Showing posts with label HashPost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HashPost. Show all posts
Friday, December 16, 2011
‘Dark Knight Rises’: Christopher Nolan opens up about Bane choice
An exclusive interview with the director
(Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images)
There’s nothing sentimental or soft about Gotham City, and that seems to suit Christopher Nolan just fine. The 41-year-old filmmaker fills the screen with grim architecture, hard-luck faces and gun-metal hues; tricks of the mind are his narrative specialty, not affairs of the heart. Still, last Thursday, eating his dinner standing up in a movie theater lobby, Nolan confessed that even he got a bit misty during the final shooting days of “The Dark Knight Rises,” which is (by all appearances) his final visit to the world of Batman.
“I tend not to be too emotional on the set, I find that doesn’t help me do my job,” the writer-director said between bites. “But you definitely get a little lump in your throat thinking that, ‘OK, this is going to be the last time we’re going to be doing this.’ It’s been quite a journey. Hopefully, reflecting that journey — by all of us who made the films — in the three films together will make it so they have a real span to them, some real heft.”
Principal photography on “The Dark Knight Rises” was completed in mid-November after an intense six-month shoot that took Nolan and his veteran crew to India, Scotland and the United States as well as Cardington, England, their home base, where Gotham landmarks are set up inside a massive and moldy, old zeppelin hangar. The movie hits theaters on July 20 but, of course, Nolan is far from finished. He took a break from the editing room last week only to show seven minutes of ”Rises” footage to journalists and bloggers; it’s the same seven-minute preview that, starting this Friday, moviegoers will be able to see as a special trailer before screenings of “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” at select IMAX theaters.
For a vast tribe of movie fans, the taciturn Nolan is a figure of fascination and there’s a massive amount of interest in the finale of his Gotham trilogy, which so far has made $1.4 billion in worldwide box office, broke records in home video and generated hundreds of millions more in merchandise and licensing deals. Amateur and professional photographers dogged the ”Rises” production across the globe and every week brought new rumors about the film’s plot, characters, vehicles or costumes. Nolan doesn’t spend much time surfing the Internet (this is the guy who doesn’t have a cellphone or email account), but at a small reception after the Universal City press screening he said he welcomes the Bat-mania for what it represents.“It’s terrific, to have people that interested in something. It reminds you that it is a real honor to work on something that means so much to people,” Nolan said. “I’d love to be able to claim that I invented the whole thing and that’s why they’re interested. I did not. I’ve been given a very precious thing to do my best with, to look after and not to let people down. There’s a certain amount of fear that comes with it and intimidation but it’s also a great privilege. [As for the fans], they want it to be great, they want to go enjoy it and they’re fascinated by it. You know, there’s always controversy regarding things that people will disagree with but hopefully they appreciate the effort of trying to make something good.”
That effort to be good brings back newly minted Oscar winner Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and a supporting cast with Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway, Morgan Freeman — all Academy Award winners or nominees — and Gary Oldman who may soon be one. The screenplay, written by Nolan and his brother, Jonathan Nolan, is based on a story concept by the director and David S. Goyer, and it starts eight years after the final scene in 2008′s “The Dark Knight.” Bale has already confirmed that this is his last time in the cape and, because of the film’s tag line, “The legend ends,” many fans are wondering if this movie will dare the unthinkable and actually kill off the caped crusader.
Tom Hardy as Bane (Warner Bros)
Nolan thinks big and IMAX is a part of that. The filmmaker loves IMAX and views it — and not stereoscopic 3D – as today’s best approach to cinema spectacle and, as he put it last Thursday, the “grandeur of the movies.” He and his Oscar-winning cinematographer, Wally Pfister, again put up with the bulky, noisy IMAX cameras for some of the big action sequences in this third Batman film and Nolan said that if the edit of “Rises” goes as he expects, about 45 to 50 minutes of the finished film will have been shot with IMAX cameras.
Bane breaks Batman in the comics mythology (DC Comics)
The “Rises” opening sequence takes place mostly in the air; it shows hooded prisoners being transported on a CIA plane and it reveals that this film’s evil mastermind, Bane, played by Tom Hardy, is not to be underestimated no matter the setting or situation. The sequence required some intense aerial work for Nolan and company and, as always, the director’s emphasis was on in-camera effects and stunt work as opposed to the pixelated painting that is the norm in today’s computer-generated Hollywood.
“We had a lot of fun on it,” Nolan said. “It was a tricky sequence to shoot but a lot of very talented people worked very hard on it. And I’m thrilled with the result. We shot it in Scotland. We braved the weather — it rains all the time there, a terrible place to do an aerial sequence, which is why no one has sort of done it before. You usually wind up in the desert or something for very practical reasons. But it really came off. We got very lucky with the weather and a lot of good planning went into it. I think it had a very unique look.”
Bane was still a new sensation in this 1993 comic book (DC Comics)
With Bane — a brawny, brutal genius with a fearsome masked visage — Nolan surprised many observers because in his previous films he veered toward the more time-tested end of Batman’s rogues gallery (in the pages of DC Comics, the Joker, Two-Face and Scarecrow all date to the early 1940s, as does Catwoman, who will be a supporting character and played by Hathaway in this new film). Bane, however, first appeared in the comics in 1993 as the creation of Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench and Graham Nolan (no relation to the filmmaker). The director said it was Goyer who provided him with a four-color education in Bane.
“I didn’t know him very well,” Nolan said. “David Goyer got me a bunch of stuff on him and we looked into him. I only knew him by name, I wasn’t familiar with his back story. He’s a very cool character. And getting an actor like Tom to take it on, you know you’re going to get something very special. Tom is somebody who really knows how to put character into every gesture, every aspect of his physicality in the way that great actors can. He’s a very, very physical actor. He transforms himself and it’s there in every movement. He’s not afraid to look at a character from the outside as well as the inside so there’s a deep psychological branch to the character but also a very, very specific awareness of how he’s going to use his body and his appearance to express that character too. Christian is like that too, very much.”
"Batman Begins" started the trilogy in 2005 (Warner Bros.)
The addition of “Inception” co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt to the Gotham City cast as a young cop named John Blake certainly opens up some possible opportunities for a Batcave inheritance. N0lan is fine with all guessing games — again, it speaks to the fan passion — but don’t expect the cryptic filmmaker to offer any hints. He does say that he was searching for a story that would deliver a true finale and close out the trilogy in a powerful and definitive way. He also said that Bane will test the bone and muscle of Wayne with unprecedented savagery.
“With Bane, the physicality is the thing,” Nolan said. “With a good villain you need an archetype, you know, you need the extreme of some type of villainy. The Joker is obviously a particular archetype of diabolical, chaotic anarchy and has a devilish sense of humor. Bane, to me, is something we haven’t dealt with in the films. We wanted to do something very different in this film. He’s a primarily physical villain, he’s a classic movie monster in a way — but with a terrific brain. I think he’s a fascinating character. I think people are going to get a kick out of what we’ve done with him.”
Tom Hardy in "Inception." (Warner Bros. Pictures)
“It will make a lot more sense to people when they see the film,” Nolan said of the leap forward. “But it’s not a great mystery — it’s the jumping-off point for the film — but it’s hard for me to articulate it. I think the mood at the beginning of the film will make a lot of sense. If I had to express it thematically, I think what we’re saying is that for Batman and Commissioner Gordon, there’s a big sacrifice, a big compromise, at the end of the ‘The Dark Knight’ and for that to mean something, that sacrifice has to work and Gotham has to get better in a sense. They have to achieve something for the ending of that film — and the feeling at the end of that film — to have validity. Their sacrifice has to have meaning and it takes time to establish that and to show that, and that’s the primary reason we did that. It’s a time period that is not so far ahead that we would have to do crazy makeup or anything — which I think would be distracting — but it gave them something to get their teeth into, particularly Christian in terms of [portraying] this guy who has been frozen in this moment in time with nowhere to go. He really has done an incredible job figuring out how to characterize that and express that.”The true mystery is what Hollywood will make of Nolan — and vice versa — after he has truly left Gotham behind. Those are questions for another day but for the time being, the filmmaker seems pleased by the rare sensation of a sentimental journey: “It was pretty emotional as we would finish these characters and say goodbye to Alfred for the last time and say goodbye to Commissioner Gordon and eventually, with Christian, fairly close to the end, saying goodbye to Batman … it was a big deal,” Nolan said. “And with these newer characters too, finishing with Anne and all these guys. It was quite touching, I must say.”
http://herocomplex.latimes.com
Limited Edition Nokia Lumia 800 Dark Knight Rises quick unboxing
Quick unboxing of the limited edition Nokia Lumia 800 Dark Night Rises. This is a promo, not for sale phone, made by Nokia and Warner Bros. as tie-in to the new Batman, The Dark Night Rises film.
