Just getting back to the World Series would have been exciting enough for Bostonians, but in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, the Red Sox's success brings a new rallying point for a wounded city. Still, there's always the danger of trivializing tragedy.
Wil Smith with his daughter, Olivia, today.
Wil Smith with his daughter, Olivia, today.
Wil Smith visited StoryCorps with his daughter, Olivia, in Sheffield, Mass., in 2012.
Wil Smith visited StoryCorps with his daughter, Olivia, in Sheffield, Mass., in 2012.
When we met Wil Smith last year, we learned that he and his daughter, Olivia, had been unlikely college roommates at Maine's Bowdoin College in the late '90s. At 27, not only was he older than the other students, but he was also a single dad raising an infant.
"I wasn't planning on having you as my roommate. I actually thought that if Bowdoin College knew I had you, they wouldn't let me come to college so, I hadn't mentioned it to anyone," he told Olivia at StoryCorps last year.
To make ends meet, he got a job working at Staples office supply store at night, and sometimes had to take Olivia with him, where he would hide her in the closet: "I think I lost something like 27 pounds, just from stress and not eating, because I didn't have enough for both of us."
Now, Olivia's own college experience is not too far off. "You won't have the early struggles that I did," Wil tells Olivia during a follow-up visit to StoryCorps. "You won't have a child."
Wil is helping Olivia with her school search, a role he says he's happy to have after a battle with colon cancer. It was a diagnosis he received just before recording the StoryCorps interview in 2012. After undergoing chemo treatments, he is now cancer-free.
"When I was going through treatments, one of the things that helped me through was knowing that had I not been there to help you through this process, you would have figured it out by yourself. But now I'm grateful that I am here and with you," Wil says.
"I'm also glad that we're here," says Olivia. "Thank you for always being there for me and just giving me the life that I have."
Click on the audio link above to hear the Smiths' story.
Produced for Morning Edition by Jasmyn Belcher with Nadia Reiman.
And as StoryCorps celebrates its 10th anniversary, all week NPR will be revisiting some of your favorite stories. You can read Wil and Olivia's story in the new StoryCorps book: Ties That Bind.
Given that Android has the largest market share of any smartphone platform, underdog competitor Windows Phone has far fewer exclusive games worth noting. Windows Phone’s precious few exclusive Xbox-branded games often jump ship to other platforms – just look at Wordament and Kinectimals.
Now Chickens Can’t Fly from British developer Amused Sloth – long considered one of the best Windows Phone exclusives – has debuted on Android as well. At $1.99, it’s quite a steal.
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As a budget inkjet multifunction printer (MFP) geared to home offices, the HP Officejet 4630 e-All-in-One has a solid if not splashy set of MFP features. It provides good overall output quality, though it was relatively slow, and showed a tendency to quickly run through color ink.
The 4630 can print, copy, scan, and fax. It can act as a standalone copier. It has a 35-page automatic document feeder (ADF) for copying, scanning, or faxing multipage documents unattended. It has a 100-sheet paper tray, modest by home-office standards, plus an auto-duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper.
The glossy black 4630 measures 7.4 by 17.6 by 21.6 (HWD), small enough to find room for on most desks, and weighs 13.7 pounds. The front panel holds a non-touch monochrome display with Home, Back, OK, up and down arrow controls, an alphanumeric keypad, and buttons for Wi-Fi, ePrint, and Help, plus the on/off switch.
Mobile Printing Features
The 4630 can connect to a computer via a USB cable (I tested it over a USB connection) or to a network via Wi-Fi. ePrint is an HP service that assigns an email address to the printer so that you can print out documents simply by emailing them to the printer. It supports Wi-Fi printing from mobile devices, as well as HP's Wireless Direct Print, which lets you walk up to the printer and print from a smartphone or tablet even when not connected to a Wi-Fi network. HP Printables offers news, crossword puzzles, family activities, coupons, and more for download over Wi-Fi for printout.
Printing Speed
We don't expect blazing speed from a budget inkjet, and with the 4630, we didn't get it. I timed it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at an effective 2 pages per minute (ppm), slow for its price but not unusually so. The Canon Pixma MX392 Office All-In-One Inkjet Printer tested at the same 2-ppm speed, while the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J430w was clocked at 4.3 ppm, and the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J870DW at 4.7 ppm. The Canon
Output Quality
The 4630's overall output quality was good, with average text quality for an inkjet, graphics quality on the high side of average, and average photo quality. Text was good enough for most home and business uses; I'd draw the line with resumes or formal documents with which you're trying to create a good visual impression.
With graphics, colors generally were well saturated. Several images showed mild banding (a regular pattern of faint striations), and many showed dithering (graininess). Graphics should be good enough for PowerPoint handouts; whether you'd give them to a client you were seeking to impress depends on how picky you are.
Photos were of average quality for an inkjet, about that of drugstore prints. Colors were generally good, though a monochrome photo showed a slight tint. There was a loss of detail in some bright areas. One image showed posterization—a tendency for abrupt shifts in color where they should be gradual.
Ink Issues
One issue that I ran into in testing is that the printer tended to run low on color ink, with notably degraded print quality, relatively quickly, even with the largest capacity cartridges. (Cost per page for the XL cartridges, based on HP's price and yield figures, are 6.2 cents per monochrome page and 16.9 cents per color page; the color costs are on the high side.) This same issue occurred with two test printers; I had requested the second unit because I was worried that an issue with the printer itself could be causing this; there was no difference with the second.
