‘A director never finishes a film, he abandons it’

He likes to drive his characters mad and make his audience uncomfortable. But in persona, film-maker Darren Aronofsky, the mind behind intense and tough films like Black Swan is funny and easy. At a roundtable chat organised at the just concluded 12th International Marrakech Film Festival, he was full of quips and quotes. He also spoke at length about his forthcoming Russell Crowe film Noah. Excerpts: On hurricane Sandy’s impact on the filming of Noah: We actually were quite okay. We built a sea worthy vessel —the actual Ark was built in Long Island — which got wrecked since the impact of the Hurricane on Long Island was a lot. We couldn’t reach the sets for weeks. There was no electricity in that area for four days. But the emotional and human toll was much more than physical toll. On tweeting details about Noah: I’m a pretty private person. Agreed that Twitter is a pretty strange thing for me to get involved with, but I feel that we are in the New World so if one hasn’t got on to social media then one can feel left out. I’ve observed the great comedian Louis C.K. over the years. That guy has made millions by talking to his fanbase! I still don’t know how filmmakers will benefit from Twitter, but personally I like talking to young filmmakers, enjoy participating in Q & A and teasing people a bit so I kind of like Twitter. The studio was a bit unsure but being on Twitter allowed me the chance to let out the first image of the film. Doing this on our own is way better, it restricts a big crane sitting on the set. So I guess, it works well. On the story of Noah and his Ark: I’ve been working on Noah forever. In fact this was the first film after Pi that I pitched. I’ve had all these ideas way before I became a filmmaker. Even Black Swan and The Wrestler were ideas I had way back when I was in college. In fact this is my fear—I feel I'm running out of ideas! Now that we are making Noah, they are saying making a Bible picture is the new trend but when we set out we got a lot of No’s and passes before finally we got our studios Paramount Pictures and New Regency interested in it. On his experiments with Indian films: I know Bollywood is kind of a bad word here. Is there a better word? (PS: On my prodding that we call it the Hindi Film Industry, so he can call it Hi Fi, he immediately caught on to the word). Yeah, Hi Fi is better! So I got into Hi Fi a long time ago — it was the same time when my interest in Chinese and Hong Kong films was beginning. I checked out quite a few Hindi movies. I love that one about the Great Bandit — Sholay. I also saw Bandit Queen which was kind of an art film. I like how Baz Luhrmann has taken up the ingredients of Hi Fi films and the way he utilises them. In my neighbourhood in Manhattan, there is a cinema place dedicated to Hi Fi so I keep checking out the stuff that’s playing there. On whether Noah is similar to Life of Pi: I saw Life of Pi and I liked it. There are some visual similarities in terms of the animals and water, but let's see how we do our VFX. On his jinx with superhero films like Batman, Wolverine: I'd like to think Noah was a superhero. He might not have a super power, but what he does is much like a super hero. It's been my dream to do this — to bring my original take on an old story. On the storylines of his films and their uncomfortable quotient: When people say my films make them uncomfortable, I say ‘Very Good!’ I think The Fountain had a kind of a happy ending. Even in Black Swan, she was kinda happy. The Wrestler too. I don’t know. The idea is to start of a character and lead on their conflict. I do agree that sometimes I tend to drive my characters mad, but then that’s okay, I guess. I like the tightrope walk between sanity and insanity that my characters take. It’s just a good story device — when people go slightly over the edge, you can look back and see what was before it. On whether he has it in him to ever make a comedy: As a student I made four shorts and a comedy. Comedian Chris Rock says there is a thin line between laughing and crying — in the former you laugh out the breath and in the latter, you take the breath in. Comedy is a scary genre because if you miss, then you miss. On whether he believes in the classical Hollywood happy ending: It never made sense to me even as a kid. I’m of the opinion that a happy ending is never always a good thing. I grew up in New York, where it wasn’t like that. Life comes with a lot of complications. You never know, who is happy or sad. Guess it is something to do with my big science background. Being trained as a biologist for a few years, I have an environmental take to life which alters my perspective. On if he’d like to change anything in any of his films: I never look back at films. If you look back in a film, you kind of get lost in it. When they were coming up with the DVD of Requiem for a Dream, I stayed out of it, but on the insistence of my sound guy, I watched it and I couldn’t recognise the person, who had made it. It was surely a different person, I could remember myself but I don’t think you can ever recreate the same kind of passion that you had for a film when you are really making it. After a while, you gotta let go. I believe a director never finishes a film, he abandons it. On the status of his HBO series Hobgoblin: It’s been a while I got on the project, but then when I’m making a movie, it’s like I’m in a submarine. I’ll get to it now. Hobgoblin is about a group of magicians and con artists, who use their powers of deception to defeat Hitler during WWII. On whether he believes in magic: Magic? It’s a loaded question? Do I believe in magic that makes a Tiger disappear from a box? Or the simple things? I get touched by magic. I love magicians. David Blaine is a dear friend. I can watch the little tricks these magicians come up with all day. Magical realism is my favourite genre by the way.‘director never finishes a film, he abandons it’ , Image: flickr.com