Ryan Gosling: 'Notebook' Director Told Me I Wasn't 'Handsome' or 'Cool'
Millions of women and men would disagree with director Nick Cassavetes -- who cast a then-unknown Ryan Gosling in "The Notebook" because, well, he wasn't that cute.
Now one of the most sought-after hunks in Hollywood, the "Drive" actor, 31, was just a Mickey Mouse Club alum and indie movie actor when Cassavetes was casting for his now-beloved, 2004 romantic film.
"The director, Nick Cassavetes, called me to meet him at his house," Gosling tells the British magazine Company. "When I got there, he was standing in his back yard, and he looked at me and said, 'I want you to play this role because you're not like the other young actors out there in Hollywood. You're not handsome, you're not cool, you're just a regular guy who looks a bit nuts."
Gosling went on to star in the smash film opposite fellow Canadian Rachel McAdams -- whom he dated and was briefly engaged to.
And despite his leading man status today, Gosling tells the mag he grew up a "lonely child. I didn't do well at school and TV was my only friend."
It was watching the small screen that inspired him to go Hollywood. "Then, one day, I saw Raquel Welch on 'The Muppet Show.' She was dancing with this big furry spider and I immediately fell in love. She was the first crush I ever had, and I thought, 'How do I get to meet this woman?' And then I thought, 'Well, she's on TV, so to meet her I have to get on TV myself."
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Christopher Hitchens Takes on Nietzsche: Am I Really Stronger?
Trial of the Will
Reviewing familiar principles and maxims in the face of mortal illness, Christopher Hitchens has found one of them increasingly ridiculous: “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Oh, really? Take the case of the philosopher to whom that line is usually attributed, Friedrich Nietzsche, who lost his mind to what was probably syphilis. Or America’s homegrown philosopher Sidney Hook, who survived a stroke and wished he hadn’t. Or, indeed, the author, viciously weakened by the very medicine that is keeping him alive.
By Michael Stravato/The New York Times/Redux.
Death has this much to be said for it:
You don’t have to get out of bed for it.
Wherever you happen to be
They bring it to you—free.
—Kingsley Amis
Pointed threats, they bluff with scornWhen it came to it, and old Kingsley suffered from a demoralizing and disorienting fall, he did take to his bed and eventually turned his face to the wall. It wasn’t all reclining and waiting for hospital room service after that—“Kill me, you fucking fool!” he once alarmingly exclaimed to his son Philip—but essentially he waited passively for the end. It duly came, without much fuss and with no charge.
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying.
—Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”
Mr. Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota, has had at least one very close encounter with death, more than one update and revision of his relationship with the Almighty and the Four Last Things, and looks set to go on demonstrating that there are many different ways of proving that one is alive. After all, considering the alternatives …
Before I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year and a half ago, I rather jauntily told the readers of my memoirs that when faced with extinction I wanted to be fully conscious and awake, in order to “do” death in the active and not the passive sense. And I do, still, try to nurture that little flame of curiosity and defiance: willing to play out the string to the end and wishing to be spared nothing that properly belongs to a life span. However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
In fact, I now sometimes wonder why I ever thought it profound. It is usually attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche: Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker. In German it reads and sounds more like poetry, which is why it seems probable to me that Nietzsche borrowed it from Goethe, who was writing a century earlier. But does the rhyme suggest a reason? Perhaps it does, or can, in matters of the emotions. I can remember thinking, of testing moments involving love and hate, that I had, so to speak, come out of them ahead, with some strength accrued from the experience that I couldn’t have acquired any other way. And then once or twice, walking away from a car wreck or a close encounter with mayhem while doing foreign reporting, I experienced a rather fatuous feeling of having been toughened by the encounter. But really, that’s to say no more than “There but for the grace of god go I,” which in turn is to say no more than “The grace of god has happily embraced me and skipped that unfortunate other man.”
In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don’t kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker. Nietzsche was destined to find this out in the hardest possible way, which makes it additionally perplexing that he chose to include the maxim in his 1889 anthology Twilight of the Idols. (In German this is rendered as Götzen-Dämmerung, which contains a clear echo of Wagner’s epic. Possibly his great quarrel with the composer, in which he recoiled with horror from Wagner’s repudiation of the classics in favor of German blood myths and legends, was one of the things that did lend Nietzsche moral strength and fortitude. Certainly the book’s subtitle—“How to Philosophize with a Hammer”—has plenty of bravado.)
In the remainder of his life, however, Nietzsche seems to have caught an early dose of syphilis, very probably during his first-ever sexual encounter, which gave him crushing migraine headaches and attacks of blindness and metastasized into dementia and paralysis. This, while it did not kill him right away, certainly contributed to his death and cannot possibly, in the meanwhile, be said to have made him stronger. In the course of his mental decline, he became convinced that the most important possible cultural feat would be to prove that the plays of Shakespeare had been written by Bacon. This is an unfailing sign of advanced intellectual and mental prostration.
(I take a slight interest in this, because not long ago I was invited onto a Christian radio station in deepest Dixie to debate religion. My interviewer maintained a careful southern courtesy throughout, always allowing me enough time to make my points, and then surprised me by inquiring if I regarded myself as in any sense a Nietzschean. I replied in the negative, saying that I had agreed with some arguments put forward by the great man but didn’t owe any large insight to him and found his contempt for democracy to be somewhat off-putting. H. L. Mencken and others, I tried to add, had also used him to argue some crude social-Darwinist points about the pointlessness of aiding the “unfit.” And his frightful sister, Elisabeth, had exploited his decline to misuse his work as if it had been written in support of the German anti-Semitic nationalist movement. This had perhaps given Nietzsche an undeserved posthumous reputation as a fanatic. The questioner pressed on, asking if I knew that much of Nietzsche’s work had been produced while he was decaying from terminal syphilis. I again responded that I had heard this and knew of no reason to doubt it, though knew of no confirmation either. Just as it became too late, and I heard the strains of music and the words that this would be all we would have time for, my host stole a march and said he wondered how much of my own writing on god had perhaps been influenced by a similar malady! I should have seen this “gotcha” coming, but was left wordless.)
Eventually, and in miserable circumstances in the Italian city of Turin, Nietzsche was overwhelmed at the sight of a horse being cruelly beaten in the street. Rushing to throw his arms around the animal’s neck, he suffered some terrible seizure and seems for the rest of his pain-racked and haunted life to have been under the care of his mother and sister. The date of the Turin trauma is potentially interesting. It occurred in 1889, and we know that in 1887 Nietzsche had been powerfully influenced by his discovery of the works of Dostoyevsky. There appears to be an almost eerie correspondence between the episode in the street and the awful graphic dream experienced by Raskolnikov on the night before he commits the decisive murders in Crime and Punishment. The nightmare, which is quite impossible to forget once you have read it, involves the terribly prolonged beating to death of a horse. Its owner scourges it across the eyes, smashes its spine with a pole, calls on bystanders to help with the flogging … we are spared nothing. If the gruesome coincidence was enough to bring about Nietzsche’s final unhingement, then he must have been tremendously weakened, or made appallingly vulnerable, by his other, unrelated sufferings. These, then, by no means served to make him stronger. The most he could have meant, I now think, is that he made the most of his few intervals from pain and madness to set down his collections of penetrating aphorism and paradox. This may have given him the euphoric impression that he was triumphing, and making use of the Will to Power. Twilight of the Idols was actually published almost simultaneously with the horror in Turin, so the coincidence was pushed as far as it could reasonably go.