The 4630 uses one cartridge for black while a second cartridge combines cyan, magenta, and yellow, which means that you can't replace the individual colors when one color runs low. When one color goes, the whole cartridge has to be replaced. Some other lower-priced printers use similar systems, but it's very rare that a printer can't make it through our current test suite without running out of ink. This shouldn't be an issue with text or monochrome graphics, but could be if you print a lot of color graphics or photos.
One thing that could mitigate ink costs is that the 4630 is one of the first printers to be included in the HP Instant Ink program, in which customers receive ink for a fixed rate depending on the number of pages they print (there are 3 levels: $2.99 per month for 50 pages, $4.99 for 100 pages, and $9.99 for 300 pages; additional pages can be bought, and unused pages rolled over). New cartridges are delivered direct to the consumer. It has the potential to provide significant ink savings to consumers with compatible printers; how well it works in practice has yet to be seen.
Although best for use in a home office, the 4630 could also be used for light-duty home use. The single cartridge for all 3 colors may be a disadvantage, though, if you print a lot of photos.
For $50 more than you'd pay for the 4630, the Editors Choice Brother MFC-J870DW adds the auto-duplexer, as well as other features such as Ethernet and NFC (near-field communications), which lets you print from a compatible device just by tapping the printer. It was even faster than the MFC-J430w. But the HP Officejet 4630 e-All-in-One Printer combines a solid set of home-office MFP features and good output quality at a very modest price.
The 4630 has similar features and speed to the Canon Pixma MX392; the Canon lacks an auto-duplexer. The 4630 has slightly better output quality for text and photos.
The HP Officejet 4630 e-All-in-One Printer is not the fastest printer on the block, but has a solid set of features for a budget home-office MFP, and good output quality. The Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J430w zipped through our business printing tests in less than half the time as the 4630. It doesn't have the range of mobile printing features of the HP, and it lacks an auto-duplexer, so if those features are important to you, the 4630 could be your printer of choice, despite its much slower speed. We were concerned about its rate of ink consumption for color printing that we noted in our testing, though enrollment in the HP Instant Ink program has the potential to reduce ink costs.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) — Oprah Winfrey has paid a visit to two of the graduates from the celebrity's school in South Africa who are enrolled at a private college in upstate New York.
A spokeswoman for OWN, Winfrey's cable channel, says Tuesday that the former daytime talk-show queen was at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs on Monday to meet with two graduates from Winfrey's Leadership Academy for Girls. The academy, a boarding school for underprivileged South African girls, opened in 2007.
The two young women are studying at Skidmore, a liberal arts school located 165 miles north of New York City.
Christel MacLean, co-owner of The Crown Grill, tells local media outlets that Winfrey and the two students had dinner at the restaurant Monday night in a private back room.
The minimum order amount needed to qualify for free Super Saver Shipping from Amazon has remained set at $25 for US customers for quite some time -- over a decade, actually. Now, the outfit is pushing the requisite cart total to $35. As part of the announcement, the online retailer was quick to ...Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
John Belushi
John Belushi is coming back to life.
A biopic of the great comedian had been set up at Warner Bros. with a script by Steve Conrad and Todd Phillips producing and directing. But the project is now moving forward as an indie. Phillips (The Hangover) has stepped aside and Conrad, whose writing credits include The Weather Man and the upcoming The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, will direct the picture himself.
PHOTOS: Posthumous Roles: 15 Stars Who Appeared on the Big Screen After Their Death
Conrad already is on the hunt for actors, and according to sources, he has met with Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) and Adam Devine (Comedy Central’s Workaholics) to play Belushi. Joaquin Phoenix's name also has surfaced in connection with the role.
Nelson Franklin, who has done stints on Veep and New Girl, is among those who has met to play Dan Ackroyd, one of Belushi’s best friends, with whom the comedian not only starred in Saturday Night Live but also several movies, such as The Blues Brothers and 1941.
Belushi, who also starred in Animal House, is one of those Hollywood icons whose talent was cut short at a fairly young age. The comedian famously died at the age of 33 from a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont in 1982. Insiders say the biopic hopes to tell the story of a man that embodied both the glory and the tragedy of the American dream as it focuses on Belushi at the height of his fame.
VIDEO: Dan Ackroyd Remembers John Belushi 30 Years After His Death
This isn’t the first attempt to bring Belushi’s life to the screen. Michael Chiklis portrayed him in the 1989 adaptation of the Bob Woodward book Wired, which reportedly was boycotted by Belushi's friends and family.
This project, however, is promising to be different: Belushi’s widow, Judy Belushi Pisano, is one of the producers and Aykroyd is on board as an executive producer.
Alexandra Milchan, who is executive producing The Wolf of Wall Street, and Bonnie Timmerman of the production shingle Emjag, have been steering the project as producers, as has Scott Lambert of the financing and production entity Film 360.
The moviemakers are eyeing a New York shoot in spring 2014.
Conrad is repped by CAA. Aykroyd is repped by CAA and Bloom Hergott.
Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com
Twitter: @Borys_Kit
Rashida Jones thinks celebrities need to keep it in their pants. On Saturday, Oct. 19, the Parks and Recreation actress took to Twitter to voice her displeasure with people -- and, in particular, other famous women -- flashing their private parts (emphasis on private) for all to see.
PHOTOS: Stars' sexy Instagram pictures
"This week's celeb news takeaway: she who comes closest to showing the actual inside of her vagina is most popular," the 37-year-old daughter of music producer Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton wrote, along with a hashtag imploring her fellow stars to "stop acting like whores."
"Let me clarify. I don't shame ANYone for anything they choose to do with their lives or bodies...BUT I think we ALL need to take a look at what we are accepting as 'the norm'..." the Harvard grad explained.
