“Twice over the next few years Danny was set upon by other kids in the neighborhood. Once they stole his cell phone; he called home from a subway station, and when his father came to retrieve him, he found Danny so shaken up that he was in a huddle, his arms wrapped around himself. Another time, a group of boys tried to rob him, but he got away, called the cops, and drove around with them to track down his assailants. When he discovered how young they were, he declined to press charges, saying he worried that a conviction might harm their futures.”
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“In 2011 Ed kept the Labour Party together, avoiding the splits it suffered in 1931, 1951 and 1979. However, he has not broken through. He has flickered rather than shone, nudged not led. It is time for him to bring the gifts that only he can bring. He should leave behind stale orthodoxies and trust his instinct that change is essential. He must show the kind of courage needed to steer the ship of state through uncharted waters. Now is the time for leadership and action. So far Ed has honoured his responsibilities but has not exerted his power. It is time that he did so. And we all need to show him love and support in return. I’m backing Ed Miliband.”
Leveson inquiry should address media sexism, argue women’s groups
They are calling for mandatory training for journalists on the law over reporting violence against women, the scale of violence against women and “clear sanctions for journalists who break the law”.
They also call for greater responsibility from editors and a public debate on “the daily publishing of pornography” in the Sun and the Star and a strong, independent press complaints regulatory system to replace the Press Complaints Commission.
“At the moment the PCC offers us no justice,” said Sarah Green of EVAW. “Women’s organisations have no confidence in it and have stopped using it. We need a revamped PCC which has teeth which women and women’s organisations can use. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. If it is not taken it will be a huge waste.”
Read the article in full here.
“The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”: How anger took political elites by surprise
2011 was a good year for protest and a bad year for government. 2012 will be a good year for both if our political leaders can figure out the connection.
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This year of mass defiance wrong-footed those who were supposed to be in the know. The experts had thought the Arabs were getting richer and were too scared of their autocrats, that the Russians were apathetic and quite liked their neo-czar, that the Indian middle class was politically disengaged, that West Europeans were too old for outrage, that Americans didn’t care about the class divide and that the Chinese comrades were too effective at suppressing dissent.But everywhere, the conventional wisdom was turned upside down by people who turned out to be angrier than their elites had suspected, and better able to channel that dissatisfaction into mass protest and even revolution.
Read the article in full here, and check out my own article on technology’s impact on Africa here.
Dial-A-Poem
Poet Heather Christle is launching her new collection by offering readers the opportunity to give her a call and hear her read a poem.
The American author, whose poems have appeared in the New Yorker, has just published her second collection, The Trees The Trees, and rather than relying on the usual publicity tour, has decided instead to list her phone number on her website. At set times every day until 14 July she will read a poem to anyone who calls her.
“The book itself is full of references to phones and phone calls, and the speaker often seems to mistake the technology of the page for that of the telephone, imagining that the reader is right there in the moment,” said Christle. “My father is a merchant mariner, and when my sister and I were small we would record messages to him on cassette tapes. I’d often ask questions and then pause for his response. There’s something so lovely and sad about the hope that another actual person is on the other end of any technology. So I thought it would be interesting to bring that dynamic forward, to read these poems (which frequently address a ‘you’) directly to another person, across the intimate distance a telephone creates.”So far she has received around 60 calls, from a multitude of different readers, from a couple from Toronto looking for a love poem to a class in western Massachusetts.
“I didn’t feel particularly anxious ahead of time. I trust poetry to make good things happen, and so far that’s been the case. When I was writing these poems I so often had this mysterious ‘you’ just in front of me, just behind the page. When people call it’s as if that imagined figure has suddenly come to life.”
(Source)
Is Rafa Nadal guilty of ‘diving’?
Just last year at Wimbledon, in the third round, Nadal called for the trainer on numerous occasions en route to a bumpy five-set victory yet never appeared injured, a tactic his opponent characterized after the match as “pretty clever.” He did the same thing to disrupt Federer’s rhythm during the first set of this year’s French Open final. In each instance the timing was impeccable, and unsportsmanlike.
