Why I'll only consume organic honey...

...and other stories.


So, L.D. and I high-tailed it to the Environmental Film Festival on Sunday.  I arrived conscientiously on foot, L.D. via earth-polluting vehicle and we watched Vanishing of The Bees, a film about Colony Collapse Disorder, and the effect it is having not only on the world's bee population, but the trickle down effect on every living thing on the planet.


Sobering stuff.







Aside from the enormity of the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder, the film uncovered some pretty hideous practices by bee keepers such as artificial insemination  and the use of D.D.T in San Antonio, which left both L.D. and I with mouths wide open and hands raised to our faces in horror.


Unless we wish to subside on a diet of gruel in the future, we all need to do our bit and choose organic honey (as well as organic fruits and vegetables, etc).


Most frightening of all is that we did this.  Colony Collapse Disorder is not the result of evolution or some unfortunate natural disaster.  It came into existence due to our mistreatment of this planet we call home.  L.D. places the blame with our parents' generation, but we cannot remove ourselves from the collective we of the human race.  We did this to our planet, now we have to make things right.  Before there ain't nothing left to fix.

Why won't Forbes defend its Obama article?

It's always ironic when big-time professional journalists, who often spend their time holding public figures accountable, suddenly aren't so interested in being held accountable when they're the ones being scrutinized. The latest/greatest example is Forbes magazine and the crew of editors on the masthead who have apparently taken a vow of silence when it comes to talking about the magazine's error-filled, and widely condemned, Obama cover story.

Simple question: Why the silence? I realize Dinesh D'Souza who wrote the piece has responded to some of the criticism, but why not anyone at Forbes. What are they hiding from?

If staffers at Forbes think D'Souza's insights into the president are dead-on, then why won't they step forward and say so? If D.C. Bureau Chief, Brian Wingfield, is sure the cover story represented prescient political commentary and historical research masterfully presented, then why won't he come forward and so say? And if Forbes editor-in-chief, Steve Forbes, remains proud of the cover story, why won't he go on the record and articulate that so there is no doubt?

Instead, all we get is a flaccid "statement" from the magazine that doesn't address the many issues surrounding the D'Souza fiasco.

The point is that for whatever reason, Forbes as an institution, made a calculated decision to publish what is perhaps the most vicious and mean-spirited attack on Obama as a man and a son. And now nobody has the nerve to take ownership. Nobody at Forbes has the guts to answer questions about the piece, such as:

-Who assigned it?

-Who edited it?

-Did Steve Forbes see the final version before it was published?

-Did any senior editors object to the tone/content while it was in editing process?

-Was the article actually fact-checked?

-If so, who oversaw the fact-checking process?

As I said, journalists love to attack those in the public arena. But when it comes time for them to answer tough questions, they hide behind flaks and press releases.

I think the Obama cover story has done extraordinary damage to the Forbes brand. But I'd actually respect the magazine if someone -- anyone -- on staff in a position of power had the courage to come forward and be held accountable for, or even try to argue on behalf of, the D'Souza train wreck.

Instead, we get cowardly silence.

The inexplicable need to dance

By Juliet Burnett

filed under From the studio

George Balanchine famously stated: “I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance”. I was reminded of this quote when I had the privilege of seeing the incomparable Stephen Fry talk at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne. Regaling us with charming and often hilarious tales of discovering and pursuing his passions, at one point he recounted the scene from the cinematic masterpiece The Red Shoes in which our aspiring ballerina Victoria Page first encounters ballet company impresario Boris Lermentov:

Lermentov: Why do you want to dance?
Page: Why do you want to live?
Lermentov: Well I don’t know exactly why, er, but I must.
Page: That’s my answer too.

Fry used this analogy to exemplify the difference between mere desire and inexplicable need. Like involuntary functions as mundane but vital as breathing – for Fry, writing became his lifeblood; essential to his existence. I walked away from Fry’s talk feeling inspired and compelled to introspection. I was fascinated by this notion of want versus need and how pertinent it is in shaping one’s destiny. I also wondered whether, like an involuntary function, its manifestation is so natural, so right, that it is imperceptible, or whether someone has to experience a single defining moment to know that they are fulfilling their true calling. I’m often asked at what point in my life I decided to become a ballet dancer. My answer is always vague, a patchwork of various turning points and epiphanies (the day that my teacher Mrs Jenkins suggested to my parents, when I was ten years old, that I come in for private ballet lessons after school because she recognised talent in me; going to see Sydney Dance Company in Graeme Murphy’sBerlin aged 12; watching Alessandra Ferri and Julio Bocca perform the ‘Balcony Pas de Deux’ from Romeo and Juliet on video, aged 14; witnessing the pride and enjoyment it endlessly gave my parents and those around me and realising that I shared those feelings in my dancing). Is the fact that I am now eight years into a happy career and have been dancing for a total 21 of my 26 years enough to confirm that dancing was my lifeblood? Do I want to dance or do I need to dance?