"There is a whole generation of young women watching. Sure, be SEXY but leave something to the imagination," she continued.
Then, in a sarcastic aside, she quipped: "Also, calling on all men to show me dat ass."
Jones didn't single out any one female celeb in particular, but plenty of stars have made headlines recently for their barely-there (or not-there-at-all) ensembles.
PHOTOS: Stars who've gone topless
Miley Cyrus, for example, went completely nude in her "Wrecking Ball" video in September and then again for Future's upcoming "Real & True" video. And Nicki Minaj has posted photos on Instagram of both her thong and her almost-bare, pasties-adorned breasts. Kim Kardashian, too, shared a revealing photo of herself in a skimpy bathing suit, with sideboob galore.
Tell Us: Do you agree or disagree with Rashida Jones?
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Representatives of the San Francisco Bay Area's transit rail system and its striking unions returned to the bargaining table Monday, raising hopes among the region's frustrated commuters that a four-day work stoppage that has gridlocked highways and doubled travel times is about to end.
Bay Area Rapid Transit officials hoped to have an agreement in place by Monday evening so trains could begin running on the system's 104 miles of track by Tuesday, BART spokesman Rick Rice said. Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 President Antonette Bryant confirmed the talks but declined to comment further.
ATU represents station agents, train operators and clerical workers who walked off the job early Friday along with mechanics and maintenance workers represented by the Service Employees International Union. Contract negotiations had broken down over work rules for scheduled hours and overtime.
Area residents who endured long lines for crowded buses and ferries into San Francisco on Monday offered differing opinions on which side bore more blame for the impasse, but they were unanimous in the view that the public was being unfairly hurt and that the strike had to end.
"We need BART to be running right now," Karen Wormley said as she waited for a bus at a BART station in the East Bay city of Walnut Creek, where the line was at least hundred-people deep before dawn. "I need to get to work."
Federal investigators, meanwhile, were searching for clues to a weekend train accident that killed a BART worker and a contractor who were struck by an out-of-service train while inspecting an above-ground section of track in Walnut Creek.
The Contra Costa County coroner's office identified the victims as Laurence Daniels, 66, of Fair Oaks and Christopher Sheppard, 58, of Hayward.
The four-car train was not carrying any passengers due to the strike. BART has said it had dropped off some vandalized cars to be cleaned and was returning to a train yard under computer control Saturday when it hit the two men. They are the sixth and seventh BART workers to die on the job in the system's 41-year history.
Two National Transportation Safety Board investigators were looking into the accident. It could take several weeks to determine if the work stoppage or the way BART management deployed non-striking workers played a role in the fatalities, said Jim Southworth, the NTSB's railroad accident investigator-in-charge.
The ongoing investigation at the collision site could delay the resumption of service there if the strike's end is imminent, Southworth said.
Oklahoma State University transportation engineering professor Samir Ahmed, who has studied rail transit safety, said he would be surprised if the strike did not somehow factor into the accident.
"When you have a strike like what is happening at BART now, communications are poor in general," he said. "The strike environment causes confusion."
That the two inspectors were hit by a train shows that critical information was not relayed either to the workers on the track or the people operating the train, Ahmed said.
"There should have been someone at the controls there talking to the workers and talking to the train engineer," he said. "Something did not did not go right, and if it is their policy to have this kind of maintenance during a strike they should have communicated that to the engineers."
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Thanawala reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writer Haven Daley in Walnut Creek contributed to this report.
Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images
Martin Sheen
LONDON -- Martin Sheen will receive a lifetime achievement award for his work in the film industry during the opening ceremony of this year's Dubai International Film Festival.
Sheen's acting career spans film and television and includes star turns in classic films such as Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Badlands, Wall Street and The Departed.
PHOTOS: Charlie Sheen Roast: THR's Red Carpet Interviews
His TV work includes his SAG-winning outing as fictional U.S. president Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing.
Sheen said he was "honored by the exciting news" of being chosen for the Dubai plaudit.
"This esteemed recognition inspires me to continue doing what I love most: telling stories through the art of cinema," Sheen said. "I am very much looking forward to visiting Dubai in December and being immersed in the region's blossoming film industry."
Sheen will also take part in a public 'In Conversation with Martin Sheen' Q&A event, which will be held during the course of the festival.
DIFF chairman Abdulhamid Juma described Sheen as "a cinematic legend whose remarkable career has spanned five decades."
Said Juma: "In that time, he has brought to life a huge variety of compelling, intelligent and wonderfully engaging characters on the big and small screens. We are honored to present Martin Sheen with the DIFF lifetime achievement award, and we look forward to welcoming him to Dubai."
Previous DIFF lifetime achievement honorees include Omar Sharif, Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Danny Glover, Terry Gilliam, Michael Apted and Mahmoud Abdel Aziz.
The 10th edition of the festival runs Dec. 6-14.
Willow Garage is a company of some renown in the world of robotics. While it's known primarily for the bots it builds, the company may one day be more famous for its alumni and the spinoff firms it has spawned. Unbounded Robotics is the latest such company, and its creation is the UBR-1, a sort of ...SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Management for San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit district and unions representing striking commuter rail workers will resume negotiations on Monday in hopes of ending a four-day walkout that has snarled traffic across the region, a BART spokesman said.
A federal mediator would take part in the talks, BART spokesman Rick Rice said.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/commuter-rail-strike-tests-san-franciscans-patience-201107599--sector.html
TUPELO, Miss. — Former WWE and World Champion Rey Mysterio shocked the WWE Universe when he returned unannounced at a WWE Live Event in Tupelo, Miss., yesterday. The Master of the 619, out of action since Feb. 4 as the result of lingering injuries to his left knee, helped R-Truth fend off a post-match attack by World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio.
