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Tag Archives: Graham Greene
Te Ata
Posted on October 9, 2017 by carlosdev
The nobility and majesty of the Chickasaw culture personified.
(2016) Biographical Drama (Paladin) Q'orianka Kilcher, Gil Birmingham, Graham Greene, Mackenzie Astin, Brigid Brannagh, Cindy Pickett, Jenni Mabrey, Marissa Skell, Boriana Williams, Don Taylor, Robert Ousley, Gordon Fox, Tom Nowicki, Zac Abbott, Gail Cronauer, Bill Anoatubby, Jeannie Barbour, Lona Barrick, Robert Cheadle, Chandler Schultz, Stacy Cunningham. Directed by Nathan Frankowski
The treatment of the native culture by the American government is not one of our finest and proudest achievements. We have put them in ghettos, marginalized them as a people, infected them with disease and alcoholism and relegated their culture to near-extinction. Some extraordinary Native Americans however have helped preserve that culture for all of us to marvel at and learn from today.
In Oklahoma, the Chickasaw nation has produced a film about one of their favorite daughters. Mary Frances Thompson (Williams) was born on their reservation, the daughter of Chickasaw shopkeeper (and tribal treasurer) T.B. Thompson (Birmingham) and his Caucasian wife Bertie (Brannagh). She was a precocious child who was in love with the natural world and with the stories of her people told to her by her father and grandparents. As she grew older, she developed a wanderlust and her natural intelligence compelled her to attend the Oklahoma College for Women (today known as the University for Science and Arts in Oklahoma) and be the first Native American to graduate from there.
Under the tutelage of Miss Davis (Pickett), a drama teacher who recognizes the light in the young Native, she develops "the bug" for the stage and emigrates to New York over the strong objections of her father (who knowing the racism of whites wants to keep his daughter close to home where he feels he can protect her better) to try to get a part on Broadway. However, although she shows some talent, it is when reciting the stories of her culture to adoring crowds (as she did during a school recital) when the girl most shines. Taking the stage name of Te Ata Thompson (Kilcher), based on a nickname given to her as a child from a Maori phrase meaning "bearer of the morning," she begins to tour around the country and indeed the globe. One of her performances attracts the notice of Eleanor Roosevelt (Cronauer) who would become a lifelong friend and supporter. However, even more importantly, it would attract the attention of academic Clyde Fisher (Astin) who would at first be enchanted by the stories but quickly by the storyteller. The two would fall in love but in order to get married they would have to get the blessing of a man who would be a most difficult man to sell on the idea – Te Ata's father.
The movie has a feel like a Disney movie to a certain extent and not necessarily in a good way. The home life feels a bit like Main Street, USA – all theme park-idealized and perhaps not very real. Te Ata early on witnesses an act of racially-motivated violence which was probably quite common and later in the film is upset by the racist depiction of Native Americans in a cartoon, something sadly common at the time. However, the treatment of the Natives is mostly observed through a law forbidding the practice of native customs and dances during a time when the American government felt these practices were heathen and anti-Christian. While it's true that this symbolizes the prevailing official attitude of the government, we don't get a sense of the petty indignities suffered by Natives at the time other than through the cartoon.
We do get a sense of the rich cultural heritage of the Chickasaw through the stories, taken from the actual stories the real Te Ata performed in her lifetime. The stories are marvelous and are at the heart of the movie. However, I must caution that when Kilcher (who is also a talented singer and musician) performs the songs of the Chickasaw people, they sound almost like pop songs right out of American Idol and I had to wonder if the real Te Ata would have approved of these interpretations.
Kilcher, who wowed audiences with her portrayal of Pocahontas in the 2005 film The New World (which made her the youngest person ever to be nominated for an acting Oscar, a record that stood until broken by Quvenzhané Wallis in 2012) reminds us that she is an accomplished actress with her performance here. There was some criticism that the storytelling performances depicted were over-the-top and highly mannered, but that was the acting style of the era. Sadly, I haven't been able to find any footage (or even audio) of her actual performances but maybe with a diligent search you might be able to see them firsthand.
The cinematography is pretty nifty with some beautiful images of the Oklahoma outdoors as well as the small town early 20th century life near Emet, Oklahoma where the real Te Ata grew up (and later near Tishomingo where her family moved to when she was a young girl). The movie is perhaps the most respectful of native American culture since Dances with Wolves but hopefully will inspire more films about the culture and lore of Native Americans which has been sadly underrepresented on the screen. However, my big objection to the movie is that it feels sanitized, like a Native American gift shop of trinkets that capture the elements of the culture that maybe the non-native population wants to see without capturing the real essence of it. Only when Kilcher is reciting her stories do we really feel that culture as a living, breathing entity and in those moments Te Ata really soars. I just wish there were more of them.
REASONS TO GO: The stories Te Ata tells are mesmerizing and touching. Kilcher delivers a fine performance.
REASONS TO STAY: Everything feels a little Disney-fied, the songs too poppy and the atmosphere a little too Main Street USA. The film could have used a little more kick.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some mild violence and depictions of racism.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In 1939 (after the period depicted in the film), Te Ata performed for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England at Hyde Park in New York at the behest of President Roosevelt, an event that was depicted in Hyde Park on Hudson in which Te Ata was portrayed by Kumiko Konishi.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/9/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 60% positive reviews. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Dances with Wolves
NEXT: The Mummy (2017)
Posted in New Releases	| Tagged 1930s, biographical drama, Brigid Brannagh, Broadway, Chickasaw culture, Chickasaw nation, Cindy Pickett, cinema, Cinema365, Eleanor Roosevelt, family dynamics, father-daughter relationship, Films, Gil Birmingham, Graham Greene, Jenni Mabrey, Mackenzie Astin, movies, Oklahoma, oral tradition, Paladin, Q'orianka Kilcher, racism, reviews, stereotypes, storyteller, Te Ata, Te Ata Fisher	| Leave a reply
New Releases for the Week of August 18, 2017
(Summit) Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Salma Hayek, Elodie Yung, Richard E. Grant, Joaquim de Almeida, Sam Hazeldine. Directed by Patrick Hughes
A vicious dictator is going on trial in front of the international court and only one man can put him away – one of the world's most successful assassins. However, the ex-fearless leader has put out a hit on the hitman and things don't look good for him to make it to the trial. A bodyguard is assigned to the killer and it has to be said the two don't exactly hit it off but if they are going to survive they'll have to put aside their differences or die in a really spectacular fashion.
See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout)
(Sony Classics) Kyle Mooney, Mark Hamill, Jane Adams, Greg Kinnear. The children's television show Brigsby Bear Adventures has been playing for an audience of one – James. When the show abruptly ends, James is motivated to finish the story himself taking him into a land of imagination he never knew he had within him.
See the trailer, clips and an interview here.
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Barnstorm Theater, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, brief sexuality, drug material and teen partying)
(Kino Lorber) Bill Morrison, Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, Kathy Jones-Gates, Michael Gates. In 1978, a bulldozer working its way through a parking lot in Dawson City, a former gold rush town in the Yukon and discovered a cache of over 500 films that had been buried there since the silent film era. Many of the films had been thought to be lost forever. After an extensive restoration process, the newsreels and films are ready to be shown to the public, depicting an era in history and in Dawson City itself that is long gone. This film has been described as being like stepping into a time capsule.
For more on the movie this is the website
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
(Weinstein) Starring the voices of Elle Fanning, Dane DeHaan, Carly Rae Jepsen, Maddie Ziegler. An orphan girl who dreams of being a prima ballerina travels from Brittany to Paris to follow her dream. A case of mistaken identity leads her to become a pupil at the Grand Opera House in a Paris that is full of enchantment, music and magic.
See the trailer and a clip here.
Genre: Animated Feature
Rating: PG (for some impolite humor and action)
(Bleecker Street) Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Katie Holmes. Two brothers, cursed by bad luck all their lives, attempt to steal a windfall of cash from the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Enlisting the aid of Joe Bang, one of the great demolition experts of all time, they merely have to break him out of prison where he is in-car-cer-rated and then get him back inside without anyone noticing. Piece of cake. Incidentally, this is Steven Soderburgh's return to the big screen in like four years. Think of this as the unholy love child of The Dukes of Hazzard, <em and Oceans 11.
See the trailer, clips and featurettes here.
Rating: PG-13 (for language and some crude comments)
(Oscilloscope Laboratories) Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel, Emmanuelle Riva, Pierre Richard. Fiona visits Paris for the first time in her life to assist her Aunt Martha. Fiona has always repressed her feelings but when she meets Dom, a homeless man who is absolutely unafraid of expressing his feelings or his thoughts. The City of Lights will never be the same.
See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
(Fox Searchlight) Paula Dofat, Blessin Giraldo, Cori Grainger, Tayla Solomon. This documentary follows a step dancing team from inner city Baltimore as they embark on competitions throughout the city and navigate their senior year in high school.
See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG (for thematic elements and some language)
Turn it Around: The Story of East Bay Punk
(Abramorama) Billy Joe Armstrong, Iggy Pop, Jello Biafra, Laurence Livermore. San Francisco has always been the center of the Bay Area music scene. For a brief shining moment, a group of committed men and women ran a punk co-op out of a former warehouse in Berkeley that became a creative cauldron that changed the face of punk music – and pop culture – forever and put the East Bay in the forefront of the Bay Area musical firmament.
Genre: Musical Documentary
(Weinstein) Jeremy Renner, Graham Greene, Tantoo Cardinal, Elizabeth Olsen. A grisly murder scene is discovered on a Native American tribal reservation. An FBI agent is called in to investigate and he ends up teaming with a veteran game tracker to run the killer to ground.
See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Amstar Lake Mary, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs
Rating: R (for strong violence, a rape, disturbing images, and language)
ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:
Fairy Tale: Dragon Cry
From the Land of the Moon
ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI:
Anando Brahma
Once Upon a Time 3D
The Only Living Boy in New York
ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA:
Fairy Tale: Dragon City
The Midwife
ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE:
68 Kill
SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:
Dawson City: Frozen in Time
Posted in Weekly Preview	| Tagged 2017, Adam Driver, August 18, Billy Joe Armstrong, Brigsby Bear, Carly Rae Jepsen, Channing Tatum, cinema, Cinema365, Dane DeHaan, Daniel Craig, Dawson City: Frozen Time, Elizabeth Olsen, Elle Fanning, Elodie Yung, Films, Gary Oldman, Graham Greene, Greg Kinnear, Iggy Pop, Jane Adams, Jello Biafra, Jeremy Renner, Joaquim de Almeida, Kyle Mooney, Leap, Logan Lucky, Lost in Paris, Mark Hamill, movies, Previews, Richard E. Grant, Ryan Reynolds, Salma Hayek, Sam Hazeldine, Samuel L. Jackson, Step, Tantoo Cardinal, The Hitman's Bodyguard, Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk, Wind River	| Leave a reply
