April 30, 2009
USA: Senators Decry Flipping Of Life Insurance Policies
.
WASHINGTON, DC / The Washington Post / Business / Personal Finance / April 30, 2009
By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
A full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune invited people age 50 to 85 to come hear football great Mike Ditka and learn "WHY WALL STREET WANTS TO BUY YOUR LIFE INSURANCE POLICY."
The ad shows how a murky and potentially risky market for life insurance has been pitched to vulnerable consumers, an Illinois regulator told a Senate panel yesterday.
Members of the Senate Special Committee on Aging yesterday expressed concern about dangers for senior citizens from what the hearing agenda described as "Betting on Death in the Life Settlement Market." Panel Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) said selling a life insurance policy to investors "can be fraught with possible hidden pitfalls."
Investors have discovered that there is money to be made from buying people's life insurance policies, paying the premiums, and collecting the eventual death benefits. The investors offer policyholders more than they could collect from the insurance companies for surrendering the policy. And in the case of policies that have no surrender value, they enable consumers to liquidate policies for cash instead of simply allowing coverage to lapse.
The strategy can pay off for investors because insurers price coverage on the assumption that many policyholders will stop paying premiums before any death benefits are triggered. By targeting people who aren't expected to live long, and keeping the policies in force until the insured dies, investors can beat insurers at their own game.
Much of the criticism at yesterday's hearing focused on a variant of the strategy in which promoters offer senior citizens enticements to take out policies just to flip them to investors. Seniors who do that "may not know that they are participating in insurance fraud," Kohl said.
Prudential discovered last year that, after Ohio passed a law prohibiting so-called stranger-originated life insurance, a 74-year-old woman was driven from her home in Cleveland to Pittsburgh to sign an insurance application, Prudential executive James Avery told the committee. The woman, who lived on Social Security and had a net worth of $2,000, was shocked and frightened when she learned from Prudential investigators that the policy had a death benefit of $9 million, he said.
It isn't clear how widespread such practices are today. The Tribune ad cited by the Illinois director of insurance, Michael T. McRaith, appeared in 2007. The firm that ran the ad, Phillip Roy Financial Services, wasn't involved in stranger-originated life insurance and never completed a conventional life settlement because it was "too late to the party" when the credit markets froze, company President Phillip Wasserman said in an interview.
© 2009 The Washington Post Company
USA: Death of Samuel Beer, Professor of the Old School, at Age 97
.
NEW YORK, NY / The Economist / April 30, 2009
OBITUARY
Samuel Beer,
Harvard professor of the old school, died on April 7, aged 97
“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
—Lewis Carroll
HIS hair turned no whiter than a pale auburn, and he was never caught standing on his head, but even in his advanced years Sam Beer continued to surprise—by playing the harmonica in bravura style, for example, or by coming 13th in a skydiving competition among 250 contestants half his age. The vitality that sparkled most brightly, though, was that of the mind. When Harvard's grandest political scientists gathered last year to brief alumni on their activities, the former chairman of the department, then a mere 96, was asked to make a few comments about the study of government during his tenure from 1946 to 1982.
Samuel Beer. Harvard University
“He completely stole the show,” said one. Speaking without notes, remembering everyone and everything, he upstaged all the incumbent professors.
Mr Beer was a formidable scholar, the author of countless articles and several books. The best of these, “British Politics in the Collectivist Age”, picked apart the country in which he had studied before the war and established him as the foremost authority on modern British politics (which was the title of the British edition). He wrote two other books on Britain, one on the Treasury and one on what he called “the decline of civic culture” or, more politely, “the rise of the new populism”. He also analysed his own country, notably in a book that examined the creation of the American nation through the twin lenses of history and political theory.
These were the disciplines that most excited Mr Beer, and that he in turn made exciting to his students. And this he did even better than pursuing scholarship. For 30 years undergraduates rolled up in droves to Soc Sci 2, his course on Western thought and institutions, taking them from 12th-century England through the Puritan and French revolutions to the great age of reform in Britain and the Nazi catastrophe. Tall, confident, self-interrogatory, Mr Beer would engage his students in an exercise of argument and counter-argument that might leave them unsure of exactly what he believed, but not of his status as a professorial superstar.
As it happened, they had probably heard about what he believed. Mr Beer was born in the small Ohio town of Bucyrus, to a family that took both politics and history seriously. His mother had died when he was a child, and he grew up among men who had fought in the civil war; an uncle had been killed in the Spanish-American war. Perhaps sensing that Sam would enjoy an early brush with power, his father took him at the age of ten to meet Warren Harding in the White House. Fifteen years later, after a spell at Balliol College, Oxford, on a Rhodes scholarship, he was working for the Democratic Party in Washington and helping to write speeches for Franklin Roosevelt. He took no credit for any memorable phrases. “In fact, I opposed the ‘rendez-vous with destiny’ speech [FDR’s 1936 acceptance address] because it seemed pretty corny,” he said.
The triumph of teaching
His own war led to a bronze star won in Normandy and a job interviewing defeated Germans. What, he wanted to know, was a good Nazi? Why was there no underground? Back home, political theory regained the upper hand, and he started his long teaching career at Harvard. But he did not give up political practice entirely. From 1959 to 1962 he was chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, a lobbying group unashamed to call itself liberal, in the Rooseveltian sense of politically progressive. He later served on the McGovern-Fraser commission, which was charged with drawing up new delegate-selection rules after the disastrous Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968. The result was the disastrous Democratic convention of 1972.
More satisfying was Mr Beer’s association with the Kennedys. He was a friend of Jack’s and an energetic supporter of Ted’s. But unlike many Harvard professors, including some, such as Henry Kissinger, who had been his students, he never went back to work in Washington.
Mr Beer believed in teaching, as some 10,000 students can attest. In this, as in other matters, he was old-fashioned. He was an American liberal who found much that he liked in European liberalism, whether it was in the theories of T.H. Green, who believed the state had an enabling role to play in a liberal society, or the ideas of Jo Grimond, a Balliol contemporary who led the British Liberal Party 50 years ago. And the proper vehicles for politics, he thought, were parties, not single-issue groups, companies or trade unions. He liked student revolt even less: the classroom was the place to learn about politics, not to engage in it. He lamented the weakening of parties, in both America and Britain. And Parliament also needed strengthening, he believed. It should borrow from the committee system of Congress. Eventually it did.
This was far from his only piece of good sense. Charming, generous and always welcoming to visitors and students, he long harboured a deep suspicion about banks. For a while he had no car, or radio, or bank account. “I didn’t want them to make a dime out of me,” he explained, “so I put my $5 a week in postal savings.”
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009
HIS hair turned no whiter than a pale auburn, and he was never caught standing on his head, but even in his advanced years Sam Beer continued to surprise—by playing the harmonica in bravura style, for example, or by coming 13th in a skydiving competition among 250 contestants half his age. The vitality that sparkled most brightly, though, was that of the mind. When Harvard's grandest political scientists gathered last year to brief alumni on their activities, the former chairman of the department, then a mere 96, was asked to make a few comments about the study of government during his tenure from 1946 to 1982.
Samuel Beer. Harvard University
“He completely stole the show,” said one. Speaking without notes, remembering everyone and everything, he upstaged all the incumbent professors.
Mr Beer was a formidable scholar, the author of countless articles and several books. The best of these, “British Politics in the Collectivist Age”, picked apart the country in which he had studied before the war and established him as the foremost authority on modern British politics (which was the title of the British edition). He wrote two other books on Britain, one on the Treasury and one on what he called “the decline of civic culture” or, more politely, “the rise of the new populism”. He also analysed his own country, notably in a book that examined the creation of the American nation through the twin lenses of history and political theory.
These were the disciplines that most excited Mr Beer, and that he in turn made exciting to his students. And this he did even better than pursuing scholarship. For 30 years undergraduates rolled up in droves to Soc Sci 2, his course on Western thought and institutions, taking them from 12th-century England through the Puritan and French revolutions to the great age of reform in Britain and the Nazi catastrophe. Tall, confident, self-interrogatory, Mr Beer would engage his students in an exercise of argument and counter-argument that might leave them unsure of exactly what he believed, but not of his status as a professorial superstar.
As it happened, they had probably heard about what he believed. Mr Beer was born in the small Ohio town of Bucyrus, to a family that took both politics and history seriously. His mother had died when he was a child, and he grew up among men who had fought in the civil war; an uncle had been killed in the Spanish-American war. Perhaps sensing that Sam would enjoy an early brush with power, his father took him at the age of ten to meet Warren Harding in the White House. Fifteen years later, after a spell at Balliol College, Oxford, on a Rhodes scholarship, he was working for the Democratic Party in Washington and helping to write speeches for Franklin Roosevelt. He took no credit for any memorable phrases. “In fact, I opposed the ‘rendez-vous with destiny’ speech [FDR’s 1936 acceptance address] because it seemed pretty corny,” he said.
The triumph of teaching
His own war led to a bronze star won in Normandy and a job interviewing defeated Germans. What, he wanted to know, was a good Nazi? Why was there no underground? Back home, political theory regained the upper hand, and he started his long teaching career at Harvard. But he did not give up political practice entirely. From 1959 to 1962 he was chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, a lobbying group unashamed to call itself liberal, in the Rooseveltian sense of politically progressive. He later served on the McGovern-Fraser commission, which was charged with drawing up new delegate-selection rules after the disastrous Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968. The result was the disastrous Democratic convention of 1972.
More satisfying was Mr Beer’s association with the Kennedys. He was a friend of Jack’s and an energetic supporter of Ted’s. But unlike many Harvard professors, including some, such as Henry Kissinger, who had been his students, he never went back to work in Washington.
Mr Beer believed in teaching, as some 10,000 students can attest. In this, as in other matters, he was old-fashioned. He was an American liberal who found much that he liked in European liberalism, whether it was in the theories of T.H. Green, who believed the state had an enabling role to play in a liberal society, or the ideas of Jo Grimond, a Balliol contemporary who led the British Liberal Party 50 years ago. And the proper vehicles for politics, he thought, were parties, not single-issue groups, companies or trade unions. He liked student revolt even less: the classroom was the place to learn about politics, not to engage in it. He lamented the weakening of parties, in both America and Britain. And Parliament also needed strengthening, he believed. It should borrow from the committee system of Congress. Eventually it did.
This was far from his only piece of good sense. Charming, generous and always welcoming to visitors and students, he long harboured a deep suspicion about banks. For a while he had no car, or radio, or bank account. “I didn’t want them to make a dime out of me,” he explained, “so I put my $5 a week in postal savings.”
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009
USA: At the age of 82, Joe Paterno is turning back the clock
.
WASHINGTON DC / USA Today / Sports / College Football / April 30, 2009
Penn State coach Joe Paterno laughs during
a news conference before the Blue and White
spring college football scrimmage at Penn State
in April. After offseason hip surgery, JoePa is
feeling great. By Carolyn Kaster, AP
By Kelly Whiteside, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — College football can rest easy. At 82, after a season of great physical pain, just when it appeared time had caught up with him, Penn State coach Joe Paterno has seemingly turned back the clock once again.
"I feel great," he told a small group of reporters before speaking at an alumni event billed as an "Evening with Joe," Thursday night at The Plaza, the swank hotel just off Central Park which is almost as big a city landmark as the coach himself.
Before he had hip replacement surgery Nov. 23, Paterno said even getting out of bed was difficult. Since Paterno doesn't like to take medicine, there was little relief. He said he could barely spend more than an hour or two in the office.
"Last year all I did was supervise. I was more of an observer," Paterno said of his 11-2 team that lost to Southern California in the Rose Bowl. "I have a heck of a staff. Those two years I didn't do much. Last year we had a pretty good football team, and I didn't do much."
This spring, instead of riding around in a golf cart at practice, he was on the field, walking and well, much more. "I can grab the kids and say you can't do it that way, and I can look them in the eye and that's part of the fun of the game to be able to have an impact on the pace of the practice the timing of it, the enthusiasm and all those kinds of things were the things that I missed, so I enjoyed the spring. ... This year has been a fun year for me."
Paterno spent 40 minutes discussing a variety of topics from, once dating Joe Torre's older sister, now a nun, ("a little chubby, but cute," was the scouting report) to the bright young coaches in the game ("the kid at Florida, the kid at Northwestern, the kid at TCU.").
•Paterno on recently being fined by the Rose Bowl for failing to give ABC a pregame interview and refusing to open his locker room to reporters after the game.
"I'm really annoyed with the Rose Bowl," Paterno said. He said because he was "hobbling along trying to get in the press box," he didn't want to do a TV interview or put his assistant coaches on the spot to fill in for him. As for the post-game locker room: "I have never had an open locker room. … If you let the men in you have to let the women in, I don't want a whole bunch of women walking around in my locker room. The players take showers, are horsing around. … It's our game. It's not your (the news media's) game. I don't mean that in an adversary way, it's our football team. When we lose, we want to cry a little bit or maybe there's some guy in the corner, griping he didn't get the ball and all of sudden someone sticks a microphone in your face."
•A question noting that the last Northeast team to win a national championship was Penn State in 1986 led Paterno to the topic of adding a 12th team, one in the northeast, to the Big Ten: "I tried to tell some of the Big Ten people, let's get another team from the east, Syracuse, Rutgers or Pitt." He then added possibly even Boston College.
The Big Ten's reaction, he said: "It's a conference that's dominated by a couple of people. I start talking and they're polite but they snicker."
•Paterno also defending Florida State coach Bobby Bowden in the face of NCAA penalties that could cause him to forfeit 14 victories for using ineligible players. The 79-year-old Bowden has 382 victories to 383 for Paterno, major college's winningest coach.
"My feeling is Bobby coached the team he had and won, ok? He oughta get credit for wins. I think that's ridiculous to take x number of games from him," Paterno said. "Bobby is a good guy and a great coach and to have to put up with that nonsense really bothers me."
Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Penn State coach Joe Paterno laughs during
a news conference before the Blue and White
spring college football scrimmage at Penn State
in April. After offseason hip surgery, JoePa is
feeling great. By Carolyn Kaster, AP
By Kelly Whiteside, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — College football can rest easy. At 82, after a season of great physical pain, just when it appeared time had caught up with him, Penn State coach Joe Paterno has seemingly turned back the clock once again.
"I feel great," he told a small group of reporters before speaking at an alumni event billed as an "Evening with Joe," Thursday night at The Plaza, the swank hotel just off Central Park which is almost as big a city landmark as the coach himself.
