Speaking of Lost, Grunberg confirms that his ill-fated Oceanic pilot will play a role in the show’s Feb. 2 season premiere. What’s the context? “Well, with [Lost], they go back and forth in time so you have no idea when and where the last season will take place,” he says. “I may get eaten all over again. It may be a flashback. It may be an alternate new reality where I am on the same flight but we don’t crash and I don’t get eaten. Maybe I’m a ghost. You never know.”

Source

http://www.realkato.com/blog.php?pid=1579

"It's shaping up to be an alien invasion at the Oscars.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, James Cameron's Na'vi-centric 3-D extravaganza Avatar, Neill Blomkamp's prawn thriller District 9 and J.J. Abrams' action-packed Spock-eriffic reboot of Star Trek lead the list of seven films short-listed for the Visual Effects Oscar nomination.

Of course, all three are aspiring to even loftier heights. After yesterday's Producer Guild nominations, the trio all have a shot at a Best Picture nod in this year's expanded field.

Rounding out the VFX contenders: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Terminator Salvation, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and 2012. (Sorry, Twi-hards, New Moon didn't even make the quarterfinals.)

On Jan. 21, members of the Academy's Visual Effects Branch will whittle the seven movies down to three for the official Oscar ballot. Nominations for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Feb. 2."

There also appears to be some talk that if they all make the list for best picture, Star Trek and District 9 could damage Avatar's chances.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Motherjones/mojoblog/~3/4k7B0-9HTqE/fiore-cartoon-safe-airlines

Thanks to the underwear bomber scare, Obama and the airline industry are tightening air security. Could that soon include the use of head belts, microwave bomb detonation chambers, and detention center lounges?

So ponders satirist Mark Fiore in the cartoon below:

     

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Motherjones/mojoblog/~3/7-5wl1JmhpA/populism

In his piece "Thank You, Wall Street. May We have Another?" published online this morning, David Corn notes that "populist fury aimed at the one-time masters of the universe has yet to materialize in any targeted manner." Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), who must have read David's article when the magazine hit newsstands late last month, is trying to change that.

Paul Ryan, Grand Old PopulistRyan recently wrote a piece for Forbes with the provocative title "Down With Big Business." In a column hammering Wall Street and the financial industry—many of whom are, oddly enough, Ryan's biggest donors—the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee addresses most of the points David suggests are inhibiting a "mass movement demanding fundamental change," including the confusion and fear many feel as a result of the dire economic situation Wall Street malfeasance has gotten us into. However, the reforms Ryan advocates to mobilize the masses and save the economy will seem strange to all but his lobbyists friends: more deregulation.

"If this sounds twisted and counter-intuitive, that's because it is," writes Thomas Frank, the token liberal on Wall Street Journal editorial page, in a column about Ryan. Warning of the return of Reagan Revolution-styled GOP populism, Frank remarks, "This is an argument that might have sounded good in 1979 but for it to make sense today one has to disregard the wreckage all around us courtesy of three decades of regulatory rollback." But it's an argument that very well might work. "Democrats, for their part, will find it difficult to respond in kind, especially after having spent their first year delivering regal gifts to the insurance industry and dithering over the urgent matter of new financial regulation," Frank notes.

The Tea Partiers, town hall protesters, and dismal political approval ratings all attest to the anger coursing through out the American electorate. Ryan is attempting to rally the rightwing and the swing voters behind his impassioned-if-incoherent financial reform plan. If the Democratic majority is to last long past the 2010 midterms, they will have to come up with a more compelling response to public outrage than "don't blame us." Progressives should follow Ryan's lead and take a look at David's story.

     

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rawstory/gKpz/~3/baZwZovIrow/

http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=15886

A GOP lawmaker suggested that President Barack Obama could improve his response to security threats by using the word terrorism more often. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann took the congressman's suggestion Wednesday and used the word terror 27 times in a single paragraph to show how Republicans exploiting it as a "brand name" are "doing the terror work of terrorists."

"Name one other specific recommendation that the president could implement right now to fix this," ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked Rep. Peter King earlier this week.

"I think one main thing would be to -- just himself -- to use the word terrorism more often," King responded.

"Let me answer Mr. King on his own terms," said Olbermann. "26 uses are not enough. Let me employ 27, but do so honestly."

You and your terror-obsessed political party, Congressman King, use terrorism and the terrified fear of terrorism to try to terrorize Americans into the terror that there is a terrorist attack on this terror-threatened country every terrorized day. You terrify the easily terrified into a false terror over whether our terrorized counterterrorism effort is terrifyingly inadequate and how only terror-conscious Republicans can save a terrified nation from the terrorizing Democrats who should be terrified that you call them terror-less and who should become terror-full in a terrifying speed. That in using terrorism as a terrifying brand name, you are doing the terror work of terrorists holds no terror for you.

Story continues below...

---

"You do know what the dictionary says is the antonym for the word terror, don't you, Congressman King?" asked Olbermann. "Calm. Try it sometime," he concluded.