Read More........ → August 23, 2014

Equities big winner of FY14, gold loses sheen

By Amit Mudgill: The financial year that ended on Monday belonged to equities. Powered by a relentless rally over the last two months, stocks outperformed all other asset classes in terms of returns on year-end values. Gold had a disastrous year among popular asset classes, ending with negative returns for the first time in eight years. The tapering of quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve and India’s curbs on gold imports took away much of the shine from the yellow metal, while improving economic indicators pro­mpted investors to desert the ‘safe haven’ of bullion to flock to equities. Sensex notched up 18.85 per cent gain from the end of FY13 to the end of FY14. This was the highest year-on-year return on Sensex after a record 80.54 per cent gain in FY10, and more than double the 8.23 per cent gain it had seen in FY09. In line with direct equity, 96 largecap and multicap open-ended equity diversified mutual fund schemes with a track record of at least five years generated an average return of 20.06 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, following tepid performance in the three previous years. FY14 marked many highs and lows for both equities and commodities, as weak emerging market currencies, high fiscal deficit and a cut in US’ bond buying programme led to a shift in focus from one asset class to the other. A drop in inflation and current account deficit in India, however, sparked heavy inflows into equities, which not only helped the equity benchmarks hit new highs, but improved the performance of mutual fund schemes as well. “We expect equities to outperform in FY15 too, not only in India but globally. The stock market generally discounts future growth, and if the US Fed starts raising policy rates in FY16, its impact would be seen on gold price in FY15 due to its inverse relationship with interest rate,” said DK Aggarwal, CMD at SMC Investments and Advisors. The MCX spot gold closed FY14 with a 2.74 per cent YoY decline in price, on the back of 4.18 per cent return for FY13, 35.23 per cent for FY12 and 27.36 per cent for FY11. It was the first yearly loss for the yellow metal since MCX started disseminating spot gold data in October 2005, Bloomberg data showed. Among other commodities agrocommodities, as represented by NCDEX benchmark Dhaanya,  clocked 10.42 per cent gain for FY14 after flat growth in the preceding year. Dhaanya represents 10 agro-commodities, including castor seed, chana, soyabean and turmeric. The base metal pack as represented by the LME metal index continued to remain under pressure in FY14, amid talks of slowdown in the largest metal consumer, China. The LME metal index that tracks six base metals — including aluminium, zinc and copper — declined 8.24 per cent in FY14 after witnessing a similar decline in the preceding year. SMC Investments’ Aggarwal is bearish on agrocommodities but expects that a drop in interest rates would boost fixed income products. Fixed income assets, represented by the 10-year government bond yield, saw gains swing between 7.11 per cent and 9.24 per cent through FY14, but quoted at 8.80 per cent on Monday. The bond yield stood at 7.96 per cent at the end of previous financial year. Forty-two long-term debt fund schemes lagged bond yields, offering an average return of just 5.18 per cent for FY14 compared with 10.22 per cent gain in FY13. Phani Shekar, a fund manager for portfolio management services at Angel Broking, said investors should scale their risk appetite carefully before building a portfolio, as terms like ‘fair’ and ‘safe’ returns can have different meaning for different investors. “If you are a low risk-taker, you can invest 70 per cent of your corpus in fixed income products and the rest in equities. An extremely high risk-taking investor can invest up to 100 per cent in equities. We see gold as a hedge against volatility in various asset classes. A small investment in gold is always advisable,” Shekar said. “We believe a moderate risk-taking investor should invest 40 per cent in equities, 40 per cent in fixed income products, 10 per cent in commodities and keep the remaining 10 per cent liquid for FY15. A high risk-taker may invest 60 per cent in equities and 40 per cent in fixed income products,” said SMC’s Aggarwal. Source: mydigitalfc.com,