Before he had hip replacement surgery Nov. 23, Paterno said even getting out of bed was difficult. Since Paterno doesn't like to take medicine, there was little relief. He said he could barely spend more than an hour or two in the office.
"Last year all I did was supervise. I was more of an observer," Paterno said of his 11-2 team that lost to Southern California in the Rose Bowl. "I have a heck of a staff. Those two years I didn't do much. Last year we had a pretty good football team, and I didn't do much."
This spring, instead of riding around in a golf cart at practice, he was on the field, walking and well, much more. "I can grab the kids and say you can't do it that way, and I can look them in the eye and that's part of the fun of the game to be able to have an impact on the pace of the practice the timing of it, the enthusiasm and all those kinds of things were the things that I missed, so I enjoyed the spring. ... This year has been a fun year for me."
Paterno spent 40 minutes discussing a variety of topics from, once dating Joe Torre's older sister, now a nun, ("a little chubby, but cute," was the scouting report) to the bright young coaches in the game ("the kid at Florida, the kid at Northwestern, the kid at TCU.").
•Paterno on recently being fined by the Rose Bowl for failing to give ABC a pregame interview and refusing to open his locker room to reporters after the game.
"I'm really annoyed with the Rose Bowl," Paterno said. He said because he was "hobbling along trying to get in the press box," he didn't want to do a TV interview or put his assistant coaches on the spot to fill in for him. As for the post-game locker room: "I have never had an open locker room. … If you let the men in you have to let the women in, I don't want a whole bunch of women walking around in my locker room. The players take showers, are horsing around. … It's our game. It's not your (the news media's) game. I don't mean that in an adversary way, it's our football team. When we lose, we want to cry a little bit or maybe there's some guy in the corner, griping he didn't get the ball and all of sudden someone sticks a microphone in your face."
•A question noting that the last Northeast team to win a national championship was Penn State in 1986 led Paterno to the topic of adding a 12th team, one in the northeast, to the Big Ten: "I tried to tell some of the Big Ten people, let's get another team from the east, Syracuse, Rutgers or Pitt." He then added possibly even Boston College.
The Big Ten's reaction, he said: "It's a conference that's dominated by a couple of people. I start talking and they're polite but they snicker."
•Paterno also defending Florida State coach Bobby Bowden in the face of NCAA penalties that could cause him to forfeit 14 victories for using ineligible players. The 79-year-old Bowden has 382 victories to 383 for Paterno, major college's winningest coach.
"My feeling is Bobby coached the team he had and won, ok? He oughta get credit for wins. I think that's ridiculous to take x number of games from him," Paterno said. "Bobby is a good guy and a great coach and to have to put up with that nonsense really bothers me."
Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
CZECH REPUBLIC: French actor Richard personally presents his wine at Prague fair
.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic / The Prague Daily Monitor / Life / April 30, 2009
Famous French actor, director and winemaker Pierre Richard on Thursday attended the Wine&Spirits fair in Prague where his wines are presented and he was giving autographs to his fans.
People asked Richard to sign not only the bottles from his own vinery Chateau Bel Eveque, but also DVDs with his films and the fair tickets.
It was a mere coincidence that a film with Richard, Paris 36, which was shot in the Czech Republic, was also released in Czech cinemas on Thursday.
Richard, 74, who spends three months a year in his vinery in south France, said he is pleased that his wines are available in the Czech Republic.
"I am glad that you in the Czech Republic drink my wine since there is a bit of me in every bottle," Richard told reporters.
Richard was originally to visit the fair along with another renowned French actor, gourmet and winegrower Gerard Depardieu whose wines are sold in the Czech Republic by the same company as those of Richard.
Richard said jokingly at a press conference that he and Gerard (Depardieu) rather prefer talking about women than wine and that they both would like to appear in a film together.
After a press conference and an one-hour autograph session Richard had a private programme and a closed meeting in a shop of his Czech distributor, the Euro Vine company.
Richard bought the estate with vineyards in the Languedoc region near the town of Gruissan in 1978, and he made his first wine seven years later.
At present he owns 17.5 hectares of vineyards granted the highest appellation of origin AOC (Appellation d'origine controlee) and he produces some 80,000 bottles a year.
Copyright 2008 by the Czech News Agency (ČTK). All rights reserved.
Richard, 74, who spends three months a year in his vinery in south France, said he is pleased that his wines are available in the Czech Republic.
"I am glad that you in the Czech Republic drink my wine since there is a bit of me in every bottle," Richard told reporters.
Richard was originally to visit the fair along with another renowned French actor, gourmet and winegrower Gerard Depardieu whose wines are sold in the Czech Republic by the same company as those of Richard.
Richard said jokingly at a press conference that he and Gerard (Depardieu) rather prefer talking about women than wine and that they both would like to appear in a film together.
After a press conference and an one-hour autograph session Richard had a private programme and a closed meeting in a shop of his Czech distributor, the Euro Vine company.
Richard bought the estate with vineyards in the Languedoc region near the town of Gruissan in 1978, and he made his first wine seven years later.
At present he owns 17.5 hectares of vineyards granted the highest appellation of origin AOC (Appellation d'origine controlee) and he produces some 80,000 bottles a year.
Copyright 2008 by the Czech News Agency (ČTK). All rights reserved.
USA: In the Spirit of Mother's Day
.
NEW YORK, NY / The Huffington Post / Relationships / April 30, 2009
Forget the trip to Walmart for the new crockpot. The corsage. The all you can eat brunch. Let's do something this Mother's Day in the spirit of the woman for whom Mother's Day was created: Ann Reeves Jarvis.
Ann was a community activist who fought to improve sanitary conditions in Appalachia and foster comradery between Union and Confederate neighbors. Her daughter, Anna Jarvis, created Mother's Day not just to commemorate her mother's life work, but to promote the elder Jarvis' mantra that "motherly love" could heal both personal and community wounds.
For many mothers around the world, love isn't enough to provide their children with simple necessities.
More than 10 million mothers and children die every year during pregnancy, childbirth and infancy, which is more than the combined number of deaths from tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria -- according to Infante Sano, a non-profit organization that partners with local hospitals and rural clinics to provide medical training, essential equipment and resources to improve the quality of care women and children receive in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Infante Sano is one of several groups focusing on trying to turn this around. Family Care International works with government and non-government agencies to improve maternal health care and sex and reproductive education to women in Central America and Africa. The Touch Foundation focuses on Sub-Saharan African countries like Tanzania that witness some 950 maternal deaths per 100,000 births (compared to 11 per 100,000 in the United States). And there's always UNICEF.
These groups rely on donations from private individuals, small foundations and corporations to fund their programs. So this Mother's Day, why not take the money you were going to spend on gifts and instead make a donation to support one of the programs that help struggling mothers and their children around the globe? Infante Sano has a Mother's Day campaign where for only $25 you can sponsor a clean, safe birth for a mother, and give her child the healthy start to life he or she deserves. You'll help improve the quality of neonatal healthcare and insure that more mothers can raise healthier, happier children.
And there's another dividend: It will make your mother proud!
Copyright © 2009 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
USA: Keep on Walkin,' Bob Dylan - Together Through Life, 2009
.
DENVER, Colorado / BALTIMORE Music Reviews Examiner / April 30, 2009
By Zach Zwagil, Baltimore Music Reviews Examiner
Starting this article off is near impossible. I don’t know what to say about this man. Not enough can be said and not enough has been said. He is the one, the single most important individual in all of popular/rock & roll music. His words are fearlessly introspective and damningly aware. His compositions are bared souls, instrumentally explosive and emotionally rupturing. The man that has his own genre, a genre that knows no musical or lyrical bounds. Every album he puts out seems to null and void all the garbage that precedes and follows it in the same year.
Two days ago, Bob Dylan released his 33rd studio album entitled Together Through Life. Like "Love and Theft" and Modern Times before it, this album is a whirlwind, especially considering his co-writer on the album is Robert Hunter, lyricist of the late Jerry Garcia.
It begins with “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”, a latin-infused blues diatribe of Dylan professing his love, beyond which lies nothing. It is somewhat reminiscent of the kickstart effect that “Thunder on the Mountain” had for Modern Times. The song introduces a vocal styling that has been developing over the last few albums: one that is worn, battered, and wise as is Dylan in his old age. The song follows a traditional 12-bar blues form that seems essential for the subject matter. The most shocking part of all, at least for me, is the accordion, played by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos – an instrument often associated with musical gimmicks. Yet, again, Dylan is able to compose true music out of lyrical and instrumental freedom.
We are brought down from that high with “Life Is Hard”, whose plucked depression joins a jazzy frontier backdrop. You can’t help but feel the lost love in Dylan’s voice as the guitars cry in high-note tremolo fashion. This is not the whining of a teenager trying to force maturity, this is the true-to-form despair of a man who is without purpose in this person’s absence. We’ve listened to Dylan write about his environment, but there’s just something special when his poetry is aimed at himself. It’s undeniably honest.
Heavily blues focused, the album continues with the slow chugging blues of “My Wife’s Home Town” in which Dylan lets us know full well the extent to which his lust for his wife drives him absolutely mad, a point driven home with the romantic input, “my love for her is all I know”. This comes amidst Dylan’s first economy-charged lines in “State gone broke/the county’s dry”, where he directs his audience not to engage in self-pity and hopelessness but to “keep on walkin’” and live with the one you love in mind, as he does. In fact, he may simply be saying that life is not life unless you’re together, through life.
With titles like “Forgetful Heart”, “Jolene”, “This Dream of You”, and “Shake Shake Mama”, the lyrical emphasis is blatant. “Jolene” and “Shake Shake Mama” particularly scream Chess Records-era blues with their Muddy Waters sound and Dylan’s Howlin’ Wolf-esque growl, a stark contrast to the intermingled country jazz and Tex-Mex folk ever-present. Almost bipolar with his songs of love lost and love gained, and depression and jubilance, it’s really a metaphor for life in a sense – the ups and downs of this 67-year-old road warrior of a troubadour.
And, yet, before we limit the genres to blues, country, and folk, we have soul in “I Feel A Change Comin’ On”. Dylan croons, “Well life is for love/And they say that love is blind/If you wanna live easy/Baby, pack your clothes with mine.” Yet again, Bob Dylan has this effortless ability to incorporate a wide range of styles and still produce a seminally unforced, organic album.
One thing we’ve come to expect from Dylan is a certain degree of existentialism in the vain of social commentary. Somewhere on this album has to be even a vague comment on the economic state of the country, and we get it with the final track, “It’s All Good”. Backed by the same blues shuffle style of “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”, Dylan satirically grabs hold of modern-day urban slang to emphasize that, well, it’s really not all good and to say so is just one monumental dismissal of what needs to be addressed. “Politicians are tellin’ lies”, “Wives are leaving their husbands”, “Brick by brick they tear you down”, “People on the land/Some of them so sick/They can hardly stand”, “Everywhere you look there’s more misery”, and “Buildings are crumblin’” are just a few of the sentiments Dylan leaves us with as he closes out his latest record. He may not be addressing the Wall Street corporate establishment verbatim, but he is no doubt damning them for that laundry list of horrors they are wreaking on his country.
Pre-rock & roll rock & roll has been the focus of 2000-era Dylan, even so much as seeing his live show, which vaguely resembles his Highway 61 Revisited or Blonde On Blonde sound, favoring the sound that he and his backing band have come to embrace on their Never Ending Tour.
Relishing in his fully aged growl of a howl, Bob Dylan has become the wise old man that he so eagerly tried to be as a youth. Together Through Life is just that sort of record, the unforced unfettered wisdom of a man that has kept on walkin’.
Copyright © 2009 Clarity Digital Group LLC d/b/a Examiner.com.
Starting this article off is near impossible. I don’t know what to say about this man. Not enough can be said and not enough has been said. He is the one, the single most important individual in all of popular/rock & roll music. His words are fearlessly introspective and damningly aware. His compositions are bared souls, instrumentally explosive and emotionally rupturing. The man that has his own genre, a genre that knows no musical or lyrical bounds. Every album he puts out seems to null and void all the garbage that precedes and follows it in the same year.
Two days ago, Bob Dylan released his 33rd studio album entitled Together Through Life. Like "Love and Theft" and Modern Times before it, this album is a whirlwind, especially considering his co-writer on the album is Robert Hunter, lyricist of the late Jerry Garcia.
It begins with “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”, a latin-infused blues diatribe of Dylan professing his love, beyond which lies nothing. It is somewhat reminiscent of the kickstart effect that “Thunder on the Mountain” had for Modern Times. The song introduces a vocal styling that has been developing over the last few albums: one that is worn, battered, and wise as is Dylan in his old age. The song follows a traditional 12-bar blues form that seems essential for the subject matter. The most shocking part of all, at least for me, is the accordion, played by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos – an instrument often associated with musical gimmicks. Yet, again, Dylan is able to compose true music out of lyrical and instrumental freedom.
We are brought down from that high with “Life Is Hard”, whose plucked depression joins a jazzy frontier backdrop. You can’t help but feel the lost love in Dylan’s voice as the guitars cry in high-note tremolo fashion. This is not the whining of a teenager trying to force maturity, this is the true-to-form despair of a man who is without purpose in this person’s absence. We’ve listened to Dylan write about his environment, but there’s just something special when his poetry is aimed at himself. It’s undeniably honest.
Heavily blues focused, the album continues with the slow chugging blues of “My Wife’s Home Town” in which Dylan lets us know full well the extent to which his lust for his wife drives him absolutely mad, a point driven home with the romantic input, “my love for her is all I know”. This comes amidst Dylan’s first economy-charged lines in “State gone broke/the county’s dry”, where he directs his audience not to engage in self-pity and hopelessness but to “keep on walkin’” and live with the one you love in mind, as he does. In fact, he may simply be saying that life is not life unless you’re together, through life.
With titles like “Forgetful Heart”, “Jolene”, “This Dream of You”, and “Shake Shake Mama”, the lyrical emphasis is blatant. “Jolene” and “Shake Shake Mama” particularly scream Chess Records-era blues with their Muddy Waters sound and Dylan’s Howlin’ Wolf-esque growl, a stark contrast to the intermingled country jazz and Tex-Mex folk ever-present. Almost bipolar with his songs of love lost and love gained, and depression and jubilance, it’s really a metaphor for life in a sense – the ups and downs of this 67-year-old road warrior of a troubadour.