Brighton Rock
Sam Riley resists going back on set.
(2010) Thriller (IFC) Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis, John Hurt, Nonso Anozie, Sean Harris, Philip Davis, Craig Parkinson, Geoff Bell, Steven Robertson, Maurice Roëves, Steve Evets, Francis Magee, Adrian Schiller, Pauline Melville, Mona Goodwin, Kerrie Hayes, Lexy Howe, Harry Lloyd-Walker, Dennis Banks, Helen Kingston. Directed by Rowan Joffe
Good and evil are meant to balance each other out. You can't have one without the other; they are opposing forces, a yin and yang of morality as it were. And as such, they often attract one another.
Pinkie Brown (Riley) is a gangster wanna-be. He is vicious and calculating, sometimes cruel and absolutely without any morality. He meets waitress Rose (Riseborough) in the restaurant of a grand hotel in Brighton and walks her down the pier, passing by a thug from a rival gang. Pinkie goes back afterwards and kills the thug. Later Rose realizes that she saw the man whose picture has been published by the newspapers.
Ida (Mirren), the manager of the restaurant and surrogate mother to Rose, warns Rose away from Pinkie. As it turns out, she is very well acquainted by men of his ilk. She enlists the aid of her friend Corkery (Hurt) to help Rose out, but he has other worries, one of them being Pinkie's boss, the urbane but evil Colleoni (Serkis). When Rose gets married to Pinkie, she no longer can testify that Pinkie was in the vicinity of the murder victim. Can that be the only reason that Pinkie married Rose? Or does the gangster actually have a heart?
Graham Greene wrote the novel this movie was based on back in 1938, at the height of prohibition in the United States and the golden age of gangsters and in some ways the tropes of that era carry over not only in the novel (as you would expect being a product of those times) but here as well. In order to distance the film from those tropes – and from the English noir movie that starred a young Richard Attenborough as Pinkie – Joffe elected to set this version about 25 years after the novel was set, in an era when Mods and Rockers were rioting in Brighton. It's actually a bit of a brilliant move; the era was evocative (as captured by the Who in Quadrophenia) and appeals more to filmgoers today than perhaps the pre-war era would. The translation between eras is spot-on, particularly since the filmmakers captured the 1960s Brighton so well.
Riley is an actor better-known to admiring critics than he is to the general moviegoing public and that's a shame; in my opinion he's one of the best actors working today. He has an amazing intensity and the ability to take on vastly different roles while retaining his own style which is no easy task, I can tell you. I've sometimes thought of him as a Johnny Depp without the mannerisms and that's about as close as you're going to get.
I think because his looks are more unconventional than traditionally hunk-ish or handsome he has largely been ignored by American filmmakers and audiences, which shows a deep shallowness on our part. I have seen him in movies where he is the only good thing about them and so good was he that he was worth seeing all by his lonesome. If some artsy-fartsy pretentious douche hipster filmmaker decided to make a Dadaist version of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness – or worse, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment – as a one-man show, if that one man was Riley I'd go see it anyway.
The rest of the cast is pretty terrific; Mirren is another actress whose presence in a film is all the recommendation I need to go see it. Hurt is a veteran character actor who brings rumpled gravitas to the role, and Serkis is serpentine as the gangster in a smoking jacket, an ape in a velvet coat.
There is a thin veneer of civility over the violence which can come suddenly and shockingly which I found fascinating. However, one of the movie's great flaws is a curious lifeless feeling to it; there's little energy, as if the actors are all sleep-deprived. Riley is the lone exception although even he at times seems somnolent. Perhaps that was an effect the filmmakers were intentionally trying to create?
One of the major plot points is that both Pinkie and Rose are teens, but curiously Joffe (who wrote the screen adaptation) chose to bury that particular lede; it's a major plot point but I get the sense that he presumes you know it already (note to Joffe: not everyone read the book). It does eventually get revealed, sort of, but by then it changes the dynamic tremendously and unnecessarily. I would have wished that Joffe made this salient point clear from the get-go, but again, that's just me.
Other than suffering from script obfuscation, the writing is actually pretty good most of the time and the acting, despite the odd lack of inertia, is top notch. I would have liked to have rated this higher (and some critics did) but I just wasn't inspired to like it any more than a mediocre, middle-of-the-pack number. In this case, the sum of the parts is much greater than the whole.
WHY RENT THIS: Riley is intense. Great period depiction. Terrific cast.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A little bit muddled. Curious lack of energy. Omits a crucial story point early on needlessly.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of rough language, a fair amount of violence and some sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the second adaptation of the Graham Greene novel; the first was made in 1947.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: Mostly standard, but there are some interesting interviews with the principle cast and crew.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $1.8M on a $12M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD Rental and Steaming), iTunes
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Krays
NEXT: Films 4 Foodies begins!
Posted in DVD Review	| Tagged 1960s, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Serkis, based on a novel, Brighton, Brighton Rock, British cinema, cinema, crime drama, DVD Reviews, Films, gangsters, Graham Greene, Helen Mirren, IFC, Innocence, John Hurt, movies, murder, Nonso Anozie, Sam Riley, Sean Harris, sham marriage, tea room, thriller	| Leave a reply
Posted on February 18, 2014 by carlosdev
Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.
(2014) Romance (Warner Brothers) Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Will Smith, Mckayla Twiggs, Eva Marie Saint, Kevin Corrigan, Kevin Durand, Ripley Sobo, Graham Greene, Harriett D. Foy, Matt Bomer, Lucy Griffiths, Michael Patrick Crane, Brian Hutchison, Alan Doyle, Maurice Jones, Maggie Geha. Directed by Akiva Goldsman
It goes without saying that we don't really understand how the universe REALLY works and we likely never will. Whether or not there's an afterlife when we die or whether we just dissolve into oblivion is something we won't find out until it's our time to shuffle off this mortal coil.
Peter Lake (Farrell) is a thief and a good one indeed. He works for the Small Tails band, headed up by Pearly Soames (Crowe), a rough and tumble sort of fellow and they hold Manhattan in their thrall, circle 1912. However, Peter and Pearly have had a falling out, as it were and both being fine Irish gentlemen they mean to settle it the old fashioned way – by killing one another.
Peter knows that his opponent has the upper hand and it is only a matter of time before he is captured and killed. He needs to get out of New York but he needs to score enough cash to be able to survive. He doesn't have much but he has a beautiful white horse that he found while being chased by Pearly and his thugs and that horse is absolutely special. In fact, it's at the horse's urging that Peter rob one final house, the house of New York Sun publisher Isaac Penn (Hurt).
The house appears to be deserted but it isn't. Beverly Penn (Findlay), who suffers from terminal consumption, is home waiting to be well enough to head up to their lakeside country estate. Her fever is killing her and only cold weather can save her but soon even that won't be enough. She interrupts Peter in his stealing and the two are instantly smitten with one another. Peter leaves, thinking that this house is a dead end for him literally but he can't get the girl out of his head.
Neither can Pearly who has had a vision of a beautiful red headed woman. In fact, Pearly is a demon, one to keep souls from ascending to the heavens and becoming stars which is what happens when souls complete their work on Earth. Pearly means to shatter Peter by using the young Penn girl to do it and even if it breaks the rules as adjudicated by the Judge (Smith) he will get his vengeance. Peter will find a way to his destiny even if it takes a century.
This is based on the complex and what many considered to be unfilmable novel by Mark Halprin. I don't know how closely this sticks to the book having not read it yet but judging from what I see here if the movie is any indication I can see where it got its reputation. The backstory is so complex and layered that the overall effect is that the movie becomes convoluted. While I kept up with the movie, I got the sense that there was a lot of things in the backstory that by necessity had to be glossed over and I was losing a good deal of the novel's richness.
That isn't the fault of the performers who are universally stellar. Farrell and Findlay make a fine on-screen couple while Crowe glowers with the best of them. Greene, Hurt, Smith and Saint all make what are essentially extended cameos and make the best of their abbreviated screen times. Connelly, as a modern reporter looking into what would be to anyone an astonishing story, is given little to do besides look concerned and bewildered.
Veteran cinematographer Caleb Deschanel beautifully captures New York City both old and new beneath a stark winter sky. This is a truly gorgeous looking film, and the story itself if you can follow it without getting completely lost is actually really affecting. Now some critics have been giving this a thrashing because they found it to be, as veteran Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers eloquently put it, to be preposterous twaddle. Now, I personally think this is unduly harsh. If you call the film preposterous twaddle, so too is the book on which it is based on and the Shakespeare play that inspired the book and while we're at it, other literature and movies of a like nature, including Ladyhawke and The Princess Bride which are of a similar vein. From my point of view, we can all use a bit of preposterous twaddle every now and again. Keeps the soul honest.
This isn't going to be making any ten-best lists at the year's conclusion nor is it apparently going to be setting any box office records. This isn't a good enough movie to get the kind of word-of-mouth that a movie needs to thrive these days, and let's face it – romantic fantasies have a bit of an uphill climb because the audience that once craved them is now overserved with such tidbits as The Twilight Saga. However, I for one was enchanted by Winter's Tale, flaws and all.
REASONS TO GO: Beautiful story. Nice performances by most of the leads. Gorgeous cinematography.
REASONS TO STAY: Somewhat preposterous in places. A bit muddled.
FAMILY VALUES: You'll find some violence and some sensuality here.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Rhythm and Hues, one of Hollywood's top effects companies, went bankrupt while in post-production for this film; Framestore was hired to complete the work that Rhythm and Hues had begun.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Xanadu
NEXT: Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
Posted in New Releases	| Tagged 1910s, Akiva Goldsman, angels, cancer, cinema, Colin Farrell, consumption, demons, Ellis Island, Eva Marie Saint, Films, Graham Greene, Jennifer Connelly, Jessica Brown Findlay, Kevin Corrigan, Kevin Durand, lakeside estate, Matt Bomer, movies, New York City, newspaper publisher, Orphan, petty thief, reviews, romance, romantic fantasy, Russell Crowe, spirit guides, thief, Warner Brothers, Will Smith, William Hurt	| Leave a reply
Even though Kevin Spacey is calling to verify, Barry Pepper looks skeptical that he's got 250 pounds in that weight.
(2010) Biodrama (ATO) Kevin Spacey, Barry Pepper, Kelly Preston, Jon Lovitz, Conrad Pla, Christian Campbell, Yannick Bisson, Spencer Garrett, Hannah Endicott-Douglas, David Fraser, Graham Greene, Maury Chaykin, Stephen Chambers, Rachelle Lefevre. Directed by George Hickenlooper