News of The Ultimate Underdog’s surprise return first broke on WWE’s social media accounts, with a Tout capturing footage of his ring entrance and photos posted on Instagram.
Watch exclusive footage of Mysterio’s thrilling entrance! | See WWE on Instagram
According to eyewitnesses, Mysterio entered the ring during an ambush by Del Rio on R-Truth, moments after Del Rio defeated The Rapping Superstar in a No Disqualification Match. The lucha libre legend reportedly connected with a 619 on the World Heavyweight Champion, and when Mr. Money in the Bank, Damien Sandow, entered the scene for a possible cash-in attempt, The Ultimate Underdog greeted him with a dropkick and another 619.
In an exclusive interview with WWE.com last week, Mysterio had indicated that he hoped to be back in the ring before the year’s end. Based on what transpired in Tupelo last night, his forecast seems very promising, indeed.
Son Lux's new album, Lanterns, comes out Oct. 29.
Son Lux's new album, Lanterns, comes out Oct. 29.
Ryan Lott, the principal creative force behind Son Lux, is a classically trained musician well-studied in the vast intricacies of theory, composition and orchestration. As a student at Indiana University in the late '90s he studied piano under renowned pianist Jeremy Denk (among others) and, after graduating, spent several years writing songs for TV ads and various dance companies in New York. But when he wasn't scoring beer and car commercials, Lott quietly, methodically pieced together his breathtaking debut as Son Lux, 2008's At War With Walls & Mazes. It was a massive but brilliantly finessed mix of disjointed hip-hop beats, found sounds and vivid string arrangements.
Lott followed three years later with his second Son Lux album, We Are Rising, another conceptual, polyrhythmic adventure that, remarkably, he wrote and recorded in just four weeks. (We documented the whole process on All Songs Considered).
In the two years since, Lott has collaborated with Sufjan Stevens and the rapper Serengeti; he relocated briefly to Los Angeles where he worked on soundtracks and sound design for several films including Nathan Johnson's score for the 2012 sci-fi thriller Looper; and Lott has continued composing original work for dance companies. He's also signed with Joyful Noise for his third and most fully realized Son Lux album, Lanterns.
While At War With Walls & Mazes and We Are Rising were glittering, sometimes wildly adventurous albums, Lanterns is slicker, darker and less ornate. The beats are icier and spare, and the mix a little richer, nestled comfortably at the nexus of 21st-century R&B, hip-hop and synthpop. Lott's voice is fragile but fearless as he reflects on the fleeting, ephemeral nature of life, letting go of the past, and the mysteries of a possible dimension beyond the one we all inhabit.
Lanterns, which features mandolin master Chris Thile, Antlers singer Peter Silberman, multi-instrumentalist DM Stith and an all-star cast of other collaborators, includes some of Lott's most surprising and captivating moments as Son Lux. Check out the bone-rattling bass saxophones that drag just behind the beat on "Easy," or the crazed Munchkin chorus on "No Crimes." But for every dramatic flourish, Lanterns is equally restrained, with some of Son Lux's loveliest songs. The tear-jerker melody and gently moving piano lines on "Enough Of Our Machines" feel like a solemn dirge to the scourge of modern living, as Lott sings "I've had enough of our disease. I'll pick it up and I will walk away."
The music of Son Lux has always been slightly left-of-field, the product of a restless and formally trained artist bored with conventional chord patterns, familiar melodies and standardized beats. At times Lott's passion for pushing creative boundaries has led to music that might sound strange or even indecipherable to some audiences. But there's no question Lott is a gifted composer and Lanterns is his most arresting album to date.
Lanterns is out Oct. 29.
Carefully celebrating a pending political victory, President Barack Obama said late Wednesday that a deal to reopen the government and avoid a cataclysmic default should help Washington break “the habit of governing by crisis” and set the stage for achieving immigration reform in 2013.
“Once this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately, we’ll begin reopening our government immediately, and we can begin to lift this cloud of uncertainty and unease from our businesses and from the American people,” Obama said in the White House briefing room.
The president, who raised eyebrows in some quarters for speaking before the Republican-held House of Representatives voted on the compact, renewed his vow to “work with anybody” on proposals to bolster the fragile economy and saying that Democrats do not have a “monopoly on good ideas.”
Obama pleaded for a break from “the habit of governing by crisis “ and painted the shutdown as a pointless distraction from the nation’s true business.
“There’s a lot of work ahead of us — including our need to earn back the trust of the American people that’s been lost over last few weeks. And we can begin to do that by addressing the real issues that they care about,” he said.
“There are things that we know will help strengthen our economy that we could get done before this year is out,” Obama said. “We still need to pass a law to fix our broken immigration system. We still need to pass a farm bill.”
And the hard-fought deal opens the door for cooperation to craft a “sensible budget that is fair” and helps the middle class, he said.
“We could get all these things done even this year,” said the president, who planned a 10:35 a.m. statement from the White House's State Dining Room on Thursday echoing many of the same themes.
The agreement reopens the government through Jan. 15 and raises the debt limit through Feb. 7, raising the prospect of another confrontation. But Obama curtly dismissed prospect of a repeat of the 16-day shutdown under the cloud of a possible debt default.
"Mr. President, isn't this going to happen all over again in a few months?" a reporter called out as the president walked out.
"No," he replied. The official White House transcript noted "(Laughter.)" in response.