And, yet, before we limit the genres to blues, country, and folk, we have soul in “I Feel A Change Comin’ On”. Dylan croons, “Well life is for love/And they say that love is blind/If you wanna live easy/Baby, pack your clothes with mine.” Yet again, Bob Dylan has this effortless ability to incorporate a wide range of styles and still produce a seminally unforced, organic album.
One thing we’ve come to expect from Dylan is a certain degree of existentialism in the vain of social commentary. Somewhere on this album has to be even a vague comment on the economic state of the country, and we get it with the final track, “It’s All Good”. Backed by the same blues shuffle style of “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”, Dylan satirically grabs hold of modern-day urban slang to emphasize that, well, it’s really not all good and to say so is just one monumental dismissal of what needs to be addressed. “Politicians are tellin’ lies”, “Wives are leaving their husbands”, “Brick by brick they tear you down”, “People on the land/Some of them so sick/They can hardly stand”, “Everywhere you look there’s more misery”, and “Buildings are crumblin’” are just a few of the sentiments Dylan leaves us with as he closes out his latest record. He may not be addressing the Wall Street corporate establishment verbatim, but he is no doubt damning them for that laundry list of horrors they are wreaking on his country.
Pre-rock & roll rock & roll has been the focus of 2000-era Dylan, even so much as seeing his live show, which vaguely resembles his Highway 61 Revisited or Blonde On Blonde sound, favoring the sound that he and his backing band have come to embrace on their Never Ending Tour.
Relishing in his fully aged growl of a howl, Bob Dylan has become the wise old man that he so eagerly tried to be as a youth. Together Through Life is just that sort of record, the unforced unfettered wisdom of a man that has kept on walkin’.
Copyright © 2009 Clarity Digital Group LLC d/b/a Examiner.com.
CHINA: China develops instant diagnostic method for possible H1N1 virus
.
BEIJING, China / People Daily / Science-Tech / April 30, 2009
China has developed an effective method for instant diagnose of possible H1N1 influenza epidemic, originally called as "swine flu", said Health Minister Chen Zhu at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
The new detection method will be installed at the country's center for disease control and prevention offices at all levels, Chen said.
Experts and scientists from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences have contributed greatly to the research work, Chen added.
"Experts from the United States and the World Health Organization also gave us great help for the research," he said.
Source: Xinhua
USA: An Unsquinting View of Aging
.
NEW YORK, NY / The New York Times / Fashion & Style / April 30, 2009
Illustration by Hadley Hooper
Wife/Mother/Worker/Spy
By MICHELLE SLATALLA
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN and I have a lot in common. He signed the Treaty of Paris, and I visited Paris. His face is on the $100 bill; I like to spend $100 bills. And both Mr. Franklin and I noticed, as we aged, that our eyes stopped being able to focus on fine print, making it difficult to read even when we were wearing our glasses.
But the similarities end there. The two of us came up with vastly different strategies for dealing with the presbyopia that causes blurry vision. While Mr. Franklin invented bifocals, I have embraced a more creative solution: seeing-eye children.
“Clem, honey, I’m having trouble threading this,” I said the other day to my 11-year-old.
I passed the needle across the kitchen table to her.
“It might work better if you try to put the thread through the end that has the loop,” she said, effortlessly completing the task.
She had a point. And I would definitely do that, if I could see the loop. I also would heat the oven to the proper temperature, without asking for assistance, if I could read the line of print on the tube of biscuits that says whether to bake at 350 or 375 degrees. And I would never frantically shriek, “Can someone bring me my magnifying glass?” while I was making jewelry if I could see the little tail of wire I wanted to clip at the base of a bead.
“Mom, I think they make glasses to solve your problem,” Clem said.
“What problem?” I snapped. “Here, hold the magnifying glass a little closer.”
“They’re called ‘progressive lenses,’ and they work really well,” my husband added helpfully, pointing to the pair he was wearing. Then, as he watched Clem struggle to hold the magnifying glass steady under my eyes, he added, “There are child labor laws in this state.”
I hope they’re written in large type.
Presbyopia is a common result of aging. Your eyes’ lenses become less flexible and lose their ability to focus up close.
The problem manifests in different people at various ages, typically starting after age 40, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. But by age 50 virtually everyone has it, which means that nationwide there could be about 90 million people squinting at needles at any given moment.
Of course, you could make the argument that as far as the whole aging thing goes, presbyopia is one of the milder side effects. In most cases all you have to do is get an eye exam and order glasses that have a new prescription.
Unlike Ben Franklin, you don’t even have to let on that you need them. These days, most people get progressive lenses that increase in magnifying power without displaying the telltale line of traditional bifocals.
I probably would have made an appointment for an eye exam long ago, in fact, if blurry vision hadn’t started to creep up on me in the middle of my 40s. There I was, already desperately trying to ignore all the other indignities associated with midlife. Gray hair. Weight gain. Memory loss. Insomnia. Not to mention the specter of impending menopause.
Every once in a while I manage, usually by playing the radio very loudly in the car, to ignore for two minutes all these conspiring symptoms. But then, the bubble inevitably bursts.
The other day in the car, as I was belting out half-forgotten lyrics from my happy-go-lucky youth (“Your everlasting summer, you can see it fading fast, so you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last”), Clem interrupted to ask, “Who was Steely Dan?” I sighed and turned down the volume.
The last thing I needed was to go to the eye doctor for another reminder that I’m getting old.
“We see that a lot, especially for women, because it’s the same age where other things in their lives are changing as well,” said Dr. Lynn K. Gordon, an ophthalmologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in women’s eye health. “It’s not uncommon at all to hear someone is putting it off.”
Dr. Lynn K. Gordon, MD, PhD
“So I’m not the only one who’s sick of the changes?” I asked.
“No, I’m older than you and I can assure you you’re not,” Dr. Gordon said. “But there are some good things about this age.”
“Like what?” I asked suspiciously.
“It is absolutely great to have older children,” said Dr. Gordon (who, like me, has three). “They’re sophisticated and grown up and so much fun.”
“True,” I admitted. “And their laser-sharp eyesight is useful around the house, especially if you drop a straight pin on the carpet.”
But what else is good about aging?
“Now I have to stretch,” Dr. Gordon admitted.
THE bottom line, though, when it comes to your aging eyes, is that you shouldn’t ignore them. While Dr. Gordon said it doesn’t hurt your eyes to not be wearing the best correction for presbyopia, midlife is a bad time in general to overlook preventive health care.
“There are lots of systemic diseases that can show up during a full eye-care examination,” she said, starting to tick them off. “There’s macular degeneration, there’s glaucoma ...”
“Stop,” I said. “I give up. I’ll get my eyes checked.”
“Good idea,” she said approvingly, as if it had been mine. “And if you don’t have any of those things, think how much younger it will make you feel.”
I wouldn’t go that far. But a few days later, after the exam, I picked out a new pair of eyeglasses that, unlike Ben Franklin’s, at least made me look younger.
E-mail: Slatalla@nytimes.com
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Illustration by Hadley Hooper
Wife/Mother/Worker/Spy
By MICHELLE SLATALLA
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN and I have a lot in common. He signed the Treaty of Paris, and I visited Paris. His face is on the $100 bill; I like to spend $100 bills. And both Mr. Franklin and I noticed, as we aged, that our eyes stopped being able to focus on fine print, making it difficult to read even when we were wearing our glasses.
But the similarities end there. The two of us came up with vastly different strategies for dealing with the presbyopia that causes blurry vision. While Mr. Franklin invented bifocals, I have embraced a more creative solution: seeing-eye children.
“Clem, honey, I’m having trouble threading this,” I said the other day to my 11-year-old.
I passed the needle across the kitchen table to her.
“It might work better if you try to put the thread through the end that has the loop,” she said, effortlessly completing the task.
She had a point. And I would definitely do that, if I could see the loop. I also would heat the oven to the proper temperature, without asking for assistance, if I could read the line of print on the tube of biscuits that says whether to bake at 350 or 375 degrees. And I would never frantically shriek, “Can someone bring me my magnifying glass?” while I was making jewelry if I could see the little tail of wire I wanted to clip at the base of a bead.
“Mom, I think they make glasses to solve your problem,” Clem said.
“What problem?” I snapped. “Here, hold the magnifying glass a little closer.”
“They’re called ‘progressive lenses,’ and they work really well,” my husband added helpfully, pointing to the pair he was wearing. Then, as he watched Clem struggle to hold the magnifying glass steady under my eyes, he added, “There are child labor laws in this state.”
I hope they’re written in large type.
Presbyopia is a common result of aging. Your eyes’ lenses become less flexible and lose their ability to focus up close.
The problem manifests in different people at various ages, typically starting after age 40, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. But by age 50 virtually everyone has it, which means that nationwide there could be about 90 million people squinting at needles at any given moment.
Of course, you could make the argument that as far as the whole aging thing goes, presbyopia is one of the milder side effects. In most cases all you have to do is get an eye exam and order glasses that have a new prescription.
Unlike Ben Franklin, you don’t even have to let on that you need them. These days, most people get progressive lenses that increase in magnifying power without displaying the telltale line of traditional bifocals.
I probably would have made an appointment for an eye exam long ago, in fact, if blurry vision hadn’t started to creep up on me in the middle of my 40s. There I was, already desperately trying to ignore all the other indignities associated with midlife. Gray hair. Weight gain. Memory loss. Insomnia. Not to mention the specter of impending menopause.
Every once in a while I manage, usually by playing the radio very loudly in the car, to ignore for two minutes all these conspiring symptoms. But then, the bubble inevitably bursts.
The other day in the car, as I was belting out half-forgotten lyrics from my happy-go-lucky youth (“Your everlasting summer, you can see it fading fast, so you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last”), Clem interrupted to ask, “Who was Steely Dan?” I sighed and turned down the volume.
The last thing I needed was to go to the eye doctor for another reminder that I’m getting old.
“We see that a lot, especially for women, because it’s the same age where other things in their lives are changing as well,” said Dr. Lynn K. Gordon, an ophthalmologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in women’s eye health. “It’s not uncommon at all to hear someone is putting it off.”
Dr. Lynn K. Gordon, MD, PhD
“So I’m not the only one who’s sick of the changes?” I asked.
“No, I’m older than you and I can assure you you’re not,” Dr. Gordon said. “But there are some good things about this age.”
“Like what?” I asked suspiciously.
“It is absolutely great to have older children,” said Dr. Gordon (who, like me, has three). “They’re sophisticated and grown up and so much fun.”
“True,” I admitted. “And their laser-sharp eyesight is useful around the house, especially if you drop a straight pin on the carpet.”
But what else is good about aging?
“Now I have to stretch,” Dr. Gordon admitted.
THE bottom line, though, when it comes to your aging eyes, is that you shouldn’t ignore them. While Dr. Gordon said it doesn’t hurt your eyes to not be wearing the best correction for presbyopia, midlife is a bad time in general to overlook preventive health care.
“There are lots of systemic diseases that can show up during a full eye-care examination,” she said, starting to tick them off. “There’s macular degeneration, there’s glaucoma ...”
“Stop,” I said. “I give up. I’ll get my eyes checked.”
“Good idea,” she said approvingly, as if it had been mine. “And if you don’t have any of those things, think how much younger it will make you feel.”
I wouldn’t go that far. But a few days later, after the exam, I picked out a new pair of eyeglasses that, unlike Ben Franklin’s, at least made me look younger.
E-mail: Slatalla@nytimes.com
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
USA: Comedy about a love affair between an older man and a younger woman
.
NEW YORK, NY / The New York Times / Theater / April 30, 2009
THEATER REVIEW | 'ACCENT ON YOUTH'
Too Old to Be Hot? Not This Guy
By Charles Isherwood
Age has not exactly withered “Accent on Youth,” a 1934 comedy by Samson Raphaelson about the storms besetting a May-December romance in the theater world. But it has not done this personable but minor play any great favors either.
Mary Catherine Garrison and David Hyde Pierce in "Accent on Youth." Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
“I’m 51,” says Steven Gaye, the playwright portrayed by David Hyde Pierce who represents the wintry half of the story’s romantic duo. “I can smell 60.”
In our era of trophy wives and proudly prowling cougars, of Viagra and Cialis and Botox and Restylane, 51-year-olds are more likely to be smelling 16. The dramatic question the play poses — can a man of such advanced years reasonably and respectably hope to find love with a woman half his age? — seems preposterous.
Still, the Manhattan Theater Club revival, which opened Wednesday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater under the direction of Daniel Sullivan, offers cozy comforts understandably prized by a significant subset of Broadway theatergoers. Namely those for whom a couple of hours of light laughs in the presence of a likable star and some ogle-worthy period scenery will suffice for an afternoon of diversion. (Did I hear someone sighing over the ornate moldings on John Lee Beatty’s set, or was that me?)
Mr. Hyde Pierce, who won a Tony Award for his performance as a star-struck detective in the backstage murder-mystery musical “Curtains,” seems breezily at home in more or less the same milieu here. As a playwright who pens a drama about late-life romance and then finds himself caught up in a similar adventure offstage, Mr. Hyde Pierce hits his comic marks with the precision we’ve come to expect from his priceless turn on the long-running, exceptionally literate sitcom “Frasier.” (Now and forever in syndicated reruns, I hope.)
David Hyde Pierce in "Accent on Youth." Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Steven has settled into a life of plush professional satisfaction and romantic isolation — “I’m a one-divorce man,” he quips — when he suddenly finds himself tugged back into the tides of romantic attraction. After an informal reading of his new play, “Old Love,” he receives a visit from an ex-flame, the actress Genevieve Lang (Rosie Benton), who doesn’t particularly want to play the lead in his play but wouldn’t mind taking that role in his life.
Just as Steven is about to book passage for a madcap adventure with Genevieve in Finland, however, his dutiful secretary, Linda Brown (Mary Catherine Garrison), confesses that she has long carried a torch for him. Suddenly, Steven’s doubts about the plausibility — and the tastefulness — of his drama about a love affair between an older man and a younger woman evaporate in the face of overwhelming evidence of his magnetic allure.
Comforting the sobbing Linda, Steven is forced to confess his own appeal. “Funny, when you get right down to it, I can’t think offhand of a man who could make you forget me,” he says. “I am a unique combination — witty, sensitive, imaginative, worldly, gay — and yet with a feeling for tragedy. ... And I know myself too well, I’ve been around too much, to deny that I’m charming.”