We grew up thinking that American politics were relatively corruption-free, compared to other countries. That politicians would vote their conscience and while not necessarily paragons of virtue, were at least not for sale. How wrong we were.
Jack Abramoff (Spacey) was one o the most powerful lobbyists in Washington. He had some of the most powerful men in the world on speed dial; he could get men elected or doom their campaigns. His alliance with Native American casinos helped liberalize the laws that allowed them to flourish. An orthodox Jew, he helped fund Jewish community centers and education facilities and was a pillar of his community.
Jack and his partner Michael Scanlon (Pepper) lived high on the hog, funneling the money from Indian casinos into the pockets of politicians, with a certain amount remaining for themselves in fees. But the two men get greedy, deciding to hire seedy Virginia businessman Adam Kidan (Lovitz) who has ties to mobster Big Tony (Chaykin) to further skim off the top.
When Scanlon's girlfriend Emily Miller (Lefevre) discovers he's cheating on her, she starts talking to investigators about the wrongdoing that she's fully aware of – things that the savvy Abramoff had warned him not to discuss with anyone. Big Tony becomes uneasy and orders a hit on Kidan which fails. Kidan also begins to talk – and the empire around Abramoff begins to crumble.
Director George Hickenlooper was best known for his documentaries – including the acclaimed Heart of Darkness which looked at the troubled production of Frances Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. He tells his tale here with admirable tautness, taking the brevity of the documentary form and mixing it with the richness of a narrative. Sadly, he passed away less than two months before the film opened in the United States.
This is very much Spacey's film. For a time after American Beauty, he was perhaps the best actor in Hollywood with a string of performances that were as good as any body of work for a comparable amount of time in the history of movies. Strong hyperbole I know but you can certainly make an argument for it. However after his Bobby Darin movie, he seemed to move away from the limelight deliberately, opting to spend more time on the stage and mostly confining himself to supporting roles over the past decade or so. This is his best performance in years, taking Abramoff – a very complex human being – and humanizing him. We see his manic, compulsive side and his tender, giving side sometimes within moments of one another. Kelly Preston plays his wife and the two have a pretty decent chemistry going.
One of the things that I really liked about this movie is that you really see how lobbying works in the political system. I also admire the courage of the filmmakers in naming names and pointing fingers. There are no punches pulled; those that were involved with Abramoff are portrayed here, either with actors or in documentary footage of the Senate hearing which is weaved in masterfully with the re-created footage. Spacey has a moment where he harangues the Senators passing judgment on him, reminding them that most of them took money from him for their campaigns. This all occurs in his head, of course – in reality Abramoff has been relatively charitable towards his accusers.
This makes a fine companion piece to the documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money which portrays Abramoff in a less sympathetic light, preferring to opine that he was symptomatic of the corruption and arrogance in the Republican party. Hickenlooper doesn't make such indications, pointing out that this is a political problem that doesn't belong to a single party (which of course it doesn't). The real Jack Abramoff actually is leading the fight against lobbying following his release from his prison sentence. Perhaps to atone for his own actions, he remains a zealot dedicated to changing how politics work.
This was characterized as the worst political scandal since Watergate and yet it passed through the American consciousness like a Kardashian sex tape. In fact, it would be fair to say the Kardashians got more notice than the Abramoff trial. It involved some of the top figures in the George W. Bush White House, resulted in the indictment and conviction of a U.S. Congressman (Bob Ney) and in Abramoff's fall from grace. What it should have done was prompt a re-examination of the role of lobbyists in the political structure but it is business as usual in Washington. That's perhaps the most tragic aspect of this whole sordid affair.
WHY RENT THIS: One of Spacey's best performances in the last five years. A sobering look at how lobbyists are subverting the political process.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Drags in places.
FAMILY VALUES: The foul language is pretty much non-stop. There is a bit of sexuality involved as well as a little nudity, and some brief violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was filmed with the digital Red One Camera in Canada utilizing blue screen technology with characters filmed in Canada projected onto backgrounds filmed in Washington and Miami.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There is a gag reel but not much else.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $1.1M on a $12M production budget; this wasn't a box office success.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: True Colors
NEXT:More of the American Experience
Posted in DVD Review	| Tagged ATO Pictures, Barry Pepper, biodrama, Casino Jack, cinema, corruption, DVD Reviews, elections, Films, George Hickenlooper, gifts, Graham Greene, Indian Casinos, Jack Abramoff, Jon Lovitz, Kelly Preston, Kevin Spacey, lobbyists, Maury Chaykin, movies, political clout, politics, Senate hearings	| Leave a reply
Michael Clarke Duncan shows Tom Hanks which direction he'll have to grow in to be as tall as he.
(1999) Drama (Warner Brothers) Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Graham Greene, Gary Sinese, Doug Hutchison, Sam Rockwell, Barry Pepper, Jeffrey DeMunn, Patricia Clarkson, Harry Dean Stanton, William Sadler. Directed by Frank Darabont
I know of at least three authentic American geniuses in the arts named Steve: Stephen Sondheim, who doesn't figure into this; Steven Spielberg; and Stephen King.
Spielberg started out as a director of entertainments that while not always taken seriously by the critical cognoscenti nonetheless enjoyed extreme popularity. Later, he would direct projects that met with critical acclaim, Oscars and the respect of his peers. He is now rightly considered one of the greatest directors of all time.
Stephen King appears to be paralleling Spielberg's course. At the start of his career, his work was dismissed as mere horror novels, but they sold in record numbers. Then starting in the late 1990s, he began to produce works of greater depth and heart. Witness The Green Mile, which has been brought to the screen by Frank Darabont, who also directed one of the best filmed adaptations of King's work, The Shawshank Redemption.
Like Shawshank, The Green Mile is set in a prison in the '30s at the start of the film. In this case, it's in cellblock E of the Cold Mountain Penitentiary in Louisiana (moved from Mississippi in the book) circa 1935. Paul Edgecombe (Hanks) supervises the guards on the cellblock, which is better known as Death Row. He has a pretty good team of guards working for him, most notably Brutus "Brutal" Howell (Morse), a surprisingly gentle-natured bear of a man. Their job is to keep calm the men who are waiting to die because, as Edgecombe tells Percy Wetmore (Hutchison), a sadistic guard with connections to the governor, "they can snap at anytime and hurt themselves, or somebody else."
Into this volatile mix comes John Coffey (Duncan), a huge, hulking, simple man who dwarfs even Brutal. He has been convicted of the rape and particularly brutal murder of two young girls. He seems gentle and frightened, but as his lawyer (an uncredited Gary Sinese) explains, a dog may seem gentle and loving and then unexpectedly turn on you.
Coffey joins a group of men waiting to be executed, including Eduart Delacroix (Jeter), a timid prisoner with a very precocious pet; Wild Bill Wharton (Rockwell), who is understatedly described by Warden Hal Moores (Cromwell) as "a problem child"; and Mr. Jingles, a mischievous mouse.
Coffey, you see, has a gift – a unique and miraculous gift. He shoulders the burden of this gift in a world of suspicion, prejudice and brutality. The Green Mile looks at that world without flinching or blinking, the kind of a world that produces a Wild Bill, a John Coffey and a Paul Edgecombe, who is a decent man doing a horrible job.
Parts of The Green Mile are hideous (a botched execution attempt) and sometimes beautiful (unexplainable cures, fireflies in the moonlight). It also has more urine than you'll ever see in five movies (courtesy a urinary tract infection for Edgecombe), so those who are squeamish about bodily fluids be warned.
The acting here is uniformly good, with Hanks at the top of his game and Morse, Jeter and Cromwell – some of the finest character actors in Hollywood then and now – all delivering fine performances. Duncan and Rockwell, both at the very beginnings of their careers, were both terrific, Duncan receiving an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance. That was one of four Oscar nominations the film received and while it didn't win any of them, certainly it received plenty of love from the Academy who are not known for extending much of it to Stephen King and his movie adaptations.
Despite being three hours long, The Green Mile never drags for a moment. That's because this really isn't a film about prisons and crime; the human spirit is really the subject of the picture – the nature of good and evil, death and dignity. There are some emotionally gut-wrenching moments. Da Queen had tears streaming down her face for about the last half hour. She claims that The Green Mile is off the Hankie scale completely, and advises that you just have a whole box of tissues available when you sit down and watch the movie. Preferably one of those industrial strength Costco sizes. Trust me, you're gonna need it.
Sometimes, a movie comes along that you know from the first few moments is going to be a great motion picture experience, one that touches you in deep places, perhaps even comforts you. The Green Mile is just such a movie. It was my pick for the best film of 1999 and remains to this day more than a decade later a modern classic, one which bears repeated viewings. It certainly is a staple in my family and I'm not alone in that assessment. If you haven't seen it, you are truly missing out.
WHY RENT THIS: A modern classic. A touching treatise on the human spirit. Excellent performances from Hanks, Morse, Duncan, Rockwell, Cromwell and Jeter.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Maybe you hate Stephen King on general principles.
FAMILY MATTERS: The language can be pretty foul, there are some sexually oriented scenes as well as some fairly disturbing images of murder and execution. There are also lots of scenes involving urine, so be warned.
TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Stephen King visited the set during filming and asked to be strapped into the electric chair. He was somewhat unnerved by the experience and immediately asked to be released.
NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: While the original DVD release (2000) didn't have much room for features, the 2-disc special edition (2006) did and included Duncan's original screen test and a make-up test with Hanks (he was originally set to play Edgecomb as an old man but the make-up was unconvincing and so Dabbs Greer was cast in the role in his final screen appearance) as well as a new nearly two hour feature on the making of the film. The Blu-Ray (2009) has all of these as well as a 34-page Digibook with background on the film, actor bios and an essay on Darabont's three King adaptations to date.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $286.8M on a $60M production budget; the movie was pretty much a Blockbuster (and is the highest-grossing Stephen King adaptation to date).
FINAL RATING: 10/10
TOMORROW: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
Posted in DVD Review	| Tagged 1930s, 2000 Oscar Nominated Film, Barry Pepper, based on a novel, Bonnie Hunt, cinema, David Morse, death row, Depression, Dough Hurchison, DVD Reviews, electric chair, Films, fireflies, Frank Darabont, Gary Sinese, Graham Greene, Harry Dean Stanton, James Cromwell, Jeffrey DeMunn, Louisiana, Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Jeter, miracles, movies, Patricia Clarkson, pet mouse, prison, Sam Rockwell, Stephen King, The Green Mile, Tom Hanks, urinary tract infection, Warner Brothers, William Sadler	| Leave a reply


