PAUL KRUGMAN: Economic Storm Signals (The New York Times)
"It's tough to make predictions," Yogi Berra is supposed to have said, "especially about the future." Actually, his remark makes perfect sense to economists, who sometimes have trouble making predictions about the present. And this is one of those times.
"GOD SAVE THE QUEEN...SHE AIN'T NO HUMAN BEING
THERE IS NO FUTURE...IN ENGLANDS DREAMING" (Sex Pistols)
They murdered Disco Music. They re-energized Rock and Roll. They were the first to point a finger at the cloistered and decaying English Monarchy!
I can't forget January 14th, 1978, at the Winterland auditorium in San Francisco....I went to see the British punk band "The Sex Pistols" with Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious...It was incredible...people up front "slam dancing" and fighting...throwing shit onto the stage...and when the Pistols came out there was a roar and a rush and Rotten yelled "this is no fun at all" and Sid Vicious vomited and spit blood and hit somebody with his bass guitar and the band launched into their number one UK hit "God Save the Queen"...it was absolute chaos...but I could never shake the force of the lyrics and how they really expressed the incredible gap between the modernist youth movement in England and the stodgy, stoic, stubborn and out of touch Monarchy...led by the image of Queen Elizabeth II.
Now move ahead to 1997 and on that fateful day in August when the beloved new face of Modernist England, Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in an auto crash in Paris and the whole of British society was stunned and saddened...except Queen Elizabeth II.
In the movie "The Queen," we get to go back stage, so to speak, into Buckingham Palace and see how the Queen really reacted to Di's death. This very same year the Labor Party in Britain swept the new modernist Prime Minister, Tony Blair, into power and we also get to go into his home and see how he dealt with the tragic and traumatic events...and with the Queen herself.
I had high hopes for this movie when I sat down to watch...Queen Elizabeth (Helen Mirren - "Calendar Girls" (2003) - "Raising Helen" (2004) - "Shadowboxer" (2005) - "Prime Suspect: the Final Act" (2006) watching her "Telly" with her husband Phillip…making disparaging remarks about how the press was making a mockery of tradition by prying inappropriately into Diana Spencer's life and death. After all, when she divorced Charles she was no longer a Royal...the nerve of her...and dating that Arab Dodi...and in Paris...we must not at all involve ourselves in that circus.
But suddenly the spectacle became a passion play with the out of touch and uncaring Royals snubbing the beautiful iconic Lady Di...and the New Prime Minister, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen - "Mary Reilly" (1996) - "Lost in France" (1998) - "Dirty Filthy Love" (2004) - "Blood Diamond" (2006) in the hot seat to save them from themselves.
Blair, through his admiration for the Queen and his adamant political savvy, ends up forcing her to not only fly the flag over Buckingham Palace at half mast, read a semi-heartfelt message on camera to the whole world...but to actually attend the funeral with the millions of common folks.
In the end, whether she does these things because she actually cares or because it is politically expedient, we must judge ourselves. And as for Tony (the Poodle) Blair...he seems to gain a great respect for the Queen, knowing what it took for her to step off her God ordained throne of a thousand years, and break with tradition.
Of course Helen Mirren is magnificent in any role she assumes (I just watched her play a "Hit Woman" in a horrible movie called "Shadowboxer" (2005) with Cuba Gooding Jr.) and she may get considered for an Oscar...but this was not a stretch for her…playing a righteous and dowdy royal seemed almost easy...and she was excellent but it was by no means brilliant (she was brilliant in "Prime Suspect, the Final Act" (2006).
"GOD SAVE THE QUEEN...SHE AIN'T NO HUMAN BEING"
Purple Gene gives "The Queen" 7 royal Welsh Corgi dogs out of 10 for being rather droll, dry and domestic. ("Rotten Tomatoes" gave this movie 98%...wrong).
CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes', followed by a FRESH'Amazing Race 10', then FRESH'Cold Case', followed by a FRESH'Without A Trace'.
NBC fills the night with LIVE'Sunday Night Football', then pads the left coast with local crap and maybe an old 'Dateline'.
ABC begins the night with a FRESH'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by a FRESH'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition', then a FRESH'Desperate Housewives', followed by a FRESH'Brothers & Sisters'.
The CW here has LIVE'NBA Basketball' with the Magic visiting the Clips, followed by a FRESH'America's Next Top Model'.
Faux has a RERUN'Nanny 911', followed by a FRESH'Simpsons', then a FRESH'American Dad', followed a FRESH'Family Guy', then a FRESH'War At Home'.