Read More........ → April 01, 2014

US-China challenges beyond 2015

By Dan Steinbock: In the near-term, Washington must manage austerity with pro-growth policies, even amid secular stagnation. In turn, Beijing seeks to manage local debt challenges with subdued but solid growth. In both the United States and China, policy outcomes have far-reaching, global implications. The U.S. budget deal: avoiding downside risks in 2014 After weeks of private talks, House and Senate negotiators, led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), struck a budget agreement. The latter would replace $63 billion of the sequestration cuts slated for 2014-15 with alternative savings measures. The bipartisan objective was to surpass the 2011 budget-cutting law, particularly the automatic spending cuts (the so-called ‘sequester’), to avoid still another government shutdown and to ensure some stability to fiscal policy-making over the next two years. In contrast to the once-hoped for “grand bargain,” the new plan is modest. While it was designed not to redesign the tax code and not to touch federal entitlement programs, it seeks to ensure more spending for domestic and defense programs in the short-term. The costs will be offset by embracing deficit-reduction measures over a decade. But although the budget deal was promoted as a rare bipartisan breakthrough, it was neither rare nor a breakthrough. To defer the next debt crisis, Washington is resorting to still another timeout. While 203,000 jobs were created in November, a robust recovery would require 200,000-300,000 new jobs per month. Further, unemployment rate remains 7 percent, while alternative unemployment, which includes both the unemployed and the under-employed, is still 13.2 percent. Despite 45 months of private-sector job growth and half a decade of quantitative easing (QE), the labor force participation rate – those aged 16 and over who are working or