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Jan. 6, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rawstory/gKpz/~3/zdujqa9OiBA/

http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=15902

White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass appeared on the Colbert Report to debunk rumors that she had compared health care reform opponents to Nazis. Earlier this week, conservative blogger Erick Erickson told Stephen Colbert that Linda Douglas has compared health care reform opponents to "brownshirts" so he decided to dub her after Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda.

"Linda Douglass really is the Joseph Goebbels of the White House Health Care shop: http://bit.ly/3y276U," tweeted Erickson back in October.

"I figured if she was going to refer to people who didn’t like the government taking over health care as brownshirts then maybe I would refer to her as Joseph Goebbels," Erickson told Colbert.

The AP story that Erickson's tweet refers does quote Douglass but there is no mention of brownshirts or any other Nazi imagery.

White House health care spokeswoman Linda Douglass concurred. "This is an insurance industry analysis that is designed to reach a conclusion which benefits the industry, and does not represent what the bill does," she said.

Story continues below...

---

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the American Nazi party?" Colbert asked Douglass, the Director of Communications for the White House Office of Health Reform since May of 2009, on Wednesday's show.

A laughing Douglass tried to tell Colbert no but he held her "feet to the fire" and wouldn't listen to her protestations. "You are Joseph Goebbels," Colbert insisted. "You're Josephine Goebbels."

"First of all, I did not [call Erickson a brownshirt]. That is absolutely false," Douglass said. "Secondly, it's confusing. Because Goebbels, a Nazi, would have liked the brownshirts, so I don't even really know what he's talking about."

Colbert asked if she was calling Erickson a liar and if she was did she knew who also "called people liars... Joseph Goebbels."

Douglas laughed before blasting "crazy falsehoods" which she said were being passed around to scare people and stop health care reform.

This video is from Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, broadcast Jan. 6, 2010.

urbanfae linked to a request for this manip. *hands* I haven't done anything graphical for a while.

( Read more... )
Current Mood: sleepy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-blankley/winston-churchill-still-i_b_414909.html

Over the Christmas holiday, I read a couple of books that, at least for me, may provide some guidance in the upcoming tumultuous and probably consequential year. The first book was Munich, 1938 by David Farber, (grandson of former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan) by far the most authoritative book on that world changing event.

Beyond the obvious policy point that appeasement is generally bad, the value of the book is in its dissection of how the experienced leadership class of the then-leading power -- the British Empire -- was able to think and talk and deceive itself into a catastrophically bad policy decision. The author reveals in minute example how domestic politics, leaks and counterleaks to major newspapers shaped -- and misshaped -- both vital foreign policy judgment and how the world construed and misconstrued British strategic thinking.

The author also reveals in fresh details the well known story of how Winston Churchill, Duff Cooper and a hand full of others -- in and out of government -- dissented from the policy.

The other half of the story of Munich 1938 was events in Germany, where, unlike in Britain, the problem was a war policy advocated by Adolf Hitler that was opposed by most of the institutional leadership (including many of the very top generals) and by the general public which feared another war. (As Hitler paraded his armored columns through Berlin in preparation for entering Czechoslovakia, according to a witness, "the people of Berlin ducked into subways, refused to look on, and the handful that did stood at the curb in utter silence. It was the most striking demonstration against the war I've ever seen." Hitler watched it from a window and in furious contempt of the German people complained "With such people I cannot wage war." Of course he did, in part because of what, the author points out, was Hitler's "exceptional insight into the tendency of men torn between conscience and self-interest to welcome what made it easier to opt for the latter.")

The second book is a new short biography of Winston Churchill by the prolific English writer Paul Johnson. It has the advantage of being probably the last Churchill biography which will be written by an author who personally knew the great man -- and is filled with personal tidbits that bring further color to the well known story of Churchill's life.

At a mere 166 pages, the book, among other things, encapsulates how to dissent on the great policies of war and peace by a politician who is both personally ambitious and honorable. It also brings to life how such a man fights on in the face of overwhelming public opposition and elite scorn. These are lessons we need to learn and practice here in America in 2010.

The author identifies five Churchillian attributes that guided his eventual success: 1) He aimed high, but never cadged or demeaned himself to gain office or objectives; 2) there was no substitute for hard work -- even though he was brilliant; 3) Churchill "never allowed mistakes, disasters -- personal or national -- accidents, illnesses, unpopularity and criticism to get him down. His powers of recuperation, both in physical illness an in psychological responses to abject failure, were astounding"; 4) Churchill wasted extraordinarily small amounts of energy on hatred, recrimination, malice, revenge grudges, rumor mongering or vendettas. Energy expended on hate was energy lost to productive activity; and 5) he always had something other than politics to give joy to his life.

My old boss Newt Gingrich used to say that he studied history as a practical guide for a working politician and political activist. And it is with that in mind that I offer the foregoing.

2010 is going to be a tough year. We are going to have huge struggles over terrorism, war, shockingly large new deficits and public debt policies, crushing tax proposals on energy, income, health care and many other human activities. We have every right to dissent, and to do so vigorously even on such matters as terrorism policy.