Goran Dragic can't believe what he's seeing league-wide today.
The Miami Heat guard began his career as part of the tail end of the Phoenix Suns' revolutionary Seven Seconds or Less era, which prioritized 3-point shooting, fast break play and quick execution.
When teams were scoring 120 points effortlessly back in October, conversations around whether offense was coming too easy reverberated league-wide. The debate first began when the NBA unveiled its freedom of movement points of education for this season, which The Athletic explored in detail in a wide-ranging discussion before the season with vice president, head of referee development and training Monty McCutchen.


text:
Гада́ния (прорицание, мантика — от ) — предсказание будущих событий или определение характера с помощью методов, которые считаются нерациональными или магическими. Включают оккультные методики, приёмы и обряды. Различные виды гаданий существуют в культуре большинства народов мира.

Критический анализ
Гадание отклоняется научным сообществом и скептиками как основанное на магическом мышлении и суеверии.

Некоторые скептики утверждают, что гадание — не что иное, как холодное чтение.

Большое количество мошенничества произошло с помощью практики гадания.

История гаданий

Как в Греции, так и в Риме подобные «касты» прорицателей и жрецов должны были оказывать большое влияние на сохранение суеверных представлений людей. С принятием христианства как официальной религии гадания, подобно многим другим явлениям языческой культуры, подвергались осуждению и гонению со стороны церковной и светской власти. Гадание из разряда священных явлений переносилось в разряд явлений дьявольских и нечистых, простонародных, суеверных.
При этом, в XII веке Анна Комнина отмечала, что предсказания — «Это новейшее изобретение — такой науки не существовало в древности. Способы предсказаний не были известны во времена астронома Евдокса, не имел понятия об этом Платон, и даже астролог Манефон не был искушён в этой науке»

В средние века как на Западе, так и в России была очень популярна библиомантия, существовало большое количество гадательных книг; в России, например, переписывались переводные «лунники», «колядники», «трепетники», «лопаточники», «сносудцы», «громники», а также и разные астрологические книги: «планетники» и др.

Среди лубочных изданий гадательного характера нужно указать так называемое «Коло» (колесо фортуны), «Случаи описания» и «Голову Соломона», являющиеся по своему типу продолжениями средневековых «рафлей». Принцип гадания во всех этих рукописных и печатных изданиях — бросание зерна по разграфлённым листам бумаги, на которых в клеточках обозначены цифры изречений или самые изречения.

При помощи лубочных изданий был сильно поддержан интерес к толкованию сновидений посредством «сонников», один из которых (Мартына Задеки) помянут в «Евгении Онегине».

В «высшем» обществе гадания уже издавна превращались в светскую забаву, в салонное развлечение. Интересна в этом отношении французская книжка XV века, изданная по рукописи А. Бобринским и охарактеризованная А. Н. Веселовским в «Вестнике Европы» за 1886.

Отношение к гаданию

В иудаизме
Иудаизм, выступая историческим предшественником христианства и ислама, во многом повлиял на представления о гаданиях в этих религиях. Отрицательное отношение иудаизма к гаданию выражено во Второзаконии ().

В христианстве
Христианская церковь крайне негативно относится к гаданиям, относя их к проявлениям оккультизма и разновидности общения с «тёмными духами». В обоснование такой позиции приводится ещё ветхозаветная Библейская Заповедь: . В книге «Левит» Господь говорит Моисею: «Не ешьте с кровью; не ворожите и не гадайте» ().

В книге «Бытие» упоминается о том, что проданный своими братьями в египетское рабство Иосиф гадал на серебряной чаше, однако следует заметить, что это гадание было до ниспослания заповедей Моисею. Посылая в погоню за неузнавшими его братьями, Иосиф желает обвинить братьев в краже тайно подложенной им серебряной чаши, на которой Иосиф гадал: «Еще не далеко отошли они от города, как Иосиф сказал начальнику дома своего: ступай, догоняй этих людей и, когда догонишь, скажи им: для чего вы заплатили злом за добро? [для чего украли у меня серебряную чашу?] Не та ли это, из которой пьет господин мой и он гадает на ней? Худо это вы сделали» ().

В псалме 77, учение Асафа, упоминается о гадании, но при этом уточняется, что речь идёт о временах древних: «Открою уста мои в притче и произнесу гадания из древности. Что слышали мы и узнали, и отцы наши рассказали нам, не скроем от детей их, возвещая роду грядущему славу Господа, и силу Его, и чудеса Его, которые Он сотворил… Он пред глазами отцов их сотворил чудеса в земле Египетской, на поле Цоан: разделил море, и провел их чрез него, и поставил воды стеною…» ().

В «Четвёртой Книге Царств» рассказывается о том, что жители Израильского и Иудейского царств перестали соблюдать заповеди Господни, поклонялись идолам, проводили своих детей через огонь, гадали и занимались волшебством. За это Господь прогневался на израильтян, отвратился от всех потомков Израиля, отдавал их в руки грабителям, и в итоге Господь дал ассирийскому царю переселить израильтян в Ассирию (). Таким образом, согласно Библии Вавилонский плен являлся наказанием Господом Богом еврейского народа в том числе за занятия гаданиями.

В «Книге Премудрости Иисуса сына Сирахова» предупреждается о том, что гадания, а также приметы и сновидения, могут быть посланы не от Всевышнего, и тогда они являются «суетой», то есть тщетными, пустыми: «Гадания и приметы и сновидения — суета, и сердце наполняется мечтами, как у рождающей. Если они не будут посланы от Всевышнего для вразумления, не прилагай к ним сердца твоего» ().

В «Книге Пророка Михея», обращаясь к главам Иакова и князьям дома Израилева, говорится о том, что если Бог перестанет отвечать гадателям, то они замолчат: «И устыдятся прозорливцы, и посрамлены будут гадатели, и закроют уста свои все они, потому что не будет ответа от Бога» (), но в той же книге гадающие по облакам в Ассуре перечисляются наравне с идолопоклонниками как непослушные Богу ().

В Новом Завете также присутствует категорический запрет на занятия оккультизмом (, ).

В исламе
Как и в любом древнем обществе, в Аравии времён пророка Мухаммада было много людей, занимавшихся прорицаниями, среди которых было немало шарлатанов. Мухаммад объявил их вероотступниками, которые не следуют науке и Священному Писанию: «Из тех, кто на небесах и на земле, только Аллах ведает сокровенное…» (Коран, 27:65). Когда люди пришли к Мухаммаду, чтобы проверить его знания о сокровенном, для чего скрывали что-то в своих руках, они спросили его: «Что у нас в руках?». Мухаммад заявил им: «Воистину я не прорицатель. Тому, кто прорицает, прорицанию и прорицателям уготован огонь (ада)» (передано Муслимом). Мухаммад сказал: «У того, кто идёт к предсказателю и верит его словам, тот отрицает то, что было ниспослано Махаммаду» (передано аль-Баззаром, со слов достоверных пересказчиков).

Гадания у славян

Прокопий Кесарийский (VI в.) свидетельствовал, что склавины и анты совершали гадания во время жертвоприношении божествам. О бросании жребия перед началом ответственных деянии говорится в хронике Титмара (XI в.) и в сочинениях Константина VII Багрянородного (X в.). Большое разнообразие способов гадания упоминается в западнославянских актах процессов XVI—XVII вв. о колдовстве: бросание костей, бобов, литье воска или олова, гадание по внутренностям животных, по тени, по Псалтыри и т. п. Эти и другие приёмы средневековых гаданий нашли отражение в памятниках славянской книжности, специально предназначенных для предсказаний будущего (см. Гадательные книги).