The Senate has been working on a bipartisan deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. But House conservatives have put their own plan forward, signaling they won't go along with a Senate deal. Steve Inskeep talks to Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia about how he thinks the impasse can be resolved.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republicans' clear defeat in the budget-debt brawl has widened the rift between the Grand Old Party and the blossoming tea party movement that helped revive it.
Implored by House Speaker John Boehner to unite and "fight another day" against President Barack Obama and Democrats, Republicans instead intensified attacks on one another, an ominous sign in advance of more difficult policy fights and the 2014 midterm elections.
The tea party movement spawned by the passage of Obama's health care overhaul three years ago put the GOP back in charge of the House and in hot pursuit of the law's repeal. The effort hit a wall this month in the budget and debt fight, but tea partyers promised to keep up the effort.
Whatever the future of the troubled law, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell vowed he would not permit another government shutdown.
"I think we have now fully acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is," McConnell said in an interview with The Hill newspaper.
Tea party Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told ABC News he wouldn't rule out using the tactic again, when the same budget and debt questions come up next year.
"I will continue to do anything I can to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare," Cruz said.
That divide defined the warring Republican factions ahead of the midterm elections, when 35 seats in the Democratic-controlled Senate and all 435 seats in the Republican-dominated House will be on the ballot. In the nearer term, difficult debates over immigration and farm policy loom, along with another round of budget and debt talks.
The animosity only intensified as lawmakers fled Washington this week for a few days' rest.
The Twitterverse crackled with threats, insults and the names of the 27 GOP senators and 87 GOP House members who voted for the leadership's agreement that reopened the government and raised the nation's borrowing limit. Republicans got none of their demands, keeping only the spending cuts they had won in 2011.
Within hours, TeaParty.net tweeted a link to the 114 lawmakers, tagging each as a Republican in name only who should be turned out of office: "Your 2014 #RINO hunting list!"
"We shouldn't have to put up with fake conservatives like Mitch McConnell," read a fundraising letter Thursday from the Tea Party Victory Fund Inc.
Another group, the Senate Conservatives Fund, announced it was endorsing McConnell's GOP opponent, Louisville, Ky., businessman Matt Bevin.
"Mitch McConnell has the support of the entire Washington establishment and he will do anything to hold on to power," the group, which raised nearly $2 million for tea party candidates in last year's elections, announced. "But if people in Kentucky and all across the country rise up and demand something better, we're confident Matt Bevin can win this race."
The same group pivoted to the Mississippi Senate race, where Republican Thad Cochran is weighing whether to seek a seventh term. Cochran voted for the McConnell-Reid deal, so the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed a primary opponent, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a private attorney the group says "will fight to stop Obamacare," ''is not part of the Washington establishment" and "has the courage to stand up to the big spenders in both parties."
There were more tea party targets: Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee also are seeking re-election.
To her Facebook friends, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin posted: "We're going to shake things up in 2014. Rest well tonight, for soon we must focus on important House and Senate races. Let's start with Kentucky — which happens to be awfully close to South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi."
Opponents of the tea party strategy to make "Obamacare" the centerpiece of the budget fight seethed over what they said was an exercise in self destruction. Many clamored for Boehner and McConnell, the nation's highest-ranking Republicans, to impose some discipline, pointing to polls that showed public approval of Congress plummeting to historic lows and that most Americans blamed Republicans for the government shutdown.
A Pew Research Center poll released this week showed public favorability for the Tea Party dropped to its lowest level since driving the Republican takeover of the House in the 2010 elections. An AP-Gfk poll showed that 70 percent now hold unfavorable views of the Tea Party.
And yet, House Republican leaders tried again and again to resolve the standoff the tea party's way — by demanding limits on Obamacare in exchange for reopening the government — until they ran of options and accepted the bipartisan deal.
"When your strategy doesn't work, or your tactic doesn't work, you lose credibility in your conference," said Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., referring to the tea partyers' tactics. "Clearly the leadership followed certain members' tactics, certain members' strategies, and they proved not to be all that successful. So I would hope that we learn from the past."
"I do believe the outside groups have really put us in this position," said Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., referring to the Heritage Foundation's political campaign arm and other organizations demanding fealty to their ideology. Those groups "have worked in conjunction with members of Congress and with Tea Party groups pushing a strategy that was never going to work."
Tea partyers hold a contrary view. Boehner, they say, solidified his standing as the GOP's leader by holding the line against compromise as long as he did. And the standoff, they add, has increased their movement's clout.
"I think it builds credibility, because I think Democrats did not think that we would press this," said Rep. John Fleming, R-La. "And now they know that we will, and that we might do it again."
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Soon you'll be able to direct the path of a cockroach with a smartphone and the swipe of your finger.
Greg Gage and his colleagues at Backyard Brains have developed a device called the RoboRoach that lets you control the path of an insect.
It may make you squirm, but Gage says the device could inspire a new generation of neuroscientists.
"The sharpest kids amongst us are probably going into other fields right now. And so we're kind of in the dark ages when it comes to neuroscience," he tells NPR's Arun Rath.
The RoboRoach device allows users to influence the movements of cockroaches with a smartphone.
The RoboRoach device allows users to influence the movements of cockroaches with a smartphone.
He wants to get kids interested in neuroscience early enough to guide them toward that career path. And a cyborg cockroach might be the inspiration.
"The neurons in the insects are very, very similar to the neurons inside the human brain," Gage says. "It's a beautiful way to just really understand what's happening inside your brain by looking at these little insects."
Directions Vs. Free Will
The idea was spawned by a device the Backyard Brain-iacs developed called The SpikerBox, which is capable of amplifying real living neurons. Insert a small wire into a cockroach's antennae, and you can hear the sound of actual neurons.
