Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/316217021?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Digital Storm Virtue
Intel's newest processing hardware has finally reached the marketplace, and the fourth-generation processors (codenamed Haswell) are appearing in gaming desktops, where cutting edge components are leveraged for a competitive edge. The Digital Storm Virtue does just that, pairing the newest Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia graphics to become one of the more potent mid-range gaming PCs we've seen.
Design & Features
The Digital Storm Virtue is a mid-tower gaming PC, done up in black brushed metal. While it's not as stunning as the brightly painted Maingear F131, the basic black look still works, and a large window makes up most of the left side of the tower, showing of all the hardware inside. The case itself measures 17.25 by 8.1 by 17.75 inches (HWD), making it small enough to fit under a desk, but not prohibitively small when you need to get inside for maintenance and upgrades.
On the front of the tower you'll find an Asus Blu-ray player/DVD Writer, two USB 3.0 ports, and jacks for headphones and microphone. The front panel also pops off (with two press-to-release catches) revealing a large vent and dust filter, making filter removal quick and easy.
On the back of the system, you'll find four more USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, and three video outputs: DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort, along with connections for 8-channel audio. A single Gigabit Ethernet port provides network connectivity, which you'll need at all times since there's no Wi-Fi. You do, however, get Bluetooth 4.0 + HS, for connecting a wireless gaming headset or other peripherals.
The side panels are easily removed, secured with thumb-friendly screws?no tools necessary. Open up the case and you'll find some impressive hardware inside, starting with Intel's latest, a fourth generation Haswell Core i7-4770K processor and 16GB of RAM. Equally impressive is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 with 3GB of dedicated VRAM. The whole thing is kept cool?and quiet?thanks to a Corsair H100i Liquid CPU Cooler.
There's also plenty of room to grow as you update the system in the future. The installed 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX power supply offers more than enough power for the included components, and there are several expansion slots available: Two DIMM slots for an additional 16GB of RAM, one unoccupied PCIe x16 slot, one unoccupied optical drive bay and four total empty drive bays (two 3.5-inch HDD bays, two 2.5-inch SSD bays).
Already installed are two drives, a 120GB Corsair Neutron GTX solid-state drive (SSD) paired with a 1TB 7,200rpm Western Digital Caviar hard drive, providing plenty of storage with the hard disk and zippy performance with the SSD. While there are systems available with larger overall storage capacity?the HP Envy Phoenix h9-1320t, for example, has a 2TB hard drive?the combination of spinning drive and SSD will offer better performance. The only software Digital Storm includes on the Virtue is a copy of Windows 8 (64-bit) along with drivers for the various hardware. Digital Storm covers the Virtue with a three-year limited warranty and lifetime customer care.
Performance
Armed with one of the first fourth-generation (a.k.a. Haswell) processors on the market, the Virtue offers strong processing performance, aided by the included 16GB of DDR3 1600MHz memory. The 3.5GHz Core i7-4770K is also unlocked for overclocking. The new processor offers powerful performance, completing PCMark 7 with a score of 7,042 points and a Cinebench score of 9.59 points, topping almost every competitor from the previous generation, and blowing past the Editors' Choice HP Envy Phoenix h9-1302t (4,033 points).
In terms of graphics performance, there was a drastic difference between the single-card Virtue and the likes of the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Triple Titan), which boasts not one or even two, but three of Nvidia's top-of-the-line GPUs. That said, the visual performance of the Digital Storm Virtue is still stunning, producing frame rates of 83fps (Aliens vs. Predator) and 75fps (Heaven 3.0) at 1,920-by-1200 resolution and high detail settings. While it may not match the triple digit scores of the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Triple Titan), it's high enough for any current game to play at full 1080p and still deliver high performance.
For a single-card mid-tower desktop with a halfway reasonable price tag, the Digital Storm Virtue offers seriously fierce performance and heart-pumping graphics. Though not as inexpensive as our Editors' Choice HP Phoenix h9-1320t, the Digital Storm Virtue is still relatively affordable. Even when stacked against tricked out top performers, like the Maingear F131 Super Stock (GTX Titan) and the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Triple Titan), the Digital Storm Virtue stands out, and is a definite contender for top mid-range gaming rig.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/ZUPicuAZ4TM/0,2817,2421166,00.asp
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
'Heat' breaks barriers as female buddy-cop film
Movies 
June 28, 2013 at 6:17 AM ET
You have seen movies like ?The Heat.? But you?ve never seen a movie quite like ?The Heat.?
Gemma La Mana / AP
Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy star in "The Heat," which is perhaps the first-ever buddy cop movie starring two women.
The buddy cop comedy, opening Friday and starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, features a familiar plot, but a new twist. The buddies are both women.
These are not women who brunch and talk about their guy troubles or dream of getting married, or are planning pregnancy. These are tough single women who live for their law enforcement jobs and curse. Well, one does. McCarthy?s Det. Mullins is vulgar and wild and relishes making others uncomfortable. Bullock?s FBI Agent Ashburn is arrogant, uptight and doesn?t have much of a sense of humor. If they remind you of the guys in ?Lethal Weapon? or ?48 Hours,? you?re not alone.
?It?s just a fun comedy that you can swap two men for the women, and in that way it?s remarkable,? said Yael Kohen, author of ?We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy.? ?It really is a very risky movie and exciting in a way. It?s not high-brow like ?Bridesmaids,? which also had an undercurrent of how women behave and relate. This movie doesn?t have any of that.?
When ?Bridesmaids? became a box-office smash in 2011, earning $300 million worldwide, critics declared it the beginning of a new era for women in leading roles. But two years later, most of the comedic roles for women are still of the romantic variety, with a sweet actress paired up with a leading man. ?The Heat,? which was directed by "Bridesmaids" Paul Feig, has now inherited the pressure. Even before the film hit theaters, screenwriter Katie Dippold (?Parks and Recreation?) was put to work on a sequel.
?At the end of the day, it?s a money question,? Kohen said. ?If ?The Heat,? does well, you?re more likely to see more (female buddie comedies) and you?re more likely to see the sequel.?
Comedies with two leading ladies were more popular in the 1980s than they are now, Kohen points out. Bette Midler starred in ?Outrageous Fortune" with Shelley Long in 1987 and in ?Big Business? with Lily Tomlin in 1988. That same year, Rebecca De Mornay and Mary Gross starred in what could have gone down in history as the first female buddy comedy but ?Feds? was a flop so no one remembers it. ?Thelma and Louise? in 1991 broke ground for women in film and had comedic elements though it was essentially a drama.
