Clinton Meli Talks

The last installment in the Doc Talk series was Why Democracy; where Thom Powers discussed the making of this collection of films with Nick Fraser from the BBC and another commissioning editor in the program. 
The collection is titled Why Democracy because it deals with films from around the world on the topic of democracy, what it is and how does it affect societies which are just instituting a democracy.  There are ten films; three of them were shown at this year’s festival: Iron Ladies of Liberia, Dinner with the President: A Nation’s Journey and Please Vote for Me.  All films were made by filmmakers native to the country they were filming in; thus, providing an honest portrayal of the issues at hand.
The audience saw clips from nine of the films; the countries of origin include China, Japan, Egypt, Russia, Afghanistan, Denmark among others.  The commissioning editors’ were in discussion with several public broadcasters in order to distribute these films.  Forty-two broadcasters have agreed to show these documentaries.  Luckily, audiences in Canada will get a chance to see these films the week of October 8th on CBC Newsworld.
Mr. Fraser stated that “there is an explosion of documentary film making aourn the world.”  All documentarians have their individual style, which provides a different point of view.  The idea of democracy is increasing throughout the world; the time is ripe to show these films.  In order to get involved in this discussion, people can also look up the website:  http://www.whydemocracy.net/  .  There one can read about the films and more about the purpose of this project.

Creative officially released its newest addition to the entertainment industry. The credit card-sized music, video and photo player with a stunning 2.5-inch color screen that supports up to 16.7 million colors named Creative ZEN. The Creative ZEN is the first Creative player to support AAC music and unprotected iTunes Plus tracks from the iTunes store, in addition to MP3 and WMA formats.

The Creative ZEN supports a wide selection of video formats, including WMV9, MJPEG, MPEG4-SP, compatible DivX4 and 5, and XviD. One charge of the built-in rechargeable battery provides up to 5 hours of video entertainment or up to 25 hours of music playback.

The Creative ZEN can carry up to 60 hours of video or thousands of photos, and it features an SD memory slot, so you can add virtually limitless additional storage capacity and easily bring new music, video or photos to the player. The Creative ZEN will be available next month in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB models, priced at US $149.99, $199.99 and $299.99 respectively.
Creative ZEN Stone Plus MP3 Player
8GB Creative Zen V Plus US Bound
Apple Launches iTunes Plus

via: Press

The Pre-Olympic experimental games and competitions are underway this summertime for a unafraid topographic point in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. This summer’s women’s basketball game competitions: Eurobasket 2007, United States Women’s Championships 2007, Asia Women’s Championships and African Championship.This year’s top awaited Eurobasket 2007 Women’s Championship will be hosted in last Eurobasket Champion Italy. The games will be held in Chieti, Lanciano, Ortona and Vasto, Italian Republic throughout September 24-October 7. This summertime Chieti, Italian Republic have hosted Teromsteps U16 European Championships, Women’s Division B, July 27-August 5th. So they are well prepared for the short ton of spectators, teams, agents and participants expected at the tournament. The sphere and country which the chief and concluding games are played will be in Chieti. Opening ceremonial at the Eurobasket Women’s Championships are always filled with merriment before the earnestness of a command to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.Lodging and adjustment for the titles have got been allotted for players, refs and members of the press. The suggested locations for lodging are: (check the 1 website and acquire affiliate golf course to travelnow or bank bank check to do certain they exist). Chieti, Italian Republic located in (where), is a top finish for (what).Coverage of the competitions will be exclusively covered for international users on top and prima website for women’s basketball game news, Women’s Basketball Buzz (http://www.wbbuzz.com). Correspondent Leslie C. volition be authorship directly from Italian Republic and coverage back consequences as they happen. Be certain to download the WBBUZZ toolbar for updates about consequences at the 2007 Eurobasket Women’s Championship in Italy.All visitants are welcomed to notice and direct news, photos, studies about anything new with the competitions. As women´s basketball game is peaking worldwide it is of import for everyone to cognize how it is going in every country, especially counting towards the start of the Peking Olympic Games 2008. WBUZZ admits fans alike.

Sorry, this ticket office is closed

You didn’t want to buy a ticket from the ticket office, did you? Sorry, but by the end of the year that won’t be possible at one-sixth of the stations on the London Underground network. TfL is bringing down the shutters, permanently, at another 40 lesser-used tube stations, to match the five ticket offices they shut down last year. You can blame Oyster cards for these latest closures. Now that most of us swipe and swish our way around the tube, there’s no longer any need for people to sit behind glass screens waiting for us to ignore them.