Tying the knots [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

actively looking for work – is 63 percent, the lowest since 1978. Concurrently, the share of the population with a job has collapsed to 58.6 percent. Most importantly, the budget deal, in its original form, leaves unaddressed the renewal of expanded unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. Indeed, the deal could cause 1.3 million Americans now receiving these benefits to receive none after Christmas, while 5 million jobless workers could be left in the lurch in 2014. While Washington hopes that economic growth should quicken, annualized growth is likely to remain less than 2 percent in 2013 and at best around or above 2.5 percent in 2014-15. Further, any premature tapering in the next 3-4 months could accelerate downside risks. Indeed, the Fed may not consider hiking rates until unemployment rate plunges to 6.5 percent, which is not likely to occur until late 2014. Consequently, the Fed may continue its third round of QE until March 2014, while record-low policy-rates could prevail well until the end of 2015. The bipartisan budget deal is designed to avoid the downside risks – not to realize the upside potential. The Chinese reforms: ensuring upside potential in 2014 When the budget deal was announced in Washington, the annual Central Economic Work Conference began in Beijing, only a month after the Chinese leadership officially launched the reform plans during the Party’s Third Plenum. During the Chinese leadership transition, most analysts in the West argued that reformers had lost in Beijing. In reality, China opted for tough leaders who could implement broad reforms. In particular, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang are decisive economic reformers. If the Third Plenum outlined the official broad contours of China’s economic policies for 5-10 years ahead, the Work Conference shall determine the objectives in the near-term. At the Plenum, the reform proposals focused on tripartite reforms comprising the market, government and corporations. The eight core sectors include finance, taxation, state assets, social welfare, land, foreign investment, innovation and good governance. Further, the reform blueprint seeks to relax control over market access, establish a basic social security package and allow sales of collectively-owned rural land. With new urbanization, the old household registration system (hukou), which continues to discourage migration, will be gradually phased out. The reform plans are moving in parallel with increasing financial deregulation, which, in turn, is supported by the recent launch of Shanghai’s free-trade zone (FTZ). While the FTZ advocates seek to make the renminbi fully convertible in the next few years, Beijing’s reformers hope to make the Chinese currency into a major international currency and a reserve currency, in the next few years. The Work Conference, too, reflects the ongoing shift away from extensive growth, which relied on investments and net exports for three long decades, toward intensive growth, which will be built on consumption, innovation and sustainability in the medium-term. However, even the new reforms are predicated on adequate economic growth, which is deemed to require 7.5 percent growth in the next two years. Nonetheless, Premier Li Keqiang’s 7 percent bottom-line target in 2014 is likely to require stronger than anticipated credit and investment growth. Elusive calm through 2014-15: Thanks to the House and Senate negotiators, the budget deal has the potential to ensure stability until the mid-decade in the United States. In order to deliver their compromise, however, mainstream constituencies in each party must keep their vocal and extremist minorities in line. This will not be easy because the mid-term elections are no longer and the end of the Obama era is looming. Instead of a sustained solution, the bipartisan negotiators have set aside the critical debt-reduction objectives, even though U.S. debt amounts to $17.3 trillion and U.S. total debt already exceeds $60.2 trillion. Total interest for 2013 alone amounts to $2.6 trillion, which is more than all three largest budget items combined – that is, Medicare/Medicaid, social security, plus defense expenditures. China, too, remains haunted by difficult challenges. In particular, Beijing must manage its growth transition, even as it seeks to contain local debt that soared as collateral damage from the 2009 stimulus package. While probabilities for hard landing are fading for 2014-15, deleveraging challenges loom thereafter. Further, if local government deleveraging, along with legacy debts, begins already in late 2014, the potential for downside risks could increase after mid-decade. What Washington has not achieved is an accord on a sustainable, long-term blueprint for tax and spending policies over the next decade. That would require credible, bipartisan cooperation over a medium-term debt/deficit plan. What China has not achieved yet is a detailed blueprint for local debt management over the next few years. That requires decisive consensus in Beijing, which does exist, but also tough implementation at local level and across Chinese provinces, which is more challenging to achieve. The last thing the ailing Europe and Japan, and the slowing large emerging economies need is still another U.S. debt debacle, or a protracted slowdown in China. However, if the looming post-2014-15 challenges can be overcome, global prospects could be blessed by another period of slower, though more sustainable growth and increasing prosperity. Dr. Dan Steinbock is Research Director of International Business at India China and America Institute (USA) and Visiting Fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). See also www.differencegroup.net. Source: China.org.cn

Read More........ → January 05, 2014

Retailers/Brands see surge in buying with plastic money

Is India heading towards a cashless economy? With a rising number of consumers preferring to use their debit/credit cards instead of money to buy even daily necessities, plastic money seems to be overtaking cash in India’s modern retail stores. While, it means good news for the Reserve Bank of India to keep a check and control over fake currency and black money, rising debt levels among consumers’ could be reason to worry. However, country’s leading retail chains are happy with the new trend, since they are witnessing a spurt in shopping with an increasing number of customers opting to pay by card. E-commerce boom too had led to a rise in credit/debit card shopping though preference is given to cash on delivery option. Retailers ride on the credit tideMost of the country’s retail chains and brands including Future Group, Shoppers Stop, Spencer’s Retail, Wills Lifestyle, John Players, Woodland among others, have seen credit and debit card payments consistently exceed cash this year, reflecting a change in urban consumer’s behaviour. For instance, Shoppers Stop department store chain and Future Retail’s Central and Brand Factory fashion outlets claim sales by card now account for almost 55 percent of the total, whereas shoe and apparel retailer Woodland has seen payments through plastic money account for almost 52 percent of the total transactions. Experts have attributed the adoption of plastic money to a rise in young shoppers, an increasing share of working women, easier and large credit availability as well as rise in impulse shopping. RBI data showed that the country’s debit card user base was 331 million at the end of the last fiscal year; the credit card base was 19.5 million people. Card use has been growing at around 30 percent per year. It is obvious that consumers tend to spend more when buying through credit and debit cards. A recent Assocham study showed, in Chennai, 30 percent shoppers buy daily products online, and this could rise to 40-45 percent this year, in Kolkata nearly 15-20 percent shoppers buy daily products online, and this could rise to 25-30 percent this year, in Bangalore its 20-25 percent and this could rise to 40-45 percent this year. Non-metros like Lucknow ranks high in online shopping, followed by Jaipur, Dehradun, Nashik and Trichy and top reasons for buying online, include safety, time, convenience, variety, discounts and comparisons. Rising debt and shopping in slow economyThough the economy is sluggish and consumer sentiment is low amid high inflation, electronic cards — debit, credit and pre-paid cards are posting robust growth. Credit card spends (in value terms) have more than doubled to Rs 1.23 lakh crores despite a dip in the number of credit cards between 2007-08 and 2012-13, debit card spends (in value) have risen six times to Rs 74,400 crores during the period. On a positive side, experts point out that the successful adoption of plastic money in modern retail is surely encouraging small, stores to install card swipe machines. With smart money, is organized retail heading for a smart future ahead… only time will tell. Source: Article

