it. Already, an inspector general looking into the U.S. handling of Afghanistan reconstruction has found worrisome evidence of lax oversight and costly projects left foundering. Afghanistan presents difficult challenges. It lacks Iraq's modern infrastructure and oil to generate revenue. Work sites are often in remote and primitive locations, making it hard for investigators to keep tabs on progress and ensure contract terms are being met. Even when projects are initially successful, there are no guarantees they'll stay that way. Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries and can't sustain improvements without heavy international aid. It is hamstrung by a government rife with corruption, by a thriving drug trade, by weak procurement rules and by lax enforcement. A U.S. government watchdog to oversee the American tax dollars pouring into projects throughout Afghanistan wasn't even created until 2008 _ seven years after U.S. troops invaded the country to hunt down al-Qaida members and oust the Taliban. The office of the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, led by retired Marine Corps Gen. Arnold Fields, still lacks staff and money needed to do its job properly. "We probably should have done this several years before now," says the understated Fields. "I think we may have lost some ground that we are now trying to make up." But even its early efforts show troubling signs. In its first audit report, released this past Tuesday, Fields' office reported that a military command in Kabul managing $15 billion in U.S. programs to develop Afghanistan's security forces cannot be sure the money is being spent wisely. The auditors examined a $404 million training contract held by a large U.S. consulting company and found the government official responsible for monitoring the vendor's performance worked at an Army office in Maryland _ nine time zones away. More cause for concern is found in Khost, a town on Afghanistan's violent border with Pakistan, where a failed electric power station points to the inability to sustain critical projects. At a cost of $1 million, the power generation plant in Khost was transformed from a dilapidated building into a modern facility with three newly installed generators. In September 2008, the fully functioning plant was turned over to Khost's ministry of energy and water. When U.S. inspectors visited the site in March, only one generator was still operating and only at 60 percent of capacity. The plant's manager said the two generators out of commission were missing parts. U.S. money also was used to train 25 poor women to cultivate and sell saffron, a spice being promoted in Afghanistan as an alternative to growing opium poppies. The project was completed on time and on budget. But Afghan authorities didn't have the resources to keep the program going for the two years needed to make it self-sustaining. Fields has been to Afghanistan twice in the past few months. Both times he has met with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who Fields says has pleaded for help in battling corruption inside his government. Transparency International, a nongovernment organization based in Berlin, ranked Afghanistan 176 out of 180 countries on its corruption perceptions index last year. The index assesses the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians. Only Haiti, Iraq, Myanmar and Somalia were rated lower. Fields passed Karzai's requests to the departments of State and Defense. He's received little response. "I'm not satisfied," Fields said. Fields' office isn't the first or only oversight organization with an eye on Afghanistan. The departments of Defense and State, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development, all have inspectors general. But their focus tends be on their agency's operations, not the bigger picture. Stuart Bowen, Fields' hard-charging counterpart in Iraq, has showed that a watchdog with a wide view is essential for such an enormous undertaking. Bowen has been on the job since October 2004. His office has issued 276 audit and inspection reports. Its investigative and oversight work has resulted in 21 criminal indictments. In January, he published "Hard Lessons," a grim history of how Iraq's rebuilding spiraled from a prewar estimate of $2.4 billion to nearly 25 times that much. "There was a lot of waste," Bowen said. "Billions of dollars in waste." At a congressional hearing in March, Bowen recounted a recent meeting with a business executive whose company did electrical contracting in Iraq and is now working in Afghanistan. He told Bowen all his reports about Iraq were on the mark. "Then he said, 'I want to tell you that the same thing is going on in Afghanistan,'" Bowen said. ___ On the Net: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction: http://www.sigar.mil/ More on Afghanistan
 
Vitor Meira And Raphael Matos Crash Late In Indy 500 Top