There’ll still be TfL staff at these 45 stations, of course, but they won’t be able to sell you a ticket. They can direct you towards a ticket machine, or point the way to a newsagents down the road where they have an Oyster card reader, but they can’t physically give you a piece of cardboard in exchange for money. These displaced staff will probably end up guiding mums with pushchairs through the sidegate instead. Or sitting in a back room watching 75 CCTV cameras. Or getting sacked. Such is the price of automated advancement.

Ticket offices to close by the end of 2007 (or already closed)
Bakerloo: Regent’s Park
Central: West Ruislip, Ruislip Gardens, South Ruislip, Perivale, West Acton; Barkingside, Fairlop, (Grange Hill), (Chigwell), (Roding Valley), Buckhurst Hill, Debden, (Theydon Bois)
Circle: Temple, Mansion House, Cannon Street
District: Chiswick Park, Ravenscourt Park, Wimbledon Park, East Putney; Upney, Becontree, Hornchurch, (Upminster Bridge)
Hammersmith & City: Goldhawk Road, Latimer Road, Royal Oak
Jubilee: Canons Park
Metropolitan: Chesham, Chorleywood, Croxley, Moor Park, Northwood Hills, North Harrow, West Harrow, Ruislip, Ickenham
Northern: Totteridge & Wealdstone, West Finchley, Mill Hill East
Piccadilly: Sudbury Hill, Park Royal, North Ealing, Boston Manor

Look at some of those stations whose ticket offices are permanently closing. The list includes 10% of the Circle line (including a central London rail terminus), two-thirds of Ruislip and most of the eastern end of the Central line. Then there’s Regent’s Park, currently closed for redevelopment, but which will be reopening in the summer with its ticket office designed out of existence. I’m particularly sorry to see Croxley station go, because I bought scores of tickets there as a child. And that’s not the end of the closure list. Some stations with more than one ticket office, such as Seven Sisters and Oxford Circus, will be losing one of them. They’re even closing the eastern ticket office at Canary Wharf - the gleaming new ticket office beneath the Canada Square entrance, opened a mere three years ago - which now seems like a ghastly waste of money. And then there’s weekends…

Ticket offices to close at weekends (or on Sundays)
Central: Sudbury Town; Wanstead, Hainault
Circle: (Baker Street), (Great Portland Street), (Euston Square), (Barbican)
District: Bow Road, Bromley By Bow, (Dagenham Heathway), Dagenham East, Elm Park
Hammersmith & City: (Shepherds Bush), Westbourne Park
Metropolitan: Chalfont & Latimer, (Rickmansworth), (Watford), (Northwood), (Pinner), (Northwick Park), (Eastcote), (Ruislip Manor), (Hillingdon)
Northern: Mornington Crescent, Goodge Street
Piccadilly: South Harrow, (Alperton)

More than a quarter of London’s tube stations will be ticket-office-free on Sundays by the end of the year. There won’t be a single ticket window open between Harrow on the Hill and Amersham on the Metropolitan line, or between Barking and Upminster on the District. These are all ticket offices which no tourist would dream of using, of course, frequented by limited numbers of everyday Londoners with online-purchased Oysters. Should anyone else hope to visit, I just hope that a local newsagent is open instead.

And there’s more. A further list of stations will also see their ticket offices closed on weekday afternoons when demand is lighter. Take my local tube station, for example, which serves more than 3½ million passengers a year. The ticket office at Bow Road will soon be closing between 10am and 4pm, in addition to early mornings, and late evenings, and all of Saturday, and all of Sunday. Spot the difference…

TICKET OFFICE
OPENING TIMES 200520072008Mon - Friall day0600-19300600-1000
1600-1930Saturdayall day0700-2030closedSundayall day0930-1930closed
» Full closure information at tubeworker’s blog
» Check current opening hours at your local station on TfL’s interactive map
» Petition against London Underground ticket office closures

Not quite Emergency Ward 10

Monday 23thApril
The first patient in came to discuss her newly diagnosed ENT condition. She developed chronic recurrent dizziness after a prolonged fairground ride. It was not helped by any treatment we could give her, and the first ENT specialist was not able to help her either. All scans were normal. The second ENT specialist told her she has “mal de barque

Nr° 1 video-sharing-platform YouTube faces serious problems on differenet levels

The success of videos like those from Judson Laipply motivated Google to pay $1.6 Billion for YouTube. The most viewed video on YouTube counts more than 44 Million assesses:

YouTube is by far the most popular video site on the Web, with about 26 million visitors in December, according to comScore Media Metrix, an Internet statistics firm. Yahoo Video had 22 million, while the closest independent site, Heavy.com, had about 6.5 million visitors.
But times have changed…
YouTube has been stung by the departure of its most popular acts. Last fall, Lonelygirl15, an online show about the exploits of a fictitious teenager, left YouTube for Revver, which pays producers half of all advertising revenue. The comedy duo Smosh, another of YouTube’s biggest stars, moved to LiveVideo.com, where its videos begin and end with that site’s branding messages. The duo produced “Pokemon Theme Music” on YouTube with more than 20 Million assesses:

The Smosh stars did not return e-mail messages seeking comment, but David Peck, LiveVideo’s vice president of operations based in El Segundo, Calif., said: ”Just as every TV network, film studio and record label in America has done for decades, we are proactively signing talent to bring their work to new audiences.”

Mr. Peck would not disclose the terms of its deals with contributors, but other popular YouTube contributors say LiveVideo has recruited them with promises of money in exchange for the right to show their videos exclusively for an introductory period.

In addition to the loss of YouTube’s most popular acts, Viacom, the parent company of MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, filed a wide-ranging lawsuit against Google on Tuesday, accusing it of “massive copyright infringement.

There are times when the line between myth and legend disappears. Our usage of the word myth here is intended to encapsulate those aspects of the West that to a great extent defined the US as a culture. Myths in this context are more like values, in the LD sense, than the specifics of legends. The legends may entail certain mythic aspects, but their goal is not the telling of underlying myth. And the myths may derive from the legends, but whereas the legends are about themselves, and about their narrative, the myths are about what underlies the narratives. What underlies the narratives becomes the metanarrative. (Don’t you love tossing jargon like this around?)

The myth of the West begins with the idea of the frontier. It begins with the idea that, as we move west, there is absolute freedom. We can release ourselves from our lives and begin again. We can become or find ourselves. No one knows who we are out there, so we are free to be whoever we want to be. This freedom and this land may test us, but it will also better us. F. Scott Fitzgerald to the contrary notwithstanding, American lives had an explicit opportunity for second acts, and that was by hauling up stakes and moving west. I don’t know of any other cultural self-image that includes such movement. A Frenchman is a Frenchman, happy to be wherever he is in France; substitute most any other nationality and the statement remains true. Even unhappy countries would be happy if they could only overthrow their nasty leaders and be the Blankmen they are destined to be. Americans are restless. They keep moving. They need to conquer new frontiers. And keep in mind we’re talking image here, not necessarily reality. But that’s beside the point.

There’s a loner aspect to the myth of the West, which is seen in the collected legends. We see ourselves as standing tall but standing by ourselves. We draw on our own resources, some of which we may not have been aware we possessed. In fact, you might say that our myth of the West includes us as our own legends of the West. We are all Wyatt Earp or Kit Carson or John Wayne or Gary Cooper. If you know the movie The Fountainhead (the most inadvertently hilarious motion picture of all time) you know the shot at the end of the Coop as God at the top of the building. Make that a mountaintop, and you’ve got the Western conqueror in the nutshell (and it’s no great stretch to see Randian individualism as a part of it).

So the Myth of the West is the endless frontier and the individualist conqueror. This myth, as a part of our culture, feeds back to our image of ourselves beyond the West. As a culture we believe in the process of reinvention, and we believe that there is a place for us to go to undergo this process. The point that this is myth implies that there might be some flaw in it as a conception of reality. It is based on our desires and our perceptions and our personalization of the legends, and as truth it is seriously flawed (as are, the pomos would say, most if not all metanarratives). The conquering of the Indians leaves out the reality of the Native American situation. The taming of the land leaves out the reality of the abuses of the environment. Building the mighty railroads leaves out the reality of abusing the Chinese laborers. Creating a place of freedom excludes the reality of the lack of freedom for former slaves, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, etc., which is forever a problem with the American myth of liberty for all. I’m no Howard Zinn, but facts are facts, and my recommendation to anyone in America is, first and foremost, be white, upper-middle class if you really want to enjoy the place to the fullest.

