Dog Sweat shows secret life of rebellious Iranians
The subject matter seen in “Dog Sweat” is forbidden in Iran. The government prefers movies that represent an idealized version of the country — a place without gay men and women and where members of the opposite sex mix only if married.
In the movie, it is a metaphor about a diverse group of young people looking for pleasure in a country where so much is prohibited. A gay man is forced into an arranged marriage. An unmarried couple cannot find a place to be alone. A female musician isn’t allowed to pursue a career due to her gender.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) Iranian-American filmmaker Hossein Keshavarz’s directorial debut, “Dog Sweat,” has won recognition at world film festivals, but it will never be seen in his homeland.
“Some of the charges are very vague — insulting Islam, indecency,” said Keshavarz. “They’re these laws that are basically grab-all laws that they can use if they don’t like what you’re doing.”
That’s because the tale of rebellious youth was shot underground in Iran with Keshavarz stealing scenes in public places, filming in private homes, then placing his film on a computer hard drive, putting it in a backpack and leaving the country.
“I don’t think we would be able to make this film now. Ever since Ahmadinejad came into power they’ve been kind of cracking down,” said Keshavarz.
“You go to the movie theaters and you never see anything that reflects our lives. Something as simple as having drinks with your friends and talking, meeting up in a restaurant, meeting up in a cafe. People are really insistent on living their lives freely,” he said.
“Dog Sweat” was filmed before Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential elections that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, triggering demonstrations and violence. It has won prizes at the Austin and Rome film festivals and nominations at the Los Angeles and Tokyo events.
The environment for artists has become increasingly perilous following the 2009 elections. Influential filmmaker, Jafar Panahi has been under house arrest since March 2010, and another six producers, directors and documentary makers were arrested in September, sparking criticism from Hollywood and across Europe.
Nearly 70 percent of Iran’s roughly 80 million people are under the age of 35, and while Keshavarz was raised in the United States, he said he returns frequently to Iran.
“Dog Sweat”, which opens in U.S. movie theaters on Friday, is the name of a type of liquor that can be bought on the Iranian black market in a country where alcohol is forbidden.
A typical film production involves submitting a screenplay to the censorship board. They will either reject it or return it with notes. Once it’s been approved, production can begin. But no movie is released without the board’s final approval.
“We did not go through any board,” laughed Keshavarz. “We shot the film underground. It really was by any means necessary.”
“There’s no (Iranian) theater that would show this,” said Keshavarz, a graduate of Columbia University’s film program.
(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Bob Tourtellotte)
Uggie is Golden Collar nominations’ top dog
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) In a move somewhat akin to having George Clooney announce the Oscar nominations, Uggie the dog announced on Wednesday that the top nominee for the first Golden Collar Awards, which honor canine performances in film and television, is — Uggie the dog.
Uggie, the much-celebrated star of “The Artist,” received a pair of nominations in the marquee category of Best Dog in a Theatrical Film - one for “The Artist,” and the other for his performance as Queenie in “Water for Elephants.”
He’ll be going up against Cosmo, Denver and Hummer, who were nominated for their roles in “Beginners,” “50/50″ and “Young Adult, respectively.
Uggie was on hand to help with the nominations announcement, which was made with the help of his human co-star in “The Artist,” Penelope Ann Miller.
The most interesting race in the other four categories in clearly the impending dogfight in the Best Dog in a Reality Television Series category, where three nominees from “Real Housewives” shows (Giggy and Jackpot from Beverly Hills and Millou from New York City) are expected to make mincemeat of Spartacus from “Ice Loves Coco” and Hercules from “Pit Boss” before turning their claws on each other.
And while Aki Kaurismaki’s “Le Havre” was surprisingly left off the shortlist in the Oscar Foreign-Language category, the Finnish director can no doubt console himself with the knowledge that his canine lead, Laika, is up for Best Dog in a Foreign Film.
The Golden Collar Awards are the creation of the online magazine Dog News Daily, and will take place on Monday, February 13 at the dog-friendly Hotel Palomar in Los Angeles. Proceeds will benefit L.A.-area dog rescue shelters and organizations.
(Editing by Chris Michaud)
FedEx Delivers Another Good Quarter
In September, I told you about FedEx’s (NYSE: FDX - News) fiscal-first-quarter earnings’ growth story. In the second quarter, the company reported a bombastic 76% income growth compared to its previous-year quarter. The world’s second-largest packaged delivery company posted better-than-expected results thanks to strong Thanksgiving weekend online sales and a better price/volume mix, sending the shares up after the announcement.