INDIANAPOLIS — Veteran Vitor Meira and rookie Raphael Matos crashed in the closing laps of Sunday's Indianapolis 500, sending Meira to the hospital. Meira, last year's runner-up, was taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis for further evaluation. Track officials said Meira was alert and moving all extremities, but he also was complaining of severe lower back pain. The two collided going into the first turn with 27 laps remaining, sending Meira's car on its side along the wall and into the second turn. Matos, who has a bruised right knee, walked away from the car with help from track personnel. More on Sports
 
Chris Kelly: I Knew Pussy Galore. Pussy Galore Was a Friend of Mine. And You, Nancy Pelosi, Are No Pussy Galore Top
"Seems to me I'm getting all balled up in high politics." -- James Bond, You Only Live Twice The Republican National Committee produced a little gag video criticizing Nancy Pelosi for being a James Bond villainess. (Or something. It's getting harder and harder to discern what they're on about.) The Daily Kos criticized the criticism, because there's three seconds in the video where Pelosi and Pussy Galore are on screen at the same time: "Pussy Pelosi? The GOP Thinks So" And Politico found some tame Republican congressman to object as well: "We have to get away from the politics of personal destruction." -- Jason Chaffetz (R-Obscurity) We Huffingtons are on board of course: "GOP Rep Slams 'Reprehensible' RNC Video Comparing Nancy Pelosi To Pussy Galore" And the Free Republic has the first right wing blog criticizing the criticism of the criticism: "One sure way to know that you've hit a homerun is to watch how upset the liberal media reacts." -- Stormin's Morning Java (My Conservative Blog on News, Politics, Current Events, Pop Culture, and Asian Woman) So we're all off to the races, because this is the Internet, and if you're not shocked, sounding off, melting down, slamming, blasting or shooting back, you're not doing your job. Even if you're getting offended about something that was clearly designed just to offend. As Kronsteen once explained to Blofeld, the simple reason some people can't resist a trap is because it's so obviously a trap. I don't know if Nancy Pelosi is a Pussy Galore or not; you'd have to ask Mr. Pelosi. The larger question is: How did the Republican Party get stuck in 1959? Last year, the McCain campaign produced an ad that called Barack Obama "Dr. No," because Obama was against offshore drilling. It was just a lucky accident that Dr. No was also a biracial communist murderer who fed white women to land crabs. Now it's laughable, apparently, that Nancy Pelosi - a woman! - thinks she's entitled to an opinion about the CIA, and it's just a coincidence that there's a fictitious spy named Pussy Galore who's a lesbian with a name that means vagina and wimp. (It's not a slur. It's just serendipitous semiotics. Like, say, if God made a guy who was a useless dumb dickhead and named him Boehner.) You work with what you've got. But if Michael Steele is giving the Republicans a "hip-hop makeover" why are they still getting their slams from the swinging sixties? I like James Bond as much as the next guy at the James Bond convention, but I know, in my heart, it's not really that hip. Here's the other problem with using James Bond to make the argument - again, I'm just guessing that this is the argument - that a ditzy broad has no business talking smack to spies: James Bond's boss, M, has been a woman since 1995. She's played by an actress named Judi Dench. It was in all the papers. Before that, another M and Bond worked for a woman prime minister named Margaret Thatcher for eleven years. And they've all answered to a female regent - I'll have to look this up - named Queen Elizabeth II. Bond's been serving her -- on her secret service, you might say -- for 56 years, since the coronation and the publication of the first Bond book, Casino Royale , three months apart, in 1953. Apparently, sometime after the last time anyone in the Republican Party got out of the house. And here's the problem with using Goldfinger , specifically, as an argument that we shouldn't let our politicians get in the way of our torturers: It contains the most famous exchange in the history of alternative interrogation. Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die. It's not the good guy asking the questions. The torturer is the villain, Pussy Galore's boss. And James Bond gives him misleading information. More on Nancy Pelosi
 
Jeffrey Sachs: Aid Ironies Top