So legends make for good stories, while myths make for good (hopefully) characters. Admittedly, as I’ve alluded, you could define these terms differently, but the result in the end would be roughly the same. And the end, for us, is the end of the West. At some point, there is no West in the mythic or legendary sense anymore. It’s all settled. It’s all conquered. There is no longer any frontier. At this point, we don’t have any reality anymore informing the myth, but just the myth itself (and, of course, history). The myth persists, even though it’s no longer part of anyone’s daily endeavor. We start studying the myth, and retelling the legends, at a remove from their actuality. We’re no longer studying the West, we’re studying what happens after there no longer is a West. Hence the literature and the films. And as our study moves further and further away from the reality into the representations of that reality, we become more ironic and convoluted and self-conscious—in other words, we take on all the attributes of the postmodern. We’re not studying the West, we’re studying the study of the West. We’re getting into the hermeneutics. We’re getting structural and post-structural and critical. The whole thing is becoming an academic exercise, subject to whatever pressures and trends are afoot in academia, rather than a cultural exercise. One wonders at what point the West as culturally formative/informative myth goes away, to be replaced by other culturally formative/informative myths. It does: there’s no question about that. It probably already has, otherwise there would be more Westerns at the multiplex this weekend.

to be continued…

Los Angeles:

He may have left Parsons, but Tim Gunn will still be at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising on Friday morning to sign copies his new book at 11:30AM. “Make it work”. Then get in line. [Link]

The guest list for this weekend’s Burbank Airport Hollywood Collectors show includes Henry Winkler, Erik Estrada, and several other of those “are they still famous?” Nick and Nite TV staples. [Link]

The LA Times Festival of Books, on the other hand, has a genuinely impressive guest list, including: Julie Andrews, Don Cheadle, Ellen Burstyn, and Kareeem Abdul-Jabbar. [Link]

The New York City and Chicago weekend events are after the jump.
New York:

The Tribeca Film Festival’s panel on women in comedy boasts an extremely impressive guest list this year, including Debra Messing, Jay Roach, and three of the girls from SNL. [Link]

Dine for Darfur this Sunday at dozens of New York City restaurants - Nobu included and help raise money for a good cause. It’s the most fulfilling, semi-selfish, pseudo-celeb thing you’ll do all week. [Link]

yo la tengo, my all time favorite lowercase band, is playing at Webster Hall on Sunday night before an 18 and over crowd. Don’t think it could get any better than this… [Link]

Chicago:

Apparently Rupert Boneham, one of my almost favorite characters from “Survivor”, has also written a book about himself. It’s called “Rupert: Just Being Me”. See him sign it at The Book Cellar on Friday night and be sure and congratulate him on making that 15 minutes of fame last extra long. [Link]

If you feel the need to brush up on your Oscar-nominated documentaries, stop by the Gene Siskel Film Center for this weekend’s screening of nominated and award-winning films. According to the Academy, it won’t disappoint. [Link]