Специальные словесные формулы, призывающие нечистую силу явиться и открыть будущее, широко распространены в севернорусских ритуалах гадания, например: «Дедушка-домовой, покажи мне будущего мужа!», «Лешие лесные, болотные, полевые, все черти, бесенята, идите все сюда, скажите, в чём моя судьба?», «Черти, лешие, бесы, дьяволы, приходите ворожить!».

Чтобы установить контакт с духами, гадающие снимали с себя крест и пояс, развязывали все узлы на одежде, девушки распускали косы, выходили из дома, не перекрестясь, шли к месту гадания молча, иногда босиком или в одной рубашке, тайком, чтобы никто не видел, исполняли ритуал, зажмурившись, прикрыв лицо платком.

Места гадания
В соответствии с этими поверьями для гаданий избирали нечистые места, где обычно обитали или появлялись духи. Ими считались заброшенные дома, нежилые помещения (баня, овин, хлев, подвал, чердак, сени), а также места, осмысляемые как пограничное пространство между «своим» и «чужим» миром (печь, порог, внешний угол дома, забор, ворота, места возле колодца, источника, проруби, перекрёстки, расходящиеся дороги, межи, кладбища и т. п.).

Время гаданий
Время, считавшееся благоприятным для гадания, также имело отношение к переломным, пограничным периодам, которые считались наиболее опасными. Основная масса гаданий была приурочена к зимнему (святки) и летнему (Иванов день) солнцеворотам. Для русской традиции гадание после святок — редкое явление. Большая группа украинских, белорусских и западнославянских гаданий была характерна для предрождественского периода, то есть для дней «зимних» святых: Екатерины, Варвары, Андрея, Люции, Николая. Некоторые виды гаданий были растянуты во времени: например, за 12 дней до Рождества ставили в воду ветки плодовых деревьев, загадывая, расцветут ли они к Рождеству. Западные славяне в день св. Люции (13.XII) набирали в кувшин проточную воду и ежедневно в течение 12 дней понемногу отливали, а в Рождественский сочельник остатками воды умывались перед сном, чтобы приснился вещий сон. В меньшей степени гадания характерны для весенне-летнего периода: для Пасхи, Троицы, дня Божьего Тела. В южнославянской традиции типичным временем гадания кроме святок и Иванова дня были Юрьев день, масленица, 1 марта и некоторые другие.

Вечер и ночь считались наиболее подходящими для гадания. Восточные славяне считали, что гадать можно только до первых петухов, дальше уже ничего не угадывается. Для гадания предназначался именно канун праздников. Русские объясняли это тем, что праздничная церковная служба изгоняет бесов, поэтому к их помощи следует прибегать накануне.

Святочные гадания

Особым видом гадания были Святочные гадания, которые были с зимними святками (с Сочельника по Крещение). Наиболее благоприятным временем для гадания у восточных славян считались Рождественский, Васильевский и Крещенский вечера — переломные, пограничные периоды, наиболее опасные, когда нечистая сила особенно сильна (зимние святки). На Украине чаще всего гадают в Рождественскую ночь, в Сибири же в Васильев вечер (под Старый Новый год). В отличие от гаданий в иные календарные периоды, гадания на Святки носят самостоятельный характер: они изолированы от других обрядов, совершаемых в эти сроки.

См. также

Примечания

Литература

 Зайков А. В.  // Вестник древней истории. 2002. № 4. / Journal of Ancient History. — Moscow, 2002. № 4. P. 110—130.

 Ровинский Д., Русские народные картинки, — П., 1881.
 Смирнов Василий. Народные гадания в Костромском крае. Очерк и тексты, — Кострома, 1927.
 Тэйлор, Первобытная культура, 2-е изд., тт. I—II, П., 1897.

 Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité, tt. I—IV, P., 1879—1881
 русский перевод I т.:
 Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, hrsg. von Hoffmann-Krayer E., — Berlin und Lpz., 1928—1929.

Ссылки

Русские обряды
Славянские обычаи
Народные верования

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Those Islanders with literary leanings may want to seek out the Island Public Library, once located in the Common Grounds, now rumored to be housed at the "green tip of the kitty's foot", whatever that means. Gathered by its Librarian, one Skidge, the Library consists of countless ambulatory bookcases, a family of four printing presses, an ever-circulating staff of typo gremlins, and the occasional escaped book character.
The categorization of the Library is described as "haphazard" by the more polite Island denizens, and "a right bloody mess" by those with a more honest bent. It's not that it doesn't follow a system; it's just a system devised by one of the Island's least systematic of minds. However, it is possible to find specific books by asking one of the Library's tribe of gremlins or a passing Librarian, either of which will lead you to the appropriate shelf.
While on the subject of gremlins, it is probably worthy of mention that harming a typo gremlin on Library grounds is one of the very few things that will earn you the ire of its Librarian, and is generally considered a Bad Idea. The gremlins are easily recognizable outside the library by their wearing of some kind of headdress.


Err on the Side of Human Resources — Defendify Blog: Cybersecurity in 60 Seconds - Defendify | Cybersecurity. Simplified.
HR professionals are confidentiality rock stars, and with good reason: A compromise of private employee tax information, health information, or records is a serious violation—a breach can lead to anything from embarrassment to identity theft or insurance fraud.
Set and follow protocol for handling requests for confidential information.
Be aware of potential phishing, vishing, or social engineering schemes.
Store and share digital and paper files securely.
Discuss sensitive information with care, both inside and outside of work.
Policies and procedures: Working with HR to develop and evaluate your organization's Technology and Data Use Policy will help to ensure it's fair, reasonable, and clear. HR can also help spread awareness of what employee should do if they do experience a cybersecurity incident.
Minimizing the insider threat: HR can assist with determining or tracking what information employees need access to in their positions.
Background checks: If you perform background checks on employees and contractors, it's a good idea to involve HR to ensure proper procedures and confidentiality. Laws around background checks vary state-to-state, so be sure to consult a legal resource as well.
Onboarding: New team members may need a little extra training for maximum cyber-success. HR can help employees understand organizational cybersecurity goals and policies.
Awareness: HR can help to deploy, review, and increase engagement in cybersecurity education. And they often have insight into how it fits in with existing training.
Remediation: Mistakes happen. In the case of an incident, HR will be involved and can help draw the line between proper disciplinary action and maintaining a culture where employees are encouraged to report incidents.
Offboarding: Finally, when employees leave the organization, HR and IT should work together to ensure they are offboarded completely and any access to sensitive information is revoked– even if the parting of ways was amicable.
Whether HR is a role taken on by one of the leaders wearing many hats in a smaller company or is a full time position or department, keep the human error factor in mind; it's responsible for a majority of today's breaches and incidents and something HR and the right culture can help tremendously with.