Mr. Hyde Pierce strikes the right note of self-mockery in this speech. He brings a light touch to the more expressly emotional passages in the play, too. After casting Linda as the leading lady in “Old Love” — making for a rather implausible career upgrade — Steven falls in love with her. But he is tempted to step aside and gallantly offer her the chance to find happiness with a more age-appropriate man, her love-struck co-star, the boyish leading man Dickie Reynolds (David Furr).
As Steven’s loyal butler, Flogdell, who himself strikes up an affair with a much younger woman, Charles Kimbrough (“Murphy Brown”) provides some tasty comic flavor. Byron Jennings is equally amusing as Frank Galloway, the older actor whose performance in Steven’s play reawakens his zest for the high life of a Broadway matinee idol, even one on whom evening is quickly descending.
The female roles are less stylishly played. Ms. Benton doesn’t bring enough sparkle to the worldly Genevieve, and the baby-faced Ms. Garrison seems too pouty and deficient in charm in the first act, when Linda tearily confesses her affection. Nor is she wholly convincing as a suddenly sophisticated actress. When she gives a passionate speech about missing the mad, maddening, glorious tumult of the stage in the second act, it fails to convince. Ms. Garrison’s wholesome sweetness seems more farm-friendly than Rialto-centric.
Raphaelson wrote many Broadway plays, including “The Jazz Singer,” but today is better known for his screenplays, the most celebrated being Ernst Lubitsch’s “Trouble in Paradise” and “The Shop Around the Corner,” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion.” A more brisk, clipped cinematic style would probably benefit Mr. Sullivan’s direction of “Accent on Youth.” The second act is draggy. (The play was written in three acts, and here is played in two.)
But there are a few choice showbiz jokes to enliven the proceedings. The best belongs to Mr. Jennings’s Frank, musing on the box office fate of “Old Love,” which has changed all the players’ lives in one way or another.
“I thought either it would be a smash hit, like a Eugene O’Neill play,” he observes, “or a dreadful failure, like — like a Eugene O’Neill play. But who would have predicted that it would turn out just a show.”
Plus ça change. The current Broadway revival of O’Neill’s mythic potboiler “Desire Under the Elms” has provoked strongly divergent reactions. “Accent on Youth,” by contrast, is not going to fuel too many arguments. While perfectly amiable, it too is “just a show.”
ACCENT ON YOUTH
By Samson Raphaelson; directed by Daniel Sullivan; sets by John Lee Beatty; costumes by Jane Greenwood; lighting by Brian MacDevitt; music and sound by Obadiah Eaves; hair and wig design by Tom Watson; associate artistic director, Mandy Greenfield. Presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, Lynne Meadow, artistic director; Barry Grove, executive producer; in association with Daryl Roth, Ostar Productions and Rebecca Gold/Debbie Bisno. At the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, 261 West 47th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200. Through June 28. Running time: 2 hours.
WITH: Lisa Banes (Miss Darling), Rosie Benton (Genevieve Lang), Curt Bouril (Butch), David Furr (Dickie Reynolds), Mary Catherine Garrison (Linda Brown), Byron Jennings (Frank Galloway), Charles Kimbrough (Flogdell), David Hyde Pierce (Steven Gaye) and John Wernke (Chuck).
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
___________________________________________
Seniors World Chronicle adds
THEATER LOVERS will enjoy
NYT's THEATER REVIEW of
'WAITING FOR GODOT'
Tramps for Eternity
By BEN BRANTLEY
Mary Catherine Garrison and David Hyde Pierce in "Accent on Youth." Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
“I’m 51,” says Steven Gaye, the playwright portrayed by David Hyde Pierce who represents the wintry half of the story’s romantic duo. “I can smell 60.”
In our era of trophy wives and proudly prowling cougars, of Viagra and Cialis and Botox and Restylane, 51-year-olds are more likely to be smelling 16. The dramatic question the play poses — can a man of such advanced years reasonably and respectably hope to find love with a woman half his age? — seems preposterous.
Still, the Manhattan Theater Club revival, which opened Wednesday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater under the direction of Daniel Sullivan, offers cozy comforts understandably prized by a significant subset of Broadway theatergoers. Namely those for whom a couple of hours of light laughs in the presence of a likable star and some ogle-worthy period scenery will suffice for an afternoon of diversion. (Did I hear someone sighing over the ornate moldings on John Lee Beatty’s set, or was that me?)
Mr. Hyde Pierce, who won a Tony Award for his performance as a star-struck detective in the backstage murder-mystery musical “Curtains,” seems breezily at home in more or less the same milieu here. As a playwright who pens a drama about late-life romance and then finds himself caught up in a similar adventure offstage, Mr. Hyde Pierce hits his comic marks with the precision we’ve come to expect from his priceless turn on the long-running, exceptionally literate sitcom “Frasier.” (Now and forever in syndicated reruns, I hope.)
David Hyde Pierce in "Accent on Youth." Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Steven has settled into a life of plush professional satisfaction and romantic isolation — “I’m a one-divorce man,” he quips — when he suddenly finds himself tugged back into the tides of romantic attraction. After an informal reading of his new play, “Old Love,” he receives a visit from an ex-flame, the actress Genevieve Lang (Rosie Benton), who doesn’t particularly want to play the lead in his play but wouldn’t mind taking that role in his life.
Just as Steven is about to book passage for a madcap adventure with Genevieve in Finland, however, his dutiful secretary, Linda Brown (Mary Catherine Garrison), confesses that she has long carried a torch for him. Suddenly, Steven’s doubts about the plausibility — and the tastefulness — of his drama about a love affair between an older man and a younger woman evaporate in the face of overwhelming evidence of his magnetic allure.
Comforting the sobbing Linda, Steven is forced to confess his own appeal. “Funny, when you get right down to it, I can’t think offhand of a man who could make you forget me,” he says. “I am a unique combination — witty, sensitive, imaginative, worldly, gay — and yet with a feeling for tragedy. ... And I know myself too well, I’ve been around too much, to deny that I’m charming.”
Mr. Hyde Pierce strikes the right note of self-mockery in this speech. He brings a light touch to the more expressly emotional passages in the play, too. After casting Linda as the leading lady in “Old Love” — making for a rather implausible career upgrade — Steven falls in love with her. But he is tempted to step aside and gallantly offer her the chance to find happiness with a more age-appropriate man, her love-struck co-star, the boyish leading man Dickie Reynolds (David Furr).
As Steven’s loyal butler, Flogdell, who himself strikes up an affair with a much younger woman, Charles Kimbrough (“Murphy Brown”) provides some tasty comic flavor. Byron Jennings is equally amusing as Frank Galloway, the older actor whose performance in Steven’s play reawakens his zest for the high life of a Broadway matinee idol, even one on whom evening is quickly descending.
The female roles are less stylishly played. Ms. Benton doesn’t bring enough sparkle to the worldly Genevieve, and the baby-faced Ms. Garrison seems too pouty and deficient in charm in the first act, when Linda tearily confesses her affection. Nor is she wholly convincing as a suddenly sophisticated actress. When she gives a passionate speech about missing the mad, maddening, glorious tumult of the stage in the second act, it fails to convince. Ms. Garrison’s wholesome sweetness seems more farm-friendly than Rialto-centric.
Raphaelson wrote many Broadway plays, including “The Jazz Singer,” but today is better known for his screenplays, the most celebrated being Ernst Lubitsch’s “Trouble in Paradise” and “The Shop Around the Corner,” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion.” A more brisk, clipped cinematic style would probably benefit Mr. Sullivan’s direction of “Accent on Youth.” The second act is draggy. (The play was written in three acts, and here is played in two.)
But there are a few choice showbiz jokes to enliven the proceedings. The best belongs to Mr. Jennings’s Frank, musing on the box office fate of “Old Love,” which has changed all the players’ lives in one way or another.
“I thought either it would be a smash hit, like a Eugene O’Neill play,” he observes, “or a dreadful failure, like — like a Eugene O’Neill play. But who would have predicted that it would turn out just a show.”
Plus ça change. The current Broadway revival of O’Neill’s mythic potboiler “Desire Under the Elms” has provoked strongly divergent reactions. “Accent on Youth,” by contrast, is not going to fuel too many arguments. While perfectly amiable, it too is “just a show.”
ACCENT ON YOUTH
By Samson Raphaelson; directed by Daniel Sullivan; sets by John Lee Beatty; costumes by Jane Greenwood; lighting by Brian MacDevitt; music and sound by Obadiah Eaves; hair and wig design by Tom Watson; associate artistic director, Mandy Greenfield. Presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, Lynne Meadow, artistic director; Barry Grove, executive producer; in association with Daryl Roth, Ostar Productions and Rebecca Gold/Debbie Bisno. At the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, 261 West 47th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200. Through June 28. Running time: 2 hours.
WITH: Lisa Banes (Miss Darling), Rosie Benton (Genevieve Lang), Curt Bouril (Butch), David Furr (Dickie Reynolds), Mary Catherine Garrison (Linda Brown), Byron Jennings (Frank Galloway), Charles Kimbrough (Flogdell), David Hyde Pierce (Steven Gaye) and John Wernke (Chuck).
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
___________________________________________
Seniors World Chronicle adds
THEATER LOVERS will enjoy
NYT's THEATER REVIEW of
'WAITING FOR GODOT'
Tramps for Eternity
By BEN BRANTLEY
USA: The Asparagus Tale
.
PORTLAND, Maine / TimeGoesBy / The Elder Storytelling Place / April 30, 2009
The Asparagus Tale
By Johna Ferguson
It happened so long ago, 1935, one would think I could finally forget it, but no, the memory of it is seared into my mind. It was the first time in my life that I had received such treatment and I was shocked.
I was five years old and my father, mother, sister and I were seated at the dinner table. Sundays were always special since my father, a doctor, often was not home in time for the family dinner.
The maid brought in the food for my father to put on our plates. We were having baked salmon thanks to our friendly mailman, a patient, who kept us supplied from his weekly catches. Also we were having mashed potatoes from my mother’s vegetable garden. She even made her own butter in just a small whipping jar if we could get the cream from another patient. It was during the Depression and money was tight, so patients often paid their bills with food.
Then I spied the vegetables; one was asparagus, something I hated. I had never tasted it but had seen it once at one of my mother’s luncheons, the slim green stalks on an aspic salad, like a dead body lying in its own blood. But then I saw my father also dish up my favorite vegetable, fresh peas from our garden. Dinner was beginning to look better.
After grace, I dug into the peas then the mashed potatoes, leaving the salmon for last. I just ignored the asparagus as I’d already had my green vegetable for the day. Once I finished my salmon, I sat and waited for the maid to clear the dishes, but she didn’t come; my mother had not rung the little bell on the table to summon her.
All of a sudden I realized everyone was looking at me. “Is there something wrong?”
Mother said, “Yes, you haven’t cleaned your plate yet.”
I looked down at the pile of asparagus pieces. “Mother I don’t like it, and anyway I ate my peas like a good girl.”
But she was firm; she told me I must at least take a bite of it or otherwise they’d all just sit there, waiting. I had dreamed of dessert, fresh lemon pie I’d seen in the kitchen, but I just couldn’t get up the nerve to taste the asparagus. Finally my sister kicked my leg under the table so hard and gave me such a terrible look I decided I’d better at least try one bite.
By bite, I meant just a tiny piece but instead, my mother loaded my fork for me with four pieces. I told my father, always so kind, that I hated the look of it and also the smell. “Couldn’t I just be excused without dessert and go to bed?”
But he said, “Your mother has told you what to do, I can’t change that.”
I had a sudden sinking feeling, but decided it was the only way out. I didn’t even have any potatoes left to disguise its taste with. I put the entire fork-full in my mouth, chewed and gulped it down but I gagged and out came the entire lot all over the freshly ironed white linen table cloth. I just couldn’t help myself.
My mother was furious, I don’t think so much at me, but at the possibly stained table cloth. She grabbed me by the arm and told me I had to sit at the top of the basement stairs until I decided that I could eat asparagus. I hated the basement, I was afraid to go down there alone out of fear of the dark corners.
The landing at the top was about three feet square so I huddled in one corner, but then after she shut and locked the door, she also turned out the basement light. Truly I thought I would die. I howled and screamed, but it was no use; either she couldn’t or wouldn’t hear me. Finally the maid let me out, but warned me not to tell my mother. I silently crept upstairs and climbed into my bed and fell asleep out of pure exhaustion.
Nothing was ever said about that incident, but I noticed that asparagus was never served, not even when I returned on weekends from college or after my marriage. To this day the memory is still so fresh I cannot even think of trying asparagus again.
© 2009 Ronni Bennett
USA: Smoking, Blood Pressure Each Account For One In Five US Adults Deaths
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CHEVY CHASE, Maryland / ScienceDaily / Health / April 30, 2009
Smoking, high blood pressure and being overweight are the leading preventable risk factors for premature mortality in the United States, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), with collaborators from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
The researchers found that smoking is responsible for 467,000 premature deaths each year, high blood pressure for 395,000, and being overweight for 216,000. The effects of smoking work out to be about one in five deaths in American adults, while high blood pressure is responsible for one in six deaths.
It is the most comprehensive study yet to look at how diet, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors for chronic disease contribute to mortality in the U.S.
"The large magnitude of the numbers for many of these risks made us pause," said Goodarz Danaei, a doctoral student at HSPH and the lead author of the study. "To have hundreds of thousands of premature deaths caused by these modifiable risk factors is shocking and should motivate a serious look at whether our public health system has sufficient capacity to implement interventions and whether it is currently focusing on the right set of interventions." Majid Ezzati, associate professor of international health at HSPH, is the study's senior author.
The researchers also found large effects from a series of other preventable dietary and lifestyle risk factors. Below are the numbers of deaths in the U.S. due annually to each of the individual risk factors examined:
•Smoking: 467,000
•High blood pressure: 395,000
•Overweight-obesity: 216,000
•Inadequate physical activity and inactivity: 191,000
•High blood sugar: 190,000
•High LDL cholesterol: 113,000
•High dietary salt: 102,000
•Low dietary omega-3 fatty acids (seafood): 84,000
•High dietary trans fatty acids: 82,000
Alcohol use: 64,000 (alcohol use averted a balance of 26,000 deaths from heart disease, stroke and diabetes, because moderate drinking reduces risk of these diseases. But these deaths were outweighed by 90,000 alcohol-related deaths from traffic and other injuries, violence, cancers and a range of other diseases).