Juliet Burnett. Photography Jo Duck

I thought that imagining my life without dancing might be a good way to find out. The thing about pursuing a career in dance is that hours and years of training must be dedicated to it, and because it demands such finely tuned physical and emotional skills, it is by its very nature an all-consuming art form. In other words, it is hard for me to imagine living without dance simply because it has defined my life. But that’s not to say that it is all of my life. I hold many passionate interests outside ballet – the visual arts, music, nature, writing – all of which are intrinsically part of my life and whose influences nurture my approach to dancing. I have the occasional flight of fancy in which I pursue one of these other passions; indeed someone like Fry seems to do quite a good job at writing, speaking, hosting TV shows and acting. He manages to maintain his lifeblood while engaging himself in a multitude of other creative vocations.

Interestingly, the central theme of The Red Shoes is that of the struggle between one’s passions – between romantic love and artistic expression; between real life and life onstage played out in front of an audience. The two passions are depicted as impossible to coexist in harmony in one artistic soul. Oh, the torment! One could easily construe the moral lesson of the film to be as black and white as that (which today seems preposterous, given the number of happily married dancers in The Australian Ballet at the moment), but I would argue that the lesson is that in order to truly and wholly live life, we can’t let ourselves become blinded by our passions to the point where they become obsessions. Being obsessed implies obstinacy and blindness, which would lead to an imbalanced and unhappy life. When you experience an inexplicable urge, when you simply need to or must do something, pursue something – that is not an obsession, it is response to instinct.

And so when I do imagine my life without dancing, it’s not such a bleak picture that flashes before me. At this stage in my life, of all my passions, I have only experienced the inexplicable urge, the need, the instinct to dance. I feel wholly fulfilled by the joy that dancing gives me. Perhaps the magic I experience onstage shows that my need to dance transcends analysis. And I guess that is all the confirmation I could hope for.

Those other passions can remain – if they have been such an enriching part of my life thus far, why would I let them go? And besides, I need to harbour them, for a dancer’s career has a ruthlessly brief timeframe. Inevitably, there will come a day when my body will protest relentlessly after years of push and pull, and no amount of passion and persistence could convince it to continue dancing. Or maybe it is my heart that will, just as imperceptibly as when it had instilled my need to dance, take that very need away. I wonder, then, what adventures the next chapter will hold – in which I immerse myself in one of my other passions and discover I have a new lifeblood? I guess I’m counting on old friend Instinct to kick in, when it’s time.

The Sound of Swinging Upward

From: Permissible Arms

Posted in united states, us military by Karaka on 10 September 2010

A piece of good news going into the weekend:

A federal court in Riverside, California, ruled Thursday that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy — which bars gay men and lesbians from serving openly — is unconstitutional.

“Plaintiff has demonstrated it is entitled to the relief sought on behalf of its members, a judicial declaration that the don’t ask, don’t tell act violates the Fifth and First Amendments, and a permanent injunction barring its enforcement,” concluded U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, a 1999 Clinton appointee.

The 85-page ruling came in a case filed by the group Log Cabin Republicans against the government and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

“The act discriminates based on the content of the speech being regulated,” Phillips wrote. “It distinguishes between speech regarding sexual orientation, and inevitably, family relationships and daily activities, by and about gay and lesbian servicemembers, which is banned, and speech on those subjects by and about heterosexual servicemembers, which is permitted.”

But, she noted, “the sweeping reach of the restrictions on speech in the don’t ask, don’t tell act is far broader than is reasonably necessary to protect the substantial government interest at stake here.”

From CNN. Not unlike the Prop 8 overturn, there’s still a long road to travel on this. And again, it’s both a potentially good and very precarious thing that the ruling was made in federal court. On the one hand there’s nowhere to go but up; on the other, the stakes are high that if either case loses, it loses hard. Still, it’s hard not to feel hopeful.

Well, they do.

Republicans talk about me like a dog: Obama  

IANS, Sep 7, 2010, 10.05am IST

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has caused quite a flutter by accusing his Republican opponents of talking about him "like a dog" at a rally to launch his embattled Democratic party's election campaign.

"Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in  Washington for a very long time and they're not always happy with me," he said addressing a union crowd on Labour Day on Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

"They talk about me like a dog. That's not in my prepared remarks, but it's true," he told the union crowd straying from his prepared remarks to take a more aggressive tone in campaign mode.

"They're betting that between now and November, you'll (voters) come down with a case of amnesia," Obama said in the speech less than two months ahead of midterm elections where Democratic majorities in the  House and Senate are on stake.

"They (Republicans) think you'll forget what their agenda did to this country. They think you'll just believe that they've changed. These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class and drive our economy into a ditch. And now they're asking you for the keys back," he said with some bitterness, alluding to the recent tirade launched against him by his critics .

North Utah Valley Animal Shelter Sells Animals for Experiments

To visitors, North Utah Valley Animal Shelter (NUVAS) may seem like a typical safe haven for animals. The facility's intake documents describe dogs as "very cute" and "cuddly" and state that they "love to play fetch" and "enjoy belly rubs"—perhaps reminding you of a loving canine companion you share your home with and consider a member of the family. Tragically, however, these words describe many dogs the North Utah Valley Animal Shelter has sold to the University of Utah for invasive and deadly experiments. Dogs recently purchased from the animal shelter had holes cut into their chests and necks and pacemakers implanted onto their hearts in order to induce irregular heartbeats; the dogs were then killed and dissected.

North Utah Valley Animal Shelter is the only animal shelter in the state of Utah that continues to betray animals in its care and profit from the abuse of these animals in cruel and deadly experiments. Learn about Max, Gracie Lou, and other dogs who were denied a second chance at a loving home, and tell North Utah Valley Animal Shelter to stop its despicable practice of selling dogs and cats for experimentation.

http://features.peta.org/NUVAS/default.asp?c=causesnuvas0910

Gay marriage, asylum seekers top Bandt's to-do list

By Sarah Collerton

Mr Bandt will support a Gillard minority government in return for a range of concessions. (AAP: Julian Smith)

• AUDIO: Greens sign deal with Government (PM)
• RELATED STORY: Greens, Labor seal deal
• RELATED STORY: Abbott ridicules Labor-Greens alliance
• RELATED STORY: Cabinet spots for Greens 'not on the table'

New Greens MP Adam Bandt has nominated same-sex marriage and better treatment of asylum seekers as his first priorities when he enters Parliament.

Labor today formed an alliance with the Greens that means its MPs will have the ability to introduce private members' bills and have them debated and voted on.

Greens MPs would also be able to have their policies costed by a budgetary office of Parliament.

Mr Bandt says if Labor is able to form a minority government, he will introduce legislation on same-sex marriage and asylum seekers first.

"One is it's important to me to remove the discrimination against same-sex couples from marrying," he told ABC News 24.

"I don't think it has any place in a modern democracy, and I think every opinion poll says that people are in favour of allowing people to marry who they choose.

"Second thing that's important to me is ending mandatory detention and offshore processing of asylum seekers, and we've now got the capacity to move that through Parliament."

Under the Greens-Labor agreement, Mr Bandt will support a Gillard minority government in return for a range of concessions, such as the two-and-a-half hours of allocated debate for private members' bills.

With Mr Bandt's support, Labor has 73 seats alongside the Coalition's 73.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has accused Labor and the Greens of forming a coalition.

"What today's announcement means is that Australia now has two coalitions," he said.

"Only one of those coalitions will be good for regional Australia."

But Mr Bandt has denied that, saying the parties will differ on some issues.

"It's certainly not a coalition. There's certainly no agreement to vote together other than to ensure supply and to ensure confidence," he said.

"There's a range of issues where I think we are going to have a difference of opinion to the Labor Party.

"So for example asylum seekers, same-sex marriage - and we're going to continue to progress that as the Greens through the Parliament."

From ABC News

In New York Ballet Companies, Corps Is a Thrill

By REBECCA MILZOFF

Published: August 31, 2010

At 19, April Giangeruso speaks of her first six months dancing with American Ballet Theater in a girlish tone of awe and utter joy: “ABT is absolutely the place I wanted to be.” She’s thrilled to be dancing onstage with her childhood idols, Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes — or, more precisely, behind them.

Ms. Giangeruso spent two years performing major pas de deux and soloist roles with ABT II, Ballet Theater’s studio company, but that all changed when she became an apprentice in the main company in January, then a full corps member in June: away went the spotlight.At 19, April Giangeruso speaks of her first six months dancing withAmerican Ballet Theater in a girlish tone of awe and utter joy: “ABT is absolutely the place I wanted to be.” She’s thrilled to be dancing onstage with her childhood idols, Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes — or, more precisely, behind them.

