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রবিবার, ১৯ মে, ২০১৩

Cannes helps actors Bejo and Rahim cross borders

CANNES, France (AP) ? The magic and glamour of Cannes can be hard to spot on a day when rain is lashing the palm trees, roiling the gray Mediterranean and pooling in puddles along the Croisette.

But the world's leading film festival can transform careers ? something no one knows that better than actors Berenice Bejo and Tahir Rahim, stars of director Asghar Farhadi's festival entry "The Past."

Bejo shimmered on-screen in Cannes two years ago in "The Artist," her director husband Michel Hazanavicius' vivacious silent homage to Hollywood's Golden Age. It went on to win five Academy Awards, including best picture.

Rahim was the breakout star of the 2009 festival in Jacques Audiard's poetic and brutal prison drama "A Prophet," as a youth growing to manhood behind bars.

Cannes exposure helped boost both performers onto the international stage. While once most European actors could choose between stay at home and playing Hollywood villains, their paths suggest a more globalized movie world.

"It was quite a miracle for me," Bejo said Saturday, as rain drummed remorselessly on a Cannes rooftop lounge. "Two years ago my life changed a little bit in Cannes.

"I don't think Asghar Farhadi would have cast me in this movie if I hadn't done 'The Artist.'"

It's hard to think of two movie styles further apart than the flamboyant artifice of "The Artist" and the anatomically detailed domestic drama of "The Past"

Bejo plays Marie, a harried Frenchwoman with two children, a new boyfriend with a young son, and an Iranian ex who has returned after four years to finalize their divorce. Rahim is her boyfriend Samir, a man with complex family ties of his own.

All the characters are trying to move on ? but the past keeps dragging them back.

Bejo said she did a screen test for Farhadi, then didn't hear from him for a month, so initially thought she hadn't got the part.

"He said to me, I was looking into your face if I could see the doubt," she said. "I guess because he saw me in movies where I was quite positive, quite sunny, quite glamorous. He needed to see if I could show another part of myself ? and I guess he found it."

For Bejo, as for Rahim, working with the Iran director was a dream come true. "The Past" is the first film Farhadi has shot outside his homeland, and the actors say they loved his working methods ? two months of rehearsal to delve into character, break down barriers and forge bonds, followed by a four-month shoot.

With its Iranian director and largely French cast, it's one of several border-hopping movies at Cannes this year. French director Arnaud Desplechin's made-in-America "Jimmy P.: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian" stars France's Mathieu Amalric and Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro. Another French filmmaker, Guillaume Canet, has a multinational cast including Clive Owen, Billy Crudup and Marion Cotillard in his New York crime drama "Blood Ties."

It's a trend Bejo is happy to embrace.

"In America you have Christoph Waltz, you have Marion Cotillard," she said. "In France we have Italian and Spanish actors. ... I think it's great. We are used to strangers and foreign accents, and it's great that we can see that in our movies now."

Both she and Rahim have been busy since their Cannes breakthroughs. Bejo recently made French heist movie "The Last Diamond" and soon starts filming Hazanavicius' next project, a war movie set in Chechnya.

Rahim's projects include the English-language Roman-era adventure "The Eagle" and another movie appearing at Cannes this year, the nuclear power plant romance "Grand Central."

Coming up, he plays a cop in the French movie "The Informant," and is currently shooting a globe-spanning 1920s-set drama with Turkish-German director Fatih Akin, another pillar of culture-crossing cinema.

Despite the busy international career ? and post-"Prophet" expressions of interest from the United States ? Rahim says Hollywood remains a hard nut to crack for non-Anglophone actors.

"It's not what you expect at first," Rahim said. "You'd like to be with Michael Mann or (directors) like this, but you don't have those parts that easily. Because first you have to speak English, you have to erase your accent."

For now, he's just happy to be back in Cannes, an experience that is easier the second time around.

"The difference is that now I'm not afraid when I come here," he said. "I'm (saying) 'OK I'm going to take every good vibe and keep it.'"

___

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cannes-helps-actors-bejo-rahim-cross-borders-165726670.html

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Woodward's 'Watergate' comparison: on, or off-target?