•Low intake of fruits and vegetables: 58,000
•Low dietary poly-unsaturated fatty acids: 15,000
All of the deaths calculated in the study were considered premature or preventable in that the victims would not have died when they did if they had not been subject to the behaviors or activities linked to their deaths. All of these risk factors are modifiable through a range of public health and health system interventions.
While earlier studies had quantified deaths linked to a few factors, like smoking and alcohol, this is the first to look at a wide range of risk factors, including those linked to diet, lifestyle and metabolic factors, and the first to do so for the whole U.S. population. This is also the first to use methods that allowed a true comparison of a diverse set of risks in terms of how many deaths each of the risk factors is responsible for. The researchers analyzed data from a number of public sources, including from the National Center for Health Statistics and numerous published epidemiological studies and clinical trials.
The researchers also found differences between the preventable causes of death among men and women. High blood pressure was the leading cause of death in adult women, killing nearly 230,000 American women each year, 19 percent of all female deaths. By comparison, that is more than five times the 42,000 number of annual deaths in women from breast cancer.
Smoking was the leading cause of death in men, killing an estimated 248,000 annually, or 21 percent of all adult male deaths.
The mortality effects of many other risk factors were about equal in men and women, with alcohol use being a major exception. Seventy percent of all deaths caused by alcohol were among men and represented 45,000 deaths, a result the researchers said was because men consumed more alcohol and engaged in more binge drinking.
"The findings should be a reminder that although we have been effective in partially reducing smoking and high blood pressure, we have not yet completed the task and have a great deal more to do on these major preventable factors," said senior author Ezzati. "The government should also use regulatory, pricing, and health information mechanisms to substantially reduce salt and trans fats in prepared and packaged foods and to support research that can find effective strategies for modifying the other dietary, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors that cause large numbers of premature deaths in the U.S."
This research was supported by a cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the Association of Schools of Public Health.
Journal reference:
Goodarz Danaei, Eric L. Ding, Dariush Mozaffarian, Ben Taylor, Jurgen Rehm, Christopher J.L. Murray, Majid Ezzati. The Preventable Causes of Death in the United States: Comparative Risk Assessment of Dietary, Lifestyle, and Metabolic Risk Factors. PLoS Medicine, April 28, 2009, Volume 6, Issue 4
Copyright © 1995-2009 ScienceDaily LLC
KOREA: Wartime sex slaves - Hoping for closure at the end of their lives
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LOS ANGELES, California / Los Angeles Times / World News / April 30, 2009
The 'comfort women' forced into slavery by Japanese soldiers have struggled for years to persuade the world to acknowledge their ordeal. They're growing tired now, but not giving up.
COLUMN ONE
By John M. Glionna
Reporting from Toechon, South Korea
Eight Korean women who were forced into sex slavery before and after World War II now share a hillside home on the outskirts of Seoul.
John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times
Kang Il-chul rides in the back of a van packed with gossiping old women. The 82-year-old girlishly covers her mouth to whisper a secret.
"We argue a lot about the food," she says, wrinkling her nose. "To tell you the truth, some of these old ladies are grouchy."
There are eight of them, sharing a hillside home on the outskirts of Seoul, sparring over everything from territory to room temperature.
Some wear makeup and stylish hats; others are happy in robes and slippers. A few are bitter, their golden years tarnished by painful memories; others have sweet dispositions and enjoy visiting beauty salons or performing an occasional dance in the living room.
But they all share one thing: Decades ago, they were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers occupying the country before and during World War II. They were repeatedly raped and beaten over months and years.
Now time is running out for the halmoni, or Korean grandmothers. About 150,000 to 200,000 Korean women served as Japanese sex slaves, most living out their lives in humiliated silence.
When activists brought the issue to light in the early 1990s, officials sought out survivors. While many were too ashamed to come forward, officials registered 234 women.
Ninety-three are still alive, according to a nonprofit group that looks after them.
In 1992, some of the so-called comfort women volunteered to live at a new House of Sharing established by Buddhist organizations and philanthropists. There is a full-time chef and nurse and volunteer caregivers. There are regular art classes, exercise sessions and trips to the doctor. Kang is the youngest of the eight remaining residents. The oldest is 92.
They are part Golden Girls, part adamant activists.
Holding out hope for closure before they die, they are waging a battle to persuade the world to acknowledge their ordeal. They are seeking reparations and a formal apology from the Japanese government. They have also pressured the South Korean government to speak out.
Japan's response has been mixed. After the war, the government maintained that military brothels had been run by private contractors. But in 1993, it officially acknowledged the Imperial Army's role in establishing so-called comfort stations.
Conservatives in the political establishment still insist there is no documentary evidence that the army conducted an organized campaign of sexual slavery -- a contention challenged by many researchers.
The testimony of the women of the House of Sharing is the riposte to those who say there is no evidence that Korean women were forced to sexually service Japanese troops. They gather every Wednesday outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul or at various South Korean government offices. They unfurl their banners and mostly stand in silence, unflinching as guards snap their pictures. Over 17 years, they have picketed 861 times. Some have traveled to Washington to testify before Congress.
They are host to 30,000 visitors a year at the House of Sharing, part of a complex that includes the Historical Museum of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery.
They have been poked and prodded like laboratory specimens, their daily lives chronicled by sociologists, their rudimentary artwork studied to gauge the long-term emotional effects of trauma.
Now, many are tired, their years as rabble-rousers behind them. There's a changing of the guard. With a gruff, drill sergeant's demeanor, Kim Kun-ja calls herself a "troublemaker." For years, she was among the loudest activists. The others call her No. 1.
Today the 84-year-old uses a walker. She fell twice recently and rarely gets out of bed.
"We are all mentally ill and physically damaged," she says, eating a bowl of soup. "But I don't want to talk about it anymore. It brings up bad memories from the bottom of my insides."
In her place has emerged the indefatigable Kang. As a teenager, she recalls, she was lured from her home by Japanese soldiers who offered her caramel candy.
On this day, Kang receives a group of 20 mothers who sit in a semicircle on the dormitory floor. Perched on the edge of a couch, dressed in a silk shirt with a scarf wrapped stylishly around her neck, she waves her hands like a veteran politician trying to stir up a crowd.
With age, she has become more defiant, she says, and she is looking for justice.
"We have to resolve this problem before we die," she says. "We have to go away if God calls us, but until this is solved, I can't close my eyes happily."
Kang calls over to Kim, asking her to address the group.
Kim waves her off. "I am deaf," she says.
Nearby, resident Kim Soon-ok, 88, maternally strokes the hair of a visitor half her age who sits before her on the floor.
Some residents, never married, have no grandchildren to visit them. They welcome contact with strangers. They hold hands with visitors and seek long hugs as a grandfather clock in the corner ticks away their remaining days.
One carries a small stuffed rabbit. She says she likes animals more than humans.
Sometimes there is tension at the House of Sharing. Caretakers have placed each resident's photo on her bedroom door and place setting to avoid confusion and tiffs among the women, who can be territorial and cross.
"Open the window, I'm hot," one demands.
"Well, I'm cold," says the one next to her.
Often, the women have complaints. Meals served by the full-time chef are "tasteless," say several as they sit at the dining room table, talking like prisoners plotting a breakout.
Moved to temporary quarters during a renovation of the main dormitory, many complain that they no longer have keys to their rooms.
Kang, the group leader, suddenly pauses. "Shhhhh, someone is coming," she says as a nurse enters the room.
She sighs, saying that although life at the House of Sharing may not be perfect, "we have nowhere else to go."
During a tour of her room, Kang says she cannot tell the others about gifts she has been given by visitors. She holds up an exercise gripper. "If they knew this was given to me, there would be trouble," she says. She shows another gift, a silk scarf. "Isn't this pretty?"
Although many women no longer discuss their past, others seem to derive some relief from retelling their tortures.
Without prompting, Park Ok-ryun, 86, launches into an account of how, as an 18-year-old, she was abducted by two Japanese soldiers. She and a friend had gone to a stream to get water.
"Don't cry," she remembers the soldiers saying. "If you go with us, you can get some nice food and nice clothes."
Park grabs a listener's arm. "I was thrown into the truck and covered with a red-and-blue fabric," she says. She begged to be released, explaining that she had to return home to make dinner.
"But they said, 'Jackass, stop nagging,' and kicked me," she says, showing a jagged scar on her leg.
The women know that some people are listening. The U.S. Congress has called on Japan to apologize and "accept historical responsibility" for the sex slavery.
The Japanese government offered to start a fund, but the women refused the money, demanding that the government also accept responsibility for their suffering.
In a moment of quiet, Kang says that while they can never forget what happened, they must forgive the Japanese, if only for the emotional health of the next generation.
Then Kim, old No. 1, flashes a rare display of humor.
"Not all men are bad," she says, smiling. "There are good ones and there are bad ones."
john.glionna@latimes.com
Ju-min Park of The Times' Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times
COLUMN ONE
By John M. Glionna
Reporting from Toechon, South Korea
Eight Korean women who were forced into sex slavery before and after World War II now share a hillside home on the outskirts of Seoul.
John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times
Kang Il-chul rides in the back of a van packed with gossiping old women. The 82-year-old girlishly covers her mouth to whisper a secret.
"We argue a lot about the food," she says, wrinkling her nose. "To tell you the truth, some of these old ladies are grouchy."
There are eight of them, sharing a hillside home on the outskirts of Seoul, sparring over everything from territory to room temperature.
Some wear makeup and stylish hats; others are happy in robes and slippers. A few are bitter, their golden years tarnished by painful memories; others have sweet dispositions and enjoy visiting beauty salons or performing an occasional dance in the living room.
But they all share one thing: Decades ago, they were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers occupying the country before and during World War II. They were repeatedly raped and beaten over months and years.
Now time is running out for the halmoni, or Korean grandmothers. About 150,000 to 200,000 Korean women served as Japanese sex slaves, most living out their lives in humiliated silence.
When activists brought the issue to light in the early 1990s, officials sought out survivors. While many were too ashamed to come forward, officials registered 234 women.
Ninety-three are still alive, according to a nonprofit group that looks after them.
In 1992, some of the so-called comfort women volunteered to live at a new House of Sharing established by Buddhist organizations and philanthropists. There is a full-time chef and nurse and volunteer caregivers. There are regular art classes, exercise sessions and trips to the doctor. Kang is the youngest of the eight remaining residents. The oldest is 92.
They are part Golden Girls, part adamant activists.
Holding out hope for closure before they die, they are waging a battle to persuade the world to acknowledge their ordeal. They are seeking reparations and a formal apology from the Japanese government. They have also pressured the South Korean government to speak out.
Japan's response has been mixed. After the war, the government maintained that military brothels had been run by private contractors. But in 1993, it officially acknowledged the Imperial Army's role in establishing so-called comfort stations.
Conservatives in the political establishment still insist there is no documentary evidence that the army conducted an organized campaign of sexual slavery -- a contention challenged by many researchers.
The testimony of the women of the House of Sharing is the riposte to those who say there is no evidence that Korean women were forced to sexually service Japanese troops. They gather every Wednesday outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul or at various South Korean government offices. They unfurl their banners and mostly stand in silence, unflinching as guards snap their pictures. Over 17 years, they have picketed 861 times. Some have traveled to Washington to testify before Congress.
They are host to 30,000 visitors a year at the House of Sharing, part of a complex that includes the Historical Museum of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery.
They have been poked and prodded like laboratory specimens, their daily lives chronicled by sociologists, their rudimentary artwork studied to gauge the long-term emotional effects of trauma.
Now, many are tired, their years as rabble-rousers behind them. There's a changing of the guard. With a gruff, drill sergeant's demeanor, Kim Kun-ja calls herself a "troublemaker." For years, she was among the loudest activists. The others call her No. 1.
Today the 84-year-old uses a walker. She fell twice recently and rarely gets out of bed.
"We are all mentally ill and physically damaged," she says, eating a bowl of soup. "But I don't want to talk about it anymore. It brings up bad memories from the bottom of my insides."
In her place has emerged the indefatigable Kang. As a teenager, she recalls, she was lured from her home by Japanese soldiers who offered her caramel candy.
On this day, Kang receives a group of 20 mothers who sit in a semicircle on the dormitory floor. Perched on the edge of a couch, dressed in a silk shirt with a scarf wrapped stylishly around her neck, she waves her hands like a veteran politician trying to stir up a crowd.
With age, she has become more defiant, she says, and she is looking for justice.
"We have to resolve this problem before we die," she says. "We have to go away if God calls us, but until this is solved, I can't close my eyes happily."
Kang calls over to Kim, asking her to address the group.
Kim waves her off. "I am deaf," she says.
Nearby, resident Kim Soon-ok, 88, maternally strokes the hair of a visitor half her age who sits before her on the floor.
Some residents, never married, have no grandchildren to visit them. They welcome contact with strangers. They hold hands with visitors and seek long hugs as a grandfather clock in the corner ticks away their remaining days.
One carries a small stuffed rabbit. She says she likes animals more than humans.
Sometimes there is tension at the House of Sharing. Caretakers have placed each resident's photo on her bedroom door and place setting to avoid confusion and tiffs among the women, who can be territorial and cross.
"Open the window, I'm hot," one demands.
"Well, I'm cold," says the one next to her.
Often, the women have complaints. Meals served by the full-time chef are "tasteless," say several as they sit at the dining room table, talking like prisoners plotting a breakout.
Moved to temporary quarters during a renovation of the main dormitory, many complain that they no longer have keys to their rooms.
Kang, the group leader, suddenly pauses. "Shhhhh, someone is coming," she says as a nurse enters the room.
She sighs, saying that although life at the House of Sharing may not be perfect, "we have nowhere else to go."
During a tour of her room, Kang says she cannot tell the others about gifts she has been given by visitors. She holds up an exercise gripper. "If they knew this was given to me, there would be trouble," she says. She shows another gift, a silk scarf. "Isn't this pretty?"
Although many women no longer discuss their past, others seem to derive some relief from retelling their tortures.
Without prompting, Park Ok-ryun, 86, launches into an account of how, as an 18-year-old, she was abducted by two Japanese soldiers. She and a friend had gone to a stream to get water.
"Don't cry," she remembers the soldiers saying. "If you go with us, you can get some nice food and nice clothes."
Park grabs a listener's arm. "I was thrown into the truck and covered with a red-and-blue fabric," she says. She begged to be released, explaining that she had to return home to make dinner.