“You go from being a huge fish in a really tiny pond to being a really small fish in a huge lake,” she said matter-of-factly. “Nobody really says anything to you about your dancing. You’re standing in the back, and you don’t hear your name.” For all this, she is still elated.

At New York’s major ballet companies, every summer brings a flurry of promotions just as momentous, though hardly as well publicized, as those of soloists and principal dancers: the admission of new apprentices and corps members, the young performers whose names are clustered in tiny print at the bottom of the company roster, who dance as so many snowflakes, waltzing flowers and decorative court members. With the troupes heading back to rehearsal rooms — for an inaugural fall season at New York City Ballet, and for Alexei Ratmansky’s new “Nutcracker” at Ballet Theater — these talented few are about to start a new chapter in their careers.

“As a director, if you can give someone good news, savor that moment,” Kevin McKenzie, Ballet Theater’s artistic director, said. He had recently delivered good news to Calvin Royal III, 21, who will become Ballet Theater’s only new apprentice this year. Mr. Royal, one of the six men in ABT II, was at Jacob’s Pillow, the idyllic dance retreat, taking classes this summer and pondering career options outside the Ballet Theater bubble when he received a call asking him to return to New York. Mr. McKenzie wanted to meet with him.

“When I got back, I found out I got into ABT,” Mr. Royal said, still exhilarated. “It was just like, God is so good.”

In addition to one apprentice, Ballet Theater accepted only three new corps members.

At City Ballet, this year’s crop is sizable — 5 new apprentices and 10 new corps members. The numbers vary according to a combination of factors: economics, available openings (when many dancers retire or leave for other reasons), and, of course, talent.

Peter Martins, ballet master in chief at City Ballet, said the most important quality he looked for was actually not one that could be taught.

“Some people are much more hungry and eager than others,” he said. “I’ve learned over the years that some people can be very shy, stand in the back of class, and on a superficial level, it seems they’re not as interested as the one pushing herself to the front row. But often it’s deceiving. The most crucial thing is their mind: Are they dedicated? The worst thing you want to see is some sort of complacency.”

Since its creation of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in 2004, Ballet Theater has largely drawn apprentices from those alumni, who go on to dance for up to two years in ABT II. City Ballet takes young dancers exclusively from the affiliated School of American Ballet. (Only four of the company’s current dancers did not attend that school.)

“It’s like home cooking,” Mr. Martins said. “We train our dancers very specifically with the idea that that’s how we want people to dance at New York City Ballet.”

Apprenticeships are relatively brief — usually about half a year, because of union regulations — and dancers must quickly adjust from the coddled life of a senior student (or, in the case of ABT II members, that of a soloist) to one in which attention is a precious and rarely bestowed commodity. Ms. Giangeruso of Ballet Theater said it took some time to realize that feeling ignored wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Kevin told me in my initiation meeting, ‘As long as I’m not running across the room, screaming your name, you know you’re doing good,’ ” she recalled. “You don’t want attention as a starting corps member. It’s just how ballet is; nobody’s going to hold your hand.”

As Mr. McKenzie noted: “There’s a myth, I think, that some kids are just plain talented — you train them and let them go. Because dancers tend to become enormously proficient by their 20s, people think they’re more mature than they are — but they’ve spent their whole life in a myopic view. You have to let them grow into their talent.”

To that end, both he and Mr. Martins do not offer critiques to apprentices and new corps members, other than brief mid- and end-of-year evaluations. “Of course if I observe something I’m not happy with, I’ll call that person in and talk to them,” Mr. Martins said, “but it’s very rare. It’s not unlike life: sink or swim.”

That applies to learning the ins and outs of day-to-day company life as well. There’s minutiae like sewing extra pairs of point shoes and remembering to sign in before show time (to be paid). And then there are larger concerns.

“Things are thrown together a whole lot faster in the company than in school,” said Lauren Lovette, 18, a new corps member at City Ballet. For her year-end school performance, she had two months to rehearse. “Now, most of the ballets we put on,” she said, “you get maybe a week’s notice, a few rehearsals.”

A key element of that maturation experience has to do with learning the corps style. “Corps 101 is all about matching each other: you breathe as one, you listen to the music as one,” said Meaghan Hinkis, 19, a new corps member at Ballet Theater.