Bob Woodward compared Benghazi to Watergate during a Friday morning appearance on MSNBC?s ?Morning Joe.?

The famous Washington Post reporter and former antagonist of President Richard Nixon said the US government?s editing of talking points used by public officials in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, is ?a very serious issue.?

?I would not dismiss Benghazi,? Mr. Woodward said.

Woodward?s own main talking point was that he believed there are similarities between the process used to produce the Benghazi talking points and Nixon?s release of edited transcripts of the White House tapes.

RECOMMENDED: War with Iran? 5 ways events overseas could shape Obama's second term.

Citing the lengthy e-mail chain detailing the production of the talking points, released by the Obama administration earlier this week, the Watergate press hero said that in the wake of the Libyan tragedy ?everyone in the government is saying, ?Oh, let?s not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to Al Qaeda. Let?s not tell the public that there were warnings.? ?

Forty years ago, Nixon went line by line through his tape transcripts and made his own edits.

?He personally went through them and said, ?Let?s not tell this, let?s not show this,? ? said Woodward on ?Morning Joe."

Want your top political issues explained? Get customized DC Decoder updates.

Nixon, of course, was trying to deflate the increasing public and congressional pressure for him to release the tapes themselves. He wasn?t successful. The tapes revealed the extent of his involvement with the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover up.

As to Benghazi, Woodward concluded that the edits ?show the hydraulic pressure that was in the system not to tell the truth.?

Is Woodward right to make this comparison? After all, he is the media?s official arbiter of all things Watergate, and his words here carry special weight.

Well, it?s certainly possible that he?s hit upon the reason the talking points got changed around. But having read the 100 pages of e-mails on the editing process ourselves, we?d say it?s also possible that he?s jumping to conclusions. For at least some of the officials involved in the process, the reason to take out references to terrorists and Al Qaeda was not to hide the truth, but because they did not know what the truth was.

For instance, early in the editing process Stephen Preston, the CIA?s general counsel, e-mailed talking-point participants that ?in light of the criminal investigation, we are not to generate statements with statements as to who did this, etc. ? even internally, not to mention for public release.?

And the scrubbed ?warnings? Woodward referred to were fairly vague references to past CIA internal statements. The Post journalist may be right that the public should have heard about them. State Department officials, though, were transparently annoyed that the spy agency was trying to cover its rear end at their expense.

Look, things don?t have to be as bad as Watergate to be important malfeasance. Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein made that point earlier this week on his A Plain Blog About Politics.

But loosely comparing current scandals with Watergate is to forget the full extent of the Nixon-era scandal, wrote Mr. Bernstein in a post titled, ?You Call That a Cover-Up??

In Watergate the cover-up was essentially personally directed by the president, overseen by the White House chief of staff, and run by the White House counsel, Bernstein writes. They concocted a false story, destroyed important evidence, and raised hush money used to attempt to buy the silence of underlings who were facing jail time.

Oh, and the president of the United States ordered the CIA to falsely tell the FBI that national security was involved in the Watergate mess, so the FBI needed to pull back its investigation.

By the way, the Watergate hearings began 40 years ago on this date. Bernstein has been writing a fascinating series of pieces outlining the unfolding of the Watergate scandal day by day, as if it were occurring in real time. You can read that to catch up on the bad old days and decide if today compares.

RECOMMENDED: War with Iran? 5 ways events overseas could shape Obama's second term.

শনিবার, ১৮ মে, ২০১৩

What Teens Should Expect From Their First Gynecologist Visit

May 17, 2013 12:26pm

Visiting a gynecologist for the first time can be awkward and embarrassing for some teens. But the visit is crucial to help them understand their bodies and lay the groundwork for future health and wellness.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends the first visit should be between the ages of 13 to 15. The exam should be an opportunity to educate teens about their bodies and help them establish a relationship with a gynecologist at an early age.

What to Expect

The first visit is an opportunity for teens to get accurate information about the changes in their bodies. A gynecologist will discuss acne, painful or irregular periods, breast changes, pelvic pain, body hair, nutrition, sexual behavior, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. It is also an opportunity to talk about preexisting conditions and any family history of cancer.