But, recently, Hollywood has been more apt to pair someone like Kate Hudson with Gael Garcia Bernal than with a female protagonist. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler stood out in 2008 when they starred in ?Baby Mama,? which won its opening weekend and grossed $60 million worldwide. But there hasn?t been a lead comedy female duo since.
?Hollywood thinks that men aren?t going to be interested in seeing the two women on the big screen,? Kohen said. ?They always want a leading man to help the woman open a movie. If ?The Heat,? doesn?t do well, I don?t think it?s necessarily that two women can?t open a movie. It could just be that people are not interested in that particular movie. But we know that?s not how it?s going to be viewed.?
"Heat" screenwriter Dippold, 33, told Kohen in an interview in Marie Claire that she wasn?t thinking about gender barriers or Hollywood tropes when she wrote the script. Growing up, she loved ?Running Scared? and ?Lethal Weapon,? and says, ?I always felt like those guys, the buddy cops, were so cool and badass and funny, and I always wanted to see two women like that.?
In that same vein, Bullock told Marie Claire that she was attracted to the script because Dippold did not restrict her character?s behavior according to gender expectations. "Katie wrote a story that required two human beings to be uncensored and not mind looking like idiots, something both women and men do on a daily basis,? Bullock said.
Bullock must have really liked what she read. Both she and McCarthy signed on to star in the movie just 10 days after Chernin Entertainment bought the script for $600,000. The movie is opening at record speed, only 20 months after Dippold completed the script. But even with such positive buzz, there?s still plenty of doubt among studio executives about whether two women can open an action buddy comedy, Kohen said.
?It?s hard enough to prove that one woman can open a movie let alone a duo,? Kohen said. ?It?s very ballsy for a movie to do and for a studio to make that decision. Executives are usually concerned with whether the audience will be overly estrogenized with two women in the lead. Well, ?The Heat? certainly is not that.?
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Not All Immigrants Agree On Offering Others 'A Path to Citizenship ...
If Congress overhauls immigration laws, undocumented immigrants may be offered a path to citizenship. But not everyone agrees with that, and some of those in the opposition are immigrants themselves. From the public radio collaboration Fronteras Desk, reporter Jude Joffe-Block has one family?s story from Arizona.
It is likely that the immigration reform bill that will be taken up later this year in the House of Representatives will offer undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. But not everyone agrees with that part of the bill and it is certain to face tough opposition. And some of those against the path to citizenship are immigrants themselves. Their views can be influenced by how they came to America. From the public radio collaboration Fronteras Desk, reporter Jude Joffe-Block has one family?s story from Arizona.
On a recent evening in Tempe, Arizona, Alex Khazanovich plays the piano with his 24-year-old son, Mark. The elder Khazanovich learned to play the piano as a child in the former Soviet Union. There wasn?t much on TV there. ?In the old country we only had two channels on the TV and they didn?t show anything worthwhile,? he says.
But life was difficult under Soviet rule for Jewish families like his. When he was a teenager, Alex Khazanovich headed to Canada with his parents. Then, an engineering job brought him to the US, and his young family, including his son Mark, settled here in Arizona the 1990s.
?I think the United States is a country that is much more free and conducive for people to exercise their individuality and freedom of expression,? says Alex Khazanovich, now 50 years old with a full beard. He became a US citizen after a long process. So now, when he?s asked about immigration reform, he?s concerned that the bill the Senate is set to approve soon includes a path to citizenship for people who came illegally.
?It is just wrong to disregard when people do something that is against the law,? says Khazanovich. He says his philosophy is rooted in his intense patriotism for his adopted country. ?One of the reasons we always saw America as the bastion of freedom because of our belief that our laws are fair and that they are fairly applied to everyone,? he says.
And his son Mark, who became a US citizen as a teenager, agrees: ?I think it would marginalize the experiences of the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who have immigrated to this country legally, including my family.?
His father adds: ?We definitely don?t want to throw people out who are living here, but we do not want to reward those who figure they will bypass the process that is in place.?
Both men say that instead of a path to citizenship, immigrants in the country without papers should get legal permanent residency. It?s a fair compromise, they argue.
?If I was living in a terrible country, I would much rather have the option of living in America and not vote, then not live in America. I think that side is not often made,? says the younger Khazanovich.
But he adds that his position is not always easy to articulate. ?People are quick to assume that if someone doesn?t support this bill, then, you know, they are labeled as racist or bigots, or things like that,? he says.
Mark Khazanovich also says that he doesn?t want to risk being misunderstood. ?For, me it is not an issue of a person?s ethnicity or race, but it is just the principle,? he says. ?It wouldn?t matter to me what country they are illegally trying to immigrate from. I don?t believe in illegal immigration.?
And yet, the Khaznovichs say they don?t see a place for themselves in the most visible grassroots efforts that oppose illegal immigration. Those groups, they say, tend to be more hostile to unauthorized immigrants than they are comfortable with.
?A lot of them talk about exclusion and deportation and all those things and I think there are a number of reasons why that is not a good option,? says Alex Khazanovich. ?We have neighbors and friends, who I don?t ask them about their immigration status, but I don?t want to see them being deported.?
His son adds: ?I think these groups, obviously they care about this issue, but I feel like they are more on the extreme side. And I think that there?s a middle ground that is not only compassionate but is fair and, you know, a more realistic approach.?
As the debate over immigration reform continues, it?s still unclear whether this middle position the Khazanovichs agree with will emerge.
Source: http://www.theworld.org/2013/06/not-all-immigrants-agree-on-offering-others-a-path-to-citizenship/
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Ruling showcases Obama evolution on gay marriage
WASHINGTON (AP) ? For Barack Obama, the Supreme Court's decisions on gay rights punctuate an evolution as president on the subject of same-sex marriage ? a personal journey that has taken him from opposition to ambivalence to enthusiastic support.
In many ways, Obama's trajectory parallels that of the nation. But no one's vacillation on the subject has been more closely watched than his. While he always has advocated for civil rights for gay couples, he also very publicly contemplated where he stood on the question of marriage, musing in 2006 that "in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history."
The transition to unequivocal support was reinforced Wednesday by the cheers that erupted on Air Force One when news broke about the court's decision to repeal a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act.
"The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it," Obama said in a statement.
Still, Obama has carefully staked out his position on same-sex marriage throughout his political career. In a questionnaire from a gay newspaper in Chicago during his 1996 Illinois Senate race, he replied, "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." Two years later, he declared himself undecided.