Contrary to White House and Democratic Party complaints in the last few days, there is nothing partisan or improper about sharply criticizing such administration policy. As a loyal conservative Republican, I nonetheless wrote an entire book in 2005 criticizing George W. Bush's antiterrorism policy and operations, as did many other conservative Republicans dissent. At a much, much grander level, Winston Churchill in the 1930s powerfully dissented from a policy of appeasement that Britain's leaders at the time were convinced were vital to secure the peace. Dissenting with honesty, ferocity and courage is one of Churchill's lessons to us today.

And, whether fighting as an underdog in a political struggle or trying to keep things together as a bread winner in this second hard economic winter, Churchill's last words in his last speech in Parliament as prime minister in 1955 are sturdy guides to conduct: "Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair."

Tony Blankley is the author of "American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century" (Regnery, 2009) and vice president of the Edelman public-relations firm in Washington.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/live-from-ces-2010-the-ci_b_414815.html

The Consumer Electronics Show 2010 edition opens today in Las Vegas, what I like to call the most wonderful time of the year. Electronically speaking, at least.

Though the show doors don't officially open for an hour, there have been a few events thus far, so it's possible to get an early sense of some themes.

For starters, the economy has taken its toll, and CES is notably smaller this year. It's been held at two separate convention sites for the past few years, but this year it's largely confined to just one. Also, quite a few companies aren't buying booths, but rather taking meeting rooms. JVC has long had a very good breakfast press conference at a hotel -- this year, that's out, and they're just having a basic press conference at the convention hall.

In other ways, there have been cutbacks, too. Some a tad odd. The press room no longer has spiral "reporters notebook" that they've always given away. Their explanation was that they're "going green." But I don't believe it. After all, this is the Consumer ELECTRONICS Show -- the place is loaded with ELECTRONICS. Everywhere. You're bombarded by ELECTRONICS. Electricity, batteries, flashing lights, electronics, electronics, electronics are coming out of every year. And they're "going green" by eliminating paper?? I don't think so. I suspect it's cost-cutting. But even that is stupid, because blatant extravagance. More to the point, as I said to the person in the press room. "Er...how is the press supposed to...take notes? And actually write about what they see here?" Not shockingly, she didn't have an answer. Ah, but life will persevere. Paper will be found!

It's clear already that home 3-D is going to be one of The Big Things here. Last night, at Pepcom's Digital Experience event, I saw a low-key 3-D demonstration lfrom Cyberlink (which makes the software to run movies on computers) and nVidia which makes the glasses. And it was very impressive. (But it was just material on one's computer, not TV).

3-D for the home is clearly coming. The question is whether it will settle into the form most vendors are pushing at the moment. As I said, the hype is massive. The technology is basically here, and the technology is good. The questions are --

People will need to buy a TV that can handle 3-D. It may be very expensive, or not. But a lot of people have just been pushed into buying Digital TVs and HD TVs. Will they be willing now, today to ditch those and by a new TV? That purchase might still be a few years away.

For movies, the only technology that can play 3-D is Blu-Ray, and not all that many people have upgraded yet to Blu-Ray players. Most people are perfectly happy with normal DVDs.

Unlike going to a special event movie, will people be willing to wear 3-D glass for their five hours of TV a night -- every night? Not only is that cumbersome, but it's not how people watch TV. They multitask -- watch TV, read magazines, talk to people in the room, go to the kitchen, and so on.

What will the standard be for glasses? Right now there are several. The red-blue glasses. Polarizing glasses. And electronic shutter glasses. (This latter is considered the best, but most expensive. It sends blistering fast pulses alternating into each eye. But even here, there is no standard. Sony has one, but nVidia has another.)

One way around this is the 3-D technology that doesn't require glasses. I've been seeing demonstrations of that for years, and it's fascinating. But it's not ready yet for home consumption. For one thing, right now, you need to be a certain distance from the screen, and in a specific spot. It'll have to be developed so that everyone in the room can see the 3-D. And though it's probably possible to widen the range, and I don't know if it can be widened that much.

Anyway, these are some of the questions. The technology will come. After all, it's here. But I think that the hype is far exceeding the reality. It's still a few years (or more?) from being the norm that the hype is suggesting is on the doorstep. Keep in mind, when people had to upgrade their TVs to play digital, Congress had to extend the deadline something like half a year for people to simply buy a new, basic TV, because people were so bewildered. This is much more complex a situation than that.

It's coming though. Just eventually. The show officially starts in an hour, so I'll be seeing a LOT more.

I saw a few other interesting items last night --

Toshiba has a new, full notebook computer that's not much bigger than a netbook, and at a somewhat similar cost ($549-699, depending on the configuration). It's the T135-D, and is ultrathin.

eBooks is another technology that's getting a major push. Whether that market is large enough to sustain all the competition, we'll see. At the moment, the biggest alternative to the Kindle is Barnes & Noble's new eBook reader. (One little tweak they offer: since they have brick-and-mortar stores, if you go into one with your eBook reader, it will recognize you and send you special promotions, like free cookies. Okay, I said it was a little tweak. But I'm sure they develop it further...)