Let’s dig deeper.
The quarter
Profits increased to $497 million, a 76% year-over-year rise. The company earned $1.57 per share, beating the Street expectation of $1.53 per share. FedEx also improved its operational margins to 7.4%, from 4.9% last year, helped by fewer flights and frequencies.
Overall sales inched up by 10%, to $10.59 billion. Sales at FedEx’s largest business — FedEx Express — grew 10% and helped the company push up its revenue. Although international priority daily package volume was lower due to a weaker Asian market, the company still logged higher international priority revenues per package due to higher fuel surcharges, rate per pound, and weight per package.
Shopping and holiday mix
With an increase in online shopping during the Thanksgiving weekend, demand for residential delivery services shot up. The fact that online retailer Amazon.com is expected to have a strong holiday season is certainly good news for shipping companies like FedEx.
Looking beyond the quarter
Despite being hurt by a weak Asian market, FedEx has opened its largest express facility in China. The company sees China as an important market for express offerings as it can account for the bulk of FedEx’s future growth. Rival United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS - News) is also increasing capacity in Asia.
Apart from expanding in Asia, FedEx has been conscious of lowering its costs. The company is buying 27 new 767-300 freighter planes from Boeing (NYSE: BA - News) to replace its aging MD-10 planes. The new planes will be 30% more fuel-efficient and more reliable. The order is valued at $4.7 billion. This investment will reduce unit operating costs by 20%.
The Foolish bottom line
FedEx posted bright numbers this quarter due to a combination of strong Thanksgiving weekend e-commerce and higher margins. With well-planned investments in Asia and cost-efficient strategies, FedEx looks intriguing. The company expects to earn $1.25 to $1.45 per share this quarter as compared to the Street expectation of $1.31 per share.
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Liz Taylor couture soars to $2.6 million at auction
NEW YORK (Reuters) One of actress Elizabeth Taylor’s Dior evening gowns sold for $362,500, boosting the total for the auction of her haute couture to $2.6 million at Christie’s.
The silver encrusted brocade gown from 1968, with matching bag, had been estimated at about $5,000, but a protracted bidding war among several determined would-be buyers drove the price to about 70 times that, including commission.
The Wednesday sale, the third in a weeks’ worth of auctions of Taylor’s storied jewels, clothes, memorabilia and other items, was not marked by the freewheeling frenzy that prevailed on Tuesday, when her finest jewelry took in $116 million.
But the $2.6 million was still about 10 times the pre-sale estimate, owing to the Taylor cachet and also driven by competitive online bidding from around the globe.
Christie’s said the sale set a record for a couture auction, although the evening’s top lot was actually an Andy Warhol lithograph of Taylor which fetched $662,500.
“The couture was an extremely successful auction,” said Andrea Fiuczynski, president of Christie’s Los Angeles, who served as auctioneer.
The results, she said, were a testament to Taylor’s iconic status, which she said is unmatched today.
“There isn’t any celebrity now who does everything she did,” Fiuczynski told Reuters, speaking to Taylor’s work as an actress, activist, humanitarian, savvy businesswoman and style icon.
Taylor died of congestive heart failure in March at age 79.
Two other offerings soared past $100,000 - a Chanel ball gown and cape with shoes and matching bag, which fetched $134,500; and a Versace beaded bolero jacket emblazoned with images of Taylor in her film roles,Cheap Ed hardy Shoes, which sold for $128,500.
A few pieces of jewelry included in the sale also commanded strong prices, notably a fish charm necklace estimated at $500 which sold for $30,000 and a pair of rock crystal and gold Gucci ear pendants, which went for $74,500 against an estimate of $1,500.
The Taylor auctions continue on Thursday with a memorabilia and fine arts sale. Online auctions of some 1,000 lower-priced items from Taylor’s estate are running concurrently.
(Reporting by Chris Michaud; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
New Pentagon strategy stresses Asia, cyber, drones
WASHINGTON (Reuters) President Barack Obama unveiled a defense strategy on Thursday that would expand the U.S. military presence in Asia but shrink the overall size of the force as the Pentagon seeks to slash spending by nearly half a trillion dollars after a decade of war.