Or take an example from an altogether different and more temperate philosopher, nearer to our own time. The late Professor Sidney Hook was a famous materialist and pragmatist, who wrote sophisticated treatises that synthesized the work of John Dewey and Karl Marx. He too was an unrelenting atheist. Toward the end of his long life he became seriously ill and began to reflect on the paradox that—based as he was in the medical mecca of Stanford, California—he was able to avail himself of a historically unprecedented level of care, while at the same time being exposed to a degree of suffering that previous generations might not have been able to afford. Reasoning on this after one especially horrible experience from which he had eventually recovered, he decided that he would after all rather have died:
I lay at the point of death. A congestive heart failure was treated for diagnostic purposes by an angiogram that triggered a stroke. Violent and painful hiccups, uninterrupted for several days and nights, prevented the ingestion of food. My left side and one of my vocal cords became paralyzed. Some form of pleurisy set in, and I felt I was drowning in a sea of slime In one of my lucid intervals during those days of agony, I asked my physician to discontinue all life-supporting services or show me how to do it.
The physician denied this plea, rather loftily assuring Hook that “someday I would appreciate the unwisdom of my request.” But the stoic philosopher, from the vantage point of continued life, still insisted that he wished he had been permitted to expire. He gave three reasons. Another agonizing stroke could hit him, forcing him to suffer it all over again. His family was being put through a hellish experience. Medical resources were being pointlessly expended. In the course of his essay, he used a potent phrase to describe the position of others who suffer like this, referring to them as lying on “mattress graves.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201
'Batman' star Bale punched, stopped from visiting blind Chinese activist
DONGSHIGU VILLAGE, China (CNN) -- As Christian Bale approached an impromptu checkpoint leading to this tiny village in eastern China, four men blocking the narrow path started marching toward him in menacing unison.
"I am here to see Chen Guangcheng," the "Dark Knight" actor said and I translated, with correspondent Stan Grant and cameraman Brad Olson next to us.
"Go away!" the plainclothes guards barked, pushing us back.
Amid the scuffling and yelling, dozens more guards in olive-green, military-style overcoats -- and two gray minivans -- emerged from the other side of the checkpoint, all coming toward us.
"Why can I not visit this free man?" Bale asked repeatedly, only to receive punches from guards aiming for his small camera as they tried to drag him away from the rest of us.
As we retreated, I recognized the ringleader -- the same burly man who had hurled rocks at the CNN team 10 months earlier to force us out of the same location.
A precarious scene ensued Thursday as one of the gray minivans chased our car at high speed on bumpy country roads for some 40 minutes.
When the dust settled, we counted a broken car, a damaged camera -- and a Hollywood star disappointed at -- but not shocked by -- his failure to see a personal hero.
"What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is," Bale said.
The man, 40-year-old Chen Guangcheng, has been confined to his home along with his wife, mother and daughter, and watched around the clock by dozens of guards since he was released from prison in September 2010. A local court had sentenced him to more than four years in prison for damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest.
The man, 40-year-old Chen Guangcheng, has been confined to his home along with his wife, mother and daughter, and watched around the clock by dozens of guards since he was released from prison in September 2010. A local court had sentenced him to more than four years in prison for damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest.
Blind China activist recovers amid call for his release
His supporters maintain authorities used trumped-up charges to silence Chen, a blind, self-taught lawyer who rose to fame in the late 1990s thanks to his legal advocacy for what he called victims of abusive practices by China's family-planning officials.
Bale first learned about Chen through news reports, including our coverage in February, when he was in China filming "The Flowers of War," a wartime drama set in 1930s Nanjing in which he plays a mortician trying to save a group of schoolgirls from the clutches invading Japanese soldiers.
Blind lawyer makes Chinese officials jittery
The injustice faced by the activist and his family stirred such strong emotions in Bale that, upon hearing his impending return to China to promote the movie, he decided to do something unusual to raise the international awareness of Chen and thereby to turn up the heat on the Chinese government.
"This doesn't come naturally to me, this is not what I actually enjoy -- it isn't about me," he explained during our eight-hour drive from Beijing to the eastern city of Linyi, where Chen's village is located. "But this was just a situation that said I can't look the other way."
Known to be a media-shy celebrity, Bale reached out to CNN and invited us to join him on his journey to visit Chen.
In the car, he lamented the American public's lack of knowledge on Chen's case, despite senior U.S. officials' increasingly vocal support for his freedom. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gary Locke, the American ambassador to China, have both championed Chen's cause.
Although China's state media has largely ignored the story, Chen's plight has spread online and outraged a growing number of Chinese "netizens." Many have tried to visit Chen, and activists say nearly all would-be visitors have been turned back, often violently, by plainclothes police and local thugs.
"I'm not brave doing this," Bale emphasized. "The local people who are standing up to the authorities, who are visiting Chen and his family and getting beaten or detained, I want to support them."
As our car sped toward Beijing in the dark, Bale wondered aloud if he would never be allowed back -- a prospect he is prepared to accept -- even as "The Flowers of War" became China's official entry into next year's Academy Awards.
"Really, what else can I do to help Chen?" he kept asking as the clock struck midnight, with his latest movie -- partially funded by the state -- about to open nationwide in China.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/15/world/asia/china-bale-activist/index.html?hpt=hp_c3
"I am here to see Chen Guangcheng," the "Dark Knight" actor said and I translated, with correspondent Stan Grant and cameraman Brad Olson next to us.
"Go away!" the plainclothes guards barked, pushing us back.
Amid the scuffling and yelling, dozens more guards in olive-green, military-style overcoats -- and two gray minivans -- emerged from the other side of the checkpoint, all coming toward us.
"Why can I not visit this free man?" Bale asked repeatedly, only to receive punches from guards aiming for his small camera as they tried to drag him away from the rest of us.
As we retreated, I recognized the ringleader -- the same burly man who had hurled rocks at the CNN team 10 months earlier to force us out of the same location.
A precarious scene ensued Thursday as one of the gray minivans chased our car at high speed on bumpy country roads for some 40 minutes.
When the dust settled, we counted a broken car, a damaged camera -- and a Hollywood star disappointed at -- but not shocked by -- his failure to see a personal hero.
"What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is," Bale said.
The man, 40-year-old Chen Guangcheng, has been confined to his home along with his wife, mother and daughter, and watched around the clock by dozens of guards since he was released from prison in September 2010. A local court had sentenced him to more than four years in prison for damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest.
The man, 40-year-old Chen Guangcheng, has been confined to his home along with his wife, mother and daughter, and watched around the clock by dozens of guards since he was released from prison in September 2010. A local court had sentenced him to more than four years in prison for damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest.
Blind China activist recovers amid call for his release
His supporters maintain authorities used trumped-up charges to silence Chen, a blind, self-taught lawyer who rose to fame in the late 1990s thanks to his legal advocacy for what he called victims of abusive practices by China's family-planning officials.
Bale first learned about Chen through news reports, including our coverage in February, when he was in China filming "The Flowers of War," a wartime drama set in 1930s Nanjing in which he plays a mortician trying to save a group of schoolgirls from the clutches invading Japanese soldiers.
Blind lawyer makes Chinese officials jittery
The injustice faced by the activist and his family stirred such strong emotions in Bale that, upon hearing his impending return to China to promote the movie, he decided to do something unusual to raise the international awareness of Chen and thereby to turn up the heat on the Chinese government.
"This doesn't come naturally to me, this is not what I actually enjoy -- it isn't about me," he explained during our eight-hour drive from Beijing to the eastern city of Linyi, where Chen's village is located. "But this was just a situation that said I can't look the other way."
Known to be a media-shy celebrity, Bale reached out to CNN and invited us to join him on his journey to visit Chen.