MY has the movie 'Posse', followed by the movie 'Fatal Reunion'.
A&E has 'Flip This House', another 'Flip This House', 'Intervention', and another 'Intervention'.
AMC offers the movie 'Three Men And A Little Lady', followed by the movie 'Miracle On 34th Street', then the movie 'Miracle On 34th Street', again.
BBC -
[2:00 pm Best of BBC AMERICA - Drama;
[3:00 pm Best of BBC AMERICA - Drama;
[4:00 pm Best of BBC AMERICA - Drama;
[5:00 pm Best of BBC AMERICA - Drama;
[6:00 pm Best of BBC AMERICA - Drama;
[7:00 pm Best of BBC AMERICA - Drama;
[8:00 pm Cash in the Attic - Stride;
[9:00 pm Gordon Ramsay's F Word - Episode 7;
[10:00 pm Footballers Wives Overtime;
[11:00 pm Cash in the Attic - Stride;
[12:00 am Gordon Ramsay's F Word - Episode 7;
[1:00 am Footballers Wives Overtime - Episode 5;
[2:00 am Cash in the Attic - Stride;
[3:00 am Mile High - Episode 14;
[4:00 am Mile High - Episode 15;
[5:00 am Mile High - Episode 16;
[6:00 am BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has the movie 'Braveheart', followed by the movie 'Braveheart', again.
Comedy Central has the movie 'National Lampoon's Van Wilder', followed by the movie 'My Boss's Daughter', 'Chappelle's Show', and another 'Chappelle's Show'.
History has 'Beyond Top Secret', 'Inside The Volcano', and 'American Vesuvius'.
IFC -
[06:50 AM Sweet and Lowdown;
[08:30 AM Fires on the Plain;
[10:20 AM Black Orpheus;
[12:10 PM Le Jour Se Leve;
[01:40 PM Sweet and Lowdown;
[03:20 PM Fires on the Plain;
[05:10 PM Black Orpheus;
[07:00 PM The Weight of Water;
[09:00 PM Fall Time;
[10:30 PM Blood Guts Bullets & Octane;
[12:00 AM Ash Wednesday;
[01:40 AM The Weight of Water;
[03:35 AM December Media Lab Results;
[03:50 AM Fall Time;
[05:25 AM Blood Guts Bullets & Octane. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Jeepers Creepers', followed by the movie 'Jeepers Creepers II', then 'SCI FI Investigates'.
Sundance -
[07:00 AM] Hermitage-niks: A Passion for the Hermitage: Episode 1 - A Glimmer in the Eye;
[07:30 AM] Dark Water;
[09:15 AM] The Origins of AIDS;
[11:00 AM] Iconoclasts Season 2: Episode 6: Dave Chappelle + Maya Angelou;
[12:00 PM] The Best Man;
[01:45 PM] Resonance;
[02:00 PM] House of Boateng: Episode 8;
[02:30 PM] The Hill: Episode 3: Putting In My Two Cents;
[03:00 PM] Kath & Kim - Season 3: Sitting on a Pile;
[03:30 PM] Hermitage-niks: A Passion for the Hermitage: Episode 1 - A Glimmer in the Eye;
[04:00 PM] Iconoclasts Season 2: Episode 1: Eddie Vedder + Laird Hamilton;
[04:45 PM] Iconoclasts Season 2: Episode 2: Mikhail Baryshnikov + Alice Waters;
[05:30 PM] Iconoclasts Season 2: Episode 3: Quentin Tarantino + Fiona Apple;
[06:15 PM] Iconoclasts Season 2: Episode 4: Isabella Rossellini + Dean Kamen;
[07:00 PM] Iconoclasts Season 2: Episode 5: Paul Simon + Lorne Michaels;
[07:45 PM] Iconoclasts Season 2: Episode 6: Dave Chappelle + Maya Angelou;
[08:30 PM] Harvie Krumpet directed by Adam Elliott;
[09:00 PM] House of Boateng: Episode 8;
[09:30 PM] Kath & Kim - Season 3: Sitting on a Pile;
[10:00 PM] Joe Gould's Secret;
[12:00 AM] Dark Water;
[01:45 AM] Kika;
[03:45 AM] Vampyros Lesbos;
[05:15 AM] The Best Man. (ALL TIMES EST)
The German film "The Lives of Others" ("Das Leben der Anderen") won the best picture award Saturday at the 19th annual European Film Awards, while director Roman Polanski was honoured with a lifetime achievement award in the country of his childhood.
The film also picked up two more awards, with best actor award going to German Ulrich Muehe, who played the part of party loyalist Gerd Wiesler. The best screenwriter award went to Florian Henckel von Donnersmark, also the director.