"But they said, 'Jackass, stop nagging,' and kicked me," she says, showing a jagged scar on her leg.
The women know that some people are listening. The U.S. Congress has called on Japan to apologize and "accept historical responsibility" for the sex slavery.
The Japanese government offered to start a fund, but the women refused the money, demanding that the government also accept responsibility for their suffering.
In a moment of quiet, Kang says that while they can never forget what happened, they must forgive the Japanese, if only for the emotional health of the next generation.
Then Kim, old No. 1, flashes a rare display of humor.
"Not all men are bad," she says, smiling. "There are good ones and there are bad ones."
john.glionna@latimes.com
Ju-min Park of The Times' Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times
USA: 72-year-old man tied to two waves of serial killings
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LOS ANGELES, California / Los Angeles Times / Crime / April 30, 2009
DNA leads detectives to John Thomas Jr., 72. He is held in two slayings, but police suspect he may have killed up to 30 elderly Westside and Claremont women a decade apart.
By Andrew Blankstein and Joe Mozingo
The first wave of slayings haunted Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. The killer slipped mostly unseen through the night, preying on older women who lived alone. He raped them and squeezed their necks until they passed out or died. On the 17 who were killed, he placed pillows or blankets over their faces.
The second wave hit a decade later in Claremont -- five older women raped and strangled, faces again covered.
Even with at least 20 survivors, police never connected the two homicide-and-rape rampages nor solved either of them. The victims gave conflicting descriptions of the rapist, police in different jurisdictions didn't communicate, and DNA technology had not come into use.
Now authorities say they have linked John Floyd Thomas Jr., a 72-year-old state insurance claims adjuster who twice has been convicted of sexual assault, to five of the slayings. Detectives also describe him as a suspect in up to 25 more based on the circumstances of those crimes.
"When all is said and done, Mr. Thomas stands to be Los Angeles' most prolific serial killer," said LAPD Robbery-Homicide Cold Case Det. Richard Bengston.
Thomas was arrested at his apartment in South Los Angeles last month and charged April 2 with murder in connection with the deaths of Ethel Sokoloff, 68, in the Mid-Wilshire area in 1972, and Elizabeth McKeown, 67, in Westchester in 1976.
He said Thomas' DNA matched evidence found at five murder scenes, spanning both crime waves -- the two homicides he has been charged with, one in Lennox in 1975, one in Inglewood in 1976 and one in Claremont in 1986.
Authorities are analyzing evidence in 25 other killings they suspect might be linked to Thomas.
Thomas had been working as an adjuster handling workers' compensation claims since 1989 -- the year the killings stopped. He resigned after his arrest March 31.
Jennifer Vargen, a spokeswoman for the State Compensation Insurance Fund, would not comment on whether the employer was aware of Thomas' criminal record, saying it was a personnel matter.
Co-workers at his office in Glendale described Thomas as quiet but friendly. They said his job mostly involved paperwork.
His steady employment masked a troubled past.
Thomas was born in Los Angeles. His mother died when he was 12 and he was raised by his aunt and a godmother. Thomas attended public schools, including Manual Arts Senior High School.
He briefly joined the U.S. Air Force in 1956. At Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, a superior described Thomas as often late and slovenly. He received a dishonorable discharge, according to his military records, and was arrested for burglary and attempted rape in Los Angeles. He was convicted and sentenced to six years in state prison in 1957. Two parole violations sent him back behind bars until 1966.
The first wave of rapes began a few years later. The so-called "Westside Rapist" attacked white seniors, in neighborhoods from Hollywood in the north to Inglewood in the south. The crimes led to the formation of a special police task force in the mid-1970s.
The LAPD questioned several suspects in those slayings. Thomas was not among them. During this period he was employed as a social worker, hospital employee and personal electronics salesman.
The "Westside Rapist" became one of the more notorious criminals of the era. Victims ranged in age from the 50s to the 90s. Bella Stumbo, the late Times feature writer, wrote in December 1975 that the "serenity" of the neighborhoods where the victims lived "had been so grotesquely invaded by that elusive maniac the police loosely refer to as the 'Westside rapist,' now accused of sexually assaulting at last 33 old women and murdering perhaps 10 of them." She said residents lived in "small colonies of terror."
The attacks appeared to stop in 1978. That year, a witness took down Thomas' license plate after he raped a woman in Pasadena. He was convicted and sent to state prison.
When he was released in 1983, he moved to Chino. And a killer began stalking older woman -- this time in the Inland Valley area.
Over the next six years, Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives would investigate five slayings of elderly women in Claremont, Sgt. Richard Longshore said.
During that period, Thomas worked in neighboring Pomona as a peer counselor at a hospital.
Detectives now believe the last in this cycle of killings occurred in 1989. They are not sure why the perpetrator stopped. That year, Thomas took a job in the state workers' compensation agency in Glendale.
Over the next two decades, the Westside Rapist faded from public memory, and authorities made little headway in the Claremont killings.
In November 2001, the LAPD created the Cold Case Homicide Unit to reopen about 9,000 unsolved slayings going back to 1960, using emerging state and federal DNA databases.
In September 2004, the department's crime lab matched male DNA taken from both the McKeown and Sokoloff crime scenes, police said. But they couldn't match the DNA to a suspect. Over the next five years, detectives developed 14 suspects, but their DNA ruled each of them out as the attacker.
The break came last October, when two officers collected DNA from Thomas as part of an ongoing process to swab registered sex offenders. On March 27, the California Department of Justice DNA Laboratory notified detectives that his DNA matched the evidence from the Sokoloff slaying.
On March 31, they were told that his DNA matched the four other slayings. He was arrested later that day. Thomas is being held at L.A. County Jail and could not be reached for comment.
Police said that connecting the dots in such cases was much harder before DNA and computer databases.
"It was harder to make connections," said LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck. "The difference in investigative techniques, communication and the science is huge."
It has become standard practice for investigators to collect evidence such as hair, fingernail scrapings, and bodily fluids from murder and rape victims.
DNA databases have contributed to a number of arrests and convictions since the beginning of the decade. Several years ago LAPD detectives arrested Chester Dewayne Turner, who was responsible for 10 rape-strangulations along the Figueroa Street corridor in South L.A. and in downtown.
He was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death in May 2007.
But the technology is limited unless a perpetrator's genetic code lands in the database.
The LAPD is still investigating at least a dozen murders, over a span of two decades, connected to an unidentified serial killer dubbed the "Grim Sleeper."
andrew.blankstein@latimes.com
joe.mozingo@latimes.com
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times
IRELAND: Senior citizen party 'confident' of poll success
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DUBLIN, Ireland / Independent / April 30, 2009
By ine Kerr
A new political party representing senior citizens is claiming it can hold the balance of power after the general election.
Founder of the Senior Solidarity party John Wolfe (70), who is running in the local elections in Howth-Malahide, Co Dublin, said he was confident the party could win a "substantial" number of seats in the next general election.
"We've people in the wings who are ready to run in the general election. We are confident that we can hold the balance of power after the next election," Mr Wolfe said.
Click for video
"We would have run more candidates in the local elections because there were plenty of people lining up but we only got our registration certificate on March 25, even though we lodged our application in November."
The retired builder said he is receiving "fantastic support" on the doorsteps since he started canvassing.
He is calling for a medical card for all people over 70, free parking at hospitals, an ombudsman for senior citizens and a "fair deal for nursing homes, not a raw deal".
Support is coming from people of all ages, he said.
"Young people say that voting for us is a vote for their mams and dads and their futures."
© Independent.ie
USA: Senior Couple Named Citizens of the Year for Volunteer Work
Myron and Connie Umerski, at their Sartell home, have been name Sartell’s Citizens of the Year.
They plan to accept the award on behalf of the Sartell Senior Connection.
Jason Wachter - St Cloud Times
SARTELL, Minnesotta / St Cloud Times / April 30, 2009
By Jane Laskey
The Sartell Chamber of Commerce will honor Connie and Myron Umerski as its 2009 Citizens of the Year tonight.
"We're very humbled but very pleased to even have been nominated, let alone selected," Myron Umerski said. "It's a great honor."
The Umerskis met at the Newman Center at St. Cloud State University more than 45 years ago.
They married and settled in St. Cloud, where they raised two daughters, Ann Marie Rassman and Mary Beth Fahrenkamp, both of Waconia. They also have four grandchildren.
Myron Umerski worked at St. Cloud State for 33 years, retiring in 2001. Connie worked at J.C. Penney for 27 years, retiring in 2000. When health issues made living in their split-level home difficult, they moved to Sartell in 2004.
In 2008 they logged more than 730 volunteer hours together.
"Volunteering is important for us," Connie Umerski said. "From my perspective, it was important even before I retired."
Myron Umerski serves on the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program advisory board and the SCSU Alumni board. He volunteers with Seniors and Law Enforcement Together, the Community Emergency Response Team, and at the Whitney Senior Center where he facilitates the Tuesday humanities discussion and leads monthly tours.
Connie Umerski is co-facilitator of the Tuesday humanities discussions. She organized the annual J.C. Penney reunion luncheon. And she serves on the United Way of Central Minnesota's Community Investment team.
"It's funny. It turns out when you help other people, you help yourself in the process," Connie Umerski said. "You just kind of get a kick out of doing something that makes a difference."
Senior Connection
As impressive as their other volunteer efforts appear, they pale in comparison with hours the couple spent launching the Sartell Senior Connection.
When the group formed in 2007, there was very little programming for Sartell senior citizens. The Umerskis were part of a group of about 40 residents who attended a senior forum that year at Sartell City Hall.
"Sartell didn't have an official senior program and we thought it could use it," Myron Umerski said. They listened as city and community organizations asked seniors what was on their minds. The answer? A lot. They wanted walking trails. They wanted to get the word out to other seniors. And they wanted a place to connect.
Myron and Connie Umerski were a driving force in the Sartell Senior Connection. Umerski worked with the city, Sartell-St. Stephen Community Education and area businesses to forge a partnership that would serve the senior community.
"The Umerskis are two of the finest leaders with whom I have ever worked," Jan Sorrell wrote in her nomination. "They strive to include and respect the opinions of all. They do their homework and keep us excited and motivated ..."
When SSC events started popping up everywhere, the Umerskis were there to support them. Myron served as the group's chair and also chaired the steering committee. Connie served as recording secretary and program director for the group's monthly meetings.
"They have really worked tirelessly to get the Senior Connection off the ground," Ron Scarbro said.
Soon the group had more than 100 names on its mailing list. SSC members worked with the city and school district to open new trails and find indoor walking opportunities. And the SSC's monthly calendar was brimming with events.
Sartell's seniors had found their connection.
"Connie and Myron epitomize what this group is all about," Ann Doyscher-Domres said. "They want to give back to the group. They want to give back to their community. They just give of themselves so much."
Myron Umerski's eyes sparkle as he talks about the road ahead. He hopes to build the organization's structure and create bylaws so they can pursue grants and other funding opportunities.
"Now that we've had some success in meeting our goals, we want to be able to show them we're a mature organization," Umerski said.
It was through a surprise announcement at an SSC meeting that Connie and Myron learned of their award.
"When they said our names, I was shocked. I'm red-faced and I'm looking at Connie and she's in a state of shock, too," Myron Umerski said.
They decided they would feel better if they shared the glory, so they announced at an SSC coffee that they planned to accept the award on behalf of the Sartell Senior Connection.
"We both talked about it after we came down off the clouds," Myron Umerski said. "We can't take this Citizen of the Year honor onto ourselves. We are really representing the whole Sartell Senior Connection, and we want to share it with that wonderful group of people."
The Sartell couple will receive a $100 savings bond and $100 in Sartell Chamber Bucks. They will also see their names added to the Citizen of the Year plaque in Sartell City Hall.
Source: SCTimes.com
JAPAN: Clint Eastwood, Wangari Maathai Among Foreigners Honored
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TOKYO, Japan / The Japan Times / Kyodo / National News / April 30, 2009
U.S. actor and film director Clint Eastwood and the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai are among 70 foreign recipients from 32 countries of this year's spring decorations by the government, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
As sprightly as ever: Clint Eastwood, now 78.
File photo by Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images.
Maathai, 69, will receive the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, while Eastwood, 78, will be given the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.
Maathai, a Kenyan, is praised for her role in raising awareness among the Japanese of environmental protection, putting forward the Japanese phrase "mottainai," meaning, "You should save it."
Eastwood is hailed for boosting mutual understanding between Japan and the United States through production of smash-hit, award-winning movies.
In 2006, he released two movies based on the fierce World War II Battle of Iwo Jima — "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima."
The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun will also be given to Lamberto Dini, 78, a former Italian prime minister, Nam Duck Woo, 84, a former South Korean prime minister, and Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, a former Dutch economic minister.
Brinkhorst, 72, served as ambassador and head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Japan from 1982 to 1987. The same award will be given to Joseph Sepp Blatter, 73, president of soccer's world governing body FIFA. Blatter is a Swiss national.
Arden Bement, 76, director of the National Science Foundation of the United States, will receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star.
(C) The Japan Times
As sprightly as ever: Clint Eastwood, now 78.
File photo by Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images.
Maathai, 69, will receive the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, while Eastwood, 78, will be given the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.
Maathai, a Kenyan, is praised for her role in raising awareness among the Japanese of environmental protection, putting forward the Japanese phrase "mottainai," meaning, "You should save it."
Eastwood is hailed for boosting mutual understanding between Japan and the United States through production of smash-hit, award-winning movies.
In 2006, he released two movies based on the fierce World War II Battle of Iwo Jima — "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima."
The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun will also be given to Lamberto Dini, 78, a former Italian prime minister, Nam Duck Woo, 84, a former South Korean prime minister, and Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, a former Dutch economic minister.
Brinkhorst, 72, served as ambassador and head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Japan from 1982 to 1987. The same award will be given to Joseph Sepp Blatter, 73, president of soccer's world governing body FIFA. Blatter is a Swiss national.
Arden Bement, 76, director of the National Science Foundation of the United States, will receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star.
(C) The Japan Times
NEW ZEALAND: Admission requirement - you have to be thin
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand / IOL.co.za / April 30, 2009
A British nurse weighing 134 kilograms has been refused permission to live in New Zealand because she is too fat, according to news reports on Thursday.
The 51-year-old nurse, who had been offered a job in a hospital for the elderly, was turned down by immigration officials because her body mass index of 55,2 made her morbidly obese.