But that unity comes with significant physical challenges. Recalling the Shades scene of “La Bayadère,” Courtney Lavine, 21, who came up with Ms. Hinkis, said: “It’s funny because we all say, ‘It’s just arabesques.’ But when you get out there, you’re like, this is a lot of arabesques.”

There’s even an art to learning what most corps members spend a majority of their stage time doing: standing still. “It’s really hard, like Lamaze breathing,” Ms. Lavine said. “You can’t even describe that pain.”

That first year isn’t all endless arabesques, though. The newest dancers on occasion receive special opportunities, which most likely speak to yet another lesson: one dancer’s injury is another’s gain. Taylor Stanley, 19, now a corps member at City Ballet, was thrown intoJerome Robbins’s “N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz” in the spring. At Ballet Theater, Ms. Hinkis danced in John Neumeier’s “Lady of the Camellias” this summer.

“It was unbelievable,” she recalled. “It was one of those roles you could really embellish on and make your own, and there was real partnering” — a rare opportunity for most corps members.

Yet in interviews the young dancers didn’t dwell on those exceptional moments — they reveled in the seemingly more mundane aspects of corps life.

“We always hope for more rehearsal time,” Ms. Lovette said. “We get really excited when it’s like, ‘Oh, I have such a full day. I’m on tonight, and I’ve got rehearsals.’ That’s the most exciting thing about being an apprentice. You look up at the casting, and you just hope you’re in something. Even if you’re standing in the back in some weird-looking costume, you’re just happy to be there.”

From The New York Times

A Fair and Balanced Address

Obama steered clear of stirring verbiage, delivering a gracious hat-tip to Bush and a reassuring brushback of the terrorists. Tunku Varadarajan on what the president did well—and what he left unsaid.

Barack Obama on Tuesday night delivered his373rd speech since he took office in January 2009. (Is that a record?). And compared with his recent speeches, it wasn't entirely a humdinger of verbiage. Hallelujah.  

Until the last five minutes of a 17-minute address—five minutes in which he started to return, irrepressibly, to verbose type—it was a speech that was crisp, controlled, fair and balanced (pardon me, Fox News)—a speech that strained to be equitable within the largely inflexible parameters of Democratic Bush-odium. While nobody expected him to take the advice of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page—which called on the president this morning to give his predecessor "credit for the 2007 troop surge that turned the tide against the [Iraqi] insurgency"—one was pleasantly relieved to hear him acknowledge George W. Bush, and to hear him address Bush as a "patriot." That he balanced this compliment with the reasonable assertion that those who opposed the war were just as entitled to the "patriot" appelation should not detract from the essential decency of Obama's hat-tip to his predecessor in a speech that will have been heard, or parsed, intently across the world.  

Obama had a vision--a dream, if you will--that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be over by an appointed date; and over it is.

This wasn't, of course, a "Mission Accomplished" speech. But it was, in its way, something not entirely dissimilar: Vision Accomplished. Obama had a vision—a dream, if you will—that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be over by an appointed date; and over it is, even if the ending of the Operation is festooned with airy assurances that, while our combat mission is ending, "our commitment to Iraq's future is not." Of course, this commitment won't be anything of the magnitude suggested this morning, on the op-ed page of the New York Times, by Paul Wolfowitz, who expressed his hope for a South Korea-style stationing of U.S. troops in Iraq. But it is reassuring that this withdrawal does not have, about it, the feel of a totally cynical cut-and-run.   

Reassuring, too, was Obama's willingness to fleck his speech with such worry-words as "terrorism" and "terrorists": Although the violence in Iraq will not end on our withdrawal, Obama said, the "terrorists will fail." We "must not lose sight," he went on, "of what is at stake. We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda." I can't recall stronger words from Obama on the subject of terrorism in recent memory. If the coming elections—and the fear of a Democratic rout--have stiffened his spine on the subject, then I, for one, feel much the safer for it.   

As for the Iraqis, how safe will they now feel? Formal withdrawal or not, we still "own" Iraq, in the sense of our continued commitment to its welfare, and of our residual guardianship of a post-Saddam civitas. This is not because we "broke" it, which we did not, but because we re-engineered it. And it is in this commitment, I fear, that Obama will fall short. Will we—will he—be flexible enough, imaginative enough, non-hubristic enough, to send combat troops back if we need to?  

That is, no doubt, the subject of another speech. Maybe speech #450, sometime next spring.

Tunku Varadarajan is a national affairs correspondent and writer at large for The Daily Beast. He is also the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Fellow in Journalism at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a professor at NYU's Stern Business School. He is a former assistant managing editor at The Wall Street Journal. (Follow him on Twitter here.)