The best director's award, however, went to Spaniard Pedro Almodovar for "Volver," a comic drama that explores the culture of death in La Mancha - Almodovar's hometown - through three generations of strong women surviving without men.
Fellow Spaniard Penelope Cruz was chosen best actress for her leading role in "Volver."
Maybe it should be called the Resurrection Party of the Century. In a bid to raise money for writers and poets displaced by Hurricane Katrina, a fledgling group of writers ladled up some haute couture in the Crescent City by staging a re-enactment of Truman Capote's 1966 extravaganza, the Black and White Ball.
There have been other attempts at re-creating the Party of the Century, as the "Tiny Terror's" 1966 masked ball at the Plaza Hotel in New York City has been called, but this one was particularly unusual, and eerie, because it brought the celebrated writer's life full circle.
The date and time for this year's ball was 8 p.m., Nov. 28, 2006, 40 years to the day and nearly the hour of Capote's blowout to celebrate the publication of his masterpiece, "In Cold Blood," which had vaulted him into the heavens of the rich and famous.
Comedian Lewis Black, a cast member in 'Unaccompanied Minors', poses at the premiere of the film in Los Angeles December 2, 2006.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
British author Salman Rushdie no longer fears for his life because of the death threats issued against him by Islamic clerics in response to his book "The Satanic Verses" nearly 20 years ago, he has said in Portugal.
"I don't know what the Iranians think of me except for the fact that at one point they wanted to kill me and now they don't seem as interested," he told a conference in Portugal's second-city Oporto, daily newspaper Publico reported Saturday.
Rushdie was forced into hiding for a decade after Iran's late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or opinion on Islamic law, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because the book allegedly insulted Islam.
In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support but could not rescind the fatwa.
The Emmy-winning executive producer of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," Comedy Central's two satirical news shows, will leave his jobs with the network at the end of the month.
Ben Karlin, who joined Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" in 1999, decided that the grind of working on both shows was too much after seven years, said Doug Herzog, the president of Comedy Central.
Karlin, 35, shared the 2005 Thurber Prize for American Humor with his successor at "The Daily Show," David Javerbaum, and Stewart for their book, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction."
Gwen Stefani received some jolting news this week while in Toronto to promote her sophomore solo album, "The Sweet Escape," due in stores next Tuesday.
The pop superstar and her baby arrived in the city from the U.K. on a British Airways jet Tuesday, and later learned that traces of radiation that recently killed a former Russian spy had been found in some of the airline's jets.
"We might have radiation too," Stefani, 37, said with a slight grin when asked about the revelation in an interview on Thursday, her last day in the city. "No, I'm just kidding. I hope not."
It's not the first time the front woman for ska-punk outfit No Doubt, known for her signature red lipstick and platinum-blond hair, has faced drama while trying to visit fans in Canada.
'Unaccompanied Minors' producer Lauren Shuler Donner (L) and her husband Richard Donner pose together at the premiere of the film in Los Angeles December 2, 2006.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
Hotel heiress Paris Hilton canceled an appearance at next week's Billboard Music Awards because she didn't like the jokes written for her, according to a spokesman.
"It is my understanding that some satirical references ridiculed some of her peers," her spokesman, Elliot Mintz, said in a statement. "Paris did not want to say anything that could appear hurtful or embarassing about people she knows."
Mintz said Hilton received a script Friday that contained material she found "objectionable." Representatives for Hilton and the awards show could not come to an agreement about the script's content so she decided to scrap the appearance, he said.
Yale University, famous for its Gothic buildings, is showing off a newly restored jewel that marked the beginning of its modern era.
The Ivy League university has completed a $44 million restoration of the main building of its art gallery that was designed by legendary architect Louis Kahn, who designed the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. The Chapel Street building, which opened in 1953, was Yale's first modernist structure and marked a radical break from the neo-Gothic character of much of the campus.
It was also Kahn's first masterpiece, acclaimed for its bold use of space and light highlighted by a spiraling staircase and a huge glass wall that spans the entire side of the building.
A church group that protests at military funerals around the country will be barred from services for an American Indian soldier on a reservation, tribal officials say.
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., planned to demonstrate at National Guard Cpl. Nathan Goodiron's funeral on Saturday at the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.
Tribal leaders passed a resolution Friday that prohibits the group from protesting on the reservation, said Marcus Wells Jr., chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes.
"We don't get into anyone's private area," said Shirley Phelps-Roper, the church's attorney and its spokesliar. "We don't go on private land."