"Lining the inside of the cockroach are these neurons that are picking up touch or vibration sensing, chemical sensing," Gage says. "They use it like a nose or a large tongue, their antennas, and they use it to sort of navigate the world.
"So when you put a small wire inside of there, you can actually pick up the information as it's being encoded and being sent to the brain."
With the RoboRoach device and smartphone app, you can interact with the antennae to influence the insect's behavior.
“ There are some people that get really sort of scared ... that we're taking over the free will of this cockroach. But in essence, that's actually not the case.
When you swipe your finger on your mobile phone, the app sends a message using Bluetooth to the device, which then sends a small pulse of electricity into the left or right antenna.
The result: a cockroach that follows your directions.
Since Gage introduced the RoboRoach at a TEDx conference earlier this month, it has stirred up some ethical concerns and questions around animal treatment.
"There are some people that get really sort of scared when we start talking about brain control — that we're taking over the free will of this cockroach," he says. "But in essence, that's actually not the case."
Gage says the RoboRoach just provides a sensation in the antenna that makes the cockroach perceive an obstacle in its path. He compares it to the bridle of a horse.
"You can have these reins — you can pull the horse left or right," he says. "You can do the same thing with a cockroach. It thinks it's being touched on the left or right side and it will sort of turn in the counter-lateral direction."
Swarms For Survival?
With the RoboRoach, you can wield influence over a single insect. But what about swarms of these cyborg cockroaches?
Dr. Edgar Lobaton is an assistant professor at North Carolina State University. He's in the simulation phase of his latest project: using swarms of up to 1,000 cockroaches to assist in search-and-rescue operations.
"We can use this collection of agents to do an exploration of the entire space, to be able to localize potential people that may be trapped in the ruins after these disasters," he says.
Wearing backpacks similar to the RoboRoach, their movements can be used to map structures like a collapsed building. Lobaton says cockroaches are perfect for the job because they're natural explorers.
"For these particular insects, they have gone through a lot of evolution. There's a lot of development in there to make them very flexible, to be able to accomplish things related to exploration and the search of food," he says. "So what we're trying to do is exploit basically this design from nature to be able to use it in our advantage."
So you might think twice before stomping or spraying the next cockroach you encounter with insecticide.
Cockroaches could be deployed to save your life one day. Or, at least, teach you a little bit about neuroscience.
Attracting Hollywood’s finest today (October 19), the biggest names in the business attended the long-awaited premiere of the biography/comedy/drama, “Saving Mr. Banks” at the 57th BFI London Film Festival.
“Brave’s” Emma Thompson and legendary actor, producer, writer and director, Tom Hanks took a few photos together, walking down the red carpet. Thompson, playing the film’s own P. L. Travers wore a lovely tree-patterned blouse with a black skirt. Hanks, as the movie’s adaptation of Walt Disney, stood beside her smiling in a stylish black suit and tie.
“Miami Vice’s” Colin Farrell also made an appearance on the red carpet, showing up in a dashing gray three-piece suit, and taking a few pictures with the cast.
“Pitch Perfect’s” Lily Allen appeared as well, sporting lovely yellow fingernails and a black and white frilly dress that hit the floor. She held a white and blue clutch, all smiles for the cameras and fans.
According to the synopsis, “Author P. L. Travers reflects on her difficult childhood while meeting with filmmaker Walt Disney during production for the adaptation of her novel, Mary Poppins.”
A cliché-laden tale offering too few insights about urban malaise among young migrant workers in Beijing.
Asian Future, Tokyo International Film Festival
Tang Kailin, Shu Yao, Wang Daotie, Yin Shanshan
Yang Huilong
It's perhaps apt that two of the major onscreen emotional breakdowns in Today and Tomorrow involve characters bawling their eyes out while singing well-known musical numbers about dislocation and disappointment. Yang Huilong's directorial debut about the three disfranchised youngsters in Beijing is abundant in second-hand emotions and lacking in original ideas in both aesthetics and narrative -- and most devastatingly, it's missing a genuine understanding of and empathy toward the have-nots cast to the wayside as China lurches towards its glaring capitalist future.
Today and Tomorrow betrays a wide range of influences from yesteryears: the handheld camera work depicting angst-ridden, lustful young people living in gloomy rooms harkens back to the work of Sixth Generation Chinese filmmakers like Lou Ye and Wang Xiaoshuai, while the TV melodrama gets a look-in with plot points about characters choosing between profit and principle (think Teng Huatao's hit series Wo Ju) and caricatured characters (the prostitute with a heart of gold; excessively effeminate fashion designers). The film has been given some festival pedigree after its bow in Tokyo International Film Festival's Asian Future section, but its middling mix of mainstream and alternative approaches might put off viewers of both cinematic camps.
PHOTOS: Inside Hollywood's Surprise Trip to 'China's Oscars'
Set in the soon-to-be-demolished migrant-workers ghetto of Tangjialing in Beijing's northwestern outskirts, the film revolves around three disillusioned provincial-born twenty-somethings whose miserable material existence in the Chinese capital makes them part of the "ant tribe." No need to fret for those who don't know the backdrop and the term: Yang has made sure viewers will understand everything by playing out official announcements about the demolition plans -- not just once, but three times throughout the film -- and also an oddly-inserted radio program news bulletin snippet about the underemployed and underpaid workers toiling in the city. It's the kind of exposition that betrays a lack of elliptical approach towards the story -- a formalist flaw that mirrors the story that follows.