Beyond talking, the visit might also include a breast exam, pelvic exam and a pap test, which screens for cervical cancer. The gynecologist might ask for a relative or nurse to be present during these exams.

While the first visit might be awkward, it?s an important step in the transition from teenage girl to healthy woman. Starting a conversation with a doctor helps you lay the foundation for health and wellness.

SHOWS: Good Morning America

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/05/17/what-teens-should-expect-from-their-first-gynecologist-visit/

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Asia stocks mixed as holidays thin trade

A woman watches an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, May 16, 2013. Asian stock markets were mixed Thursday following dour European economic data that dampened hopes of a recovery there anytime soon. However, losses were limited by another record session on Wall Street. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

A woman walks by an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, May 16, 2013. Asian stock markets were mixed Thursday following dour European economic data that dampened hopes of a recovery there anytime soon. However, losses were limited by another record session on Wall Street. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

BANGKOK (AP) ? Asian stock markets were mixed in holiday-thinned trading Friday as investors digested a slew of disappointing economic data and corporate results from the U.S.

Applications for unemployment benefits jumped to their highest level in six weeks, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday, while manufacturing slowed in the mid-Atlantic region.

The bright spot was applications for new construction, which reached a five-year peak, reinforcing "the patchy nature of the US economic recovery," Michael Hewson of CMC Markets said in a commentary.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 0.6 percent to 15,119.53, reversing a lower opening. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.5 percent to 5,189.70, pushed up by gains in BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company. The stock rose 2.4 percent on bargain-hunting. Australia & New Zealand Banking Group rose 1.5 percent.

Benchmark in mainland China and Indonesia also rose while those in Taiwan, India, Singapore, New Zealand and the Philippines fell. Markets in Hong Kong and South Korea were closed for public holidays.

Evan Lucas of IG Markets in Melbourne said market declines could be explained by investors cashing in their gains following strong rallies. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index has returned 45 percent so far this year. The Standard & Poor's 500 has delivered a terrific first four months. It's up 16 percent.

"There is always an uneasy feeling underlying the markets when they start making all-time highs," Lucas said.

Shares linked to gold, which has suddenly fallen afoul of investors like George Soros, dropped. Australia's Newcrest Mining was down 2.2 percent. Lao Feng Xiang, a Shanghai-listed major gold retailer, fell 0.9 percent.

Corporate earnings, which have been helping to power Wall Street to all-time highs, took a step back on Thursday after Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, reported a disappointing first-quarter profit and acknowledged a sales slump. Personal computer maker Dell posted dismal first quarter earnings.

Markets were also reacting to comments by John Williams, head of the Federal Reserve's San Francisco branch, who told an audience that the Fed could end its bond-buying program this year. But Williams' comments made clear that the Fed would only curtail its stimulus effort when the economy looked strong enough.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell to 15,233.22, a loss of 0.3 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 0.5 percent to 1,650.47. Both indexes closed at record highs the day before. The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.2 percent to 3,465.24.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 30 cents to $94.87 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 86 cents to $95.16 per barrel on the Nymex on Thursday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2864 from $1.2907 late Thursday in New York. The dollar rose to 102.30 yen from 102.06 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-17-World%20Markets/id-104fa8888d6249baaf3b9928c783dadc

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NYC artist's secret photos raise privacy issues

NEW YORK (AP) ? In one photo, a woman is on all fours, presumably picking something up, her posterior pressed against a glass window. Another photo shows a couple in bathrobes, their feet touching beneath a table. And there is one of a man, in jeans and a T-shirt, lying on his side as he takes a nap.

In all the photos, taken by New York City artist Arne Svenson from his second-floor apartment, the faces are obscured or not shown. The people are unidentifiable.

But the residents of a glass-walled luxury residential building across the street had no idea they were being photographed and they never consented to being subjects for the works of art that are now on display ? and for sale ? in a Manhattan gallery.

"I don't feel it's a violation in a legal sense but in a New York, personal sense there was a line crossed," said Michelle Sylvester, who lives in the residential building called the Zinc Building, which stands out with its floor-to-ceiling windows in a neighborhood of cobblestone streets and old, brick warehouse buildings.