In the car, he lamented the American public's lack of knowledge on Chen's case, despite senior U.S. officials' increasingly vocal support for his freedom. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gary Locke, the American ambassador to China, have both championed Chen's cause.
Although China's state media has largely ignored the story, Chen's plight has spread online and outraged a growing number of Chinese "netizens." Many have tried to visit Chen, and activists say nearly all would-be visitors have been turned back, often violently, by plainclothes police and local thugs.
"I'm not brave doing this," Bale emphasized. "The local people who are standing up to the authorities, who are visiting Chen and his family and getting beaten or detained, I want to support them."
As our car sped toward Beijing in the dark, Bale wondered aloud if he would never be allowed back -- a prospect he is prepared to accept -- even as "The Flowers of War" became China's official entry into next year's Academy Awards.
"Really, what else can I do to help Chen?" he kept asking as the clock struck midnight, with his latest movie -- partially funded by the state -- about to open nationwide in China.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/15/world/asia/china-bale-activist/index.html?hpt=hp_c3
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Last Weekend to Shop! 3-DAY DEALS: $1.99 Bluetooth Headset, $69.99 18.5 inch LCD Monitor
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Introducing Timeline | Facebook
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Deal made to avoid government shutdown
WASHINGTON -- Congressional negotiators reached agreement Thursday on a compromise spending bill to avert a weekend federal shutdown. They also worked toward a deal renewing the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for another year but prepared a shorter version as a fallback.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters he was still optimistic that bipartisan talks on yearlong extensions of the Social Security payroll tax cut and unemployment coverage would succeed. But as a "Plan B," he said, they were working on a two-month extension as well, which would also prevent cuts in Medicare reimbursements for doctors during that period.
"We're still working on the long-term" bill, Reid told reporters as he exited the Capitol after a day of talks over both the payroll tax and spending measures. As for the two-month version, he said, "We'll only do that if what we're working on doesn't work out."
Reid's remarks put a slight damper on a day on which for the first time, Democratic and Republican leaders expressed optimism at prospects for swift compromise on their payroll tax standoff and a spending battle that had threatened to shutter federal agencies beginning at midnight Friday.
A deal on a $1 trillion spending bill was reached after Republicans agreed to drop language that would have blocked President Barack Obama's liberalized rules on people who visit and send money to relatives in Cuba. But a GOP provision will stay in the bill thwarting an Obama administration rule on energy efficiency standards that critics argued would make it hard for people to purchase inexpensive incandescent light bulbs.
The House is expected to approve the spending measure Friday, and the Senate could follow suit, possibly the same day.
Donald Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said talks aimed at agreeing to a yearlong extension of the payroll tax measure will continue.
"We're 12 hours into this debate, they just started talking," he said when asked about the two-month version of the bill. "I wouldn't hit the panic button."
A senior White House official said the administration supported the two-month plan.
Bargainers were considering the two-month extension of this year's payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits bill because so far, they haven't agreed how a yearlong extension would be paid for, said a Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks.
The two-month bill would cost $40 billion, according to the aide. It would be paid for from a list of around $120 billion in savings that bargainers are considering, including sales of the broadcast spectrum and raising fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge to back mortgages, the aide said.
The two-month extension would let lawmakers revisit the measure after returning to Washington after the holiday season. That could be risky because that work would come well into the 2012 presidential and congressional election year.
Without congressional action, the payroll taxes would rise and extra benefits for the long-term unemployed would expire on Jan. 1. Doctors' Medicare payments would be automatically reduced that day by 27 percent, a reduction that could prompt some to stop seeing Medicare patients.
"Right now, Congress needs to make sure that 160 million working Americans don't see their taxes go up on Jan. 1," said Obama, referring to the tax cut extension at the core of the jobs program he outlined in a nationally televised speech three months ago.
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, the most powerful Republican in an era of divided government, agreed. "We can extend payroll tax relief for American workers, help create new jobs and keep the government running. And frankly, we can do it in a bipartisan way," he said.
In the Capitol, the previous day's bristling rhetoric and partisan jabs all but vanished.
Still another year-end bill, setting new rules for the handling of terror suspects in U.S. custody, won final congressional approval and headed to Obama's desk for his signature.
Republicans agreed to consider changes to a $1 trillion spending bill compromise that they and at least one Democrat said had been wrapped up days ago.
On the payroll tax cut bill, Democrats abandoned their demand for a surtax on million-dollar incomes that they wanted to include in the measure.
At a news conference, Boehner minimized the concession, noting that Democrats lacked the votes to impose the surtax a year ago when they commanded 60 votes in the Senate. Even so, he said, "there was some movement yesterday from the White House and Democrat leaders" toward a compromise.
Boehner also left open the possibility of a compromise on another key sticking point — a House-passed provision that all but requires construction of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.
Construction "will put 20,000 people to work immediately And there are about 115,000 other jobs directly related to it," he said. Yet he skipped an opportunity to say construction of the project was non-negotiable as talks on the payroll tax cut bill proceeded.
Obama has threatened to veto the House-passed bill, in part citing the requirement for the pipeline. The project has been studied for more than three years, but the president recently announced he would put off a decision until after the 2012 elections.
At Obama's insistence, Congress cut the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax to 4.2 percent this year in an effort to stimulate the economy with more consumer spending. The president has proposed deepening the cut to 3.1 percent next year, but Republicans have only shown a willingness to renew it at this year's level.
Obama also wants to leave in place a system that provides aid for up to 99 weeks for the long-term unemployed. The House-passed measure reduces the total by 20 weeks, a step that the administration says would cut off 3.3 million individuals and that Democrats are hoping to soften if not reverse.
Reid indicated that a number of expiring tax breaks were on the table, as well, a list that included a provision that benefits commuters who use mass transit.
The House-passed payroll tax cut measure relied on a pay freeze and increased pension contributions for federal workers, as well as higher Medicare premiums for seniors with incomes over $80,000, beginning in 2017. The bill would also raise a fee that is charged to banks whose mortgages are guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and cancel more than $40 billion from the year-old health care bill, Obama's signature domestic achievement.
The year-end, $1 trillion spending measure would lock in cuts that Republicans extracted from Democrats in negotiations conducted months ago against the deadline of a previous government shutdown threat. It funds 10 Cabinet departments, including the Pentagon and dozens of smaller agencies, awarding a slight increase to the military and veterans' programs while trimming most other domestic programs.
The separate defense bill covered military personnel, weapons systems, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and more at a cost of $662 billion, $27 billion below Obama's request. The Senate approved it by a resounding 86-13.
The main controversy revolved around a provision to require military custody for foreign terrorist suspects linked to al-Qaida or its affiliates and involved in plotting or attacking the United States. Under a change made to gain Obama's backing, the legislation would permit the FBI to arrest and interrogate foreign terror suspects, as is now the case.
By The Associated Press
Updated at 11:13 p.m. ET
http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters he was still optimistic that bipartisan talks on yearlong extensions of the Social Security payroll tax cut and unemployment coverage would succeed. But as a "Plan B," he said, they were working on a two-month extension as well, which would also prevent cuts in Medicare reimbursements for doctors during that period.
"We're still working on the long-term" bill, Reid told reporters as he exited the Capitol after a day of talks over both the payroll tax and spending measures. As for the two-month version, he said, "We'll only do that if what we're working on doesn't work out."
Reid's remarks put a slight damper on a day on which for the first time, Democratic and Republican leaders expressed optimism at prospects for swift compromise on their payroll tax standoff and a spending battle that had threatened to shutter federal agencies beginning at midnight Friday.
A deal on a $1 trillion spending bill was reached after Republicans agreed to drop language that would have blocked President Barack Obama's liberalized rules on people who visit and send money to relatives in Cuba. But a GOP provision will stay in the bill thwarting an Obama administration rule on energy efficiency standards that critics argued would make it hard for people to purchase inexpensive incandescent light bulbs.
The House is expected to approve the spending measure Friday, and the Senate could follow suit, possibly the same day.
Donald Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said talks aimed at agreeing to a yearlong extension of the payroll tax measure will continue.