The strategy, if carried out, would significantly reshape the world’s most powerful military following the buildup that was a key part of President George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cyberwarfare and unmanned drones would continue to grow in priority, as would countering attempts by China and Iran to block U.S. power projection capabilities in areas like the South China Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.
But the size of the U.S. Army and Marines Corps would shrink. So too might the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the U.S. military footprint in Europe.
Troop- and time-intensive counter-insurgency operations, a staple of U.S. military strategy since the 2007 “surge” of extra troops to Iraq, would be far more limited.
“The tide of war is receding but the question that this strategy answers is what kind of military will we need long after the wars of the last decade are over,Replica Bulzeye,” Obama told a Pentagon news conference alongside Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
The strategy drew varied reactions, with Republican Senator John McCain saying the United States could not afford a “budget-driven defense” and independent Senator Joe Lieberman warning it would “greatly increase the risk” that a U.S. adversary would underestimate the U.S. resolve to fight.
“This is a lead-from-behind strategy for a left-behind America,” said Representative Buck McKeon, Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “The president has packaged our retreat from the world in the guise of a new strategy to mask his divestment of our military and national defense.”
SMALLER, LEANER
Panetta said the new strategy would mean the Pentagon would field a “smaller and leaner” military force, but added that the exact number of personnel would not be determined until the Defense Department finishes its proposed 2013 budget in the coming weeks.
Administration officials have said they expect Army and Marine Corp personnel levels to be reduced by 10 percent to 15 percent over the next decade as part of the reductions.
The Army’s current strength is about 565,000 soldiers and there are 201,000 Marines, meaning an eventual loss of between 76,000 and 114,000 troops.
Panetta acknowledged the Pentagon’s financial constraints would mean difficult choices and trade-offs that would require the United States to take on “some level of additional but acceptable risk in the budget plan we release next month.”
Critics charged that the cuts were driven by budget woes rather than U.S. defense needs.
“The Pentagon is trying to put on a brave face that this is a pure strategy that has informed the 2013 defense budget,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a national security expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.
“Everyone knows that the cart was before the horse on this and that Congress and the president picked a budget and this is a strategy to chase down those numbers,” she said.
“This is a classic resource-driven strategy document,” said Gordon Adams, an American University professor who worked on defense budgets in the Clinton administration White House.
“That’s not a criticism, that’s just a reality. It’s inevitable. Strategy always wears a dollar sign,” he said.
Obama and Panetta insisted that the reverse was true and that strategy would inform the spending decisions. But they did not divulge details of spending and cuts, which will be released as part of Obama’s upcoming federal budget for fiscal year 2013.
The president emphasized that even after enactment of the $487 billion in reductions over 10 years that was agreed with Congress in August, the defense budget would still be larger than it was toward the end of Bush’s administration.
“Over the past 10 years, since 9/11, our defense budget grew at an extraordinary pace,” Obama said. “Over the next 10 years, the growth in the defense budget will slow but the fact of the matter is this - it will still grow because we have global responsibilities that demand our leadership.”
The shift in focus to Asia comes amid increasing concern at the Pentagon over China’s strategic goals as it begins to field a new generation of weapons that American officials fear are designed to prevent U.S. naval and air forces from projecting power into the Far East.
The new strategy also calls for increased investment in cyber capabilities and suggests the United States may be able to shrink its nuclear arsenal further without jeopardizing security, a statement welcomed by arms control groups and some lawmakers.
ONE WAR, TWO WARS
The strategy says the United States should maintain a force that can win one major war while still being able to deter an aggressor in a second conflict. In the past the Pentagon has tried to field a force that could fight and win two major wars at once.
Panetta played down the differences, saying the earlier strategy dealt with large conflicts of the past while the current strategy was considering the conflicts the United States is likely to face in the 21st century.
“Make no mistake - we will have the capability to confront and defeat more than one adversary at a time,” he said.
But Representative Mike Coffman, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, expressed alarm over the shift in U.S. posture, saying, “I believe we can make cuts that don’t reduce capability,” a concern that was echoed by Lieberman.
The strategy underscores the United States’ “enduring interests” in Europe and the importance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but says the force posture in Europe must “evolve” with the changing times, opening the door for troop reductions.
Administration officials have said the United States is likely to further reduce the number of ground forces in Europe by another combat brigade, a unit of 3,000 to 4,000 people depending on its composition.