By 2004, as he ran for the U.S. Senate, he said he opposed gay marriage for politically strategic reasons, saying Republicans would exploit the issue, and he advocated instead for gay civil unions. In his 2006 book "The Audacity of Hope," he cited his own faith as a reason to oppose same-sex marriage, though he also wrote, "I must admit that I may have been infected with society's prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God."
Despite initial apprehensions, many gay rights advocates now hail him as a hero.
Even before he announced his support for gay marriage in May of last year, gay donors were pumping several million dollars into Obama's campaign fund as he ran for re-election. He already had signed hate crimes legislation that made it a federal crime to assault someone because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity, had signed a repeal of the "don't ask don't tell" military policy and had instructed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
"In terms of American society, he has truly brought us out of the closet," said Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. "He has lived up to his claim of being a tireless advocate on behalf of our community."
Advocates would still like the government in general and Obama in particular to do more. They are pushing the Senate to pass an employment nondiscrimination law that would protect workers from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Short of that, they want Obama to impose that requirement on federal contractors, a step Obama so far has resisted.
"We have our skirmishes with the administration certainly on some issues," Sainz said. Of Obama not signing an executive order on federal contractors, he said, "It's a head-scratcher to us."
The court's decision showcased more than just Obama's evolving views. President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.
On Wednesday, he and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, issued a joint statement: "By overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, the court recognized that discrimination towards any group holds us all back in our efforts to form a more perfect union."
____
Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ruling-showcases-obama-evolution-gay-marriage-072856532.html
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Thursday, June 27, 2013
Congress Should Find Common Ground on Blended Learning
Buried deep inside Harkin?s bill is reference to the instructional innovation called ?blended learning.? The instructional model effectively individualizes instruction by marrying online content and assessments to face-to-face teaching. Unlike the traditional classroom model where a teacher standardizes instruction ? often at the lowest common denominator? and lectures a class of 20-30 students, blended learning customizes the education of every student by targeting learning and collecting data on the student?s individual progress across subjects and tracks mastery or competency. Students watch videos, interact with peers and content, and take frequent standards-based assessments on what they learned (often no more than a short quiz).
Crucially, that real-time and accurate data is analyzed to help classroom teachers target instruction in small-group and one-on-one settings. If a student is struggling with right triangles, the teacher could know in minutes and catch the struggling student up. Online tools and effective teachers can do what for decades education experts have known works ? differentiated or individualized instruction.
Harkin?s proposal defines blended learning as ?the combination of online learning and traditional in-person classroom instruction, or technology-based learning, in a supervised classroom setting with some element of student control over time, place, path or pace.? The Senate Education Committee Chairman incentivizes states and school districts to implement blended learning programs by requiring them to use a small portion of No Child Left Behind?s Part D state and local grants for innovative and competitive instructional design changes.
Unfortunately nowhere in the House?s latest ESEA bill does the term ?blended learning? appear. This is disappointing because House Education Committee Chairman John Kline included blended learning in the 2012 version of ESEA, in the form of an amendment by Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., which never became law. The 2012 Hunter-Kline language specifically required states to prioritize blended and hybrid models in awarding competitive grants to charter schools ? a similar approach to Harkin?s.
Although policymakers have a lot to consider ? from the prescriptive nature of state content standards to reforms to the Title I grant program for disadvantaged students ?one thing private discussions and public comments make clear: no one on Capitol Hill is satisified with the progress to date in improving proficiency for all students.
High-quality blended learning models are tackling that challenge to great success And in what should music to lawmakers on both sides, blended learning ? as Harkin?s own bill language acknowledges ? can be used ?to increase education productivity and reduce costs through the use of technology.? Blended learning, when done well, has the potential to transform the K-12 classroom delivering high-quality instruction both more effectively and efficiently.
Blended learning is proving especially potent for students being underserved by the current system, and the movement is spreading beyond charters.
More and more traditional public school districts recognize the power of blended learning to deliver the right lesson to the right student at the right time. California?s Oakland Unified School District launched a 4 school pilot under this model in the fall of 2012 and internal benchmarks are promising.
In central and eastern Pennsylvania, dozens of schools, including Lebanon High School with 72% free and reduced lunch eligible students, have introduced the blended learning model under the Pennsylvania Hybrid Learning Initiative.
Charter schools are already closing the achievement gap with blended learning. In inner-city Los Angeles, a handful of charter schools including the KIPP Empower elementary school in South Los Angeles and the LA Alliance middle and high schools have recently opened under the blendedlearning model.
The early results are promising. At LA Alliance?s Tennebaum Tech campus in Glassell Park, not one student could pass the state exit exam at the beginning of the school year, by year?s end 70% do. KIPP Empower, which is phasing in the program with its youngest grades, saw its proficient and advanced literacy scores rise from 36% to over 96% in the first year.
Not only is the model proving more effective at educating students, its proving more efficient. Since students are self-directed and supported on ongoing basis, staff can be differentiated with head teachers designing and implementing curriculum as ?learning coaches? support students on an as-needed basis. The arbitrary student-to-teacher ratios, and the resulting high per-pupil costs, of the traditional classroom are becoming irrelevant.
High scoring Arizona charter school Carpe Diem Middle and High School educates each student for $5,300 a year ? half the national average and 30% less than neighboring Arizona schools. Blended learning proves you can drive student learning without spending more.
Well-designed and implemented blended learning models can individualize instruction, deliver excellence and do it efficiently ? a truly bipartisan aim.
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Don Porter Swinging for the Fences | The Sport Digest
Don Porter has served as president of the International Softball Federation (ISF) since 1987, and has been re-elected five times since then.?Prior to that he served as the first Secretary-General of the ISF in 1965.
Softball has a joint bid with baseball to be included in the 2020 Olympic Games. Their bid survived the cut at the SportAccord Convention in May and they will compete against wrestling and squash for Olympic recognition in September.
Porter, who has served on the United States Sports Academy?s Board of Visitors, has also served as the first secretary general of the World Games and he currently chairs SportAccord?s (formerly GAISF) ?Sporting Goods To Go? (SGTG) program and SportAccord 
Awards Commission.
When did you join ISF and what was your biggest challenge when you walked through the door?
I joined the ISF back in the early 1960s when the federation was first being formed to develop softball internationally. So I?ve been involved for quite some time and really I have had an opportunity to see our sport grow from a recreation playground sport in the USA, to a worldwide, global sport. I am very pleased to be involved in that aspect of our game.