The debate about foreign aid has become farcical. The big opponents of aid today are Dambisa Moyo, an African-born economist who reportedly received scholarships so that she could go to Harvard and Oxford but sees nothing wrong with denying $10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malaria bed net. Her colleague in opposing aid, Bill Easterly, received large-scale government support from the National Science Foundation for his own graduate training. I certainly don't begrudge any of them the help that they got. Far from it. I believe in this kind of help. And I'd find Moyo's views cruel and mistaken even she did not get the scholarships that have been reported (Easterly mentioned his receipt of NSF support in the same book in which he denounces aid). I begrudge them trying to pull up the ladder for those still left behind. Before peddling their simplistic concoction of free markets and self-help, they and we should think about the realities of life, in which all of us need help at some time or other and in countless ways, and even more importantly we should think about the life-and-death consequences for impoverished people who are denied that help. Nine million children die each year of extreme poverty and disease conditions which are almost all preventable or treatable or both. Impoverished countries, with impoverished governments, can't solve these problems on their own. Yet with help they can. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, and the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunizations are both saving lives by the millions, and at remarkably low cost. Goldman Sachs, Ms. Moyo's former employer, gives out more in annual bonuses to its workers than the entire rich world gives to the Global Fund each year to help save the lives of poor children. And when Goldman Sachs got into financial trouble it got bailed-out by the US Government. Rich people have an uncanny ability to oppose aid for everybody but themselves. Recently Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, wrote an op-ed for the Financial Times praising Moyo's fresh thinking. This is extraordinary. His government has depended on aid for more than a decade. Nearly half the budget revenues currently come from aid. Rwanda currently imports around $800 million of merchandise each year, but only earns $250 million or so in exports. So how does it do it? Aid, of course, helped to pay for around $450 million of the imports. Without foreign aid, Rwanda's pathbreaking public health successes and strong current economic growth would collapse. Kagame's op-ed did not help FT readers to understand this. Americans are predisposed to like the anti-aid message. They believe that the poor have only themselves (or perhaps their governments) to blame. They overestimate the actual aid from the US by around thirty times, so they imagine that vast sums are flowing to Africa that are then squandered. Many believe, typically in private, that by saving African children we would be creating a population explosion, so better to let the kids die now rather than grow up hungry. (I'm asked about this constantly, usually in whispers, after lectures). They don't understand the most basic point of worldwide experience: when children survive rather than die in large numbers, households choose to have many fewer children, in fact more than compensating for the decline in child mortality. Africa's high child mortality is ironically a core reason why Africa's population is continuing to soar rather than stabilize as in other parts of the world. Of course, most Americans know little about the many crucially successful aid efforts, because Moyo, Easterly, and others lump all kinds of programs - the good and the bad - into one big undifferentiated mass, rather than helping people to understand what is working and how it can be expanded, and what is not working, and should therefore be cut back. Nor do Americans hear that many poor countries graduate from the need for aid over time, precisely because aid programs help to spur economic growth and successfully prepare countries to tackle future priorities. US aid to India for increased food production in the 1960s paved the way for India's growth takeoff afterwards. There are countless other examples in which countries have benefited from aid and then graduated, including Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Israel, and others. Egypt is on that path today, and Rwanda, Tanzania, Ghana, and others will be as well if both donors and recipients carry forward with a sensible assistance strategies. Here are some of the most effective kinds of aid efforts: support for peasant farmers to help them grow more food, childhood vaccines, malaria control with bed nets and medicines, de-worming, mid-day school meals, training and salaries for community health workers, all-weather roads, electricity supplies, safe drinking water, treadle pumps for small-scale irrigation, directly observed therapy for tuberculosis, antiretroviral medicines for AIDS sufferers, clean low-cost cook stoves to prevent respiratory disease of young children. Shipment of food from the US is a kind of aid that should be cut back, with more attention on growing local food in Africa. Out of every $100 of US national income, our government currently provides the grand sum of 5 cents in aid to all of Africa. Out of that same $100, we have found around $10 for the stimulus package and bank bailouts and another $5 for the military. It is not wonderful that what has caught the public's eye are proposals to cut today's 5 cents to 4 or 3 cents or perhaps zero. More on Africa
 

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