Read More........ → January 02, 2014

ILFS Sued- The road to regional airports

The government can cry itself hoarse over how it wants to develop its regional airport policy and even make announcements on how well the projects are doing, but it is clear that things are far from what they seem. Reality bites. Finally somebody had the gall to take legal action against an ineffective, inefficient, staid system. Pushed to take legal recourse due to lack of response from jv partner and sister companies, promoters of regional airport-holdings international limited (rahi), a joint-venture between rahi aviation holdings pvt. Ltd. (rah) and il&fs transportation networks ltd announced that a series of legal actions had been initiated against il&fs, itnl, il&fs engineering (ieccl, earlier known as maytas) and others, “in the wake of the gulbarga and shimoga airport projects languishing for want of appropriate responses from il&fs.” Rahi came in with dreams of building 99 airports and i can attest to the passion having met the founder many times. Its first two projects at gulbarga and shimoga would have paved the way for a network of such regional airports. “unfortunately, both these pioneering projects have languished for over a year now, in the face of a deadlock created by the brazen display of corporate ego and associated institutional might of ilfs and its group companies,” said umesh kumar baveja, chairman, rahi. Speak of a way to kill initiative! Congratulations india- we’ve done it once again! This is what part of what rahis press release reads- For over a year now, rahi has endeavoured to keep the projects alive in the face of serious impediments brought to it by itnl (these, and many more breaches, are the subject matter of complaints filed, and underway, against itnl, their affiliates and functionaries). Itnl has refused to participate in board meetings since february 2012, thereby blocking all attempts for rahi to raise much needed capital to complete the projects. Itnl has used its institutional relationships with banks to even have the final sanction of debt for the shimoga project withdrawn. It further created an environment where bankers to the gulbarga project suspended further disbursement of debt. But the most brazen act of all was itnl’s collusion with their sister company ieccl to the serious detriment of rahi. As a result of the aforesaid, gulbarga debt has now turned into a non-performing asset (npa) and its credit rating downgraded to default grade (‘d’). Itnl even sought to use the bankers to usurp management control of gulbarga, thereby, seeking to profit from their own wrongs. Similarly, itnl attempted to profit from its investment in rah, and through rahi in gulbarga and shimoga; itnl thrust an exorbitant loan at an interest rate of 17%, far higher than its own, stated cost of debt of 11.75%. Baseless, unsubstantiated allegations against rahi and its owners to third parties such as banks and the government of karnataka were made with the sole aim of defaming them and eroding their business credibility. Source: Article