I was elected as president in 1987 and the sport has developed very well. It has expanded from about 30-40 countries at that time to up to 80-85.
Softball has merged with baseball to bid for the 2020 Olympics. You are still in the running after the SportAccord Convention, how happy are you with the outcome and are you confident?
We are very excited and overwhelmed at the process at the SportAccord Convention. You never know what the result might be until you hear. Our whole team who were there for the presentations to the IOC Executive Board were all very emotional and I think that can be said for all the other sports. We look forward now to a new campaign and we are cautiously optimistic about it. We have a tough road ahead with two really good sports in wrestling and squash competing against us. We have really got to work hard and we will make every effort to get our sport back onto the Olympic program.
What part of the bid do you think particularly impressed the IOC?
Overall it was the idea that the two sports coming together as one, with two disciplines and the opportunity to really show some added value that we can bring to the Olympics. Professional baseball brings a strong commercial side and there is also the ability to bring women into the Games. There are a number of things that we think represent a good case to bring baseball and softball back into the Olympic program.
Those aspects you mentioned, do you think you have that more than wrestling and squash?
I would not say we have it more so as those sports have their own opportunities to develop what they are going to present and I think we are all trying to convince the majority of the IOC members that we should be back in the Olympics.
How important is it for the sport to be in the Olympics?
It is very important because we want to continue to develop our sports in a lot of countries. There are still a lot of countries where baseball/softball aren?t played. We want to open doors and get young people, girls and boys, to be able to learn and play our sport. The opportunity is there but especially if you are in the Olympics. We are excited about the opportunity.
Would the two sports stay merged if you are not successful in September? Is there a plan in place if you do not receive the answer you are looking for?
We are going to continue to work together because we think that is the best way forward for the two disciplines. We are not going to give up and we still have a lot of things we want to achieve. Like I said there are a lot of countries we want to open up to and give their young children a chance to play our sport. But it does help if you have Olympic recognition because it opens doors that you wouldn?t have if you are not in the Olympics.
If you are successful, what is the vision for the sport in 2020? How will it be different to the separate baseball & softball events at Beijing 2008?
It will be a lot different. We have already made changes and we will continue to make changes in both disciplines that will make them more interesting and attractive, both to the spectator and the media. We are going to make sure the timings of the two games fit in the window for television and we have some ideas on changes that will make our sport really attractive from several different stand points. We have been and will continue to work on these to improve our sports.
What?s next for the bid? How will you push on to the decision date in September?
We are getting our team from SportAccord back together shortly and we will bring all the members of the World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSC) together to get any suggestions and ideas and find the way that is going to get the IOC?s attention. We have a very strong and positive bid and I think it will bring real added value to the Olympic program.
You are also the co-president of the WBSC. Was that solely formed for the 2020 bid?
For several years after we were dropped from the Olympic program, we began to assess the best way of getting back into the Olympics. We felt that working together would give us more opportunities and the resources that are needed to do that. There will be a lot of support from the professional leagues, not only Major League Baseball (MLB) but the ones in China, Japan, Korea, Mexico and all the professional leagues. We think that will open the door to the commercial side that will help us promote and develop our sport.
You?ve had popular figures like Jennie Finch backing the bid. How important is it to have well-known athletes support you?
It is very important. Jennie is a great representative of softball and we have many fine female athletes. They have just concluded the College Women?s World Series in Oklahoma City which brings together all the great college teams in the U.S. which have many foreign players as well. We have a lot of athletes who are doing commentary on television and that shows they are really good as athletes and as professionals. We just had a meeting with a number of our athletes and they are very solidly behind our bid. We are going to continue that effort and try to get the attention we need to be successful in September.
You had the ISF Men?s World Championship in New Zealand this year, which marked the third time the event had been in the country. How important is New Zealand as a market for you and what countries and continents do you want to expand to?
The Men?s World Championship in Auckland was very successful. We had great attendances and competition and we are very pleased with it. We will continue to have men?s softball in our sport as we go along. Our Junior Women?s competition is coming up next month in Canada and then the World Games and World Masters Games so we have a number of events to look forward to this year.
New Zealand has always been very involved, not only competitively but by providing leadership in our sport. They have been very successful in both men and women?s softball and we continue to rely on them, especially in hosting events. They always do an excellent job in organizing and hosting a lot of our championships.
2014 sees the Women?s event head to the Netherlands, which is the first time either men?s or women?s world championship has been staged in Europe. Is Europe a big challenge for softball?
We are really excited about that. It is the first time we have had the senior women?s championship in Europe, we had a junior championship in the Netherlands in 2006 but this is the first time for the seniors. Europe is a big challenge and that is why we want to see more events in that part of the world. We have over 35 national federations in Europe and they are working really hard to make the sport competitive. We are even working for indoor softball, or what we call arena softball, to be played in a number of locations in Europe and Asia to allow Muslim female athletes play the sport.
Is that quite a ground-breaking move?
It really is. We have got them playing in Iran, Pakistan and Iraq and we want to make the opportunity wider for Muslim women to play sport. We understand there are some issues with public participation and we want to find ways that will enable them to play. We think that arena softball may just be it and we are excited about that.
What sort of time frame do you have on this?
We are in contact with a number of National Olympic Committees, showing them the opportunity. With arena softball we can use a number of different facilities, especially when there are no outdoor facilities or weather issues in certain countries. It allows us to expand our sport from the outdoor version to indoor and we see that as something that will develop our sport, not only in the Middle East, but in other parts of the world too.
How difficult is it for sports like Softball to compete with American Football and basketball for broadcast hours?
It is difficult because there is only so much time. This past week though all the games from our College Women?s World Series were televised on ESPN, which is very exciting. In July we are going to have the World Cup of softball, again in Oklahoma City and that will be televised nationally and internationally on ESPN.
Do you think online streaming and social media are the way forward for federations like ISF and WBSC?
I think that?s really important. Nowadays that is the thing that gets a lot of interest developed and a lot of people can find out about what is going on in the world and especially in sport. We are doing a lot with social media on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and we run a lot of our championship videos online. That can allow people to see our sport and get them involved in it.
Finally, what will be your next step if softball is included in the 2020 Games and what will be the steps to take if you are not included?
If we are included we will work to develop and expand our sport like I mentioned earlier. It will give us a fantastic opportunity to break places that we may not have been able to previously. If we aren?t included we will continue. It is important to give young girls and boys the opportunity in a lot of places around the world to play sport and especially our sport. We will continue to do that but being in the Olympic Games is advantageous to opening doors in a lot of places across the world.