The story begins with a couple, the jobless Jie (Wang Taodie) and the fashion-design college graduate Ranran (Shu Yao) moving into a cramped room next to their friend Wang Xu (Tang Kaikin) -- the first time the pair have had a space to their own, and a footing that might allow them to make inroads into a stable life in Beijing. Needless to say, it's a greasy social pole they're trying to scale; Ranran is forced to endure the advances of the tailor she is an apprentice to, while Wang's dreams of becoming a CEO are constantly upended by either his conscience (when he refuses to partake in crooked practices as an insurance salesman) or his intellect (when he saves himself from a pyramid scheme unfolding in a disintegrating back-alley room). And Jie does, well, mostly nothing -- with his main vocation being lamenting about having done nothing.
And so this triumvirate of jaded young minds march on, their enthusiasm dimmed and hopes trampled with Jie's seemingly ill-advised attempts to sell his girlfriend's portfolio to established designers, while Wang's affection for a streetwalker (Yin Shanshan) only end in stones being thrown and flats being emptied out. So far, so realistic -- until the characters' anguish is somehow resolved, all thanks to humility and human persistence.
If this sounds uplifting to the point of being dogmatic, one is to be reminded that Today and Tomorrow begins with the aforementioned public-information announcement ("Let us create a wonderful future!") and ends with an upward-looking shot of the Chinese national flag fluttering in the wind in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. It would be erroneous to daub Yang's film as propaganda, but it's certainly fair to say the film, like state ideology, which praises resilience and suppresses rebellion, reduces a social problem into this simple, hope-springs-eternal discourse.
But what's most disturbing is how the film fails to connect with the downtrodden when it posits itself as a champion of the underdogs. In one of the final scenes of the film, Wang Xu -- who is happily working away in a small glass bottle factory -- is asked by a middle-aged colleague why a university graduate like him would want to become a laborer. Without battling an eye, the young man says he's treating his job as merely a break, a "year off" before he goes in for the kill in the corporate universe again.
Pity his comrades who have no such futures to aspire to; same goes to Ranran's neighbors whom she dreams of as bumbling quirks in a reverie about parading her dress along the corridor of her tenement -- a presaging of the good news she will inevitably receive later, a stroke of luck that wouldn't befall the others. This negligence is consistent with how the low are left nameless (the prostitute is never called by name, even if the character is listed as "Zhang Hui" in the credits) and how the Tangjialing community is merely a backdrop to the three characters' lives, its erasure (along with its down-and-out inhabitants) from history only returned to in a brief onscreen text before the credits roll at the end. Today and Tomorrow certainly reveals an uncertain future -- for Chinese filmmaking and Chinese society in general.
Asian Future, Tokyo International Film Festival
Production Company: Beijing Jiamao Pictures Television Culture
Director: Yang Huilong
Cast: Tang Kailin, Shu Yao, Wang Daotie, Yin Shanshan
Producer: Wang Yaxi
Executive Producer: Ursula Wolte
Screenwriter: Lin Shiwei
Director of Cinematography: Sun Tian
Editor: Hugues Danois
Music: Henri Huang
Sound Director: Liu Yang
In Mandarin
90 minutes
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal began hearing closing statements Wednesday in its first trial of top leaders of the 1970s communist regime widely considered responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.
Nuon Chea, the regime's chief ideologist, and Khieu Samphan, its head of state, are charged with genocide and crimes against humanity — including torture, enslavement and murder — for planning and implementing the group's brutal policies.
The first statements will be from lawyers for "civil parties" participating in the trial to represent the victims. Statements from the prosecution and defense are scheduled through the end of October, and a verdict is expected in the first half of 2014.
The Khmer Rouge, in power from April 1975 to January 1979, emptied the country's cities, forcing Cambodians into backbreaking work in rural collectives and executing any it suspected of dissent.
Torture and death by starvation, lack of medical care, overwork and execution, were endemic under the secretive Khmer Rouge, who virtually sealed off their country from the rest of the world. The present trial's focus on the forced movement of people excludes some of the gravest charges related to genocide, detention centers and killings.
To make a massive indictment more manageable, the court decided in 2011 to split the case into smaller trials that would examine the evidence in rough chronological order. It was feared that the aging, infirm defendants might not survive long enough to complete more comprehensive proceedings, depriving victims of even a modicum of justice.
Death and disability have robbed the tribunal of other defendants. Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary died in March, and his wife Ieng Thirith, the regime's social affairs minister, was dropped from the trial in September 2011 after being diagnosed with dementia.
The tribunal has ruled that the next trial, to hear the charges of genocide, will begin as soon as possible after the present trial's closing statements, but tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said no schedule had been set.
The tribunal, launched in 2006, so far has convicted only one defendant, Khmer Rouge prison director Kaing Guek Eav, who was sentenced to life imprisonment. Cambodia has no death penalty.
Proceedings have been hampered by underfunding, and obstruction by the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who counts surrendered Khmer Rouge leaders among his political allies. He himself defected from the group at an early stage.
Since the current trial's opening statements in November 2011, the court has heard testimony from 92 individuals over 212 days. By the court's estimate, nearly 100,000 visitors have attended the proceedings, largely Cambodians the court bused from the countryside as part of a broad effort to promote awareness of the justice process.
Sgt. John Munch is turning in his badge on Law & Order SVU Wednesday night. Actor Richard Belzer has played Munch for 15 seasons on the show. And we remember veteran baseball umpire Wally Bell, who died of a heart attack this week. He'd been on the job for 21 seasons. Bell was 48.
Too often we open a journal, scan the title of a scientific paper – for instance, “Gongylonema pulchrum in a Resident of Williamsburg, Virginia, Verified by Genetic Analysis” – and dismiss it. We think “Yeah, yeah, infection in a small Virginia town” – and turn the page.