"We're 12 hours into this debate, they just started talking," he said when asked about the two-month version of the bill. "I wouldn't hit the panic button."
A senior White House official said the administration supported the two-month plan.
Bargainers were considering the two-month extension of this year's payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits bill because so far, they haven't agreed how a yearlong extension would be paid for, said a Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks.
The two-month bill would cost $40 billion, according to the aide. It would be paid for from a list of around $120 billion in savings that bargainers are considering, including sales of the broadcast spectrum and raising fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge to back mortgages, the aide said.
The two-month extension would let lawmakers revisit the measure after returning to Washington after the holiday season. That could be risky because that work would come well into the 2012 presidential and congressional election year.
Without congressional action, the payroll taxes would rise and extra benefits for the long-term unemployed would expire on Jan. 1. Doctors' Medicare payments would be automatically reduced that day by 27 percent, a reduction that could prompt some to stop seeing Medicare patients.
"Right now, Congress needs to make sure that 160 million working Americans don't see their taxes go up on Jan. 1," said Obama, referring to the tax cut extension at the core of the jobs program he outlined in a nationally televised speech three months ago.
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, the most powerful Republican in an era of divided government, agreed. "We can extend payroll tax relief for American workers, help create new jobs and keep the government running. And frankly, we can do it in a bipartisan way," he said.
In the Capitol, the previous day's bristling rhetoric and partisan jabs all but vanished.
Still another year-end bill, setting new rules for the handling of terror suspects in U.S. custody, won final congressional approval and headed to Obama's desk for his signature.
Republicans agreed to consider changes to a $1 trillion spending bill compromise that they and at least one Democrat said had been wrapped up days ago.
On the payroll tax cut bill, Democrats abandoned their demand for a surtax on million-dollar incomes that they wanted to include in the measure.
At a news conference, Boehner minimized the concession, noting that Democrats lacked the votes to impose the surtax a year ago when they commanded 60 votes in the Senate. Even so, he said, "there was some movement yesterday from the White House and Democrat leaders" toward a compromise.
Boehner also left open the possibility of a compromise on another key sticking point — a House-passed provision that all but requires construction of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.
Construction "will put 20,000 people to work immediately And there are about 115,000 other jobs directly related to it," he said. Yet he skipped an opportunity to say construction of the project was non-negotiable as talks on the payroll tax cut bill proceeded.
Obama has threatened to veto the House-passed bill, in part citing the requirement for the pipeline. The project has been studied for more than three years, but the president recently announced he would put off a decision until after the 2012 elections.
At Obama's insistence, Congress cut the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax to 4.2 percent this year in an effort to stimulate the economy with more consumer spending. The president has proposed deepening the cut to 3.1 percent next year, but Republicans have only shown a willingness to renew it at this year's level.
Obama also wants to leave in place a system that provides aid for up to 99 weeks for the long-term unemployed. The House-passed measure reduces the total by 20 weeks, a step that the administration says would cut off 3.3 million individuals and that Democrats are hoping to soften if not reverse.
Reid indicated that a number of expiring tax breaks were on the table, as well, a list that included a provision that benefits commuters who use mass transit.
The House-passed payroll tax cut measure relied on a pay freeze and increased pension contributions for federal workers, as well as higher Medicare premiums for seniors with incomes over $80,000, beginning in 2017. The bill would also raise a fee that is charged to banks whose mortgages are guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and cancel more than $40 billion from the year-old health care bill, Obama's signature domestic achievement.
The year-end, $1 trillion spending measure would lock in cuts that Republicans extracted from Democrats in negotiations conducted months ago against the deadline of a previous government shutdown threat. It funds 10 Cabinet departments, including the Pentagon and dozens of smaller agencies, awarding a slight increase to the military and veterans' programs while trimming most other domestic programs.
The separate defense bill covered military personnel, weapons systems, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and more at a cost of $662 billion, $27 billion below Obama's request. The Senate approved it by a resounding 86-13.
The main controversy revolved around a provision to require military custody for foreign terrorist suspects linked to al-Qaida or its affiliates and involved in plotting or attacking the United States. Under a change made to gain Obama's backing, the legislation would permit the FBI to arrest and interrogate foreign terror suspects, as is now the case.
By The Associated Press
Updated at 11:13 p.m. ET
http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com
Christopher Hitchens Dead: Legendary Writer Dies At 62
Christopher Hitchens died Thursday in Houston. He was 62. The legendary writer was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2010.
His death was announced by Vanity Fair.
Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England in 1949. His father, Ernest, a commander in the British Royal Navy, and his mother, Yvonne, a bookkeeper, scrimped and saved so that he could attend the independent Leys School in Cambridge, and later Balliol College, Oxford. They were determined that he would receive a top-notch education and join the upper class, The Guardian reported.
During his time at university, Hitchens studied philosophy, politics and economics, but the more he learned, the angrier he became. Hitchens' disgust with racism and opposition to the Vietnam War led him to the political left. He would eventually join the International Socialists, a faction of the anti-Stalinist left, and participate in political protests against the war.
Attending college in the 1960s introduced Hitchens to a more hedonistic way of life as well. Although he eschewed drugs, Hitchens became both a heavy smoker and hard drinker. He claimed such practices supported his writing efforts. "Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that -- or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation -- is worth it to me. So I was knowingly taking a risk," he said.
Writing was also the perfect outlet for him to enrage and enlighten. The British monarchy, Henry Kissinger and the Roman Catholic Church were just a few of his favorite targets in the 1970s. Despite being a bon vivant, Hitchens resolved to spend time at least once a year in "a country less fortunate than [his] own." As such, the early part of his career was dedicated to wandering the globe, reporting on the world's trouble spots and shining a light on those he considered cruel or evil, The New York Times reported.
After immigrating to the U.S. in 1981, Hitchens began writing for The Nation magazine. He would later edit and contribute articles to numerous publications, including Vanity Fair, the Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Harper’s, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post. His surprising advocacy for the war in Iraq, which was prompted by his growing conviction that radical elements in the Islamic world posed a danger to the West, gained Hitchens a wider readership, and in September 2005 he was named one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Hitchens penned two dozens books -- including "Letters To A Young Contrarian," "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" and "Hitch-22: A Memoir" -- and frequently made television and radio appearances. He also taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pittsburgh and the New School of Social Research.
As a cultural pundit, Hitchens loved picking fights. He offered unsparing insight on a wide range of subjects, from politics to religion to his own his mortality, but was perhaps best known for his criticism of Mother Teresa, both in his 1994 documentary "Hell's Angel," and in Vanity Fair.
"[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor," Hitchens said. "She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."
His negative portrayal of a woman many considered to be a saint prompted hundreds of readers to cancel their magazine subscriptions. And yet, after word of his death was reported, India's Missionaries of Charity order said it would pray for Hitchens' soul, despite his aggressive campaign against its Nobel prize-winning founder, AFP reported.
In 2008, amidst a nationwide discussion of "enhanced interrogation techniques, Hitchens decided to subject himself to a waterboarding treatment to see if it was truly a form of torture. He lasted for 16 seconds.
"It's annoying to me now to read every time it's discussed in the press -- or in Congress -- that it simulates the feeling of drowning," he said. "It doesn't simulate the feeling of drowning. You are being drowned, slowly."
Ever the contrarian, Hitchens adopted the U.S., warts and all, and took an oath of citizenship in 2007 on his 58th birthday. The ceremony was conducted by former President George W. Bush's homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff.
An outspoken atheist -- or as he preferred to be called, an antitheist -- Hitchens rallied many to a belief in rational thinking by describing organized religion as the main source of hatred and tyranny in the world, Reuters reported. In the final years of his life, he debated both religious and political figures about the nature of faith and the existence of God.
"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals," Hitchens said. "It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated."
Even after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in 2010, Hitchens refused to turn to a deity or organized religion for comfort. He made it clear that if anyone ever claimed he had converted at the end of his life, it would be either a lie propagated by the religious community or an effect of the cancer and treatment that made him no longer himself.