This interview with International Softball Federation President Don Porter is reprinted from the World Baseball Softball Confederation Olympic Bid website.
Source: http://thesportdigest.com/2013/06/don-porter-swinging-for-the-fences/
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Ancient, cow-sized knobby lizard discovered in Africa
The eccentric animal?presided over a lonely desert some 260 million years ago, when Earth was home to a single continent, Pangaea.
Artist's rendering of the pareiasaur Bunostegos, a cow-sized, plant-eating reptile that roamed the ancient central desert of Pangea over 250 million years ago. Credit: Illustration by Marc Boulay.
Marc Boulay/Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
EnlargeEven by paleontology standards, this newly discovered lizard was unusual-looking, an outcast in the ancient Earth?s nearly empty deserts.
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The cow-sized animal, called Bunostegos, or "knobby roof? for the quantity of huge bulbs that dot its face, looking like bubbling cooking oil, presided over a lonely desert some 260 million years ago, when Earth was home to a single continent, Pangaea.
Found in modern Niger?s north desert, the lizard belongs to the genus pareiasaur, herbivore animals that lumbered around the Earth in its Permian period. Most pareiasaurs had knobs protruding from their skulls, but Bunostegos?s bulbous ones are unusual even for that class of animals, as the largest ever seen.?
"Imagine a cow-sized, plant-eating reptile with a knobby skull and bony armor down its back," said lead author Linda Tsuji, of the University of Washington, in a statement.
Scientists have found that the knobbed lizard was more related to primitive lizards from which it had split off millions of years earlier than it was to its contemporaries. That supports the scientists? hypothesis that central Pangaea was home to a desert whose sheer inaccessibility kept its ecosystem bounded off from the rest of the continent. Few animals ventured into the place, and those that did call it home seldom left it. That meant life there, including the knobbed lizard, lived in evolutionary solitude, growing more and more unlike their cousins in Pangaea?s more hospitable corridors.
?The endemic tetrapod fauna of Niger supports the theory that central Pangea was biogeographically isolated from the rest of the supercontinent by desert-like conditions during Late Permian times,? the scientists wrote in the paper, published in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The knobs on the droopy-faced lizard?s head were likely scaly-skin covered bones, similar to those found on the heads of modern giraffes, but scientists are not sure what function the protrusions served. Rather than act as weapons, the horns could have helped the animals tell each other apart, avoiding awkward occasions of mistaken reptilian identity out there in the desert, scientists told BBC News.
The curious-looking animal was wiped out along with most of its contemporaries about 248 million years ago, when an unknown event, possibly an asteroid plunging into Earth, obliterated the ancient animal kingdom.
The scientists said that the lizard find could help in putting together a better portrait of the world that came before us.
"Research in these lesser-known basins is critically important for meaningful interpretation of the Permian fossil record,? said Paleontologist Gabe Bever, in a statement. ?Our understanding of the Permian and the mass extinction that ended it depends on discovery of more fossils like the beautifully bizarre Bunostegos."
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
First Person: Obesity Disease Classification Will Lead to Overmedication
The American Medical Association last week declared obesity a disease. That's a step, doctors say, that will help medical professionals better treat a condition that affects 78 million adults and 12 million children. Yahoo News invited Americans who qualify as obese -- those with a BMI above 30 -- to share their story and perspective on the news. Here's one.
FIRST PERSON | The announcement that the AMA will classify obesity as a disease looks promising at first. Advocates for the decision told The New York Times that it will remove some of the stigma of being overweight, and it may encourage insurance companies to compensate patients for new drugs, surgeries, and counseling.
But as someone who is classified as obese, I don't think this is the right direction to deal with the increasing obesity problem in our country.
The main measure of obesity is the body mass index, which is considered by many to be "simplistic and flawed," according to the Times article. This could lead the overtreatment of patients for a sickness they don't actually have, or to harassment by well-meaning doctors. At 6 feet tall and 230 pounds, I've had my BMI measured between 29 and 32, placing me either just under or just over the "obesity line."
Yet I do not have any of the health problems associated with obesity. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels are great, and I have no indicators of diabetes. I also work out regularly.
This isn't to say I couldn't do a better job of being healthy. My diet isn't great, and it contributes greatly to the extra 50 pounds I carry. This is something I have to be responsible for. But, as of yet, I have no other health problems, and I feel fine about my appearance.
Now, given the AMA's decision, is my doctor obligated to have lengthy conversations with me, for which he can then bill my insurance? Should he offer me one of the new obesity drugs so the pharmaceutical company that makes it can earn more money? Surgery and pills make far more money than consultations about diet and exercise.
This leads to a second concern: The AMA insists this new information will encourage more pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs. I agree with them, but I don't see this as a positive thing. It adds to the growing number of health conditions that are treated in our country with pills and surgery. While there are people who genuinely need medications to overcome weight problems, I think we are already far too quick to prescribe drugs. This is especially concerning in the case of a health problem that, in many cases, is due at least in part to lifestyle choices. If you're already doing all you can to lose weight, that new pill might be a godsend. But our culture craves the quick fix, and far more people are going to demand the drug and make no accompanying lifestyle changes.
Shoving the responsibility of "fixing" obesity on the medical community allows other responsible parties to shrug off possible solutions from other areas of our life and culture. It will not be enough to stem the obesity problem in America.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-person-obesity-disease-classification-lead-overmedication-182800504.html
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Easy and Delicious Sante Fe Wraps - The Party Bluprints Blog
I recently discovered a slew of super recipes at Delmonte.com ? each simple and special just the way I like them!
Below is one I think is perfect for a summer night.? Quick and easy to make, inexpensive to serve, and a meal the whole family will love!
I?m the third generation of women in my family, to enjoy and serve Delmonte products at my table.? I have always found the brand?s tagline of Quality to be true, and love that I can visit the Delmonte?s site for recipes and? inspirations for entertaining!
Santa Fe Wraps from 
Prep time: 5 min | Cook time: 15 min
Total Time: 20 min | Serves: 6
Ingredients
- 1 can (14.5 oz.) Del Monte? Diced Tomatoes-No Salt Added
- 1 can (15.25 oz.) Del Monte? Whole Kernel Corn-No Salt Added, drained
- 12 oz. lean ground beef
- 1 Tbsp. chili powder
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- 1 pkg. (3 oz.) low-fat cream cheese, cut up
- 6 (8-inch) flour tortillas
- (Optional) 1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
- (Optional) lettuce
- (Optional) cheddar cheese
- (Optional) salsa
Cooking Directions
1. Brown meat in large skillet; drain. Stir in undrained tomatoes, chili powder and cumin. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes.