Svenson's apartment is directly across the street, just to the south, giving him a clear view of his neighbors by simply looking out his window.

"I think there's an understanding that when you live here with glass windows, there will be straying eyes but it feels different with someone who has a camera," Sylvester said.

Svenson's show, "The Neighbors," opened last Saturday at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea, where about a dozen large prints are on sale for up to $7,500. His exhibit is drawing a lot of attention, not for the quality of the work, but for the manner in which it was made.

Svenson did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but says in material accompanying the exhibit that the idea for it came when he inherited a telephoto lens from a friend, a birdwatcher who recently died.

"For my subjects there is no question of privacy; they are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high," Svenson says in the gallery notes. "The Neighbors don't know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs."

That explanation has done little to satisfy some residents of the Zinc Building, where a penthouse was once listed at nearly $6 million. In an email circulating among the building's owners and renters this week, a resident whose apartment was depicted in Svenson's photographs suggested legal recourse against the artist.

"I am not an expert in this area of the law, but I do think we may have some rights and the ability to stop this," the email reads. "I love art, but find this to be an outrageous invasion of privacy."

Civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel said that according to New York civil rights law, there may be a way for Svenson's subjects to challenge him in court but the case will depend entirely on context.

"The question for the person who's suing is, if you're not identifiable, then where's the loss of privacy?" he said. "These issues are a sign of the times. How do you balance the right of privacy vis-?-vis the right of artistic expression?"

Linda Darcia, an exchange student from Colombia living with a family on the sixth floor facing Svenson's studio, said she had no idea whether or not she was depicted in any of the pieces but she was anxious to go to the gallery and find out.

"I'm not really upset about it because that's his job," she said. "But maybe he should have asked before the gallery opens. Everybody's talking about it."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-artists-secret-photos-raise-privacy-issues-062729120.html

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শুক্রবার, ১৭ মে, ২০১৩

Food and Whine: Crockpot Gyros

An authentic gyro is roasted in a vertical spit, but this crockpot version is a great homemade alternative to the real thing. I discovered this recipe through Pinterest at Rainy Day Gal. Her recipe is an adaptation of one by A Year of Slow Cooking. I couldn't find ground lamb, so I used beef instead. I'm not sure what lamb would have been like, but it tasted great with the beef and turkey combination.

I? used a Middle Eastern herb blend called Za-atar that my brother and his fiancee had given me for Christmas. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it. For those of you on Vancouver Island, you can find it at Hazelwood Herb Farm in Ladysmith BC. It's a blend of sumac, thyme, sesame seeds, oregano, basil, summer savory, sweet marjoram, salt and lemon peel. It worked really well in the gyros, and it's delicious in hummus too. If you can't find Za'atar anywhere near you, here's a link to make your own homemade Za-atar. Or you could just use oregano, as the original recipe calls for.

I have to admit that blending the meat in a food processor was sort of gross, but once it was in the crockpot, the aroma that wafted through our house as it cooked was incredible. I couldn't wait to try it. You could eat it just like a meatloaf if you wanted.
I decided to serve it in warm pita bread with greek salad and tzatziki sauce. The boys found them a little hard to eat so they ended up pulling them apart and using a fork. They still really enjoyed the gyros, and so did Tony and I. We didn't use all the meat, so I chopped it up and used it in Greek pizza the next next. I don't have a photo of that because we ate it up so quickly!

Crockpot Gyros

Adapted from Rainy Day Gal
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground turkey
2 tsp Za-atar Middle Eastern herb blend
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp kosher salt
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Juice from 1 lemon

Place ground beef and turkey, spices and salt in a food processor and blend well. Form it into a loaf with your hands. Place onion and garlic into the bottom of your crockpot. Lay the meat loaf on top. Squeeze lemon juice over top. Cover and cook for 4 hours on low (or 2 hours on high).
Slice the meat and serve in warmed pita with Greek salad and tzatziki sauce. Wrap them in foil to hold them together.

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Source: http://www.foodwhine.com/2013/05/crockpot-gyros.html

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Can math models of gaming strategies be used to detect terrorism networks?