The strategy also highlights the U.S. interest in maintaining stability in the Middle East while responding to the aspirations of the people as expressed in the “Arab spring” last year. It also says the United States will continue working to halt nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
The new defense strategy can be found at: http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf
(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis and Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Eric Walsh)
NY grocery changes course on Alec Baldwin TV ads
ROCHESTER, N.Y. A New York-based supermarket chain has had a change of heart about grounding Alec Baldwin as a spokesman because of his antics aboard an American Airlines flight.
Wegmans Food Markets said Wednesday it will continue running television ads featuring Baldwin after being inundated with “hundreds and hundreds of tweets, emails, and phone calls” in support of the actor.
“We regret ending the Alec Baldwin holiday commercials one week earlier than planned in response to a couple of dozen complaints,” Wegmans said in a statement. “We have decided to run the commercials again, effective immediately. Clearly,Cheap Ed hardy t-shirts, many more people support Alec.”
Wegmans revealed Tuesday it had pulled the ads after drawing customer criticism about Baldwin’s behavior. He was removed from a New York-bound flight at Los Angeles International Airport on Dec. 6 for refusing to turn off his cellphone.
The commercials, which were filmed for the 2010 holiday season, were supposed to run again for three weeks last month but were pulled a week early after Baldwin’s airline dustup.
Baldwin was hired for the ads after he mentioned that his mother, who lives in the Syracuse area, is a loyal Wegmans customer.
“We appreciate Wegmans’ decision and the sentiment expressed in their statement,” Baldwin publicist Matthew Hiltzik said.
Wegmans, a family owned business founded in Rochester in 1916, is credited with helping pioneer “one-stop shopping.” It has 79 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts.
Anselm Kiefer’s World of Devastation Is Captured in the Documentary Over Your Cities Grass Will Gro
If Pompeii hadn’t been excavated, if the towns and villages on the Western Front hadn’t been rebuilt after World War I, and if the site of the World Trade Center had been left as it was after 9/11, they might partially resemble the ruins Anselm Kiefer constructed in the South of France. Moving from Germany in 1993, Kiefer took over the 35 hectares of the industrial wasteland La Ribaute, near Barjac, and turned the atelier into a sprawling Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art,” consisting of 47 buildings, an amphitheater, bridges, caves, an underground labyrinth that invoke the guts of the Pyramids or the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps. In the concrete rooms, he installed artworks — twisted strips of metallic film, a dormitory cast in lead, a child’s garment decorated with shards of glass, and other totems of catastrophe.
Kiefer has since moved on to another studio in Paris, taking “110 trucks” of the art with him, but La Ribaute remains. He and his small team of workmen were filmed in their labors by the British director Sophie Fiennes, whose mesmerizing Cinema Scope documentary “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow” appeared at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Playing at Film Forum in New York from August 10-23, it doubles as a post-biblical, post-apocalyptic prophesy about the eventual fate of the earth and a self-reflexive meditation on the artistic process. Reflecting Kiefer’s canvases, it is etched in the colors of lead, earth, ash, charcoals, blacks, and discolored whites.
Occasionally, a splash of blue — that of industrial drums — obtrudes, or the muted golds and greens of the surrounding foliage. Kiefer comments in the film that he’s pleased vegetation is reclaiming La Ribaute, but this scarcely admits a return to the Arcadian, as did an unrelated exhibition bearing the same name as the film that ran at London’s Hidde Van Seggelen Gallery this spring, featuring work by Piranesi, Friedrich, Brouwn, Janssens, Almarcegui, and others. In contrast, Kiefer’s studio is a theme park dedicated to the notions of destruction, decay, annulment, and eventual absence.
“Over Your Cities” begins wordlessly as the disembodied camera glides up, down, along, and around the eerie subterranean passageways — made of corrugated iron and cement, some interspersed with stalagmite-like columns — to the sound of Jörg Widmann and György Ligeti’s spectral music. Shards of pottery and glass, broken slabs of concrete and rocks proliferate. After nearly 20 minutes of immersion in this dead zone, Kiefer and his workmen appear — pumping water, making a plaster-like substance, smelting ore. Among the artworks they make in the film are an installation suspending miniature lead battleships (a tribute to Céline’s novel “Journey to the End of the Night”) and a painting of the Ardèche forest, the boles stripped bare and stained with ground cement. The latter work is reminiscent of Kiefer’s great “Varus” (1976), which deals with the birth and growth of German national consciousness via its inscription of the victory over the Romans in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD — Germany, year zero. Anselm’s Teutonic forests, influenced by Altdorfer and Friedrich, augur the Nazi horror.