2. Stir in corn, cream cheese and jalapeno; stir until cheese melts. Spoon mixture onto tortillas and roll up or fold. Serve with shredded lettuce, shredded cheddar cheese and salsa, if desired.
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Monday, June 24, 2013
Gigabit Squared outlines Seattle fiber prices: 1Gbps for $80 per month
Ultra-high-speed fiber-to-the-home from Gigabit Squared isn't scheduled to light up Seattle until 2014, but the outfit's just revealed what it aims to charge for its blisteringly-fast internet service. Folks who are content with the bare minimum can pay a $350 installation fee and net 5Mbps up and 1Mbps down at no charge for 60 months, and just $10 each month afterwards. With a one-year contract, residents of The Emerald City can avoid the setup charge and score 100Mbps down and 100Mbps up for a $45 monthly bill. If pure speed is your prime directive, 1Gbps up and down will be available for $80 per month, and with no cash put towards installation. Aching to hook up to the web at those eye-watering speeds? You'll have to live in Seattle's West Campus District, First Hill, Capitol Hill or Central Area neighborhoods, as they'll be the first connected to Gigabit Squared's pipes. There's no sign-up process just yet, but it's scheduled to go live next month.
[Image credit: Eli Duke, Flickr]
Filed under: Internet
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/s9KlJKpHSmM/
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
James Gandolfini -- Remains Headed Home Soon | TMZ.com
James Gandolfini
Remains Headed Home Tomorrow
Breaking News
The remains of James Gandolfini may be flown to his homeland Monday ... and it's no small feat.
A family spokesperson says, "The provisional plan is to depart Rome tomorrow afternoon and arrive in the U.S. in the evening."
It often takes a week or longer to return a body when an American dies in Europe.? The red tape is unfathomable.
Funeral services for the 51-year-old "Sopranos" star are planned for later this week at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in NYC.
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Saturday, June 22, 2013
Friend: James Gandolfini died of heart attack
ROME (AP) ? An autopsy on James Gandolfini confirmed the "Sopranos" star died of a heart attack, with no evidence of substance abuse or foul play, a family friend said Friday.
Michael Kobold told reporters that Gandolfini's body has been released to a funeral director and that the family was working with the Italian government to speed up the bureaucratic red tape to get the body back to the United States soon. While the process can take up to 10 days, Kobold said the family was hoping to have the body repatriated by mid-week with a funeral planned in New York by Saturday at the latest.
Gandolfini, 51, died Wednesday night after being discovered in a Rome hotel room by a family member.
He had arrived in Rome on Tuesday and spent his first full day in the Eternal City with his son visiting the Vatican and dining in the hotel, the luxury Boscolo Exedra.
"He had a wonderful day," Kobold said of the father-son vacation.
Asked if Gandolfini had a history of heart problems, Kobold said he was healthy.
"There's nothing out of the ordinary. It was a heart attack. It was a natural cause," he said. "There was no foul play, no substance abuse. None of that."
Morgue officials at Rome's Policlinico Umberto I hospital said the U.S. Embassy had told them not to speak to the media, and that a family representative would provide the results of the autopsy. Gandolfini's sister, Leta, went to the morgue on Friday to formally identify the body.
Gandolfini was to have helped preside over the closing ceremony on Saturday of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily. The festival instead is organizing a tribute to him.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/friend-james-gandolfini-died-heart-attack-135046174.html
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Doctors make progress toward 'artificial pancreas'
This October 2012 image provided by Medtronic shows the MiniMed Integrated System device, which doctors are reporting as a major step toward an "artificial pancreas." The device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed. According to the company-sponsored study announced Saturday, June 22, 2013 at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago the device worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients. (AP Photo/Medtronic)
This October 2012 image provided by Medtronic shows the MiniMed Integrated System device, which doctors are reporting as a major step toward an "artificial pancreas." The device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed. According to the company-sponsored study announced Saturday, June 22, 2013 at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago the device worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients. (AP Photo/Medtronic)
Doctors are reporting a major step toward an "artificial pancreas," a device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed.
A key component of such a system ? an insulin pump programmed to shut down if blood-sugar dips too low while people are sleeping ? worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients.
This "smart pump," made by Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc., is already sold in Europe, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reviewing it now. Whether it also can be programmed to mimic a real pancreas and constantly adjust insulin based on continuous readings from a blood-sugar monitor requires more testing, but doctors say the new study suggests that's a realistic goal.
"This is the first step in the development of the artificial pancreas," said Dr. Richard Bergenstal, diabetes chief at Park Nicollet, a large clinic in St. Louis Park, Minn. "Before we said it's a dream. We have the first part of it now and I really think it will be developed."
He led the company-sponsored study and gave results Saturday at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago. They also were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study involved people with Type 1 diabetes, the kind usually diagnosed during childhood. About 5 percent of the 26 million Americans with diabetes have this type. Their bodies don't make insulin, a hormone needed to turn food into energy. That causes high blood-sugar levels and raises the risk for heart disease and many other health problems.
Some people with the more common Type 2 diabetes, the kind linked to obesity, also need insulin and might also benefit from a device like an artificial pancreas. For now, though, it's aimed at people with Type 1 diabetes who must inject insulin several times a day or get it through a pump with a narrow tube that goes under the skin. The pump is about the size of a cellphone and can be worn on a belt or kept in a pocket.
The pumps give a steady amount of insulin, and patients must monitor their sugar levels and give themselves more insulin at meals or whenever needed to keep blood sugar from getting too high.
A big danger is having too much insulin in the body overnight, when blood-sugar levels naturally fall. People can go into comas, suffer seizures and even die. Parents of children with diabetes often worry so much about this that they sneak into their bedrooms at night to check their child's blood-sugar monitor.
In the study, all patients had sensors that continuously monitored their blood sugar. Half of them had ordinary insulin pumps and the others had pumps programmed to stop supplying insulin for two hours when blood-sugar fell to a certain threshold.
Over three months, low-sugar episodes were reduced by about one-third in people using the pump with the shut-off feature. Importantly, these people had no cases of severely low blood sugar ? the most dangerous kind that require medical aid or help from another person. There were four cases in the group using the standard pump.