"The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain. I can't guarantee that such an entity wouldn't make such a ridiculous remark, but no one recognizable as myself would ever make such a remark," he said.
"There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar," said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. "Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."
Hitchens is survived by his wife, the writer Carol Blue, and three children.
His death was announced by Vanity Fair.
Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England in 1949. His father, Ernest, a commander in the British Royal Navy, and his mother, Yvonne, a bookkeeper, scrimped and saved so that he could attend the independent Leys School in Cambridge, and later Balliol College, Oxford. They were determined that he would receive a top-notch education and join the upper class, The Guardian reported.
During his time at university, Hitchens studied philosophy, politics and economics, but the more he learned, the angrier he became. Hitchens' disgust with racism and opposition to the Vietnam War led him to the political left. He would eventually join the International Socialists, a faction of the anti-Stalinist left, and participate in political protests against the war.
Attending college in the 1960s introduced Hitchens to a more hedonistic way of life as well. Although he eschewed drugs, Hitchens became both a heavy smoker and hard drinker. He claimed such practices supported his writing efforts. "Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that -- or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation -- is worth it to me. So I was knowingly taking a risk," he said.
Writing was also the perfect outlet for him to enrage and enlighten. The British monarchy, Henry Kissinger and the Roman Catholic Church were just a few of his favorite targets in the 1970s. Despite being a bon vivant, Hitchens resolved to spend time at least once a year in "a country less fortunate than [his] own." As such, the early part of his career was dedicated to wandering the globe, reporting on the world's trouble spots and shining a light on those he considered cruel or evil, The New York Times reported.
After immigrating to the U.S. in 1981, Hitchens began writing for The Nation magazine. He would later edit and contribute articles to numerous publications, including Vanity Fair, the Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Harper’s, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post. His surprising advocacy for the war in Iraq, which was prompted by his growing conviction that radical elements in the Islamic world posed a danger to the West, gained Hitchens a wider readership, and in September 2005 he was named one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Hitchens penned two dozens books -- including "Letters To A Young Contrarian," "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" and "Hitch-22: A Memoir" -- and frequently made television and radio appearances. He also taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pittsburgh and the New School of Social Research.
As a cultural pundit, Hitchens loved picking fights. He offered unsparing insight on a wide range of subjects, from politics to religion to his own his mortality, but was perhaps best known for his criticism of Mother Teresa, both in his 1994 documentary "Hell's Angel," and in Vanity Fair.
"[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor," Hitchens said. "She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."
His negative portrayal of a woman many considered to be a saint prompted hundreds of readers to cancel their magazine subscriptions. And yet, after word of his death was reported, India's Missionaries of Charity order said it would pray for Hitchens' soul, despite his aggressive campaign against its Nobel prize-winning founder, AFP reported.
In 2008, amidst a nationwide discussion of "enhanced interrogation techniques, Hitchens decided to subject himself to a waterboarding treatment to see if it was truly a form of torture. He lasted for 16 seconds.
"It's annoying to me now to read every time it's discussed in the press -- or in Congress -- that it simulates the feeling of drowning," he said. "It doesn't simulate the feeling of drowning. You are being drowned, slowly."
Ever the contrarian, Hitchens adopted the U.S., warts and all, and took an oath of citizenship in 2007 on his 58th birthday. The ceremony was conducted by former President George W. Bush's homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff.
An outspoken atheist -- or as he preferred to be called, an antitheist -- Hitchens rallied many to a belief in rational thinking by describing organized religion as the main source of hatred and tyranny in the world, Reuters reported. In the final years of his life, he debated both religious and political figures about the nature of faith and the existence of God.
"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals," Hitchens said. "It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated."
Even after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in 2010, Hitchens refused to turn to a deity or organized religion for comfort. He made it clear that if anyone ever claimed he had converted at the end of his life, it would be either a lie propagated by the religious community or an effect of the cancer and treatment that made him no longer himself.
"The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain. I can't guarantee that such an entity wouldn't make such a ridiculous remark, but no one recognizable as myself would ever make such a remark," he said.
"There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar," said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. "Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."
Hitchens is survived by his wife, the writer Carol Blue, and three children.
Court-storming Indiana fans nearly trampled a Playboy model
It took a tragic injury to alert America to the dangers of college hoops fans storming the court after a memorable win.
Indiana students celebrating Saturday's upset victory over top-ranked Kentucky were so needlessly careless that they nearly trampled a Playboy model.Megan Dills, a Kentucky graduate and lifelong Wildcats fan, told VaughtsViews.com she was knocked down five or six stairs in the crush of red-clad fans trying to get to the court after Christian Watford's game-winning three as time expired. Doctors diagnosed Dills with a sprained ankle and some torn tendons, forcing her to cancel a Playboy photo shoot this Saturday in Indiana.
"All those fans came out of their seats and rushed the floor like idiots," Dills said. "The next thing I knew, I was knocked down five or six steps. I think the guy who actually knocked me down is the one who did at least pick me up. After I got hurt, I was scared to death."
Incidents during court stormings are not that unusual, but what happened to Dills has received far more national attention because of her profession than previous ones that were far more serious.
Stanford volleyball recruit Joe Kay suffered a stroke after being hit high and low, taken down to the floor and trampled by exuberant students after he led Tucson High to a basketball win over a rival in February 2004. More recently, Ohio State star Jared Sullinger accused Wisconsin fans of spitting on him after the Badgers upset the Buckeyes in Madison last season.
The charged atmosphere for Saturday's rivalry game made for an intimidating setting for Kentucky fans in Bloomington.
Even though Dills knew the pro-Hoosiers environment at Assembly Hall would be hostile, she still jumped at the chance to see her beloved Wildcats in person when a friend who's an Indiana alum offered her a ticket. She said she took some grief during the game for wearing a Kentucky T-shirt and painting UK on her face.
"There was a girl two rows behind me that said, 'Sit your blonde — down,'" Dills said. "I turned around and probably said some not so nice things myself back.
"What happened up there would never happen at Kentucky. They were so distasteful and not very sportsmanlike. You would have thought they won the national championship. I just see us as different than other schools. Basketball really is like a religion and we respect the game. You would not have to leave a game in fear like you did Indiana. Besides, if Kentucky had played to half of its potential, IU would be singing another song today."
http://rivals.yahoo.com/
High schoolers banned for Tebowing
No running in the halls -- and no Tebowing either.
That's what one Long Island administration said Wednesday when it suspended a group of high school athletes for replicating Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow's popular pose in the hallway at school.
TebowJordan Fulcoly, Wayne Drexel and brothers Tyler and Connor Carroll of Riverhead High School were all handed a one-day suspension Wednesday, after three days of taking a knee with their foreheads resting on their fists, the same way Tebow does in the end zone and on the sidelines. The news was first reported by Yahoo! Prep Rally earlier Thursday.
Riverhead superintendent Nancy Carney said that two of the students' suspensions were later rescinded, citing that administrators found that those students were not given the same warnings that the other two were.
Tebow has made headlines for the move, a display of his devotion to his Christian faith. The students were not suspended for bringing religion into the school, but instead for clogging the hallway.
Carney said that she supported the administration's efforts to maintain a safe environment and was surprised that the incident has received this much attention. Since the news broke, Carney said she has been receiving hate mail from people charging that the suspension is due to religious prejudice.
"It's very unsettling," she told ESPNNewYork.com on Thursday. "It's a shame that people out there are so ready to judge when they weren't there to see what happened."
Reports said that the students had been Tebowing all week, starting Monday. It was meant to be a joke, only paying homage to one of pro football's newest stars. But other students started joining in and administrators claimed it had become a disturbance. District officials reportedly told the students that the celebration was making it unsafe for students walking the hall in between classes.
The incident saw about 40 students engaging in the popular Tebowing. Only the four students, all athletes, were suspended. Caroll told Prep Rally that the administration told them "that our Tebowing was blocking the halls and could potentially cause a riot, because they were growing in number and if the wrong kid gets pushed a brawl could ensue."
Carney said students have three minutes to reach their next class.