Later we may regret that.
Later we may realize that if we’d actually read the paper– or at least read between the lines – we would have discovered a story worth our time. Perhaps the story of a biologist who pulled a nematode out of his cheek with a pair of forceps. Really good forceps, according to the paper: “#5 super fine tip, Roboz Surgical Instrument Co. Inc.” forceps.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The forceps come later in the story.
Let’s rewind to September 2012. It was about then- according to this recently published report (paywall) in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine – that an “otherwise healthy, 36-year-old man” felt a rough patch in his mouth, a scaly little area in his right cheek. It didn’t hurt. But then it didn’t stay there either. He started testing for it with his tongue. It traveled. It moved to the back of his mouth, then forward, coiled backwards again. In the language of science: “These rough patches would appear and disappear on a daily basis, giving the patient the indirect sense that there was an organism moving within the oral cavity.”
Or in the English language: “Yuck.”
In the interests of transparency, the science journalist confesses that “yuck” was her reaction. Not so for the scientist, apparently. As the paper also tells us, the patient was “coincidentally trained as an invertebrate biologist.” A little journalistic investigation finds that this is scientific code for “Jonathan D. Allen,” who is one of the coauthors of the paper.
Further investigation leads to a phone call with Prof. Allen. He works at the College of William and Mary’s biology department. He’s fascinated by crawly little lifeforms. “Yuck” never crossed his mind.
“Wow, this is really interesting,” thought Allen. And then 1) I hope it’s not fatal and 2) I hope it’s publishable. Although the journalist may have listed those in the wrong order. After all, Allen did email his colleagues with the subject line: “A paper in my mouth.”
In mid-December, as the paper tells us: “The patient was able to visualize the rough patch in the mucosa of his lower lip after migration of the worm towards the opening of the mouth.” In other words, in the midst of giving a final exam, Allen realized that the creature had journeyed to the front of his mouth. As soon as the exam was over, he rushed to the men’s room, pulled down his lip, and saw the coiling structure of a tiny worm-like creature just under the inner skin.
Was he thrilled? He took pictures (which you will find in the paper). He pulled down his lip to show his colleagues (those who would look). He took more pictures. He used the images to do internet research (yes, Google) and made a tentative identification of the creature in his mouth as a parasitic nematode best known for inhabiting the mouths of livestock.
And then he called his doctor. Who referred him to an oral surgeon. Who didn’t believe him.
Really.
Referring back to the paper: “Upon presenting the oral surgeon with photographic evidence (Figure 1A and B) and a detailed description and preliminary diagnosis of gongylonemiasis, the surgeon disputed the patient’s self-diagnosis, claiming this was simply normal discoloration of the skin.”
Referring back to my notes: “My jaw just dropped,” Allen said. But he couldn’t change the surgeon’s mind. “I said, ‘Look, I study these things for a living’. And he said, ‘Well, I look in people’s mouths every day.” The scientist and surgeon did not part on a happy note. “I paid my co-pay and left. It was totally depressing.”
And he stayed depressed – “I’d lost faith in the medical profession” – until he woke up about 3 a.m. the following morning. The spot had moved toward the front of his mouth again. He realized could remove the worm himself.
Of course, he needed help. No surgeon can work alone. He woke up his wife (Margaret Pizer, a communications specialist for Virginia Sea Grant) so that she could shine a flashlight in his mouth. With those #5 super fine tip Roboz Surgical Instrument forceps, he gently scraped the lining of his mouth until he was able to pull out the nematode. It came coiling out, a little less than an inch in length. It was not a happy parasite. “It was writhing.”
His surgical assistant wasn’t too thrilled either. “She said, ‘That’s really gross’.”
Referring to the paper: “The living and highly active parasite was transported to the patient’s research laboratory at the College of William and Mary.”
Referring to my notes: Still in his pajamas, Allen hurried to campus. He had the live parasite in a vial, floating in his spit. When he got to the lab, he took further measurements and then dropped it into a container with an ethanol solution to preserve it.
And referring one more time to the paper (the one you should have stopped and read): “The long transparent worm was readily identified as a nematode belonging to the genus Gongylonema.”
Allen discovered that he was the 13th known human in the United States to be infected by the nematode. He’s still trying figure out how he acquired his companion – he speculates that the worm could have been in his wellwater or in something he ate, possibly in a box of raisins. Globally, there’s no clear pattern to such cases except that they are rare. Scientists have identified some 50 or so cases of human infection; the first was reported in 1996 in Japan.
So Allen wanted to be sure that this was indeed the parasite that he’d extracted from his cheek. A colleague from Eastern Virginia Medical School, who specialized in genetic analysis came forward to help him make a more detailed identification. Aurora Esquela-Kerscher fell completely into spirit of the research. No Gongylonema for her laboratory. She suggested they call the nematode “Buddy.” As in: Let’s use PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to amplify Buddy’s DNA, detail the exact genetic sequence, and verify his identification. Which is what they did; this was, in fact, the first paper to do genetic analysis of this over-friendly little nematode.
“It’s the only paper I’ve ever published in a medical journal,” Allen says. “It’s a fun story to tell and it grosses my students out. But also I’m at a college where we train a lot of pre-med students. We always debate what they need to know, how to give them the ability to think critically and to see things that are not normal.”
In other words, a good scientific paper will remind you that your definition of “normal” is way too narrow. Okay, now you can turn the page.
Image: Buddy, the nematode, suspended in ethanol solution, courtesy of Jonathan D. Allen, Department of Biology, College of William and Mary.