"As a first step, I think we should all be very excited that it works," an independent expert, Dr. Irl Hirsch of the University of Washington in Seattle, said of the programmable pump.
The next step is to test having it turn off sooner, before sugar falls so much, and to have it automatically supply insulin to prevent high blood sugar, too.
Dr. Anne Peters, a diabetes specialist at the University of Southern California, said the study "represents a major step forward" for an artificial pancreas.
One participant, Spears Mallis, 34, a manager for a cancer center in Gainesville, Ga., wishes these devices were available now. He typically gets low-sugar about 8 to 10 times a week, at least once a week while he's asleep.
"I would set an alarm in the middle of the night just to be sure I was OK. That will cause you to not get a good night of rest," he said.
His "smart pump" stopped giving insulin several times during the study when his sugar fell low, and he wasn't always aware of it. That's a well-known problem for people with Type 1 diabetes ? over time, "you become less and less sensitive to feeling the low blood sugars" and don't recognize symptoms in time to drink juice or do something else to raise sugar a bit, he said.
Besides Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson and several other research groups are working on artificial pancreas devices.
___
Online:
Diabetes info: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/
___
Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
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Autopsy reveals Gandolfini died of heart attack
Celebs
14 hours ago
ROME -- A family friend of actor James Gandolfini announced at a news conference Friday that an autopsy showed "The Sopranos" star died of a "heart attack of natural causes" and "nothing else was found in his system."
The 51-year-old Emmy-winning actor suffered the heart attack in the bathroom of his room at the Hotel Boscolo in Rome while on vacation with his teenage son, Michael, and sister, Michael Kobold told reporters.
"James came here on vacation with family," Kobold said. "On Wednesday he went to visit the Vatican, and had dinner at the hotel with his son while waiting for his sister ... All are devastated for his loss. He was a loving father."
Kobold said that it could take up to 10 days of red tape to repatriate Gandolfini's body, but the family is hoping that, with the help of Italian authorities, it will happen in the middle of next week so that a funeral could be held in New York next Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
"He was happy, healthy, on vacation with his son," Kobold said. "He was fine."
Medical staff attempted to resuscitate Gandofini after his son found him in the bathroom, but he was pronounced dead at about 11 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET) Wednesday at Policlinico Umberto I hospital, which is a three-minute drive from the hotel.
Famous for his role as mob boss Tony Soprano in hit HBO show "The Sopranos," Gandolfini was on a celebratory trip to Italy with his 13-year-old son, who had just graduated from junior high school and won a soccer championship.
Experts said a heart attack was a common cause of death for a man in his 50s.
Dr. John Harold, president of the American College of Cardiology and a heart specialist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said that ?in many patients who have a heart attack, the first symptom is sudden death and they don?t even make it to a hospital.?
Tributes have flooded in for the actor, who won three Emmy Awards and three Screen Actors Guild awards for playing Soprano from 1999-2007.
He also appeared in a number of big-screen roles, including the crime drama "Killing Them Softly" and "Zero Dark Thirty," a film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow, who directed Gandolfini in ?Zero Dark Thirty,? said she was devastated by the news of his death.
"James was such an enormous talent, and an even greater spirit. I will be forever grateful for the privilege of working with him, and shall cherish his memories always," she said in a statement.
Nicole Kidman said Gandolfini was ?such a great actor,? describing his death as ?a big loss.?
?Sending love and prayers to James? family. He will be greatly missed,? she said in a statement to eonline.com.
Brad Pitt described Gandolfini as ?a ferocious actor, a gentle soul and a genuinely funny man." ?I am fortunate to have sat across the table from him and am gutted by this loss.?
Gandolfini also made a good impression on the ordinary people he met.
An employee at the Hotel Boscolo told Italy's la Repubblica newspaper that during his stay the actor had signed autographs and was ?very friendly with us from hotel's staff and with other guests in the restaurant. A nice person.?
NBC News' Ian Johnston, Reuters and Mads Frese contributed to this report.
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Friday, June 21, 2013
Brazil leaders to meet as protests, violence grow
Protesters gesture to riot police during a demonstration in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 20, 2013. More than half a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 Brazilian cities Thursday in demonstrations that saw violent clashes and renewed calls for an end to government corruption and demands for better public services. Riot police battled protesters in at least five cities, with some of the most intense clashes happening in Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
Protesters gesture to riot police during a demonstration in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 20, 2013. More than half a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 Brazilian cities Thursday in demonstrations that saw violent clashes and renewed calls for an end to government corruption and demands for better public services. Riot police battled protesters in at least five cities, with some of the most intense clashes happening in Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
People run from tear gas during a protest in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 20, 2013. More than half a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 Brazilian cities Thursday in demonstrations that saw violent clashes and renewed calls for an end to government corruption and demands for better public services. Riot police battled protesters in at least five cities, with some of the most intense clashes happening in Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Military police detain a man during an anti-government protest in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 20, 2013. More than half a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 Brazilian cities Thursday in demonstrations that saw violent clashes and renewed calls for an end to government corruption and demands for better public services. Riot police battled protesters in at least five cities, with some of the most intense clashes happening in Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
People shout slogans during an anti-government demonstration in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 20, 2013. More than half a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 Brazilian cities Thursday in demonstrations that saw violent clashes and renewed calls for an end to government corruption and demands for better public services. Riot police battled protesters in at least five cities, with some of the most intense clashes happening in Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
Rio police advance with an armored vehicle, right, chasing demonstrators near Candelaria Church, background, in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 20, 2013. More than half a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 Brazilian cities Thursday in demonstrations that saw violent clashes and renewed calls for an end to government corruption and demands for better public services. Riot police battled protesters in at least five cities, with some of the most intense clashes happening in Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? Police and protesters fought in the streets into the early hours Friday as an estimated 1 million Brazilians swarmed through more than 80 Brazilian cities in the biggest demonstrations yet against a government viewed as corrupt at all levels and unresponsive to its people.
President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting of her top Cabinet members for Friday morning, more than a week after the protests began. Rousseff, who has a standoffish governing style, has been almost entirely absent from the public eye, making only one statement earlier in the week that peaceful protests are part of the democratic process.
But the protests that raged across Brazil late Thursday and into Friday were spiked with violence as people vented anger over a litany of complaints, from high taxes to corruption to rising prices.
At least one protester was killed in Sao Paulo state when a car rammed into a crowd of demonstrators, after the driver apparently became enraged about being unable to drive along a street.
In Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators poured into the seaside city's central area, running clashes played out between riot police and clusters of mostly young men with T-shirts wrapped around their faces. But peaceful protesters were caught up in the fray, too, as police fired tear gas canisters into their midst and at times indiscriminately used pepper spray.
Thundering booms echoed off stately colonial buildings as rubber bullets and gas were fired at fleeing crowds.
At least 40 people were injured in Rio, including protesters like Michele Menezes, a wisp of a woman whose youthful face and braces belie her 26 years. Bleeding and with her hair singed from the explosion of a tear gas canister, she said she and others took refuge from the violence in an open bar, only to have a police officer toss the canister inside.
The blast ripped through Menezes' jeans, tearing two coin-sized holes on the back of her thighs, and peppered her upper arm with a rash of small holes.
"I was leaving a peaceful protest and it's not the thugs that attack me but the police themselves," said Menezes, removing her wire-rim glasses to wipe her bloodshot eyes.
She later took refuge in a hotel, along with about two dozen youths, families and others who said they had been repeatedly hit with pepper spray by motorcycle police as they also sheltered inside a bar.
Protesters said they would not back down.
"I saw some pretty scary things, but they're not going to shake me. There's another march on the 22nd and I'm going to be there," said 19-year-old university student Fernanda Szuster.
Asked if her parents knew she was joining in the protests, Szuster said: "They know and they're proud. They also protested when they were young. So they think it's great."
She added, though, that she wouldn't tell her father the details of the police violence. "If he knew, he would never let me leave the house again."
In Brasilia, the national capital, police struggled to keep hundreds of protesters from invading the Foreign Ministry, while the crowd set a small fire outside. Other government buildings were attacked around the city's central esplanade. There, too, police used tear gas and rubber bullets trying to scatter demonstrators.
Clashes were also reported in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, Porto Alegre in the south, the university town Campinas north of Sao Paulo and the northeastern city of Salvador.
"This was meant to be a peaceful demonstration and it is," artist Wanderlei Costa, 33, said in Brasilia. "It's a shame some people cause trouble when there is a much bigger message behind this movement. Brazil needs to change, not only on the government level, but also on the grass-roots level. We have to learn to demonstrate without violence."
The protests took place one week after a violent police crackdown on a much smaller demonstration complaining about an increase in bus and subway fares in Sao Paulo galvanized Brazilians to take their grievances to the streets.
The unrest is hitting the nation as it hosts the Confederations Cup soccer tournament with tens of thousands of foreign visitors in attendance. It also comes one month before Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Brazil, and ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, raising concerns about how Brazilian officials will provide security.
Mass protests have been rare in this country of 190 million people in recent years, and the mushrooming demonstrations of the past week caught Brazilian government officials by surprise while delighting many citizens.
"I think we desperately need this, that we've been needing this for a very, very long time," said Paulo Roberto Rodrigues da Cunha, a 63-year-old clothing store salesman in Rio.
Despite the energy on the street, many protesters said they were unsure how the movement would win real political concessions. People in the protests have held up signs asking for everything from education reforms to free bus fares while denouncing the billions of public dollars spent on stadiums in advance of the World Cup and the Olympics.
"We pay a lot of money in taxes, for electricity, for services, and we want to know where that money is," said Italo Santos, a 25-year old student who joined a rally by 5,000 protesters at Salvador's Campo Grand Square.
But many believe the protests are no longer just about bus fares and have become larger cries for systemic changes.
"This is the start of a structural change in Brazil," said Aline Campos, a 29-year-old publicist in Brasilia. "People now want to make sure their money is well spent, that it's not wasted through corruption."
___
Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Bradley Brooks and Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo and Ricardo Zuniga in Salvador contributed to this report.
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Monday, June 17, 2013
94% Blancanieves
All Critics (53) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (49) | Rotten (3)
A sensual and sophisticated retelling of a beloved fairytale re-imagined as a homage to European silent cinema, Spanish writer-director Pablo Berger's black-and-white Blancanieves will leave you transfixed.
Most films are experiences to be ignored or at best forgotten. "Blancanieves" is a little classic to be treasured.
It is a full-bodied silent film of the sort that might have been made by the greatest directors of the 1920s, if such details as the kinky sadomasochism of this film's evil stepmother could have been slipped past the censors.
Blancanieves, which won 10 Goyas (Spain's equivalent of the Oscars) and was a smash hit in its native Spain, has traces of a kinky undertone and an uncommon willingness to embrace the darkness inherent in this fairy tale.
As if bewitched, the legend of Snow White is transferred to Seville in the early twentieth century and transformed into high melodrama.
Sensuous, mischievous, hotblooded retelling of the old Teutonic fairy tale.
The film is -- to understate the matter -- overconceptualized.
Like The Artist, Blancanieves is delightfully novel, but it also feels trapped by its innovative gimmickry.
A boldly conceived fairy tale from Spain
Succeeds in all its cinematic experiments
The story might be familiar, but Berger's film is so beautifully shot and so wonderfully scored - and so distinctively Spanish - that it stands as its own film.
Blancanieves holds to the structure, but not strictures, of the source fairy tale.
A new, purely silent movie from Spain that never once speaks and doesn't need to speak. What's more, it seems to get the infinite possibilities of silence, and how much passion can come from it.
Berger's film doesn't show loyalty to any traditional version of Snow White. Berger's Blancanieves takes a darker approach, which seems appropriate.
A completely enchanting fairy tale about the vicissitudes of fate, in live action and glorious black and white.
The fun in the Spanish "Blancanieves" is the way it plays with our expectations.
May not have much depth to its characters or particular surprise, but its lovely depiction of family's ability to harm and mend has the flair of flamenco and the sorrow of opera.
No, "Blancanieves" isn't subtle, but it's an unforgettable time at the movies.
Inspired filmmaking steeped in the imagery of silent film history, a dark Iberian strain of Roman Catholicism and the magic of fairy tales.
... lusty and heartfelt, fiery flamenco and spirited country jig. Don't go expecting a Disney-fied fable. Berger seasons with S&M and the kind of macabre touches you'd expect in vintage Browning or Bunuel.
If not for some faintly disturbing imagery and a pleasingly feminist heroine, you could mistake this for a movie actually made in the 1920s (and even those two factors weren't utterly unknown then).
A loving tribute to European silent films of the 1920s; a reminder that cinema need not be constrained by words.
By the time the film arrives at its grand theatrical finale, you're almost prepared for Berger's last great twist. Almost.
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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blancanieves/
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