Lexar has a miniscule USB flashdrive, the ZE, about the size of your thumbnail (ah, once these were call thumbdrives...). They call it a "plug and stay" device, because you can stick in in your notebook's USB port and just leave it there all the time: it has backup software on it that recognizes all the standard data file formats and will automatically backup your documents whenever you save anythings, without you having to do anything. It's somewhat similar to the Clickfree external hard drive, with much bigger capacity. For that mater, Clickfree is introducing their own new model, the C-2, which has nice enhancement. And speaking of teensy flash drives, Verbatim has one that almost makes the ZE look big, their "Tuff-and-Tiny." And it holds 8 gig of material, with a 16 gig model coming.

One other area that's growing -- the merging of your computer with your TV. Roku began as a device to play Netflix movies on your TV. They now have a dozen channels (including Amazon-on-Demand and MLB.com, which is Major League Baseball), and expect to have 100 channels by the end of the year. Boxee Box takes the Boxee software that consolidates all multimedia on your computer, like Hulu, but much, much more, and allows you to play it on your TV. There were quite a few other similar-type products at the Pepcom event.

(By the way, this is significantly related to issue in the Writers Guild strike. The WGA said that new terms had to be developed for TV content blending with the Internet. The studios insisted that it was all so newfangled, that they needed three years to even study it. It was all so far away. It's here, it's now, and the TV and the Internet for many is all the same thing.)

That's all for now. The show officially starts soon. Updates as they occur, if time allows....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-matzzie/ces-showing-how-to-put-wi_b_414754.html

This year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas kicked off Wednesday night with a keynote address by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer.

So far a lot of the buzz has been about 3D television and devices. To cut to the chase on 3D (which isn't the subject of this post), I have to say that after sitting down and looking at a Japanese phone with a 3D screen on it, I was impressed.

The animation cartoons didn't appeal to me but once somebody put a football game on the screen in 3D it blew my mind. I can't wait to check out the big-screen 3D on the floor. Even Ballmer put on some 3D glasses.

I'm on the lookout for three trends--MOBILE, SOCIAL and DEVICE-SHIFTING. I found something interesting in the mobile space tonight--a device to put real high-speed in your pocket and on-the-go. I'll call it a "Portable Hub" for lack of a better term.

Imagine if you had your home Internet speed in your pocket...and you could share it with your friends.

That's what is behind the next generation of wireless devices from the big telecom carriers--some using what's known as the 4G protocol. Let me break it down: you get a device the size of a hockey puck or a deck of cards that you can keep in your bag. The device connects you to the web at in-home speeds and you can share that connection with friends. That's the "portable hub."

The first example of this device that I've seen is Sprint's 4G Overdrive. It gives you 4-6 Mbps download speeds that you can share with up to five people with the Overdrive's Wifi. I don't mention this as a particular endorsement of Sprint or the Overdrive--I'm not technical enough to evaluate either and there is some debate over what really is and isn't a 4G speed. The larger point is that wireless carriers (and I suspect all of them) are looking at portable high-speed hubs with connections that you can share as a new offering for consumers. That is a step forward in MOBILE.

So, how could that change your life? Many people on high speed connections--which I'd be remiss not to mention is still roughly only 63% of Americans--have Wifi networks at home. The step forward is that these devices really make the high-speed Internet more mobile.

In this future, when you're cruising down the highway your kids could be in the backseat on the Internet with a laptop or a handheld game device.

Or you could be a college student taking the device out on the quad for a group study.

Or boy scouts could take one on a camping trip--suddenly you have a WiFi hotspot in the middle of the woods (when within range). I don't recommend the warm glow of a laptop over Smores but I could imagine some cool live-blogging of a special camping trip.

Bloggers and reporters could use it for video-blogging from breaking news events. Live-streaming from the event is made easier.

Other on-the-go applications include streaming movies, video chat or a mobile office for a small business. For example, an architect could take one of these to a construction site or a sales team could share a connection on the road.

You might've already heard of the MiFi, offered by Verizon, Sprint and others, which is similar. Those devices are on 3G networks. These next-gen devices are on 4G networks that are supposed to be as fast as many home Internet speeds--or at least what speeds were in 2009. Your in-home wired Internet connection is, will or probably can be faster due to the laws of physics.

Back in 2000 I attended a Tech Tools training camp for social change activists in the hills above Point Reyes, California. We were camping out in tents and one of the techies wired a satellite Internet connection to a Pringle-can-supported Wifi antenna so we could get Internet access in our tents. That was pretty cool but the latency was terrible--like one email every two minutes. These new devices and their networks will solve that problem. I would've had the coolest tent on the Hill (Electricity was another issue).

I've heard of environmentalists using mobile high speed connections to take video of deforestation or some nasty pollution and use their connection as a way to blow the whistle. A human rights group was distributing video cameras and laptops to indigenous groups in South America as a way they could create their own media to document abuses. On-the-go high speed connections could shave days off the reporting times and save lives.

There is, of course, a price tag for all this (Sprint's is like $99 with a contract and rebate plus a $59 monthly fee). But in some ways as more and more people are DEVICE-SHIFTING this is a way to save money. You don't have to buy a mobile data plan for every employee or every kid in the family or every device. A family or small business could buy one of these and use it for multiple Internet-enabled devices on-the-go--a handheld gaming device, e-reader, laptop, camera, a car or more. The same was true for Wifi routers when they were first introduced.

