Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Israel Celebrating 61 Years of Independence
Israel began celebrating 61 years of statehood at sundown on Tuesday following the commemoration of Remembrance Day, which honors fallen soldiers and civilians.
The Independence Day celebrations officially began with the lighting of torches at a ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem attended by hundreds of Israeli and foreign dignitaries. The ceremonies will continue on Wednesday with air force and naval parades to the mark the anniversary under the Jewish calendar of the end of the British mandate in Palestine on May 14, 1948.
China Confidential analysts say this year is almost certain to be Israel's most challenging since the War of Independence. Israel will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power, even if Israel has to attack the mullahocracy on its own, without American help or approval. The Obama administration is pursuing a policy of appeasement toward Tehran--under cover of never-ending "direct diplomacy"--in the hope of entering into a so-called grand bargain with the Islamist nation for the pacification of Afghanistan (a lost cause) and countering nuclear-armed Pakistan if it is overrun by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Israel is the odd man out in the White House world view; the importance of America's strategic ally is being downgraded and diminished to a dangerous degree.Latin American Audiences Entertained, Moved to Tears by First Film Shot in Guatemala Since 1938
Is film an art or a business?
The answer, of course, is that film is both an art and a business.
It is also a source of prestige and wealth creation for countries, states, and municipalities, which is why so many governments of all sizes offer financial incentives, including tax credits, grants and loans, and heavily subsidized, "below-the-line" services, in order to attract qualified film producers.
Films generate jobs and tourism; they normalize places and encourage interest in them. In terms of civic pride, people of all backgrounds and nationalities derive pleasure and excitement from seeing moving images of their nation, town, or neighborhood. Films bind communities together and help them to become better known to the outside world.
All of which may explain the phenomenal international reaction to Andrzej Krakowski's brilliant new film, Looking for Palladin. It is the first feature film made in Guatemala since the 1938 release, Tarzan and the Green Goddess. That Looking for Palladin, which focuses on a group of bohemian expatriates, is also about the Central American nation--or, a slice of it, at least--makes the movie even more newsworthy. It is also exceptionally entertaining and moving, and unquestionably universally appealing. The foreign setting adds texture and color to the film--and terrific production value--without detracting from its deeper meaning or underlying message in any way.
Simply put, Looking for Palladin is a gem, an instant classic; and audiences of all ages, especially Guatemalans and other Latin Americans, are embracing it, even though the film, which has won film festival awards, has yet to be commercially released in the United States. 
This reporter was privileged to have been present for Sunday night's screening at the 25th Chicago Latino Film Festival, the largest, oldest, and most influential Latino film festival in the U.S. Well over 200 people attended the screening (another is scheduled for Tuesday at 6:30 PM) at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema at 2828 N. Clark St., the premiere venue for independent cinema in Chicago.
Writer/director Krakowski and his co-producer Jerry Carlson, represented the film. To describe the reception as tremendously positive is to understate it--seriously. Audience members who hail from Guatemala (and there were many) had tears in their eyes as they praised the picture and participated in the post-screening Q&A session that went on till midnight.
Said one such audience member: "I have never seen my country shown so poetically and lyrically."
There was also a strong Mexican-American contingent, and their reactions, though less emotional, were equally enthusiastic--a reflection, clearly, of Krakowski's decision to cast Mexico's two top stars, Pedro Armanderiz Jr. and Angelica Aragon, in strong supporting roles.
Looking for Palladin tells the story of a young Hollywood player who is drawn into a remote place looking for a quick deal and instead finds a sanctuary, a community, and, ultimately, himself. Ben Gazzara, an icon of American cinema, plays Jack Palladin, a legendary, lost star. Also starring are: David Moscow; Talia Shire; Roberto Díaz Gomar; the Guatemalan commedians Jimmy y Samuel Morales; and Vincent Pastore.
Click below to view the trailer. Not for nothing is Krakowski known as both an artist and a money-making movie maker. He has a God-given gift--and the Midas touch. Swine Flu and the Global Meat Industry
The Mexican swine flu, a genetic chimera probably conceived in the faecal mire of an industrial pigsty, suddenly threatens to give the whole world a fever. The initial outbreaks across North America reveal an infection already travelling at higher velocity than did the last official pandemic strain, the 1968 Hong Kong flu.
Stealing the limelight from our officially appointed assassin, H5N1, this porcine virus is a threat of unknown magnitude. It seems less lethal than Sars in 2003, but as an influenza it may be more durable than Sars. Given that domesticated seasonal type-A influenzas kill as many one million people a year, even a modest increment of virulence, especially if combined with high incidence, could produce carnage equivalent to a major war.
Click here to read the entire essay. According to Davis, Virologists have long believed that the intensive agricultural system of southern China is the principal engine of influenza mutation: both seasonal "drift" and episodic genomic "shift". But the corporate industrialisation of livestock production has broken China's natural monopoly on influenza evolution. Animal husbandry in recent decades has been transformed into something that more closely resembles the petrochemical industry than the happy family farm depicted in school readers.
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Mike Davis's controversial analysis of the Mexican swine flu outbreak is the most provocative, and, arguably, the most insightful and original piece on the public health crisis to have appeared anywhere.
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