At the center of the film, there’s a statically shot interview, conducted in La Ribaute’s library, between Kiefer and a German journalist who prompts the artist to ruminate on his ideas. Though we learn little about the historical or nostalgic influences on the Gesamtkunstwerk, Kiefer does refer to “The Odyssey,” the Kabbala (in reference to broken vessels), and Heidegger’s belief that boredom is useful in bringing about consciousness of one’s existence. Kiefer strongly believes in the importance of emptiness as a precondition for creating. “I fundamentally believe that through my work I can fill an empty room created in my childhood,” he says. “The space has not been filled yet things fall into it and take effect.”
Through his work, Kiefer has been a provocative and consistent critic of the Third Reich, and there are enough installations and imagery at La Ribaute to have prompted a detailed discussion of Nazi atrocities and the devastation of war — fabricated dragons’ teeth adorn some of the artworks, the teetering concrete towers suggest Dresden and Berlin after the Allied bombing (as well as Ground Zero). When Kiefer and the workmen drop sheets of plate glass on the floor of an installation room, or strew glass around a warehouse, it’s impossible not to think of Kristallnacht. Kiefer has a crane mount one of his massive trademark lead books onto a huge canvas; other books are burned — connoting the Nazi repression and the death of knowledge.
Regrettably, Kiefer doesn’t engage with this. Instead, he speaks about man’s origins as a sea creature who longs to go “back to our happy, unconscious being as a single cell in the ocean,” and about scientific theories such as the Big Bang describing “our lack of knowledge. They describe our ignorance…. All the scientific and technological progress only tells me how incomplete I am and that I know nothing…. How inhuman I am, and how inhuman humans are.” Well, not entirely. Shortly after he delivers this humbling peroration, two small boys,wholesale Burberry Cheap, the artist’s sons, enter the frame, playfully scooting behind their father.
After the interview, Fiennes returns to the construction outside at La Ribaute. Kiefer and one of his workers pour molten metal, like so much lava, down a small hill of earth. A huge mechanical drill bores holes in the earth that they fill with cement and plant with metal rods — one thinks of what might have lain under the Nazi Party rally grounds designed by Albert Speer — and erect one of many skeletal towers made from concrete modules. In one shot, a cement staircase rises for a few steps and then, having broken, stops abruptly. Whither did it lead?
Kiefer says the towers were influenced by the Jewish folkloric figure of Adam’s demonic first wife, Lilith, who was expelled by him from Paradise and dwelled in abandoned ruins, threatening that “over your cities grass will grow.” “I think that’s fantastic,” he remarks, sweeping the devastated past historical into the ghost towns of the future.
Watch clips from “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow” below:
ONE: Raising the Painting
TWO: The Towers
THREE: Melting Lead
Stirring up a fight, Obama names consumer watchdog
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio Defying Republican lawmakers, President Barack Obama on Wednesday barreled by the Senate and installed a national consumer watchdog on his own, provoking GOP threats of a constitutional showdown in the courts. Setting a fierce tone in the election-year fight for middle-class voters, Obama said: “I refuse to take `no’ for an answer.”
Obama named Richard Cordray, a respected former attorney general of Ohio, to be the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, after giving up on hopes for a confirmation vote in the Senate. The appointment means the agency is able to oversee a vast swath of lending companies and others accused at times of preying on consumers with shady practices.
In political terms, Obama’s move was unapologetically brazen, the equivalent of a haymaker at Republicans in the Senate who had blocked his nominee. Acting right after Tuesday’s presidential caucuses in Iowa, which showered attention on his opponents, Obama sought to make a splash as the one fighting for the rights of the little guy.
Presidents of both parties long have gotten around a stalled confirmation by naming a nominee to a job when the Senate is on a break through a process known as a recess appointment.
But Obama went further by squeezing in his appointment during a break between rapid Senate sessions this week, an unusual move that the GOP called an arrogant power grab.
The White House said what the Senate was doing gaveling in and out of session every few days solely to avoid being in recess was a sham. Obama’s aides said the president would not be stopped by a legislative gimmick, even though it was Senate Democrats who began the practice to halt President George W. Bush’s appointments.