Medical assessors said the woman would probably cost the country 25 000 New Zealand dollars (11 200 US dollars) over four years in health treatment.
The woman, who has a 131-centimetre waist, said she was physically fit, had no history of cancer or chronic disease in her family, and her weight did not stop her working more than 60 hours a week.
She failed in an appeal against the immigration service's decision.
A Ministry of Health survey in 2007 found that 36 per cent of New Zealand adults were overweight and one in four was classified as obese. - Sapa-dpa
© Independent Online.
WORLD: Flu pandemic alert level raised amid warning of 'imminent' emergency
. LONDON, England / The Times / World News / April 30, 2009 By David Rose and Sam Lister The world was put on the second highest possible alert of a flu pandemic last night as countries were warned that a global health emergency was imminent. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), raised the official global alert level to phase five out of six, after the new strain of Mexican swine flu was transmitted between humans in Mexico and the United States. It had spread to at least nine countries, four of them in Europe. Dr Chan said: “Influenza viruses are notorious for their rapid mutations and unpredictable behaviour. We do not have all the answers immediately, but we will get them.” Phase five, one step short of a full pandemic, is defined by the WHO as a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent, “and that the time to finalise . . . planned mitigation measures is short”. Phase six declares a global pandemic, or sustained community-level illness on more than one continent. Britain is considered one of the countries best prepared for such an event. Ministers pledged yesterday to increase stockpiles of medicines, including antiviral treatments, and announced a public health campaign. The Government had indicated earlier that no big events in Britain were likely to be cancelled or borders closed as a result of the decision to raise the alert level. The announcement came late last night after all-day emergency meetings with leading scientists, convened by the WHO. By 9pm a total of 140 cases were confirmed around the world of the viral strain of swine flu that is spreading from Mexico, including three new cases in Britain. Up to a million doses of antiviral drugs will be delivered to frontline NHS workers by next week. Doctors and nurses will receive medication to use as a precaution if they come into contact with anyone suspected of carrying the swine flu strain. Gordon Brown said that three new cases had been confirmed yesterday in England, including a 12-year-old girl, whose school was closed and her classmates given antiviral drugs. A 41-year-old woman from Birmingham and a 22-year-old man from London were also confirmed as having been infected. It takes the total number of confirmed cases in Britain to five, although all had recently returned from Mexico and were understood to be responding well to treatment at home, the Prime Minister said. Keiji Fukuda, assistant directorgeneral of the WHO, said yesterday afternoon that the agency was moving closer to increasing its pandemic alert level. “It’s clear that the virus is spreading, and we don’t see any evidence that it is slowing down at this point,” he said. “Phase five is a significant milestone in terms of countries and warnings. We are dealing with sustained transmission in at least two or more countries.” Hours later Dr Chan raised the alert level and said that the world was better prepared than ever for a pandemic. “For the first time in history we can track the infections, in real time,” she said. All countries should immediately “activate their pandemic preparedness plans”. The Spanish Health Ministry had reported earlier that a person who had not travelled to Mexico was infected, raising fears that the H1N1 viral strain could spread between people throughout several countries if not contained. As Germany and Austria confirmed their first cases yesterday, Mr Brown told MPs that a schoolgirl from Paignton, Devon, was among the three new cases in England. The girl, later named as Amy Whitehouse, 12, had flown back from a holiday in Mexico last week on the same aircraft as two Scottish honeymooners identified on Monday as Britain’s first swine flu cases. Her school, Paignton Community and Sports College, has been closed for a week and 230 children given precautionary doses of Tamiflu, which appears to be successful in treating the new strain. The Scottish government said that tests on the initial eight people who came into contact with the first two Britons to be confirmed with the virus were negative. Iain and Dawn Askham, of Polmont, near Falkirk, are recovering well in an isolation ward at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, Lanarkshire. The Government said that it was increasing its stockpiles of antiviral drugs, face masks and antibiotics. It has already stockpiled more than 33 million doses of the drugs Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir) but has ordered enough to have 50 million doses ready within a few weeks, at a estimated total cost of £750 million. Leaflets will be sent to every British household on Tuesday, advising people to use tissues and good hygiene to contain the spread of the virus. The “catch it, kill it, bin it” message and a national telephone hotline for advice will feature on television, press and radio adverts from this morning. “We’ll make sure that we are as well prepared as any country in the world,” Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, added. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, said that it may be weeks before the virus — thought to be a combination of animal and human flu strains — was sufficiently understood for a vaccine to be researched. He added that millions of surgical facemasks had been ordered for NHS staff who have close contact with infected patients, but the wearing of masks by the public was not necessary. “It could even be counter-productive, as they get moist, which increases risk of virus transmission . . . and provides a false sense of security,” he said. Anyone who had returned from affected countries and had flu-like symptoms was to contact NHS Direct, or their doctor by phone, he said. NHS Direct released figures last night on the number of people visiting its website to find out more about swine flu. A spokesman said more than 63,000 people visited the site on Tuesday compared with about 39,000 on Tuesday last week. Of those, 16,638 people inquired about flu. US officials reported the first swine flu fatality outside Mexico yesterday, although it later emerged that the 23-month-old girl who died in Texas was a Mexican who had been taken to the US for treatment. President Obama raised the prospect of widespread school closures to prevent the virus spreading, saying that “utmost precautions” were needed to contain the spreading outbreak. Several schools in New York, where 51 of the 91 confirmed swine flu cases in the US have been recorded, have already closed their doors and some parents kept their children away. At an emergency meeting of the European Union today, health officials will discuss the possibility of a Europe-wide travel advisory to avoid Mexico, where as many as 159 people are suspected to have been been killed by the new virus. Another 2,500 are thought to have been infected, with the majority making quick recoveries. EU experts believe that swine flu could claim thousands of lives. “Yes, people will die from this. It is not a question of whether people will die, but more a question of how many. Will it be hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands?” Robert Madelin, director-general for health and consumer policy at the European Commission, said. However, the Mayor of Mexico City, the metropolis of 20 million people that has been virtually shut down because of the outbreak, said that cases of serious illness appeared to be levelling out. Marcelo Ebrard said that if the number of reported deaths kept falling, he would consider easing the citywide closures of schools, restaurants, gyms and other public places. Apart from closing down its capital, Mexico has taken other measures to contain the outbreak: all archaeological sites have been closed; a regional beach football championship has been postponed; and all first division football games this weekend will be played with no spectators. Cruise ships are avoiding Mexican ports, and holiday tour groups are cancelling charter flights to the country, in line with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s advice to postpone all non-essential travel to affected areas. Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.
WORLD: UN notches up Swine Flu Pandemic Alert to Level 5
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UNITED NATIONS, New York, / UN News Centre / April 30, 2009
Seeing the swine flu virus spread within a raft of countries, the United Nations health agency last evening raised the international alert to Phase 5 on a six-point scale, signalling an imminent pandemic and urging all countries to intensify preparations.
People should wash their hands with soap and water, especially after coughing or sneezing as a precaution against swine flu
“This change to a higher alert is a signal to Governments, to ministries of health and other ministries, to the pharmaceutical and the business communities, that certain actions now should be undertaken with extreme urgency,” Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said in announcing the move during a teleconference with the world press.
“All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic surveillance plans,” she said, calling on all to remain on high alert for clusters of influenza-like illness and pneumonia. Early detection and treatment of cases, and infection controls in all health facilities were also critical, she said.
Alert Phase 5 meant that sustained human to human transmission had been confirmed, with widespread community outbreaks, in at least two regions, she said.
International cooperation was particularly important she maintained, warning that the H1N1 influenza virus has shown its “capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.”
She added that she had reached out to donor countries and international organizations to mobilize resources, particularly for developing countries which are usually more vulnerable to the deadliest effects of pandemics.
Fortunately, she said the world is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than any time in history, due to the substantial investments made to prepare for the H5N1 virus, or avian flu. “For the first time in history, we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real time,” she said.
She thanked countries, particularly the United States, Canada and Mexico, for their strong cooperation with WHO since the outbreak became evident.
“New diseases, by definition, are poorly understood, and WHO and health authorities will not have all the answers immediately,” she acknowledged, while vowing, “But we will get them.”
The agency, she pledged, would continue tracking the virus at the epidemiological, clinical and biological levels, and make their information public as soon as it is analyzed.
In an earlier teleconference today, WHO Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda said that there has been an increase in lab-confirmed cases – from 79 yesterday to 114 – been reported in Canada, the US, Mexico, Israel, Spain, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
“It’s clear that the virus is spreading, and we don’t see any evidence of it slowing down at this point,” Mr. Fukuda said
He said that while preliminary results showed that the virus did originate in pigs, he stressed that there is no evidence that people are now getting sick from pigs or pork products.
He emphasized that experts are continuing to study the situation and that there are still unanswered questions – for example, it is currently unclear whether people, upon becoming infected, will develop mild or severe illness.
Yesterday, Mr. Fukuda said that WHO is working to facilitate the process needed to develop a vaccine effective against the swine flu virus, which the agency noted could take around 4 to 6 months, plus more months to build up substantial stocks.
Meanwhile, today at the Security Council, which is holding an open debate on the situation of children caught up in armed conflict, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reiterated his call for international unity on the swine flu outbreak.
“This really requires the whole international community’s cooperation, and I count on the leadership and commitment of not only the Council member States, but the whole international community,” he said.
Source: UN News Centre
Seeing the swine flu virus spread within a raft of countries, the United Nations health agency last evening raised the international alert to Phase 5 on a six-point scale, signalling an imminent pandemic and urging all countries to intensify preparations.
People should wash their hands with soap and water, especially after coughing or sneezing as a precaution against swine flu
“This change to a higher alert is a signal to Governments, to ministries of health and other ministries, to the pharmaceutical and the business communities, that certain actions now should be undertaken with extreme urgency,” Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said in announcing the move during a teleconference with the world press.
“All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic surveillance plans,” she said, calling on all to remain on high alert for clusters of influenza-like illness and pneumonia. Early detection and treatment of cases, and infection controls in all health facilities were also critical, she said.
Alert Phase 5 meant that sustained human to human transmission had been confirmed, with widespread community outbreaks, in at least two regions, she said.
International cooperation was particularly important she maintained, warning that the H1N1 influenza virus has shown its “capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.”
She added that she had reached out to donor countries and international organizations to mobilize resources, particularly for developing countries which are usually more vulnerable to the deadliest effects of pandemics.
Fortunately, she said the world is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than any time in history, due to the substantial investments made to prepare for the H5N1 virus, or avian flu. “For the first time in history, we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real time,” she said.
She thanked countries, particularly the United States, Canada and Mexico, for their strong cooperation with WHO since the outbreak became evident.
“New diseases, by definition, are poorly understood, and WHO and health authorities will not have all the answers immediately,” she acknowledged, while vowing, “But we will get them.”
The agency, she pledged, would continue tracking the virus at the epidemiological, clinical and biological levels, and make their information public as soon as it is analyzed.
In an earlier teleconference today, WHO Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda said that there has been an increase in lab-confirmed cases – from 79 yesterday to 114 – been reported in Canada, the US, Mexico, Israel, Spain, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
“It’s clear that the virus is spreading, and we don’t see any evidence of it slowing down at this point,” Mr. Fukuda said
He said that while preliminary results showed that the virus did originate in pigs, he stressed that there is no evidence that people are now getting sick from pigs or pork products.
He emphasized that experts are continuing to study the situation and that there are still unanswered questions – for example, it is currently unclear whether people, upon becoming infected, will develop mild or severe illness.
Yesterday, Mr. Fukuda said that WHO is working to facilitate the process needed to develop a vaccine effective against the swine flu virus, which the agency noted could take around 4 to 6 months, plus more months to build up substantial stocks.
Meanwhile, today at the Security Council, which is holding an open debate on the situation of children caught up in armed conflict, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reiterated his call for international unity on the swine flu outbreak.
“This really requires the whole international community’s cooperation, and I count on the leadership and commitment of not only the Council member States, but the whole international community,” he said.
Source: UN News Centre
April 29, 2009
SPAIN: Cruise Ship Pensioners Were Drug Mules
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LONDON, England / Sky News / April 29, 2009
CADIZ, Spain - A gang accused of using pensioners to smuggle cocaine on luxury cruises has been arrested by Spanish police.
Spain has become the main entry point for bringing drugs into Europe
They were held after two women in their 60s were caught trying to bring 27kgs of cocaine into Spain, stuffed in their suitcases. When the ship docked in Cadiz, the elderly women were reportedly supposed to pass the drugs on to two others. They would then distribute the drugs across Europe.
Police detained the two people who were at the port to collect the drugs, as well as the alleged leader of the group as he tried to flee to Brazil. The women, who were posing as tourists, picked up the drugs when the cruise ship they were on stopped at a Brazilian port.
Police say it is the first time anyone has been caught using this method to bring drugs into Spain. The gang allegedly has connections to Brazil, The Netherlands and Spain.
Spain is the main entry point for drugs into Europe and police have thwarted a number of such attempts this year. Last month police in Barcelona discovered a 42-piece blue crockery set, that was actually made entirely from 20kg of cocaine. And in March a 66-year-old Chilean man was also arrested in Barcelona after it emerged his broken leg was supported by a cast made entirely out of cocaine.
Copyright ©2009 BskyB
Spain has become the main entry point for bringing drugs into Europe
They were held after two women in their 60s were caught trying to bring 27kgs of cocaine into Spain, stuffed in their suitcases. When the ship docked in Cadiz, the elderly women were reportedly supposed to pass the drugs on to two others. They would then distribute the drugs across Europe.
Police detained the two people who were at the port to collect the drugs, as well as the alleged leader of the group as he tried to flee to Brazil. The women, who were posing as tourists, picked up the drugs when the cruise ship they were on stopped at a Brazilian port.
Police say it is the first time anyone has been caught using this method to bring drugs into Spain. The gang allegedly has connections to Brazil, The Netherlands and Spain.
Spain is the main entry point for drugs into Europe and police have thwarted a number of such attempts this year. Last month police in Barcelona discovered a 42-piece blue crockery set, that was actually made entirely from 20kg of cocaine. And in March a 66-year-old Chilean man was also arrested in Barcelona after it emerged his broken leg was supported by a cast made entirely out of cocaine.
Copyright ©2009 BskyB
AUSTRALIA: Senate committee embraces reform agenda
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GLEBE, Sydney, NSW / Australian Ageing Agenda / April 29, 2009
After examining 121 submissions and six hearings, the Senate Committee on Finance and Public Administration has acknowledged the desire for reform among aged care providers.