This is the first generation of these devices--the demo I saw had a hiccup when too many people were using it--but it is a glimpse of the future after the hiccups have been cured and another example of how technology can change our lives--not just in small ways, but in big ways.

P.S. I'd be remiss if I didn't report on the Sprint event I attended where their device was announced. It was Vegas big and included appearances by comedian Frank Caliendo, live-cooking show by Mario Batali and speeches by the CEOs of Sprint, Microsoft and Best Buy. Vegas can still do BIG even in a recession. (In full disclosure, I received a coffee mug as a door prize for my attendance. And I ate their food along with 300 other people.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rose/elvis-the-king-of-rock-n_b_414211.html

Teenagers in the 1950s and '60s turned Elvis Presley into an icon. His shaking hips and curled lips sent rock 'n' roll shockwaves reverberating around the world and challenged prevailing notions about sex, race and class. As we celebrate what would have been his 75th birthday on January 8th, we should take note of the impact he had on the culture.

He emerged from his impoverished childhood in Tupelo, Mississippi to become America's pop culture superstar in the wake of the US Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education on May 5, 1954 which rocked the South. His controversial singing style, mixing blues, country (at the time called "hillbilly"), and black and white gospel music with a sexually charged stage presence, made Presley "Public Enemy Number One" for those who felt threatened by the tsunami of the changes that were occurring.

"Everything is tied together with the Brown decision, public school, desegregation, rock and roll music, Elvis Presley. I think that illustrates the fear in the South that blacks and whites are going to come together," said Michael Bertrand, Ph.D., Professor, Tennessee State University.

Presley unwittingly became the poster boy for the first round of the culture wars.

"Without meaning to, and really without understanding it, he's a point of conflict because it's not just the mingling of blues and rock, it's also his reliance on a music that is in the minds of some really sinful," said John Seigenthaler, the retired founding editorial director of USA Today, who covered him as a young reporter for The Tennessean.

He was a target of preachers and segregationists such as Asa Carter who headed the White Citizens Councils. Carter had been using his Birmingham, Alabama radio show since 1954 to talk about how the Jews and blacks were bringing down the South. In early 1956, he targeted the growing popularity of the music made popular by Elvis. Carter's views about music were captured in a short film.

"The obscenity and vulgarity of the rock and roll music is obviously a means by which the white man and his children can be driven to the level of the n****s. This is obviously n****r music," said Carter.

One of his followers, Kenneth Adams, who owned a gas station featuring a "We serve white customers only" signboard, also had a starring role in a short film announcing the Council's plan to clean up jukeboxes.

"We've set up a 20 man committee to do away with this vulgar, animalistic n*****r rock and roll bop. Our committee will check with restaurant owners and the cafes to see what bebop records is on their machine and them ask 'em to do away with 'em," said a defiant Adams.

Adam's committee began to target record stores and branched out to other states beyond Alabama. Stan Lewis, the owner of a record store in Shreveport, Louisiana recalled the impact the Council had when it rolled into a town.

"I came to work one morning and the Council had put stickers on my door and my parking meter because I was selling R & B records and that scared me to death. They put one of my friends in Carolina out of business because of selling the same type music I was selling. That's scary," said Lewis.

The White Citizens Councils were very dangerous. It was an effort to put a clean face on evil -- an effort to mask it by calling it 'White Citizens.'

"It was a glorified Klan. It was a Klan without the sheets," said Seigenthaler.

Just how dangerous became clear when a black motorist drove into Adams's gas station with a flat tire. Adams became so angry that, when the driver got out of his car to ask him to help change his tire, Adams took out a gun and pistol whipped him. He beat him nearly to death.

"He's arrested, but then the judge is going to find that he's going to basically fine him a small amount claming that the black motorist should not have stopped there because he had that big signboard out that said, 'We serve white customers only'," said Bertrand.

People worried that Elvis was at risk.

"I think it would have been more dangerous for him (Elvis) if the children hadn't gravitated to him with such enthusiasm, I mean they were mesmerized by him, enthralled by him," said Seigenthaler.

While preachers, parents and the Council warned about the evils of Elvis, the kids couldn't get enough.

"In the paper and everything the preachers called it devil's music. Of course that made it even more enticing to all of us," recalled Gloria Reasons.

She and her friends listened to Elvis clandestinely on their AM radios and dreamed about seeing him live. Which they did after convincing her mother to drive seven teenage girls from Alamo, Tennessee, 128 miles south to Tupelo to see him perform at a concert in September of 1956. They left at 4:00 AM in order to get there for the concert. Their mother dropped them off and took a nap at a motel. The girls somehow were able to push themselves forward and snag front row seats. They were mesmerized, snapping photos and staring wide-eyed at the "wiggling" singer. They didn't even notice that they were getting burns from the stage lights.

"I think if you talked about it in the '50s we wouldn't have said the word sex aloud, but I think that's what Elvis was, you know, I think it was just a raw sexual urge that he projected that just turned on all the young girls," said Royce Harris, one of Gloria's friends who attended the concert.

One of their friends, Judy Hopper, was so entranced that she squeezed up onto the stage to plant a kiss on Elvis. Somewhat bemused, he smiled, gave her a kiss and watched as she was escorted off the stage.