Read More........ → December 12, 2013

Warren Buffett lays down logic against dividends

In his latest annual letter to shareholders, Buffett explains why paying dividends doesn't make sense. The annual letter that Warren Buffett writes to his shareholders is something of an event in the business world. What is normally mundane business communication from other CEOs, has become an art form in Buffett's case. This year's letter has excited media people more than most because it has a long discussion about the media business. Over the last few years, Buffett has bought a string of newspapers even though the newspaper is widely understood to be in severe decline in the US. However, the most interesting part of the letter is Buffett's response to the constant clamour for dividends that he hears, given his holding company Berkshire Hathway's $50 billion cash chest. He lays down four uses to which a company can put its cash, in decreasing priority. First, it should reinvest the money in growing its core business. If that cannot be done productively, then it should use the cash to acquire or expand into other businesses. If that too is not feasible, then it should repurchase its own shares if they are available cheaply enough. He lays down 120% of book value as the standard for cheap enough that Berkshire follows. He terms share buybacks at this level as 'buying a dollar for 80 cents'. Only if this too is not possible should a company consider paying dividends. It's an interesting view, and one which is hard to fault. The logic of prioritising share buybacks over dividends is sound, even though it won't sound so to Indian ears. But what about investors who want a cash income from shares? Buffett's recipe is interesting - sell some stock to realise the amount you want. He says that this always leads to a better outcome for the business and the shareholder, including in tax-efficiency. The letter is a great read, but don't take my word for it - download it and read it for yourself. Source: Hindustan Times

Read More........ → March 07, 2013

Everything You Need To Know: The Economic Collapse for Dummies *Micro Documentary*

This latest micro-documentary from Future Money Trends, narrated by founder and chief strategist Daniel Ameduri, highlights the inevitably of a collapse in the global financial and economic systems. Taking into consideration key data points likedemographics, consumer consumption, unemployment trends, government debt, monetary policy, and widespread manipulation, a frightening end-game scenario begins to emerge. With rampant fraud throughout the financial system and price fixing of unprecedented proportions in global stocks, commodities, interest rates, business loans, mortgages and personal loans, it is only a matter of time – perhaps one to four years according to Ameduri – before all of the machinations engaged in by governments, central banks and their financial industry cohorts to stabilize the system does exactly the opposite. The panic of 1929 will be a walk in the park compared to the utter pandemonium we will witness as the entire way of life we have come to know over the last three decades crumbles before our eyes. As Zero Hedge notes, The Economic Collapse for Dummies is “everything you wanted to know about the inevitability of a major economic collapse but were afraid to ask.”Source: The Coming Depression

Read More........ → January 06, 2013

"Foreign" hamburger?

Russia’s Chief Sanitary Inspector Gennadiy Onishchenko has urged Russians to refrain from eating hamburgers which he described as ‘foreign food’. The United States claims that Onishchenko’s statement has a political coloring. The Voice of Russia’s Yelena Kovachich has met with a number of food experts in an attempt to establish whether Russia’s chief medical officer is playing political games or is concerned about the health of the nation.
 By: Yelena Kovachich, The attempts to interpret Onischenko’s critical remarks concerning hamburgers as a protest against the “pernicious” influence of the West are far-fetched. Since Russia has hundreds of McDonald’s outlets which yield good profit, it’s economic, not political motivation that is behind the dispute, says Pavel Salin of the Political Research Center. "Big politics are seldom behind such statements. As a rule, big money is behind. Even though sometimes these kinds of statements are politically motivated, as we witnessed in the case of Georgian-produced wines and mineral water, and Moldavian wines, these instances are fairly rare". Russia’s chief sanitary officer would hardly pursue any commercial gains unless they meant a healthier nation. Onishehchenko is concerned about the health of the nation. Everybody knows that hamburgers are junk food. In his book Fast Food Nation, American writer Eric Schlosser says that obesity is the second killer in the US after tobacco, as one fourth of the country’s adult population eat hamburgers as regular snacks. The number of obese people has doubled in Britain. The number of overweight people, particularly among the young, has been increasing rapidly in seafood and vegetable-loving Japan. No doctor would ever recommend a fast food diet. Onishchenko took a firm stand against hamburgers after a female customer recounted that she had discovered worms inside her McChicken box. A publication to this effect which appeared in The Washington Post described even the thought of it as revolting. It’s no wonder then that the Russian sanitary inspector reacted in such a way. According to Schlosser, hundreds of Americans have been killed by E.coli which was discovered in hamburgers and millions are poisoned by poor quality ingredients in McDonald’s food annually. As it happens, there is nothing insulting about the phrase “foreign food” for Americans. Onishchenko meant that Russians should eat food they are used to genetically. Eskimos eat raw frozen meat, Yakuts eat frozen fish, and Chinese adults don’t drink milk. National food traditions differ. As for the Russian food, it’s international, using a combination of different gastronomic preferences. Russians traditionally eat food from Asia, the Caucasus, Siberia. The European and French traditions are strong as well. From the French Russians have borrowed cutlets, omellettes, mousses and compotes. Russians are thus tolerant to foreign food. By and large, the hamburger should be “foreign” to the whole of humanity if people want to be healthy and in good shape." Source: Voice of Russia

Read More........ → October 21, 2012

Bikinis at the Olympics...is this a real issue?