Like many people, I find the current political landscape a landmine of triggers. Ranging from rampant and state-sanctioned misogyny to widespread economic and environmental anxiety, there's a lot to be concerned about. In the face of this, my love for perfume sometimes feels like utter frivolity, a pointless exercise in vanity, in ephemeral comfort and beauty in a world that seems to vanish even as we look at it. But maybe that's part of why I find perfume, and the thousand little rituals of beauty and small delight that accompany it, so necessary. If we don't make time for the small pleasures left us, for luxuries cheaply bought, for beauty however fleeting, what are we fighting for in the end?
I think about the women who raised me: working-class women who stared down gang leaders to get to work, who fed entire families on a tin of fish and loaf of bread, who made the home a place of resistance. I think of their rituals in the morning. My mother's treasured bottle of Chanel No. 5, bought by my father for her birthday and preserved for years, each honey-hued drop applied sparingly, deliberately to meet and match only the essential pulse-points, with a reverence and care that made her stand straighter in her red heels. It was part of the glamour she took on like armor to face the day. There is resistance in that. There is something redemptive about it.
With that in mind, I've been thinking about how I use perfume for self-care. As someone who deals with mental illness, and dissociation due to PTSD in particular, I find the ritual of its application, as well as its direct, sensory impact, grounding on days when I'm at risk of being overwhelmed. There are numerous ways I've built on that, developing some techniques to enrich and strengthen my self-care routine, helping me face the world. Here are a few of them.
This may seem a little strange, but I promise it yields the best results. We'll go about it in much the same way one creates a Patronus: think of a happy memory, or place, a memory that instantly lifts your mood. Somewhere you've felt safe, or empowered, or an object or thing that brings you joy, however small. These are often fleeting impressions, feeling especially ephemeral when you're in a depressed or anxious state. The trick then, is to hone in on one sensory detail, especially one tied to scent.
It could be the memory of the mint tea your grandfather used to drink in the mornings, or the softness and scent of your cat's head when you cuddle her. Each of those scents has a set of ingredients or chemicals, traces of which you can track down in popular fragrances. An example of this is when I think of the rose jam a friend of mine used to make, and the memories of summer afternoons spent with her, the scent of it rising up, mingling with the fresh air, the confidences, the joy of her company.
A little research on sites like Fragrantica tells me that that distinctive scent — rich and slightly bitter rose but sweeter, coalesced into a honeyed, fruity smell with the thickness of jam — are thanks to the chemical compounds known as damascones. With that knowledge, a little further searching shows me a range of perfumes, From Lush's aptly named "Rose Jam" to Frederic Malle's substantially more luxurious "Portrait of a Lady," containing this compound and its accompanying, wine-like sweetness, and with it, a shortcut to a memory that instantly soothes and delights me.
When I tried Dior's Ambre Nuit for the first time, I instantly thought of the scent of my cat's fur, its plush, comforting warmth. That's the ambroxan singing through a peppery-rose top. As for Robert Piguet's Chai, I instantly think of my grandmother brewing elachi tea, thanks to the perfume's rich cardamom note.
Use a site like Fragrantica's search by note function to discover new perfumes, and pay attention to the ingredients that have special meaning to you. It's the best way to narrow down a search that can sometimes feel overwhelming, and lend a mindful and deliberate purpose to finding a perfume that will bring you joy. Even this step, in its care and intentionality, helps calm rising anxiety and root me in my own bodily experience.
This is fairly straightforward stuff, and I believe most of us are familiar with at least some of the basic principles of aromatherapy. With recent scientific research supporting the claim that lavender is naturally soothing, there are a wide range of oils that can be used to stimulate different moods in order to self-soothe, focus, energize, or ground, depending on your needs.
I swear by Lush's Twilight body and room spray at bedtime. As someone who struggles with insomnia, this is no small claim. It's a (relatively) affordable spray considering the genuine quality of its ingredients, which include lavender essential oil, as well as tonka, to produce a scent that makes the most of the relaxing properties of lavender with the milky sweetness of tonka, bringing to mind cups of warm milk and honey. Even if it doesn't fully succeed in helping me fall asleep, the act of lying down, closing my eyes and breathing in its scent, does wonders for the anxiety that insomnia can often cause in the small hours.
Aside from more soothing scents, I also use whiffs of oils like rosemary or peppermint to stimulate and energize me when I need to corral my thoughts and concentrate on work, or the sensuous depth of sandalwood to bring me back to an awareness of my body when I'm struggling with dissociation or dysphoria. Always be sure to check with a healthcare provider that oils are safe for you to use, and remember to mix them with a carrier oil if you are going to apply them to your skin.
By ritualizing self-care actions, particularly ones rooted in the senses, I have a blueprint of action that I don't need to think about (especially useful when I'm struggling to concentrate because of anxiety or racing thoughts), and that eases my brain and body into the moment, slowing me down enough to re-enter my body in a way that soothes and grounds me. Scent and perfume lend themselves particularly well to ritual.
I start after I've bathed or showered by lighting a scented candle, and then applying a (usually scentless – though you can layer scents too if you like) richly moisturizing cream or body oil. I'm a huge fan of the Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse, which is delicately scented while still allowing my perfume to come into its own, and follow that by applying my chosen perfume to my pulse points, including behind my knees, and at the nape of my neck. I will also scent my clothes by misting the air slightly and stepping through it once I'm dressed.
As someone who also practices aspects of intentional magick, I will sometimes also use a dropper or rollerball perfume or perfume oil to draw a sigil for protection or luck on my skin, and I am reminded of my intention every time I catch a whiff of the fragrance. Though certainly not for everyone, the result is not only the effect of whichever fragrances I've chosen (whether they're meant to energize, imbue me with confidence, or relax me), but also a sense of being surrounded by things I find beautiful, even if they're invisible. It allows me to affect my environment in a way that contains and soothes me, and this sense of ownership over my space is incredibly therapeutic.
I hope these ideas all help to introduce some ways of thinking more mindfully about perfume, and its capacity to enrich our self-care rituals. Perfume can be a powerful, sensory tool with incredible therapeutic potential. Human beings have used it to mark and revere some of the most important aspects of life: from anointing wedding couples with scented oils, to marking births and deaths with incense and flowers. There is something primal and instinctive in using it to bridge the gap between our physical and psychological selves, bringing us a sense of wholeness and continuity that can often feel increasingly fractured in the face of all the stressors inherent in contemporary life. Whether you wear Chanel No.5 (and only Chanel No. 5) to bed, or apply a little rosemary oil before your next exam, I hope these tips bring you healing and happiness.
Mishka Hoosen is a writer, creative director, and neophyte perfumer living and working in Cape Town, South Africa. His obsessions range from folk songs about murder to folk tales (involving murder.) His first novel, Call it a difficult night, was published by Deep South Books in 2015, and his poetry about girlhood, violence, and hotels is currently being compiled into a collection for publication.


text:
Home Solar Trina Solar signs 2.1 MW off-grid solar system project in Tibet
Trina Solar signs 2.1 MW off-grid solar system project in Tibet
Greentech Lead Asia: Trina Solar has signed a supply
agreement with Longyuan (Tibet) New Energy to supply an off-grid solar project
in the Northern Tibetan region of Naqu.
The 2.1 MW project is Trina Solar's largest off-grid
system project in China, following the construction of approximately 40
standalone power stations in 2002 in the Chamdo region of Tibet.
"Quality irradiance in this highly elevated region
underscores its suitability for such a project. We are committed to providing
quality products and excellent service in implementing this project, which we
believe can benefit the local population," said Jifan Gao, chairman and
CEO of Trina Solar.
"This off-grid project, which differs from utility
scale projects in terms of set-up and components, will use our
specially-designed PC20 off-grid modules," said Mark Kingsley, chief
commercial officer of Trina Solar.
The off-grid market has the potential to bring another
dimension of growth to Trina Solar. These installations, believed to be one of
the largest off-grid module orders in China, are especially suited for Tibet's
environment owing to its clean air, excellent sunlight, and challenges of
rugged topography to extend traditional distributed power.
With an average 2,900 sunlight hours per year, the region
is highly suited to PV solar generation.
Naqu is one of the Tibetan areas lacking distributed grid
power. Trina Solar hopes that the new off-grid project will alleviate the
electricity shortages of the farmers and herdsmen, thereby improving the quality
of life, while promoting local economic and social development in the region.
Trina Solar has developed a vertically integrated
business model from the production of monocrystalline and multicrystalline
silicon ingots, wafers and cells to the assembly of high quality modules.
Longyuan (Tibet) New Energy is engaged in the design,
development, construction, management and operation of wind farms. In addition
to the wind power business, the company also operates other power projects such
as thermal power, solar power, tidal, biomass and geothermal energy.
editor@greentechlead.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Discussion in 'Teaching overseas' started by Camray1, Nov 7, 2018.
I am British, 31, and have a BA Primary Education degree and PGCE Primary (QTS) with 5 years international school experience. I am interested in saving some money, be that in the hottest place known to man, the most boring, or even a place where barely a man, woman or child can survive. I would like to dedicate the next few years to building a nice little nest egg. So with that in mind, where oh where is the best place in the world to save money? Thanking you for any ideas which you may have.
I was led to believe that the salaries in Saudi Arabia are not as good as they once used to be...?
I have also heard this but one of my current colleagues came from Saudi and said their pay was significantly higher there so it maybe depends on where you work.
Anecdotally I'd say China. One of my good friends went to China when I came to the UAE and he saved around £5k a year more than me while he was there despite having a lower salary because of the cost of living differences. It would probably be much closer if you had a different type of social life though.
Salaries in the ME are definitely not what they use to be in the good old days.
Many of the rent-a-name schools have reduced the salary due to the rmb/GBP been so good over the last couple of years. You will find it hard to pick up 2.7k GBP at these schools to start with.
The first thing most applicants for a job do is to convert the local monopoly money into a hard currency such as USD/GBP. The ex rate in China has changed to the point where you get 25% more GBP compared to 6 years ago.
So you need to check the rates for exchange in the next couple of years, I dont see the GBP hoing up in value.
Saudi Arabia is a good place to save money because fun is not really allowed. You cannot go to the pub because there aren't any. You will save money on central heating during the winter because you will not need any, although you might want to put on a jumper.
A lot of these "Where can I save money?" threads that you find on the TES nearly always ignore the cost of living. A fantastic salary is not so fantastic if your outgoings are high. As well as accommodation, transport and holidays can also be major costs. Another point to bear in mind is that you probably will not save a big pile of cash in your first year, so you need to be somewhere that is not too awful and then you can start to stack those big piles of cash in your second and third years.
february31st mentioned China. Single male teachers might like to consider working in the Middle Kingdom because there seem to be quite a lot of very rich (and rather attractive) Chinese ladies who would like an English husband.
Not an easy question to answer, how long is a piece of string and all that. You can save a lot of money in a lot of places if you spend the minimum needed to survive. Hong Kong is a good bet if you live in a shoe box, eat noodles, don't drink alcohol and ride a bicycle around town to entertain yourself. You won't make many friends though (possibly none) at work and at play and you'll be bored out of your box. Salaries are high though and you'll be better off than if you are at most schools in Saudi.
can save a pretty decent sum in a lot of places.
China! I used to waste a lot of money buying nice clothes in the UK but I can't do that in China because they never fit me. So I'm saving loads and drying my eyes with all my banknotes.
ChaiLattePlease, jofran, JL48 and 2 others like this.
You would think a teacher with international experience would not ask this kind of question!!
Places don't save money, only people do!
Great picture SPC2, great movie too!
Generally, less attractive places tend to offer more money to entice teachers (and will often have lower costs of living).
OK, so you need to factor moving, which can be very expensive, plus settling in. But I set out to do various things, including save over 1/2 of my salary. I am living well enough and am on target at the moment to reach that, although best wait until August to declare it a complete success, as it's only November.
However, winters are cold, paperwork is a pain and while day to day living is cheap, luxuries like gym membership are not.
Bulgaria is a great place to SAVE money and you can read all about it in my blog, bulgariawithnoodles.blogspot.com Taxes are lower in Bulgaria and you can live quite cheaply here. The Bulgarian equivalent of Council Tax for our large villa is 42 BGN a year. That is about twenty euros or eighteen quid. Wine is also quite cheap too and the other day I bought a three-litre box of very drinkable Bulgarian plonk for 10BGN (that is about 5 euros or four pounds). In the winter, you can use woodburners. Firewood is around 90BGN (45 euros) for a cubic metre and that is a bit cheaper than in the UK.
Bulgaria is not, however, a good place to EARN money because salaries for teachers are lower than most schools in the ME or SE Asia.
Thanks for all the brilliant replies so far. It looks like Saudi Arabia and China are taking an early lead for savings potential. Answering the statement which has been posted, "You would think a teacher with international experience would not ask this kind of question!!" While I do have experience in an international school, it is not a particularly high salary and the time has come to further my experience and plan for the future. At 31 I feel I can spend a good 5 plus years somewhere less than desirable, and return to my cheap country with a bulging wallet and more experience. While I value learning about other cultures and immersing myself in the life, the sole purpose is saving, after that I feel a secure life overseas awaits.
This is a truly interesting and important question to anyone teaching internationally. It is however a broad question and many variables come in to play when searching for a very well paid job abroad. If you get into a top international school you will get a good package wherever you may be. I used to work in a top school in The Yemen and I got buckets full of spondoolicks every F. in day and retired early to an island in Greece where I drink Ouzo and eat lamb all day. It was all worthwhile.
stopwatch and Camray1 like this.
Djibouti has one international school with a website and it only wants Americans.
Vietnam is another option with loads of money being pumped into education, in English especially. It can pay as well as China and the air is generally breathable, apart from Ho Chi Min City. Korea can be well paid too. Some Koreans who teach English online and privately, earn over 1 million dollars a year. Private tutoring can be most lucrative outside of school and in Qatar the same is true, effectively doubling your salary..
A few staff here in Vietnam have been trying to do the 6 million Dong challenge, basically living off that for a month (Around £200). I'm not sure how long you could do it, but I still think as a single person here you could well off a 1/3 of the your salary. I had friends who worked in Saudi, there salary was fantastic and would certainly allow you to save a lot, I suppose it depends how much you would spend getting of of Saudi (Which you would need in holidays).
Most schools in HK offer a very good bonus scheme and the Malaysian saving scheme is also very good.
If you get the right school in Asia you will be able save a lot of money and still have a decent life.
Kuwait is one of the higher paying countries in the Middle East but the cost of living is very high too (only topped by Qatar I believe). You can live a very basic life there and save money, but the second you venture out to eat, or join a gym, or go to the cinema etc, expect to be stung.
That said though, I have friends who are in top international schools in KL, HK and Brazil who all earn an equivalent package, or better.
It's about finding the right school rather than country in my experience. Avoid the big chains/franchise schools and go for the independent schools.
It is also important to check what accommodation/expenses/transport/flight package you get. This proves to be very important in some countries.
But here in Shanghai beer is 50pence a can for the local brew, a pound for the imported beverage and having a bacon sandwich doesn't cost you 50 lashes!
Here in Shanghai the best paying schools dont have a brand name and are not very well known outside of China.
Best standard teaching salary net with no responsibility payments tops out at 3750GBP.