"It's just high school kids being kids and administrators doing what they do on a daily basis -- keeping kids safe," Carney said, "and with today's world and cell phones and people taking pictures and video, it can be taken out of context."
Tyler and Connor Carroll are on the football team along with Drexel.
Christopher Hunt is a regular contributor to ESPNNewYork.com.
http://espn.go.com
That's what one Long Island administration said Wednesday when it suspended a group of high school athletes for replicating Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow's popular pose in the hallway at school.
Riverhead superintendent Nancy Carney said that two of the students' suspensions were later rescinded, citing that administrators found that those students were not given the same warnings that the other two were.
Tebow has made headlines for the move, a display of his devotion to his Christian faith. The students were not suspended for bringing religion into the school, but instead for clogging the hallway.
Carney said that she supported the administration's efforts to maintain a safe environment and was surprised that the incident has received this much attention. Since the news broke, Carney said she has been receiving hate mail from people charging that the suspension is due to religious prejudice.
"It's very unsettling," she told ESPNNewYork.com on Thursday. "It's a shame that people out there are so ready to judge when they weren't there to see what happened."
Reports said that the students had been Tebowing all week, starting Monday. It was meant to be a joke, only paying homage to one of pro football's newest stars. But other students started joining in and administrators claimed it had become a disturbance. District officials reportedly told the students that the celebration was making it unsafe for students walking the hall in between classes.
The incident saw about 40 students engaging in the popular Tebowing. Only the four students, all athletes, were suspended. Caroll told Prep Rally that the administration told them "that our Tebowing was blocking the halls and could potentially cause a riot, because they were growing in number and if the wrong kid gets pushed a brawl could ensue."
Carney said students have three minutes to reach their next class.
"It's just high school kids being kids and administrators doing what they do on a daily basis -- keeping kids safe," Carney said, "and with today's world and cell phones and people taking pictures and video, it can be taken out of context."
Tyler and Connor Carroll are on the football team along with Drexel.
Christopher Hunt is a regular contributor to ESPNNewYork.com.
http://espn.go.com
Parents Sue After Teen Dies During Wisdom Tooth Surgery
The parents of a Maryland teen who died earlier this year during wisdom tooth surgery have sued the oral surgeon and the anesthetist for medical malpractice.
Jenny Olenick, a 17-year-old junior at Marriotts Ridge High School in Woodstock, Md., died in April from complications during the outpatient procedure performed on 5 million Americans each year.
"It's so hard," Cathy Garger, Olenick's mother, told ABCNews.com. "She was the only one we had."
The civil suit, filed in Howard Country Circuit Court, claims the oral surgeon, Dr. Domenick Coletti, and the anesthiologist, Dr. Krista Michelle Isaacs, were negligent and failed to resuscitate Olenick after her heart rate and blood oxygen level dropped.
Garger and Olenick's father, John, declined to comment on the pending case, but a spokeswoman for the family said they hope to highlight the surgery's risks and the need for better emergency training among dentists and oral surgeons.
"Something should have been done at the first sign of the emergency happening," said Nicole Cunha, a family friend and executive director of the Raven Maria Blanco Foundation -- a non-profit group dedicated to protecting pediatric dental patients. "If they hadn't waited so long, Jenny would still be here."
Coletti and Isaacs did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
An investigation by the state's chief medical examiner ruled the cause of Olenick's death to be hypoxia -- oxygen deprivation while she was anesthetized.
Another teen, 14-year-old Ben Ellis of Gilmer County, Ga., was found dead in his bed Dec. 8 after undergoing wisdom tooth surgery the day before, ABC News affiliate WSBTV reported. The Gilmer County Sheriff's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are still investigating the cause of death.
Like any surgery, wisdom tooth extraction carries risks. The most common complication -- permanent nerve damage causing numbness of the tongue, lips or cheeks -- affects more than 11,000 people annually, according to a 2007 report in the American Journal of Public Health. But the surgery has also been linked to jaw and tooth fractures, brain tissue infections, life-threatening bleeding and hypoxia.
With all the risks, some dentists question whether the extraction surgeries are even necessary.
The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons strongly recommends that young adults have their wisdom teeth removed to "prevent future problems and to ensure optimal healing." But the science supporting prophylactic extraction is thin.
"Third-molar surgery is a multibillion-dollar industry that generates significant income for the dental profession," Jay Friedman, a retired California dentist, wrote in the American Journal of Public Health. "It is driven by misinformation and myths that have been exposed before but that continue to be promulgated by the profession."
American dentists and oral surgeons pull 10 million wisdom teeth each year -- an effort that costs more than $3 billion and leads to 11 million days of post-operative discomfort, according to the report.
"At least two thirds of these extractions, associated costs, and injuries are unnecessary, constituting a silent epidemic of [physician-induced] injury that afflicts tens of thousands of people with lifelong discomfort and disability," Friedman wrote.
Wisdom teeth are thought to have evolved for catching, killing and eating uncooked prey, which would make them obsolete now. The argument for prophylactic removal is the risk of cysts or damage to adjacent teeth brought on by too many molars in too little space.
"If left in the mouth, impacted wisdom teeth may damage neighboring teeth and nerves, or become infected, possibly inviting systemic infections and disease as the bacteria travel through the bloodstream from your mouth to other organs of your body," reads the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons website.
But studies suggest no more than 12 percent of impactions lead to infections or damage to adjacent teeth -- roughly the same incidence as appendicitis. No medical associations recommend prophylactic appendectomy.
Similarly, a 1980 report by the National Institutes of Health recommended removing wisdom teeth because of infection, cavities, cysts, tumors and damage to adjacent teeth and bone. It does not recommend removing asymptomatic, fully impacted teeth.
http://news.yahoo.com
Jenny Olenick, a 17-year-old junior at Marriotts Ridge High School in Woodstock, Md., died in April from complications during the outpatient procedure performed on 5 million Americans each year.
"It's so hard," Cathy Garger, Olenick's mother, told ABCNews.com. "She was the only one we had."
The civil suit, filed in Howard Country Circuit Court, claims the oral surgeon, Dr. Domenick Coletti, and the anesthiologist, Dr. Krista Michelle Isaacs, were negligent and failed to resuscitate Olenick after her heart rate and blood oxygen level dropped.
Garger and Olenick's father, John, declined to comment on the pending case, but a spokeswoman for the family said they hope to highlight the surgery's risks and the need for better emergency training among dentists and oral surgeons.
"Something should have been done at the first sign of the emergency happening," said Nicole Cunha, a family friend and executive director of the Raven Maria Blanco Foundation -- a non-profit group dedicated to protecting pediatric dental patients. "If they hadn't waited so long, Jenny would still be here."
Coletti and Isaacs did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
An investigation by the state's chief medical examiner ruled the cause of Olenick's death to be hypoxia -- oxygen deprivation while she was anesthetized.
Another teen, 14-year-old Ben Ellis of Gilmer County, Ga., was found dead in his bed Dec. 8 after undergoing wisdom tooth surgery the day before, ABC News affiliate WSBTV reported. The Gilmer County Sheriff's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are still investigating the cause of death.
Like any surgery, wisdom tooth extraction carries risks. The most common complication -- permanent nerve damage causing numbness of the tongue, lips or cheeks -- affects more than 11,000 people annually, according to a 2007 report in the American Journal of Public Health. But the surgery has also been linked to jaw and tooth fractures, brain tissue infections, life-threatening bleeding and hypoxia.
With all the risks, some dentists question whether the extraction surgeries are even necessary.
The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons strongly recommends that young adults have their wisdom teeth removed to "prevent future problems and to ensure optimal healing." But the science supporting prophylactic extraction is thin.
"Third-molar surgery is a multibillion-dollar industry that generates significant income for the dental profession," Jay Friedman, a retired California dentist, wrote in the American Journal of Public Health. "It is driven by misinformation and myths that have been exposed before but that continue to be promulgated by the profession."
American dentists and oral surgeons pull 10 million wisdom teeth each year -- an effort that costs more than $3 billion and leads to 11 million days of post-operative discomfort, according to the report.