"He was just like a keg of dynamite, he was just explosive. I think every girl that ever looked at him thought, you know, would have wanted to go out with him," said Harris.

The Alamo girls floated home with mom at the wheel of the family station wagon, and all was fine until the next day, when the local papers carried the photo of Judy's escapade on stage. They all agreed the subsequent grounding was worth it.

It started to become clear that things were changing when Elvis came back home to Memphis for a July 4th concert for the Cynthia Milk Fund in Memphis at the Russwood baseball park. The crowd of 14,000 people at his benefit dwarfed the audience that Senator Eastland drew for a segregationist rally held across town that same night.

"The young kids, particularly teenagers, they're thinking about race in a different way. This is not to say that they are thinking about it in the same way that, or in a way that we would hope they had thought about it. That maybe they go down and crusade for Civil Rights. But they're thinking about it in a different way. They're thinking about it in a way that their grandparents would not have understood," said Bertrand.

Steve Allen, who was in a ratings war with Ed Sullivan, offered him $5,500 to appear on his prime time, NBC show on July 1, 1956. Allen asked him to perform in a skit mocking country singers and then sing to a Bassett Hound.

"I think he was just trying to put him down. Well, if you are going to do that why hire him to do your show? Because the ratings would just go sky high for all those guys and Steve knew it," said drummer, D. J. Fontana who performed with Elvis at the time. "He didn't like Steve until the day he died for pulling that off on him," said Fontana.

Steve Allen considered himself to be one of the tastemakers in this country.

"Obviously this was tasteless, so he was making fun of it," said Bertrand.

Steve Allen's rival, Ed Sullivan, had passed on Elvis but after seeing the ratings bump that he delivered for Allen, he signed him for three shows. When Ed Sullivan gave his nod of approval on his Sunday night show, saying he's, "thoroughly all right," the band thought they were finally home free.

"When you did the Ed Sullivan Show back then, that was as far as you could go, that was the highest," said Fontana.

Controversy still surrounded Elvis, but powerful commentators such as Washington journalist Drew Pearson and others started to say that Elvis was "OK." He went on to record 151 albums, singles and extended-play records that went gold, platinum or multi-platinum, star in 31 feature films, break all attendance records in Las Vegas, be nominated for 14 Grammy Awards (winning 3) and be the subject of over 608 books. And it hasn't stopped. He earned over $55-million last year, even though he's been dead for more that 32 years. Graceland, his home in Memphis, attracts over 600,000 visitors a year from all over the world. Many make the 75-mile trip south to Tupelo to see his birthplace. Yet some still dismiss him and his fans.

"Elvis may have become successful, but he never left that working class background. You don't do that in American culture, the whole thing is about moving up, getting out, succeeding culturally, not just economically. For many people Elvis never did that. He never did. That's a strike, against him," said Bertrand.

Don't say Elvis didn't succeed to the thousands of people who are expected to make the trek to Graceland and Tupelo for the many events planned this year to celebrate his birthday. They'll just ignore you while swaying to the music of the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

Elvis returned their affection when he finished his Tupelo concert in 1956 with "Love Me Tender:"

Love me tender,
Love me long,
Take me to your heart.
For it's there that I belong,
And we'll never part.

Love me tender,
Love me dear,
Tell me you are mine.
I'll be yours through all the years,
Till the end of time.

Little did he know that his fans would be with him too -- Happy Birthday Elvis.

If you'd like to join in the celebration: www.elvis.com

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirk-cheyfitz/for-tiger-photos-nbc-cave_b_414492.html

If you felt rushed while trying to gape at a half-naked Tiger Woods on TV this week, blame photographer-to-the-stars Annie Leibovitz. It was Leibovitz who required that broadcast and cable networks adhere to an unusually specific and rigid set of restrictions on the use of the eight photographs that appear in this month's Vanity Fair. At the top of the list was the requirement that no picture could be on screen longer than two seconds. Interestingly enough, the television people capitulated without a whimper or an explanation.

I don't like news organizations making deals that restrict the flow of news -- and these photos are definitely newsworthy -- so I was mildly alarmed to see news organizations substituting Leibovitz's rules for their own judgment about how long viewers need to actually see a photograph. I was especially alarmed that no one, as far as I can tell, revealed the terms they'd agreed to. (Look quick, folks! You've got two seconds. Annie Leibovitz is directing this segment.)

Here's are Annie's Rules, as provided by Vanity Fair in an email:

TIGER WOODS PHOTO RESTRICTIONS

-Each image (other than the cover with coverlines) can be shown for no more than 2 seconds each, one time only, on each shot.

-Each image (other than the cover with coverlines) can be shown only ONCE on your show.

-If you show any inside images, you MUST also show the Vanity Fair Tiger Woods cover with cover lines.

-This photo credit must accompany all Tiger Woods images onscreen:
Copyright 2010, all photographs by Annie Leibovitz, all rights reserved, N.Y.C.