“When Congress refuses to act, and as a result hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them,” Obama said from Ohio, a state vital to Obama’s re-election bid.
Consumer groups hailed Obama’s decision; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce balked and warned it was so legally shaky that consumer bureau’s work may be compromised.
The response from Republicans was blistering.
The top Senate Republican,wholesale Ed hardy jeans, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Obama had “arrogantly circumvented the American people” and endangered the nation’s systems of checks and balances. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah called it a “very grave decision by this heavy-handed, autocratic White House.”
And House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said: “It’s clear the president would rather trample our system of separation of powers than work with Republicans to move the country forward. This action goes beyond the president’s authority, and I expect the courts will find the appointment to be illegitimate.”
Mitt Romney, a leading Republican presidential candidate, accused Obama of displaying “Chicago-style politics at its worst.”
It was not immediately clear who might file a suit on the matter. Most likely, a private party regulated by the consumer agency would have the legal standing.
More than a standoff over one significant appointment, the fight speaks to the heart of a presidential campaign under way.
Obama is presiding over a troubled but improving economy. To try to win over voters, he is employing two strategies: in-your-face politics against a Congress held in low public regard, and a campaign pitch that he would represent the crunched middle class better than any of the Republicans he would face.
The Cordray appointment fits both.
Only with a director in place can the consumer bureau keep “dishonest” mortgage companies, payday lenders, debt collectors and others from harming consumers, Obama said. Speaking from a high school in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, Obama said Republicans were only blocking Cordray because they wanted to water down consumer protections.
Republican senators have called the consumer bureau too powerful and unaccountable, and held off on Cordray’s bid as a means to get changes.
Cordray essentially starts right away, although his nomination will become official later in the week, the White House said. He is expected to serve until at least the end of 2013, which is the end of the Senate’s next session.
In plowing ahead, the White House had to contend with some uncomfortable history.
Just last year, a lawyer from Obama’s Justice Department said the office’s view was that recess appointments could only come during legislative breaks of more than three days. That doesn’t match up with what Obama did with Cordray, since the Senate was technically just in session on Tuesday.
The Senate’s top Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada, said in 2007 he would keep the Senate in “pro forma” sessions to block Bush from making an end run around the Senate and the Constitution with controversial nominations. That’s exactly what Obama’s White House now calls a gimmick. Yet on Wednesday, Reid came out in support of what Obama did.
As a senator in 2005, Obama opposed the recess nomination of John Bolton to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saying at the time that a representative who couldn’t get through a Senate confirmation would be “damaged goods” with less credibility. Obama spokesman Jay Carney said Obama was just talking about the merits of the Bolton pick.
Obama certainly hasn’t opposed recess appointments as president.
He had made 28 recess appointments before Wednesday, then named Cordray and three members to the National Labor Relations Board.
Bush made more than 170 such appointments when the Senate was away.
At the heart of the conflict this time is the arcane matter of what, exactly, constitutes a congressional recess.
White House lawyers ultimately determined that, for all practical purposes, the Senate is in the midst of about a monthlong break and Obama can move ahead as he pleases.
___
Feller reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.
Palestinians block show by Israeli-Arab singer
JERUSALEM A popular Israeli-Arab singer had to cancel a show on New Year’s Eve in the West Bank because of threats from Palestinian activists opposed to coexistence with Israel, the performer and police said.
It was the latest in a string of cancellations after threats and other pressure tactics by Palestinians groups promoting a boycott of virtually anything connected with Israel. The boycott movement says its tactics are a nonviolent way to protest Israeli policies. Israeli officials denounce the efforts as “delegitimization” of Israel’s right to exist.
Sharif, who uses only one name, said he was expecting to perform before thousands of Palestinian fans at a New Year’s Eve concert in Ramallah, the west Bank administrative capital, but he was told the day before that his concert was being canceled because of a threat to his life.
“I’m an artist and I want to sing before all audiences,” said Sharif, a member of Israel’s Arab Druse minority who sees himself as a bridge between the two sides. “I’m a man of peace, not politics. I just want to bring my music to my fans.”
Palestinian activists campaigned against his concert because he has performed before Israeli soldiers.