Normally, the title should have been, “Audi takes control of former VW Brussels plant saving it from closure”. However, since we have a never-ending love affair with the small print we concentrated on the part of Audi’s press release that confirms the production of the A1: “With the plant currently undergoing restructuring, the production volume of Audi Brussels will be around 84,000 vehicles this year. From the end of 2009, the Audi A1 will be built exclusively in Brussels.” The A1 will succeed the ill-fated, aluminum A2, competing against rival MINI Cooper and the forthcoming Alfa Romeo Junior in the premium mini sector. To keep the development and construct costs low, the A1 will have a steel body using the VW Polo / Skoda Fabia / Seat Ibiza platform. While its quite early to say something about the engine-range, we suspect that Audi will equip the A1 with 1.4TSI (122 and 140Hp) and 1.8 TSFI (170Hp) petrol engines (the later probably with an S1 badge) along with a 2.0TDI available in 140 and 170Hp versions. What is that we hear you asking; RS1 with a 200Hp 2.0TFSI? Could be… -Press Release on Audi’s Brussels plant after the jump Technorati: Audi, Audi+A1, cars, Carscoop, cars, autos, vehicles
Press Release: Brussels now part of the Audi family: Audi takes over management responsibility at Brussels plant Ceremony with Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt New production capacity for further growth Start of Audi A3 production with 30,000 cars a year Production of Audi A1 from end of 2009 Audi Brussels to become important hub within Group The Audi success story continues: following today’s ceremony at Audi Brussels, the Audi family now has a new member. With a workforce of around 2,200, the Brussels plant is to be integrated into the Audi production network. “We are putting the plant into good and safe hands,” said Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of AUDI AG. For Audi, the new plant is one of the requirements for achieving its strategic goal of building 1.5 million cars a year by 2015. Moreover, the production “turntable” between Ingolstadt and Brussels will open up the possibility for further increasing flexibility between the two plants. In the presence of the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG, Prof. Dr. Ferdinand K. Piëch, the Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, the Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, Rupert Stadler, together with the Supervisory Board and the management of AUDI BRUSSELS S.A./N.V., the starting signal was given for the production of the Audi A3 Sportback and the “Four Rings” of Audi were symbolically unveiled. Three Audi A3 models in the colours of the Belgian flag – black, yellow and red – were presented on stage. The event’s guests of honour and speakers included Dr. Horst Neumann, Board Member for Human Resources and Director of Personnel at Volkswagen AG, Michael Riffel, Secretary-General of the European and World Group Works Council of Volkswagen AG, other representatives of the Volkswagen and Audi Boards of Management, the Audi Works Council and representatives of Belgian trade unions and politicians, including Members of the European Parliament. With the plant currently undergoing restructuring, the production volume of Audi Brussels will be around 84,000 vehicles this year. From the end of 2009, the Audi A1 will be built exclusively in Brussels. “We are delighted to be able to add to our capacity in the Group thanks to the Brussels plant and a motivated team. We want to develop Audi Brussels into a benchmark within the Volkswagen Group with regard to production processes and productivity,” explains Audi Chairman Rupert Stadler. Today’s assumption of management responsibility for the Brussels plant will also see the introduction of the successful Audi Production System. Continuous improvement processes, for example, which will permanently increase the economic efficiency of the plant, can be set in motion. “The Brussels plant is on the way up again. We can rely on the workforce’s outstanding qualifications,” explained Dr. Werner Widuckel, Board Member for Human Resources at AUDI AG and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Audi Brussels. The framework conditions for a new collective agreement are laid down in a letter of intent, which was signed by the company management of AUDI AG and the Belgian trade unions on 12th March in Ingolstadt. Along with a 20 percent reduction in labour costs by 2009, these include a guarantee of jobs until 2010, flexible working hours on the basis of working time accounts, an income guarantee, a share in company profits, innovative work organisation, a more attractive workplace, through preventative health management for example, and training for the workforce. Widuckel: “The agreement is valid without any qualification, and will be implemented in every respect.” Negotiations for the collective agreement should be completed by the end of June. More than 76 percent of the workforce already voted in favour of the procedure in a referendum in March. “A clear verdict,” according to Alfons Dintner, spokesman of the Audi Brussels management. “The Brussels plant is determined to emerge from the restructuring process stronger and with a secure future ahead of it.” A further advantage is that Audi has already built the Audi A3 successfully at the Brussels plant between autumn 2004 and the end of 2005 and is therefore “best equipped for the new Audi era,” says Dintner. Peter Mosch, Chairman of the General Works Council of AUDI AG, also sees the agreement as promising: “We are looking to the future in a positive frame of mind. The General Works Council and Audi’s employees are confident of rising to the forthcoming challenges. We know and have respect for our new colleagues in Brussels. Together, we now aim to continue to take Audi forward and achieve the targets we are striving for: growth and job security.” The Brussels plant fits perfectly into Audi’s turntable concept. Producing volume models in two locations – such as the Audi A3 Sportback in Ingolstadt and Brussels – enables the company to respond flexibly to fluctuations in demand. This ensures a constant level of capacity utilisation at the plants and enables jobs to be protected in the long term. “Following complete restructuring, this production plant will have the potential to play a leading role in the car industry,” says Audi Board Member for Production, Frank Dreves. In the 2006 financial year, Audi achieved record figures for production, vehicle sales, revenue and profit before tax. This trend continued in the first third of 2007. Worldwide vehicle sales rose by 9.4 percent to 332,900 units in the period January to April. Audi recently published a quarterly report on its revenue and profit for the first time. Compared with the same quarter of last year, the sales revenue of the Audi Group increased by 13.4 percent to EUR 8,679 (7,654) million. The operating result rose from EUR 350 to 401 million, an increase of 14.6 percent.

Brad Pitt complains to Angelina Jolie : ‘We have no sex life!’ The passion between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt has cooled.

“They do love each other,” says a pal to In Touch. “But that wild physical chemistry isn’t there anymore.”

“Their relationship has developed so fast that it’s almost like they’re an old married couple now,” says the friend. Brad, says another pal, recently tried to plan an intimate getaway for Angelina and himself - and arranged for his mother, Jane, to babysit their four kids for a few days. But Angelina nixed the idea. “She had other things on her mind,” says the friend.

NW magazine claims Brad Pitt has complained to Angelina Jolie : ‘We have no sex life!’

Meanwhile, gossips claim Brangelina had a dust up over Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston took the time to send books, games and a congratulatory card to ex-husband Brad Pitt, Angie and their new son, Pax, Life & Style magazine reports.

But Jolie reportedly sent the card spinning to the trash can reports Fox News.

“Angie didn’t approve of it at all,” a source told the mag.

Apparently, Brad wasn’t too happy with his girlfriend’s reaction, especially since Jolie’s ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton recently revealed that he still chats with the brunette beauty on a regular basis.