Then there’s the excessive time he routinely takes between points during his service games, the illegal coaching he routinely receives from his uncle/coach from the stands. If he’s taken to task for such gamesmanship by the umpire, he appears genuinely offended and throws a tirade. I don’t believe this is mere cynicism on Nadal’s part. It is, rather, a confusing clash of codes. Being Spanish, he is a product of a sporting culture that exalts the opportunist and rewards him for his shrewd manipulation of the rules, within certain bounds. To be a great athlete, in this paradigm, is not incommensurate with exploiting every loophole.
From NYMag. Not sure how much I agree with this. I do think there is a difference between Spanish and American ‘sporting’ ethics, but I don’t think real dishonesty is that much more tolerated in Spain. What Nadal does, anyway, I wouldn’t call cheating; it’s gamemanship, sure, tactical - but surely every professional sportsman at the top of any sport has learned certain ways of doing things in order to give themselves a little advantage? He’s not explicitly breaking the rules, nor is he being malicious. His opponents could freely do the same. Besides, Rafa’s one of the best tennis players in the world (if not the best) for a reason, and it’s not because of well-scheduled medical breaks.
![Mystery Sculptor Leaves Intricate Paper Creations Across EdinburghScenes inspired by author Ian Rankin’s Rebus series have been created out of paper and left in various locations across the city.
Cut from the pages of a book, models were left at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse Cinema and the National Library of Scotland last week. The Filmhouse creation is a model of a cinema, with a tiny paper Rankin sitting in the audience drinking a bottle of Deuchars and warriors on horseback leaping from the screen.
The National Library, meanwhile, received a model of a coffin and a gramophone sculpted from a copy of Rankin’s novel Exit Music. A note left with the Filmhouse’s model read “For @filmhouse – a gift – In support of Libraries, Books, Words, Ideas … & All things *magic*”, while a quote from Francis Ford Coppola, “I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated”, was cut and pasted onto the model.
[…]
Jenny Leask, the Filmhouse’s programme and marketing coordinator, said the cinema’s model had been left in the box office. “We’ve no idea who it was. It seems to be someone who supports arts and libraries in particular. But I don’t really want to know who it is. They’ve gone to so much effort to be anonymous and I want to respect that.”
Read the article in full here.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnlv486xad1qlvoyro1_500.jpg)
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Mystery Sculptor Leaves Intricate Paper Creations Across Edinburgh
Scenes inspired by author Ian Rankin’s Rebus series have been created out of paper and left in various locations across the city.
Cut from the pages of a book, models were left at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse Cinema and the National Library of Scotland last week. The Filmhouse creation is a model of a cinema, with a tiny paper Rankin sitting in the audience drinking a bottle of Deuchars and warriors on horseback leaping from the screen.
The National Library, meanwhile, received a model of a coffin and a gramophone sculpted from a copy of Rankin’s novel Exit Music. A note left with the Filmhouse’s model read “For @filmhouse – a gift – In support of Libraries, Books, Words, Ideas … & All things *magic*”, while a quote from Francis Ford Coppola, “I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated”, was cut and pasted onto the model.
[…]
Jenny Leask, the Filmhouse’s programme and marketing coordinator, said the cinema’s model had been left in the box office. “We’ve no idea who it was. It seems to be someone who supports arts and libraries in particular. But I don’t really want to know who it is. They’ve gone to so much effort to be anonymous and I want to respect that.”
Read the article in full here.
He falters when asked about the process of getting into character. This is possibly his least favourite question. He is vague about the experience of playing one of six Bob Dylans in the Todd Haynes film I’m Not There, but says it’s great when he’s turned on by the material: he loved getting into Dylan’s poetic side (he plays the singer as Arthur Rimbaud) and became completely immersed in Keats before playing the poet in Jane Campion’s Bright Star. But how does he unlock a character? He must think about it just a little bit? He looks scared. “I really don’t!” Is it about being good at empathy? “I’m just curious about how other people look at things. I’m definitely interested in how everyone carries around a universe. But once I’ve finished a role I tend to let it go completely – I can’t remember much about it.”
Read the profile of Ben Whishaw in full here. One of my favourite actors, and criminally under-rated.