Jeffrey Smith, Leibovitz's agent, acknowledges there is nothing in copyright law that makes the restrictions legally enforceable. He argues that the TV folks formed a legally binding contract with Leibovitz when they accepted the pictures along with the restrictions. Lawyers point out that the restrictions forwarded by Vanity Fair lack most necessary elements of a contract, including start and end dates, signature lines and, most importantly, penalties for violation.

So in the end, it boils down to nothing more than celebrity politics. As Smith said, "If you ever want to get another photo from Annie, you play along." Well, maybe. But that's a hell of a way to run the news.

As people from Mars are unaware, the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine contains eight somewhat strained (literally) photographs of the stripped, ripped golfer. The photos were taken by Leibovitz three years ago. The old photos were used to illustrate a new story by celebrity author Buzz Bissinger.

You have to be from someplace further away from the Sun than Mars to be unaware of the fact that Leibovitz kept the photos out of sight until her own personal financial crisis (she is deeply in debt) coincided with Woods' outing as a serial adulterer. Given the completely controlled, straitlaced image that Woods maintained until the present scandal, the photos of Woods showing off his body seem to have been produced with Nostradamus-like foresight for this moment in the champion's self-destruction.

Leibovitz's agent Smith argues mildly--he is a very mild guy--that he and his client are just trying to protect their "intellectual property value." He won't hazard a guess about how much that value might be and would not disclose what Vanity Fair paid for one-time use of the photos. He did project their possible use on a future TV special that might bring in more money. But he had no specific project in mind.

The intensely moody pictures of Woods were released to TV Tuesday as part of the usual publicity push for the monthly magazine. But Beth Kseniak, executive director of PR for Vanity Fair, acknowledges the restrictions on the Leibovitz photos were not at all usual. Whose idea was it? "It was per Annie Leibovitz," Kseniak said.

I got my first inkling of the existence of these rules on Tuesday morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." Just before the images were unveiled on national TV, co-host Mika Brzezinski briefly paused to express surprise at the unusual list of "restrictions" that had accompanied the photography. But neither she nor anyone else offered any explanation of what she was talking about.

Asking around the next day, I was rewarded with the list, which Kseniak emailed. Kseniak said that every major TV outlet in the country was abiding by the rules.

Lauren Skowronski, an NBC News employee who is press spokesperson for MSNBC and Morning Joe, responded to my questions in an email, "We had an interview with their writer Buzz Bissinger and we [were] following guidelines set by the magazine." She referred other questions to Vanity Fair.

It would seem that Vanity Fair is the only winner in this story. If you want to gape at Tiger for longer than two seconds, go buy the magazine. But Vanity Fair, of course, didn't cook this stuff up.

This may be a sign of things to come as artists struggle to protect the value of their works in an age when infinite copies of everything can exist on the web in fractions of a moment. It also may be a sign of things to come when news organizations are so frightened of the competition that they'll agree to any set of crazy rules -- and say farewell to independent editorial judgment -- just to make sure no one beats them to a story. Or it may just be a sign of Leibovitz's serious concerns about money. I'd love it if anyone with any thoughts on any of these topics would post their comments and their links and we can continue the debate below.

http://feeds.seriouseats.com/~r/seriouseatsfeaturesvideos/~3/4utx2unb2AY/hot-and-sour-soup-belly-shack-chicago-il.html

[Photograph: Michael Nagrant]

One thing that can temper he icy sheets of Chicago's blustery winters, where Lake Michigan squalls and sharp winds rip between skyscrapers, is the perfect bowl of soup. There have been many suitors over the years including the sultry all-spice perfumed chili at Ramova Grill, the beefy Pho at Pho 888, and Bruce Sherman's perennial sweet corn and thyme garnished with frog legs.

This year's contender, however, is the Hot and Sour soup from Bill Kim's Belly Shack featuring mineral-tinged chunks of hominy, silken shards of chicken and a successful game of brinksmanship with the cumin and salt shakers. It's less Chinese and more Mexican, in fact so Mexican, Rick Bayless could add it to his line-up of caldos at Xoco. In fact, I think it's better than any of the more Asian-style soups at Kim's other more soup driven spot, Urban Belly. The limey-tinged corn vapors hovering over the bowl, the layers of flavor, and droplets of golden fat at the top of the broth make this the best bowl of pozole-style soup I've ever had.

Belly Shack

1912 N Western Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647 (map)
773-252-1414; bellyshack.com

About the author: Michael Nagrant writes for Serious Eats from Chicago, where he also publishes Hungry magazine. Michael never met an organ meat he didn't like. He hopes to meet many more.

Related

A Second Helping for My Urban Belly in Chicago
Czech out Operetta in Chicago
No Chang in Chicago, No Problem: Pho Xua's Fried Duck Noodle Soup
An Oyster to Remember at Coq D'Or in Chicago

http://feeds.seriouseats.com/~r/seriouseatsfeaturesvideos/~3/jQM_u3VzzRI/perfect-roast-chicken-recipe.html

From Recipes

A good roasted chicken is one of the great pleasures in life, but I probably don't need to tell you that. It can be a great weeknight meal or the centerpiece for a special occasion. It's simple, elegant, entirely satisfying, and a fantastic meal for the leftovers factor. I think that I actually enjoy the leftovers more than the chicken right out of the oven, mostly for the mindless picking of the carcass later that evening and the chicken salad that I inevitably make the next morning.