May 16, 2013 ? The answer is yes, according to a paper in the SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics.

In a paper published in the journal last month, authors Anthony Bonato, Dieter Mitsche, and Pawel Pralat describe a mathematical model to disrupt flow of information in a complex real-world network, such as a terrorist organization, using minimal resources.

Terror networks are comparable in their structure to hierarchical organization in companies and certain online social networks, where information flows in one direction from a source, which produces the information or data, downwards to sinks, which consume it. Such networks are called hierarchical social networks.

"In such networks, the flow of information is often one way," explains author Pawel Pralat. "For example, a celebrity such as Justin Bieber sends out a tweet, which is sent to millions of his followers. These followers send out their own retweets, and so on. We may therefore view hierarchical social networks as directed networks without cycles, or directed acyclic graphs (DAGs)."

Here, there is no requirement for reciprocity (the celebrity does not necessarily follow his or her followers). Similarly, in a terrorist network, the leaders pass plans down to the foot soldiers, and usually only one messenger needs to receive the message for the plan to be executed.

Disruption of the flow of information would correspond to halting the spread of news in an online social network or intercepting messages in a terror network.

The authors propose a generalized stochastic model for the flow and disruption of information based on a two-player outdoor game called "Seepage," where players who depict agents attempt to block the movement of another player, an intruder, from a source node to a sink. "The game -- motivated by the 1973 eruption of the Eldfell volcano in Iceland -- displays some similarities to an approach used in mathematical counterterrorism, where special kinds of DAGs are used to model the disruption of terrorist cells," says Pralat.

The motivating eruption caused a major crisis at the time, as lava flow threatened to close off the harbor, the island's main source of income. In the game, inhabitants attempt to protect the harbor by pouring water on the volcanic lava to halt its progress. A mathematical model of the game pits two opponents against each other -- the sludge, or intruder, against the greens, or agents -- forming a directed acyclic graph, with one source (the top of the volcano) and many sinks representing the lake. The parameter, "seepage," represents the amount of contamination, and the "green number" corresponds to the number of agents required to halt it.

A previous study modeled terrorist cells as partially ordered sets (a special kind of DAG), which are often used in mathematics to analyze an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of distinct objects. In such a system, terrorist plans are formulated by nodes at the top of the hierarchy, which represent the leaders or maximal nodes of the set. The plans are transmitted down to the nodes at the bottom: these represent foot soldiers in a terror network or minimal nodes in the set who would be presumed to carry out these plans. The assumption is that one messenger is sufficient for reception and execution of the plan. Thus, if the partially ordered set represents a courier network for a terrorist organization, the intention would be to block all routes from the maximal node to the minimal nodes by capturing or killing a subset of agents.

In this paper, the authors utilize the similarities in the previous terrorist cell model to Seepage, where greens try to prevent the sludge from moving to the sinks by blocking nodes. A number of different winning strategies employed by both players are explored when played on a DAG. The seepage and green number for disrupting a given hierarchical social network are analyzed.

The primary difference from the previous study's model is that the Seepage model is dynamic: greens can move and choose new sets of nodes over time. The authors determine that Seepage is a more realistic model of counterterrorism, as the agents do not necessarily act all at once, but over time.

The analysis is made in two types of terrorist network structures, as Pralat explains, "We consider two extreme profiles: one where the network is regular, where every agent has about the same number of connections. The second profile is power law, where some agents have many connections, but most have very few." This is analyzed by considering the total degree distribution of nodes in the DAG. In regular DAGs, each level of the DAG would have nodes with about the same out-degree (number of outgoing edges emanating from a node), while power law DAGs would have many more low-degree nodes and a few with high degrees.

Mathematical analysis allows the authors to determine what point in a network would be most effective for disrupting messages. "Our mathematical results reinforce the view that intercepting the information or message in a hierarchical social network following a power law is more difficult close to levels near the source. For regular networks, it does not matter as much where the message is disrupted," says Pralat. "Future work could look at more complex profiles of networks, along with developing effective algorithms for disrupting the flow of information in a DAG using our game-theoretic approach."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/Adpbt4Zmc_4/130516142656.htm

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