RCW 10.05.110: Trial delay not grounds for dismissal.
Trial delay not grounds for dismissal.
Delay in bringing a case to trial caused by a petitioner requesting deferred prosecution as provided for in this chapter shall not be grounds for dismissal.


Published: 2019-04-14 | Categories: [»] Engineering, [»] Opticsand[»] Chemistry.
As promised, here is the first upgrade on the [»] Raman spectrometer that I have presented two months ago.
One of the first things that I wanted to address was the imaging lens limitations. Indeed, with the previous system that was based on two 50 mm doublet achromats, the resolution was limited to about 0.35…1.3 nm which would prevent the spectrometer from doing anything better than 15…30 cm-1. Also, with the multimode laser used, the overall resolution was about 34 cm-1. The experimental resolution tended to worsen at the edge of the spectrum however which was revealed in the 3000 cm-1 region of the spectrum of iso-propanol.
Today, we will fix that issue by increasing the resolution of the spectrometer to 0.2 nm which will ultimately translate to about 5-7 cm-1. Because I am still using the multimode laser, the Raman spectra will however not reach that resolution yet.
Even in the absence of the laser swap, the resolution already improves as can be seen in the new spectrum of iso-propanol shown in Figure 1.
The biggest change with the old spectrum is located in the 3000 cm-1 region where the three peaks are now fully resolved as can be seen in Figure 2. The two peaks on the right are distant by only 19 cm-1 and appear fully resolved from each other.
The ideal resolution of the spectrometer is reached when the FWHM of a peak is 3 pixels large. It is not recommended to go below that threshold or you will run into troubles when trying to discriminates neighbouring peaks later or when trying to fit profiles to peaks. With the camera used, that equals to 10.4 µm which can be achieved using a 10 µm slit and an optics with a PSF FWHM of 7 µm (√(7²+(cos(45.5°)*10)²) = 10.4).
Since I was clearly not happy with the results, I decided to look for an alternative at machine vision lens manufacturers. I was lucky enough to find the NAVITAR MVL50M23 which fits right into the existing spectrometer setup and was able to deliver a theoretical 7-8 µm spot at f/4. The lens is old at 180€ at Thorlabs or 155€ if you purchase it directly from the manufacturer.
The quick assembly of Figure 3 will allow you to replace the old imaging lens by the machine vision lens. Because there is already a stop inside the lens, you can remove the external aperture in front of the collimation lens.
With a 15 µm slit and a 7-8 µm spot width, the theoretical resolution of the spectrometer should be about 13.2 µm which translated to 3.8 pixels or a 0.2 nm resolution. With the 10 µm slit I could have dreamed of 0.15 nm. Nonetheless, 0.2 nm already achieve very good performances and let more light enter the spectrometer which is always good in Raman spectroscopy.
The resolution was confirmed experimentally with a Neon lamp as shown in Figure 4.
The resolution at 1700 cm-1 is about 6-7 cm-1 as predicted. Note however that at higher wavelengths/wavenumbers, a shoulder appears next to the peak. This was foreseen by the raytracing as shown in the PSF at 640 nm in Figure 5. Later experimentation with actual Raman spectra will show if this is a problem or not.
Before I end this post there is one important thing that I need to stress out: do not substitute the NAVITAR lens by another one.
A lens as used in photography is defined by two important factors: (1) its resolution, (2) its entrance pupil location and diameter. When selecting an objective lens for the spectrometer, I had to be very careful with these.
First, the resolution provided by the lens should be high enough to allow spot sizes of 7 µm or less. The datasheet of the NAVITAR lens reports a 100 lp/mm at centre and 80 lp/mm in the corners. Since the lens was designed for 2/3" sensor and we are using a smaller sensor, we should benefit from a ~5 µm spot size. Don't overlook resolution, 5 µm is really good performances and you will have to spend several thousands of dollars to get something similar with a DSLR camera. This is due to the fact that SLR cameras have much larger field of views and until recently their pixels were therefore much larger. So don't try swapping this lens with a cheap DSLR lens, it will not work.
Second is the study of the entrance pupil position and diameter. Previously, the stop was located at the collimation lens. Here, the stop will be located somewhere inside the objective. Because the stop is the position at which the rays pivot into the system, placing the stop away from the grating means that for the same input numerical aperture, a larger portion of the grating and collimation lens will be used. It is very important to be sure that rays do not exceed the physical dimensions of these elements or clipping will occur.
When studying the stop position, you can either work with the stop itself or any of its images in the system. The stop image in front of the lens is called the entrance pupil and the stop at the rear of the lens is called the exit pupil. When assembling systems with several stops, you need to enforce that the exit pupil of the first system matches perfectly the entrance pupil of the second system or clipping (vignetting) will occur.
The problem with most camera lenses is that their entrance pupils are virtual. That is, it lies at the back of the first lens and you cannot physically super-impose an element (such as the grating) on it. That means you should be very careful when putting a camera lens in a system like ours.
Finally, experience also teaches us that it is not because the camera lens achieve a given resolution on its own that it will do when introduced in a system. True resolution will depend on how aberrated the input wavefront reaches the entrance pupil of that lens.
All these things taken together, you should always simulate the complete system to have an idea on how it will behave. And that is precisely where you will run into troubles: you don't have the prescription data for the lens you would like to integrate. Don't even think about asking the lenses manufacturers to share this with you as it is trade secrets they build their business on.
In the machine vision world things are a bit fancier because you can eventually ask for what is called a blackbox model of the lens. A blackbox model is a special encrypted file that works with professional lens design software and which allows you to trace rays without having the actual prescription data. It is however very difficult to get these blackbox models for cheap lenses like the one used here and they are usually offered for large volume integration by commercial companies.
That being said, I was extremely lucky here and managed to get the blackbox model for the NAVITAR lens. This is how I manage to assess the actual performances of the system before building it. The system is shown in Figure 6.
The white rectangles are part of the blackbox model and represent group of lenses. You can notice the stop (in orange) located between the blocks. The smaller rectangles are windows that protect the objective and the camera. It is important to include them in the simulation because they will introduce small amount of spherical aberrations that will affect overall resolution.
The system is represented here for an input numerical aperture of 0.12 and you can see that it almost completely fills the 25×25 mm² surface of the grating. It is not recommended to use the full grating surface as edge tend to have more defects which can produce stray light into the system.
That concludes this post on imaging lens and the note I wanted to make on commercial lenses.
Next upgrade is coming soon, so stay tuned for updates!