The committee’s 166-page-report following its extensive inquiry into aged care contains 31 unanimous recommendations for change.
Among the suggestions is the establishment of a national aged care forum which would report directly to the Minister for Ageing, along with a taskforce to implement the forum’s determinations.
This taskforce would also work with the Department of Health and Ageing to conduct an “all-encompassing” review of the Aged Care Act.
The industry has welcomed the broad outlook of the recommendations.
“We are very supportive of the notion of comprehensive reform of aged care,” said the CEO of Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA).
“The senators clearly identified some deep seated problems which the sector faces.
“It’s underpinned our assertion that there are fundamental issues that need to be addressed.”
The committee called for a review of aged care funding indexation, a ‘stress test’ to determine the sector’s financial wellbeing and an analysis to benchmark the real cost of care provision.
The CEO of Aged Care Association Australia, Rod Young said these are in line with the industry’s concerns.
“We would certainly welcome any strategy which looks at the true cost of providing care,” he said.
“The lack of information in this area has been a big factor in the ongoing tension between the industry and the government for many years.”
The report also recommended that the costs of care and accommodation be “decoupled” in residential care.
But Mr Young noted there was no recommendation that appeared to address difficulties experienced by providers trying to meet their capital requirements.
“It will be interesting to see if the ‘decoupling’ of care and hotel/accommodation costs may lead to some improvements in this area.”
The call for reform in the committee’s findings echo the sentiments of recent reports from the Productivity Commission, Catholic Health Australia and the government’s own National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission.
Click here to see a PDF of the committee's report.
© The Intermedia Group.
UK: All UK homes to receive swine fever leaflets
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LONDON, England / The First Post / News / April 29, 2009
Results of tests on 23 Scottish patients should give a better picture of how the virus is spreading
By Jack Bremer
Health authorities are anxiously awaiting the results of tests for swine fever virus in 23 people in Scotland. The results should give them a better picture of how the flu virus is spreading. Fourteen of those being tested are people who have been on holiday in Mexico or the United States and have reported flu-like symptoms; another nine are people who have been in contact with the Falkirk couple, Iain and Dawn Askham, who are already confirmed as Britain's first known cases.
The Askhams, who contracted swine fever while honeymooning in Cancun, Mexico, are continuing to recover in Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, Lanarkshire. If any of the nine friends they saw before they were isolated have contracted the virus, it will the first known case of the fever spreading within Britain.
In the meantime, the Department of Health in London is to start delivering leaflets to every UK household about what precautions to take against the swine fever virus. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that a massive stockpile of Tamiflu, put in place because of the bird flu scare, means Britain is among the world's best prepared countries to deal with a serious outbreak of the new flu strain.
Worldwide, Mexico has raised its estimate of the number of suspected deaths to 159. There have still been no deaths outside Mexico, but the number of confirmed cases elsewhere is rising. In the United States, 64 cases are now confirmed. There are also confirmed cases in Canada, New Zealand, Israel and Spain.
Across Britain, unconfirmed cases are being investigated in Wales, Wiltshire and Derbyshire. Anyone who believes they may have swine flu is asked not to visit their GP's surgery, but to telephone for advice.
(C) First Post Newsgroup IPR Limited
By Jack Bremer
Health authorities are anxiously awaiting the results of tests for swine fever virus in 23 people in Scotland. The results should give them a better picture of how the flu virus is spreading. Fourteen of those being tested are people who have been on holiday in Mexico or the United States and have reported flu-like symptoms; another nine are people who have been in contact with the Falkirk couple, Iain and Dawn Askham, who are already confirmed as Britain's first known cases.
The Askhams, who contracted swine fever while honeymooning in Cancun, Mexico, are continuing to recover in Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, Lanarkshire. If any of the nine friends they saw before they were isolated have contracted the virus, it will the first known case of the fever spreading within Britain.
In the meantime, the Department of Health in London is to start delivering leaflets to every UK household about what precautions to take against the swine fever virus. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that a massive stockpile of Tamiflu, put in place because of the bird flu scare, means Britain is among the world's best prepared countries to deal with a serious outbreak of the new flu strain.
Worldwide, Mexico has raised its estimate of the number of suspected deaths to 159. There have still been no deaths outside Mexico, but the number of confirmed cases elsewhere is rising. In the United States, 64 cases are now confirmed. There are also confirmed cases in Canada, New Zealand, Israel and Spain.
Across Britain, unconfirmed cases are being investigated in Wales, Wiltshire and Derbyshire. Anyone who believes they may have swine flu is asked not to visit their GP's surgery, but to telephone for advice.
(C) First Post Newsgroup IPR Limited
UK: High St skin cream really does reduce the signs of ageing
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LONDON, England / The Times / Science News / April 29, 2009
The effects of the cream were visible in before,
left, and after photographs
By David Rose
A skin cream sold on the high street has been clinically proven to reduce fine wrinkles and improve the appearance of weathered skin, scientists say.
Dermatologists at the University of Manchester carried out a trial on 60 volunteers with signs of sun-damaged skin and found that the cream, made by Boots, could help to reduce the most common signs of ageing.
The study, published online today by the British Journal of Dermatology, found that 70 per cent of people who used the cream for a year had significantly fewer wrinkles compared with volunteers using a placebo.
It is thought to be the first time that a cosmetic has been subjected to such rigorous testing, producing results that were visible and could be verified by a doctor.
Related Link
The face in the mirror: getting rid of blemishes
The No7 Protect & Perfect beauty serum was hailed as a wonder cream and sold out after the same research team highlighted its effects on the BBC Two Horizon programme in 2007. A rebranded version, No 7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum, goes on sale tomorrow, costing £19.75 for a 30ml tube. Boots predicts boom sales. The cream was originally launched in 2006 as No 7’s Refine and Rewind cream, costing £16.75.
Chris Griffiths, a professor of dermatology at Manchester who led the study, said that the effects varied from person to person but were visible on before and after photographs after six months. On a ten-point clinical scale of photo-ageing, the difference was equivalent to a reduction from an average of 5.2 points to 4 across those who used the cream, but the effect applied only to wrinkles, and not other signs of ageing. The research was funded by Boots, but independently controlled. The findings would have been published even if they had not produced positive results.
Professor Griffiths said that limiting sun exposure or using sun block was still the best way to maintain young-looking skin, but added: “Boots was actually very brave to subject its product to this kind of testing. It is rare for such benefits to be reported for an over-the-counter anti-ageing product and this study paves the way for larger studies with more statistical power.”
Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: “Approximately one in five people using the cream will get something extra for their money over plain moisturisers.”
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd
The effects of the cream were visible in before,
left, and after photographs
By David Rose
A skin cream sold on the high street has been clinically proven to reduce fine wrinkles and improve the appearance of weathered skin, scientists say.
Dermatologists at the University of Manchester carried out a trial on 60 volunteers with signs of sun-damaged skin and found that the cream, made by Boots, could help to reduce the most common signs of ageing.
The study, published online today by the British Journal of Dermatology, found that 70 per cent of people who used the cream for a year had significantly fewer wrinkles compared with volunteers using a placebo.
It is thought to be the first time that a cosmetic has been subjected to such rigorous testing, producing results that were visible and could be verified by a doctor.
Related Link
The face in the mirror: getting rid of blemishes
The No7 Protect & Perfect beauty serum was hailed as a wonder cream and sold out after the same research team highlighted its effects on the BBC Two Horizon programme in 2007. A rebranded version, No 7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum, goes on sale tomorrow, costing £19.75 for a 30ml tube. Boots predicts boom sales. The cream was originally launched in 2006 as No 7’s Refine and Rewind cream, costing £16.75.
Chris Griffiths, a professor of dermatology at Manchester who led the study, said that the effects varied from person to person but were visible on before and after photographs after six months. On a ten-point clinical scale of photo-ageing, the difference was equivalent to a reduction from an average of 5.2 points to 4 across those who used the cream, but the effect applied only to wrinkles, and not other signs of ageing. The research was funded by Boots, but independently controlled. The findings would have been published even if they had not produced positive results.
Professor Griffiths said that limiting sun exposure or using sun block was still the best way to maintain young-looking skin, but added: “Boots was actually very brave to subject its product to this kind of testing. It is rare for such benefits to be reported for an over-the-counter anti-ageing product and this study paves the way for larger studies with more statistical power.”
Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: “Approximately one in five people using the cream will get something extra for their money over plain moisturisers.”
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd
AUSTRALIA: Families cry foul over artists' move
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MELBOURNE, Victoria / The Age / National News / April 29, 2009
By Gabriella Coslovich
Artist Tiger Palpatja. Photo: Jon Reid
HE'S known for his gung-ho business style, has talked about wanting to "wipe out" his rivals, and he's at the centre of controversy again.
During Easter, art dealer John Ioannou, who owns Agathon Galleries in Melbourne and Sydney, arranged for two senior Aboriginal artists to be moved from their remote desert community in South Australia and had them taken to his Alice Springs home.
The artists' families were upset that they were not consulted about the move of their frail and elderly relatives. The artists — Tiger Palpatja, an 89-year-old man who is beginning to show signs of dementia, and Ruby Williamson, 69 — paint with the Tjala Arts Centre in their country, Amata, in South Australia.
Both artists have submitted works for this year's $40,000 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Last year 14 artists pulled out of the awards because of ethical concerns about the inclusion of artwork from Irrunytju, a Western Desert centre Mr Ioannou works with as an adviser.
On Easter Sunday, when the Tjala Arts centre was closed, two vehicles entered the Amata community and picked up Palpatja and Williamson for the 5½-hour drive to Alice Springs, where they stayed at Mr Ioannou's house. John Doherty, the lawyer engaged by Palpatja's family, contacted police, who visited the house but decided not to remove the artists.
The two artists' families were deeply distressed and eventually persuaded them to return home. An Amata community member took Palpatja home on Saturday, while Williamson's son took her home on Sunday.
Both artists had spent two weeks at Mr Ioannou's house. Palpatja's daughter Nola Angkatji Tiger read a statement to The Age by phone from Amata, describing the removal and the anguish it caused: "Two weeks ago some anangu (people) came and took my father to go and make paintings for Yani (the Pitjantjatjara word for Ioannou) in Alice Springs. (Tiger) is an old man. His family said 'no'. But someone took him anyway. He can't think straight, kata cura (bad head), he needs me to help him. He came back (on Saturday) to Amata. He has no money and no motor car from Alice Springs. Yani didn't pay him."
Mr Ioannou yesterday denied he had organised the artists' removal, although he did acknowledge that "yes, they have come to my house in Alice Springs". Asked whether they painted there, he said "not that I know of"'.
Mr Ioannou declined to give his version of the story, saying he had been misquoted in the past. He said: "I have heard quite a few different versions of that story … I just hope they get it right because I can tell you my lawyers are waiting."
Mr Doherty is working pro bono for Palpatja's family and the case has also been referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
"When you look at the circumstances, which include the age and health of the artist, and the manner in which he was spirited away, there are some very disturbing issues that arise," Mr Doherty said.
"Our inquiries satisfy us that the house Tiger was taken to was connected with Ioannou as were the personalities involved. Tiger tells us that he has created a number of paintings. He has now returned to Amata and he is very disoriented."
Liz Tregenza, the general manager of Ananguku Arts, a support organisation for arts centres in Anangu, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara lands, said it would be concerning if two elderly artists were removed from their country.
"Elderly people are happier in their country … so it's a very distressing episode for their families," she said.
Copyright © 2009. Fairfax Digital
HE'S known for his gung-ho business style, has talked about wanting to "wipe out" his rivals, and he's at the centre of controversy again.
During Easter, art dealer John Ioannou, who owns Agathon Galleries in Melbourne and Sydney, arranged for two senior Aboriginal artists to be moved from their remote desert community in South Australia and had them taken to his Alice Springs home.
The artists' families were upset that they were not consulted about the move of their frail and elderly relatives. The artists — Tiger Palpatja, an 89-year-old man who is beginning to show signs of dementia, and Ruby Williamson, 69 — paint with the Tjala Arts Centre in their country, Amata, in South Australia.
Both artists have submitted works for this year's $40,000 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Last year 14 artists pulled out of the awards because of ethical concerns about the inclusion of artwork from Irrunytju, a Western Desert centre Mr Ioannou works with as an adviser.
On Easter Sunday, when the Tjala Arts centre was closed, two vehicles entered the Amata community and picked up Palpatja and Williamson for the 5½-hour drive to Alice Springs, where they stayed at Mr Ioannou's house. John Doherty, the lawyer engaged by Palpatja's family, contacted police, who visited the house but decided not to remove the artists.
The two artists' families were deeply distressed and eventually persuaded them to return home. An Amata community member took Palpatja home on Saturday, while Williamson's son took her home on Sunday.
Both artists had spent two weeks at Mr Ioannou's house. Palpatja's daughter Nola Angkatji Tiger read a statement to The Age by phone from Amata, describing the removal and the anguish it caused: "Two weeks ago some anangu (people) came and took my father to go and make paintings for Yani (the Pitjantjatjara word for Ioannou) in Alice Springs. (Tiger) is an old man. His family said 'no'. But someone took him anyway. He can't think straight, kata cura (bad head), he needs me to help him. He came back (on Saturday) to Amata. He has no money and no motor car from Alice Springs. Yani didn't pay him."
Mr Ioannou yesterday denied he had organised the artists' removal, although he did acknowledge that "yes, they have come to my house in Alice Springs". Asked whether they painted there, he said "not that I know of"'.
Mr Ioannou declined to give his version of the story, saying he had been misquoted in the past. He said: "I have heard quite a few different versions of that story … I just hope they get it right because I can tell you my lawyers are waiting."
Mr Doherty is working pro bono for Palpatja's family and the case has also been referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
"When you look at the circumstances, which include the age and health of the artist, and the manner in which he was spirited away, there are some very disturbing issues that arise," Mr Doherty said.
"Our inquiries satisfy us that the house Tiger was taken to was connected with Ioannou as were the personalities involved. Tiger tells us that he has created a number of paintings. He has now returned to Amata and he is very disoriented."
Liz Tregenza, the general manager of Ananguku Arts, a support organisation for arts centres in Anangu, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara lands, said it would be concerning if two elderly artists were removed from their country.
"Elderly people are happier in their country … so it's a very distressing episode for their families," she said.
Copyright © 2009. Fairfax Digital
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