"At least two thirds of these extractions, associated costs, and injuries are unnecessary, constituting a silent epidemic of [physician-induced] injury that afflicts tens of thousands of people with lifelong discomfort and disability," Friedman wrote.
Wisdom teeth are thought to have evolved for catching, killing and eating uncooked prey, which would make them obsolete now. The argument for prophylactic removal is the risk of cysts or damage to adjacent teeth brought on by too many molars in too little space.
"If left in the mouth, impacted wisdom teeth may damage neighboring teeth and nerves, or become infected, possibly inviting systemic infections and disease as the bacteria travel through the bloodstream from your mouth to other organs of your body," reads the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons website.
But studies suggest no more than 12 percent of impactions lead to infections or damage to adjacent teeth -- roughly the same incidence as appendicitis. No medical associations recommend prophylactic appendectomy.
Wisdom Tooth Surgery: Is It Wise?
The American Public Health Association recommended removing wisdom teeth only based on evidence of diagnosed pathology or demonstrable need, and opposes prophylactic removal, which "subjects individuals and society to unnecessary costs, avoidable morbidity and the risks of permanent injury."Similarly, a 1980 report by the National Institutes of Health recommended removing wisdom teeth because of infection, cavities, cysts, tumors and damage to adjacent teeth and bone. It does not recommend removing asymptomatic, fully impacted teeth.
http://news.yahoo.com
Controversial Air Force casket photo prompts investigation
This controversial photo has launched an Air Force investigation
Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told the paper that investigators were mounting an inquiry of the grief the image might cause for families of fallen service members. "We take this matter seriously. [Air Education and Training Command] has initiated a commander directed investigation," Donley said in a statement.
"Such behavior is not consistent with our core values, and it is not representative of the Airmen I know. It saddens me that this may cause additional grief to the families of our fallen warriors."
The photo, dated August 23rd, was reportedly taken by airmen with the 345th Training Squadron at Fort Lee, Virginia, according to Gerry Proctor, spokesman for the 37th Training Group at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, which includes the 345th Training Squadron.
First appearing on Facebook in early October, the image has since been forwarded by several individuals, including a former soldier and Army spouse.
The investigation by the commander of the 37th Training Group is expected to take about two weeks, according to David Smith, a spokesman for AETC at Randolph Air Force Base, Tex.
http://news.yahoo.com
In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
By Gasper Tringale.
Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.
“Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centered and even solipsistic,” Hitchens wrote nearly a year ago in Vanity Fair, but his own final labors were anything but: in the last 12 months, he produced for this magazine a piece on U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, a portrait of Joan Didion, an essay on the Private Eye retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a prediction about the future of democracy in Egypt, a meditation on the legacy of progressivism in Wisconsin, and a series of frank, graceful, and exquisitely written essays in which he chronicled the physical and spiritual effects of his disease. At the end, Hitchens was more engaged, relentless, hilarious, observant, and intelligent than just about everyone else—just as he had been for the last four decades.
“My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends,” he wrote in the June 2011 issue. He died in their presence, too, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly.
http://www.vanityfair.com
“Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centered and even solipsistic,” Hitchens wrote nearly a year ago in Vanity Fair, but his own final labors were anything but: in the last 12 months, he produced for this magazine a piece on U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, a portrait of Joan Didion, an essay on the Private Eye retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a prediction about the future of democracy in Egypt, a meditation on the legacy of progressivism in Wisconsin, and a series of frank, graceful, and exquisitely written essays in which he chronicled the physical and spiritual effects of his disease. At the end, Hitchens was more engaged, relentless, hilarious, observant, and intelligent than just about everyone else—just as he had been for the last four decades.
“My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends,” he wrote in the June 2011 issue. He died in their presence, too, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly.
http://www.vanityfair.com
Naked Female Comedians: Please Put Your Clothes Back On (PHOTOS)
Apparently, posing nude -- or mostly nude -- in a mens' magazine is still some sort of rite of passage for female entertainers, and there has been a spate of female comedians stripping down recently. We have to admit, as fans of comedy and women in comedy especially, my fellow editors and I die a little bit every time this happens. When we saw the new behind-the-scenes video of Abby Elliott's Maxim shoot, we decided it was time to start a conversation.
In one sense, there is a pragmatic way of looking at this: in order to win a larger male audience, women have to remind men that they are women (with a capital T & A). Conventional wisdom says that funny women are intimidating, so why not take yourself down a peg -- or article of clothing -- or two to make yourself a little more approachable?
This makes good career sense, but does it undermine the struggle to let a woman's work, not her workout, be her selling point? To put it another way, we aren't expecting to see Sarah Vowell in a Maxim photo shoot anytime soon, and we doubt that has hurt her career very much.
Another, perhaps even more crucial point, is that from all accounts, these sorts of photo shoots are a lot of fun. We are sexual beings after all and to deny that is not only wrong, it's naive.
Nevertheless, at a time when so many men feel comfortable saying, "I don't find women funny," it doesn't sit well with us to see many of those same men rewarded with getting to see actual funny women in the buff.
Below are a few examples of funny women who could/should keep their clothes on (unless, of course, it's for a role and it's tasteful and artistically justified, etc. etc.). It's not because they aren't beautiful, of course they are. It's because we consider placating the readers of laddie mags just so beneath them.
What do you think? Does seeing hilarious women strip down bother you or is it all in good fun?
This photo is not an insulting, literal dressing down of women who normally seem funny and empowered in the same way that "Top Gun" is not homoerotic.
Photo via GQ
In one sense, there is a pragmatic way of looking at this: in order to win a larger male audience, women have to remind men that they are women (with a capital T & A). Conventional wisdom says that funny women are intimidating, so why not take yourself down a peg -- or article of clothing -- or two to make yourself a little more approachable?
This makes good career sense, but does it undermine the struggle to let a woman's work, not her workout, be her selling point? To put it another way, we aren't expecting to see Sarah Vowell in a Maxim photo shoot anytime soon, and we doubt that has hurt her career very much.
Another, perhaps even more crucial point, is that from all accounts, these sorts of photo shoots are a lot of fun. We are sexual beings after all and to deny that is not only wrong, it's naive.
Nevertheless, at a time when so many men feel comfortable saying, "I don't find women funny," it doesn't sit well with us to see many of those same men rewarded with getting to see actual funny women in the buff.
Below are a few examples of funny women who could/should keep their clothes on (unless, of course, it's for a role and it's tasteful and artistically justified, etc. etc.). It's not because they aren't beautiful, of course they are. It's because we consider placating the readers of laddie mags just so beneath them.
What do you think? Does seeing hilarious women strip down bother you or is it all in good fun?
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post did not adequately attribute the photo of Tina Fey. The original photo shoot was for BUST Magazine, which describes itself as "an uncensored view on the female experience." The photo in question was re-posted at Maxim.com, where we found it.
Photo via GQ
Sofia Vergara Wears See-Through Leggings In Embarrassing Wardrobe Malfunction (PHOTOS)
Don't get us wrong: we're not complaining about seeing more than usual of Sofia Vergara's curves.
But when the famously voluptuous "Modern Family" actress went out yesterday, she probably didn't realize that her pants were revealing a little too much.
Sofia looked impeccable in her gray cape, Chanel bag and black leggings, at least from the front. But when the actress turned around, we realized her leggings were, uh... yeah, that's TOTALLY see-through.
See the photos of Sofia's wardrobe malfunction -- you know you want to!-- below, and check out our slideshow of other celebs wearing pants that, well, aren't quite pants.
But when the famously voluptuous "Modern Family" actress went out yesterday, she probably didn't realize that her pants were revealing a little too much.
Sofia looked impeccable in her gray cape, Chanel bag and black leggings, at least from the front. But when the actress turned around, we realized her leggings were, uh... yeah, that's TOTALLY see-through.
See the photos of Sofia's wardrobe malfunction -- you know you want to!-- below, and check out our slideshow of other celebs wearing pants that, well, aren't quite pants.
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