text:
10 Key Points About the New Special Master in the Michael Cohen Case
by Colin Kalmbacher | 6:51 pm, April 26th, 2018
Judge Kimba Wood announced the appointment of a special master in the Michael Cohen saga today. With no objections from counsel or the prosecution, former judge Barbara Jones will take the lead role in determining which of the seized Cohen documents are subject to the attorney-client privilege.
Here are ten key things to keep in mind as Jones' work goes forward.
1. Who is Barbara Jones?
Jones is a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's Office, assistant district attorney and federal judge. She sat at the Southern District of New York for 17 years before moving into private practice. Jones oversaw various high-profile cases including many involving mob bosses and shady real estate deals. She was also the first woman to ever lead an organized crime task force. Cohen's attorney Steve Ryan called her a "wonderful choice."
2. A short leash and a semi-flexible timeline.
Judge Wood said, "If it turns out the special master process is going too slowly, I will revisit the special master's role." Wood later reserved the right to speak with the special master as she saw fit, but clarified that these would likely be "weekly check-ins." Wood continued, "After four weeks, I'll have concerns [the special master process] is not on schedule. On schedule means providing enough documents to keep the special master busy full-time."
3. An expanded scope of review?
There was quite a bit of confusion and push-back about the possibility of Jones going beyond the attorney-client privilege mandate and removing documents completely non-responsive to the case. Judge Wood noted, "The special master would have the authority to designate certain documents as completely non-responsive." Thomas McKay vehemently protested and said this could be a "very serious expansion of the scope," of the special master's review. Cohen's attorneys disagreed and said privacy issues were important and that many documents went beyond the scope of the search warrant.
During a confounding discussion about whether the government would be interested in the medical records of Michael Cohen's children. McKay said, "Yes and no." Then he launched into a bit of a lecture about why everyone's there and how the rules apply to the situation at hand. Eventually, Judge Wood interjected and said, "Well, if you really want to see a child's surgery records…" McKay said he did not but simply objected to Jones taking part in any responsiveness review. Ultimately, Judge Wood settled everyone down by asserting that privilege was the first problem to deal with and other issues can be dealt with in turn.
4. Jones is working long hours and (probably) taking a pay cut.
Judge Wood said she had received assurances from Jones that she would be able to devote at least ninety percent of her time to fulfilling her special master duties–and probably more. On top of that, a senior partner at Jones' law firm, Bracewell LLP, would commit a similar amount of time to overseeing the initial privilege determinations. On top of that, Jones will be paid in accordance with the equivalent of an SDNY magistrate judge's hourly rate–substantially less money than a partner would make in private practice.
5. Jones is a sleeper pick.
Barbara Jones was not a name on anyone's mind–except, apparently Judge Wood–before her appointment as special master on Thursday. Jones' name had not been submitted by either the government or Michael Cohen's attorneys. Wood said, "I have considered the proposals of counsel for a special master and I've also done some checking on my own." Wood's own research clearly held the day.
6. The government made a bizarre request that is likely to be denied.
Prosecutor Thomas McKay appeared to over-play his hand on Thursday. He said, "We think it's very important the taint team has access to [privilege-claimed] documents and is given an opportunity to object." McKay explained that if the government never has access to the privilege-claimed documents, the government is likely to be very over-broad with their own objections. This logic didn't go over well.
Cohen attorney Steve Ryan said, "I don't respect the chiseling to reverse the court's order. I think the special master should have the option to supply privileged documents to the taint team, but I reject the presumption that 100 percent of the privileged documents go to the government." Judge Wood was extremely skeptical of the government's request and asked how it was different from the government's initial request that the taint team review all of the documents. McKay didn't really have a good answer–he repeated his argument about over-privileging and over-objecting–and his request was deferred by Judge Wood.
7. The president isn't super happy.
At the tail-end of a discussion regarding a likely-to-fail government request (see immediately above) Donald Trump's attorney Joanna Hendon sought to clarify one point: The appointment of a special master was a compromise her client was begrudgingly willing to accept. She said, "The president's objections was not because he thought a taint team would be unfair. The president objected to any third party. We take strong objection [to the government seeing the president's privileged documents.]"
8. But the Trump Organization is all smiles.
An attorney for the Trump Organization rose once to speak and it was keeping well in character with the Trump Organization's posture from the last hearing on the Cohen documents. They said, "Our position is we don't have a position. We have a seat at the table and we accept what the court decides."
9. A bit about the data.
So far, the government has scanned seven out of eight boxes of physical documents seized from the various abodes of Michael Cohen. Those physical documents will be uploaded to Relativity–a notoriously buggy document review software suite. There will also be a load file for "less lag time." The seized computers and hard drives will be forensically imaged onto load files as well because there's no need for a document reviewer program. All of Cohen's phones and iPads will be uploaded straight onto hard drives and all of this should be done very soon. Except: some BlackBerries which are estimated to take an additional three weeks and one iPhone which McKay said would take "104 days."
10. How it all works, in brief.
The special master will have access to all of the discovery materials. On top of that, she will be given a copy of the search warrant and the search warrant application. There will be a simultaneous process of discovery production wherein the government places documents into Relativity or another system–concurrently providing those documents to both Cohen's attorneys and the special master. There won't be anything close to a document-by-document review. Rather, the special master will look over different sets of privilege-claimed documents and make her decision. Those sets will be determined by the use of keywords.
[image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images]
Barbara Jones, michael cohen


In the past, most recently in 2013, Coca-Cola has experimented with the idea of vending machines that adjust prices according to the temperature. The idea really bothers some people, but fixed prices that are always the same for everyone haven't historically been the norm. We may be coming to the end of a weird century-and-a-half experiment with the practice.
We never really thought about the origin of price tags, but that's why NPR's Planet Money team exists: they wondered why we have price tags, and whether we'll have them for much longer.
For most of human history, we've been haggling when we buy and sell things. There are problems with haggling: it's labor-intensive, time-intensive, and requires the person negotiating for the store to have a deep knowledge of every product and what a fair price would be. This system continues in some countries and in flea markets, but most commerce today takes place with prices assigned to items.
We have the Quakers to thank for the idea of merchandise having one fixed price for everyone: they first started that wacky idea in the mid-19th century. The first store to use fixed prices was Philadelphia-based Wanamaker's, and the idea spread through much of the world, thanks to the influence of early department stores.
One young Quaker man started a retail venture in New York City, bringing the fixed-price idea along with him so he could put relatively untrained employees out on the sales floor in a massive store, and so the company could advertise the prices of items in the newspaper. His name was Rowland Hussey Macy.
Some transactions kept haggling: notably, new-car purchases, and nearly everyone hates it. More than a hundred years later, computers allowed companies to start chipping away at the idea of fixed prices for everything. Airline deregulation meant that airlines could set fares according to predicted demand, and the rest of the travel industry began to follow.
Now, sophisticated online retailers make every price dynamic, adjusting according to demand and other factors that mere consumers don't understand. So far, consumers have resisted the idea that prices can change dramatically at any minute in physical stores, but that could change as more people grow up with dynamic pricing when they shop online.


When we retire, and especially if we retire early, the last thing we expect is news of a serious illness. In 2014 I met a man who told me when he received his cancer diagnosis, everything important in life came sharply into focus. Much of what he worried about was suddenly trivial. After beating cancer, he continued to center his attention on his newfound vision.
While we may not have received a cancer diagnosis, we all encountered blows of some kind in our life experience. Life has a way of throwing us curve balls. It's almost never expected, whether we just retired or were at some other juncture in life.
As I researched for this post, as usual, much of what popped up was how to handle a financial set back. With retirement, whether it is preparation or crisis, money takes center stage. It took quite a bit of digging to find information on coping with an illness. In the process, I asked myself what I would do if I received a diagnosis of breast cancer.
If I received bad news, I would re-visit previous life skirmishes asking myself how I coped. What did I do that worked for me? What would I do differently now? What lessons did I learn, which could be applied to the present situation?
For the last two years I've practiced mindfulness, mastering the skill of staying present. The past is behind us; the future has yet to unfold itself to us. What we have is the present, the here and now. Focusing on the present has reduced the number of times my mind runs headlong into the future on mind spinning mode, creating worst scenario outcomes. Mind spinning often results in our conjuring a bad situation into an even worse situation. In the case of devastating news, staying present can provide calm in the face of the hurricane. Add a few deep breaths.
Fight or flight. I tend to go into fight mode when receiving bad news. Rather than run from it emotionally and mentally, I start gathering as much information as I can. I like to make informed decisions. Knowing what I'm facing also provides a sense of some control in what is potentially an uncontrollable situation. Never one to throw my hands up and say, "there's nothing I can do about it" instead I dig deep for information. Knowledge is power.
Like the man I mentioned above, there may actually be some good news embedded in the bad news. He had an epiphany about what was really important to him in life. Everything small by comparison just fell away, leaving him with a sense of really living.
Another woman I know forced a rosy outlook during her battle with cancer. She said she didn't have time to be negative. The fact is we have emotional ups and downs during any crisis. I meditate. One of the objectives I appreciate about meditation is letting the negatives into your thoughts, dealing with them, then letting them go. It's ok to feel down at a time like this. We can't be up all the time. To me, constantly projecting Little Mary Sunshine in the face of bad news is a stress in itself.
Bottling up emotions may also block others from helping you. If you have a spouse or life partner, it is probably as important for their welfare as it is for yours, to open up and let them in. They are also in pain. Most probably they are worried about you. Shutting them out by pretending everything is still normal may do more harm than good. The situation is not normal. They may need to cry along with you — let them.
Take your partner or a close friend with you on medical appointments. I know many, many people who did not include their spouse thinking they were shielding them from more bad news. If you are really partners, now is not a time to dial back the relationship. They can be an advocate for you, perhaps hearing something from a medical professional you missed. Emotionally, they can hold your hand during any delivery of news, either good or bad. And you can hold theirs.
You both need all the support you can get. Include family and friends with information. Back to the woman who put on the rose colored glasses, she never shared any news of her condition. I always wanted to hug her. She was even resistant to that. I know people who didn't want their children informed of a diagnosis, robbing them of the ability to support and, in worse case situations, say a meaningful goodbye.
I'm not a psychologist or therapist, but I am an advocate of going to a counselor when needed. Receiving any devastating news may be a time when counseling is in order. Talking to a professional can help clarify positions, direction, actions to be taken, not to mention dealing with the emotional toll. Seek professional help for your mind and emotions just as you are seeking professional help for your body. Attending to your spiritual self by talking with a minister or priest may also help.
This is just my personal take on what I would do if faced with devastating news such as a cancer diagnosis. As always, we have to do what works best for us, as individuals, and our family in any particular situation. It is not easy to retire and receive bad news. However, as in any other moment in life, there are actions we can take to move us in the direction of a more positive outcome.
For the reader who inspired this post and all of my readers dealing with bad news of any kind, you are in my thoughts and prayers.