Palestinian police said the decision to cancel the show was based purely on security concerns. They said once they became aware of the opposition, which was organized in a Facebook campaign, they ordered the concert canceled.
“When we see people bracing to bar a controversial party like this, we interfere to prevent any tension or violence,” said Adnan Damari, a police spokesman.
Sharif said he separates his performances from politics, noting he has played in the West Bank and Gaza before and dreams of performing in Syria and Lebanon.
“I’m surprised that this was done against me I belong to both sides,” said Sharif, 32, who performed earlier last year in the West Bank. “I’ve got to get back there and I hope it happens soon.” The Druse sect is part of the larger Israeli-Arab minority.
It wasn’t the only controversy in Ramallah on New Year’s Eve.
Palestinian singer Basel Zayed was prevented from completing his concert after he performed a song that mocked the Palestinian leadership. Under pressure from Palestinian police, organizers shut down the event.
The New Year’s incidents follow two other events in which Israeli-Palestinian dialogue meetings were thwarted because of Palestinian pressure. The activists behind the move oppose any “normalization” between Palestinians and Israelis as long as peace talks between the sides are deadlocked. Negotiators sat down in Jordan Tuesday for their first meeting in 15 months.
“The movement in Jerusalem will always demonstrate against any joint meeting as long as the peace process is stalling,” said Hatem Abdel Qader, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Jerusalem affairs.
Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib said the meetings were local initiatives his government was not involved and did not oppose them. Even so, among the Palestinians who objected to the Israeli-Palestinian meeting were senior members of Abbas’ Fatah movement.
Palestinian activists have long called for boycotts of Israel,Replica Christian Audigier Jeans, hoping such pressure will achieve what years of negotiations and violent uprisings have not: end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem and bring about creation of a Palestinian state.
In recent years, the Palestinians have scored several small victories, persuading some European pension funds to divest themselves of firms involved in West Bank settlement construction, for example. Several international artists, including Elvis Costello and the Pixies, have canceled performances in Israel to protest Israeli policies.
Another band, Boney M, was ordered by Palestinian concert organizers not to sing its hit “Rivers of Babylon,” which quotes a biblical passage referring to the Jewish people’s yearning to return to the biblical land of Israel.
Israel says the economic impact of the boycott campaign has been negligible and accused the activists of promoting hatred against the Jewish state.
Yossi Kuperwasser, the director general of Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry, said “anything happening to promote peace,” such as musical performances or academic conferences, “should be accepted by the Palestinians.” Instead, he said the cancellation of such events reflects a campaign by the Palestinians to delegitimize Israel.
“They don’t accept Israel as a Jewish state as a fact, let alone its right to exist,” said Kuperwasser, whose office monitors what it says is incessant incitement against Israel in Palestinian society.
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Mohammed Daraghmeh contributed to this report from Ramallah, West Bank.
Before the Paparazzi See Celebrity Portraits by Hollywood’s Original Photographers at the National
Beforetoday’s Internet-induced era of celebrity overexposure, paparazzi abundance, and tabloid proliferation, there was a time when film studioscontrolled the public’s perception of their actors and actresses through the use ofin-house portrait photographers. London’s National Portrait Gallery pays tributeto that period with “Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits,” an exhibition of 70 vintage photographsfrom 1920 to 1960, on view until October 23.
Most of the printscome from the archive of the John Kobal Foundation,wholesale Moncler, founded by the eponymous collector who began tracking down the photographers behind the glossy images in the 1950s and ’60s, just as corporate takeovers of the big Hollywood studios began phasing out the promotional practice. He continued to collect the photos until his death in 1991.
“When he becameinterested in the men behind the images, almost all of them were still aliveand reachable,” said film and art critic John Russell Taylor about Kobal. “It was John who realized their importance, at a time when no one else gave adamn about them.”
Studios used tosend the commissioned portraits to fans and the media in efforts to spread wordabout the features. Eugene Roberts captured a 1929 black-and-white photographof Louise Brooks that elegantly resembles the era’s fashion illustrations. Other highlights of the exhibition include a 1950 portrait ofa hunky Marlon Brando used to promote “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and adisheveled Vivian Leigh in a 1939 shot from “Gone With the Wind.” Striking images of Elizabeth Taylor,Joan Collins, Grace Kelly, and Clark Gable are also on view.
Clickon the photo gallery at left to view images from “Glamour of the Gods:Hollywood Portraits.”