Dolly Parton, one of this year's Kennedy Center honorees, arrives at the State Department in Washington for a dinner hosted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2006. Parton's best known songs, 'Coat of Many Colors', 'Jolene', and 'I Will Always Love You', recall her Appalachian upbringing and have made her country music's most celebrated woman. Along with Parton, singer Smokey Robinson, film director Stephen Spielberg, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and conductor Zubin Mehta are being recognized for performing arts contributions to American culture.
Photo by J. Scott Applewhite
City leaders have apologized after a program on Tempe's cable channel showed a white police officer telling two black men they could get out of a littering ticket by performing a rap.
Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman and Police Chief Tom Ryff apologized for the show Thursday and suspended its future production after black community leaders voiced outrage and disappointment.
The segment appeared on "Tempe StreetBeat," a program produced by police in the Phoenix suburb that followed several officers on patrol. It shows Sgt. Chuck Schoville pulling over two men in August in a mall parking lot.
The officer then tells the men that they can avoid getting a littering ticket "if the two of you just do a little rap about - what do you want to do a rap about? Littering? About the dangers of littering."
Calligrapher Kizan Kakinuma writes a Chinese poem from an ancient script on a wall during the Design Festa at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo December 2, 2006. The freestyle international event runs from December 2-3, and gives artists from around the world an opportunity to showcase their work.
Photo by Kiyoshi Ota
What do remote-control garage door openers have to do with national security? A secretive Air Force facility in Colorado Springs tested a radio frequency this past week that it would use to communicate with first responders in the event of a homeland security threat. But the frequency also controls an estimated 50 million garage door openers, and hundreds of residents in the area found that theirs had suddenly stopped working.
The signals were coming from Cheyenne Mountain Air Station, home to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S. and Canadian operation set up during the Cold War to monitor Soviet missile and bomber threats.
Technically, the Air Force has the right to the frequency, which it began using nearly three years ago at some bases. Signals have previously interfered with garage doors near bases in Florida, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
A woman shows her neck tattoos at the Lisbon Tatoo Convention in Lisbon December 1, 2006. The second Lisbon Tattoo Convention start on Friday with dozens of artists showing and doing their creations over the weekend. Picture taken December 1, 2006.
Photo by Jose Manuel Ribeiro
Scientists who spent nearly a month in a fruitless search for a Chinese river dolphin that is more endangered than the Giant Panda say there may be no more than 50 left alive, the Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.
The Baiji, also known as the Yangtze dolphin, only lives in China's longest river but a 26-day, 1,700-km (1,060-mile) hunt by Chinese and foreign experts failed to find any of the mammals.
The last expedition in 1997 found only 13 of the dolphins, which have suffered from pollution, overfishing, shipping and dams and other water diversions along the river.
A man has special make-up put on his face during the Design Festa at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo December 2, 2006. The freestyle international event runs from December 2-3, and gives artists from around the world an opportunity to showcase their work.
Photo by Kiyoshi Ota
The final chapter is closed on Dewey Readmore Books. The 19-year-old cat, who became a mascot for the city's library after being found in a book drop, died Wednesday in the arms of librarian Vicki Myron.
The temperature was minus 10 when Myron and another librarian found Dewey under a pile of books in the library's book drop when they came to work one morning in January 1988.
"We didn't know if someone abandoned him or if a Good Samaritan found him on the street and shoved him in the book drop to get him out of the cold," she said. "His paws were frozen. We warmed him up and fed him and he just purred and cuddled. From day one, we felt he'd be the right personality for the public."
Mariska Veres, singer for the Dutch group Shocking Blue who had a worldwide hit with their song "Venus" in 1970, died aged 59, Dutch media reported.
Veres died from cancer. In 1970 "Venus" reached the top of the American music charts but Shocking Blue did not have any other success that matched their big hit. The group split up in 1974.
Their song "Venus" would go on to make it to number one in the American Billboard chart two more times: in 1981 by cover band Stars on 45 and in 1986 in a version by girlband Bananarama.
In the late 1980s Shocking Blue also served as an inspiration for grunge band Nirvana who covered the band's song "Love Buzz" on their 1989 debut album Bleach.
In this image released by Shelton Brothers, the design for a beer bottle label is shown. In a complaint filed in U.S. District, Shelton Brothers accuses the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement of censorship for denying applications for labels for Santa's Butt Winter Porter and two other beers it wants to sell in Maine. The episode is reminiscent of last year when Connecticut told Shelton Brothers it had problems with its Seriously Bad Elf ale.
Photo by Shelton Brothers
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