Most great home cooks have a go-to roast chicken recipe, and I'll wager that they are pretty similar to Jamie Oliver's Perfect Roast Chicken from Jamie's Food Revolution. Aside from proper roasting, the most important part of this recipe, or any other roast chicken recipe, is investing a few extra dollars in a good quality chicken. In the intro to this recipe Oliver says, "A bird that's had a happy life is going to taste miles better than one that's been fattened too fast in a tiny cage or dark, overcrowded barn." I couldn't agree more.

In this version the bird is roasted on a bed of roughly chopped celery, carrots, onions, and whole cloves of garlic. The lemony, herby juices drip down onto the vegetables and leave them caramelized with a great layer of chicken fat so that they can be served along side of the dish after roasting. One of Oliver's other great tips is to heat up the lemon before placing it inside the chicken. He recommends using a microwave, but I put mine in boiling water for about a minute and it worked just as well. When I took the lemon out of the chicken it was bursting with juice and just waiting to be squeezed over the roasted bird.

Win Jamie's Food Revolution

As always with our Cook the Book feature, we have five (5) copies of Jamie's Food Revolution to give away this week. Enter to win here »

Perfect Roast Chicken

- serves 4 to 6 -

Adapted from Jamie's Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver.

Ingredients

1 approximately 3 1/2 to 4 pound chicken, preferably free-range, organic or higher welfare
2 medium onions
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
1 bulb of garlic
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon
A small bunch of fresh thyme, rosemary, bay, or sage, or a mixture

Procedure

1. To prepare your chicken: Take your chicken out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before it goes into the oven. Preheat your oven to 475°F. There's no need to peel the vegetables—just give them a wash and roughly chop them. Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving them unpeeled. Pile all the vegetables and garlic into the middle of a large roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil. Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the bird. Carefully prick the lemon all over, using the tip of a sharp knife (if you have a microwave, you could pop the lemon in there for 40 seconds at this point as this will really bring out the flavor. Put the lemon inside the chicken's cavity, with the bunch of herbs.

2. To cook your chicken: Place the chicken on top of the vegetables in the roasting pan and put it into the preheated oven. Turn the heat down immediately to 400°F and cook the chicken for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Baste the chicken halfway through cooking and if the vegetables look dry, add a splash of water to the pan to stop them burning. When cooked, take the pan out of the oven and transfer the chicken to a board to rest for 15 minutes or so.

3. To carve your chicken: Remove any string from the chicken and take off the wings. Carefully cut down between the leg and the breast. Cut through the joint and pull the leg off. Repeat on the other side, then cut each leg between the thigh and drumstick you so end up with four portions of dark meat. Place these on a serving platter. You should now have a clear space to carve the rest of your chicken. Angle the knife along the breastbone and carve one side off, then the other. When you get down to the fussy bits, use your fingers to pull the meat off, then turn the chicken over to get all the tasty, juicy bits from underneath. You should be left with a stripped carcass, and a platter full of lovely meat that you can serve with piping hot gravy, and roasted vegetables.

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8252

In which I attempt to lay my own personal headstone on the unquiet grave of musical hauntology:

…it also falls within what the wonderful Moon Wiring Club are pleased to call “confusing English electronic music”, whose most famous early proponent today might be the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and its most deified member, Delia Derbyshire. You’ve all heard her work. The original Doctor Who theme was written by Ron Grainer, but Derbyshire’s interpretation was so radical that he tried to get her co-credited as composer. The BBC, however, preferred to keep membership of the Workshop anonymous. This is an idea that’s followed through today in hauntological units like Moon Wiring Club, who go to lengths to remain anonymous, presenting a list of entirely and obviously fictional members in their materials…

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8250

Matt Jones (who has a nice article in EDGE this month on games and design) just showed me this picture:

That’s my country. See that swirly bit in the bottom right? That’s where I live. This shit is deeply incorrect.

Been offline five hours, due to my ISP assuming my upgrade purchase was actually a request to completely bollocks up my broadband provision. Back online now, but no faster than before. But spending an hour on the phone to tech support has blown out my voice, so fuck it, I’ll save that argument for tomorrow.

Having lost the first third of the day to all this, I’m about to go in search of coffee and food before trying to rescue the rest of it. I need to write some SUPERGOD today, as we’re in the last leg of that project. I also need to write a short teaser-style page for a TV project, and look over a shedload of material I’ve just been sent on a new and very strange project I was contacted about at the start of the week. In addition to that, this flu-type bug is still hanging on, and tonight I think I need to kill it with alcohol.

And it seems I have five vast emails from Ariana to look at. She’s been Scheming again, it seems. Which always makes me nervous. She’s handy with a spanner, you know.

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/aGmg2n3i_uI/rural_nebraskan_not_sure_he_could

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/rural_nebraskan_not_sure_he_could?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/5s8to7m65vM/tonight_im_going_to_party

http://www.theonion.com/content/columnists/tonight_im_going_to_party?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/cEXNgKdUyiA/congo_approves_economic_stimulus

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/congo_approves_economic_stimulus?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/americas/8446987.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8446987.stm