By Mark Sappenfield: In one women's beach volleyball semifinal amid a driving rain at the London 2012 Olympics Tuesday, neither team wore just their bikinis. What women wear has been a big issue here. The Christian Science Monitor:  Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor will try for their third consecutive gold medal in beach volleyball Wednesday when they face fellow Americans April Ross and Jen Kessy in the final at the London 2012 Olympics. Now that that's out of the way, can we talk about what they were wearing? In the semifinal between Ross/Kessy and Brazilians Larissa and Juliana, neither team wore just their bikinis on a cold London night with driving rain, prompting International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge to promise a full investigation. "This is clearly not in the Olympic spirit," he said. OK, he didn't say that, and there is no inquiry. But in the sometimes alternate universe of beach volleyball, that it often what it feels like. From head scarves to skirts, there has been a lot of talk at the London Olympics about what not to wear for women, but nowhere more so than at beach volleyball, where the decision earler this year to allow women not to wear bikinis has been met with relief by women's rights groups, dismay by some casual fans, and a gigantic shrug by the players themselves. It is the flip side to another and rather more momentous first at London 2012: Each competing nation has brought at least one woman athlete. To reach that goal, which the IOC made a high priority, the federations that govern Olympic

Read More........ → August 10, 2012

Corruption in the “heart of democracy”

By Mamonov Roman, While passions are running high in the US ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, a new scandal has unfolded around Washington DC mayor Vincent Gray. It has been revealed that members of his staff illegally used the data bases with information about the district’s residents. While passions are running high in the US ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, a new scandal has unfolded around Washington DC mayor Vincent Gray. It has been revealed that members of his staff illegally used the data bases with information about the district’s residents. Earlier several members of the staff were accused of not properly reporting the funds raised for Gray’s election campaign in 2010.Against a different information background this scandal could have become international. But now this scandal in Washington pales beside the events in Syria, the euro-crisis and the coming US presidential elections. But the fact as such is a sensational one. The Mayor of Washington DC, the capital of one of the global powers, is about to face criminal accusations. The story is linked with of Vincent Gray’s election campaign for the post in 2010. Tags: campaign, corruption, World, US, Society, Opinion & Analysis, Читать далее, Source: Voice of Russia. 

Read More........ → July 26, 2012

Is there a limit to the wisdom of the market?

Why can you sell sperm but not your vote? Why is there pressure to set up a market in kidneys but not in children? These conundrums are investigated by the political philosopher Michael Sandel, of Harvard University, in his latest book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. It is sure to become a reference point in future bioethics debates. Sandel’s target is not specifically bioethical. His thesis is that Western societies, especially the US, have moved from being a market economy to a market society, in which everything can be valued and exchanged for money. “If someone is willing to pay for sex, or a kidney, and a consenting adult is willing to sell, the only question the economist asks is “How much?” Markets don’t wag fingers. They don’t discriminate between worthy preferences and unworthy ones. Each party to a deal decides for him- or herself what value to place on the things being exchanged. “This nonjudgmental stance toward values lies at the heart of market reasoning, and explains much of its appeal. But our reluctance to engage in moral and spiritual argument, together with our embrace of markets, has exacted a heavy price: it has drained public discourse of moral and civic energy, and contributed to the technocratic, managerial politics afflicting many societies today.”  The point he makes is that things which can be bought and sold are commodities. Everyone agrees that some things – like people -- should be never become commodities. But there is no public agreement on why or which things these are. Sandel calls for a “debate about the moral limits of markets”. ~The Atlantic, April 2012, Source: BioEdge

Read More........ → May 07, 2012