Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal

VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.

Kampusch was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.

Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with Priklopil, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.

The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.

The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.

One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”

The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.

GREY AREAS

Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”

The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.

Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.

In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”

The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.

“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.

“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”

The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.

“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.

The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.

The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.

The film goes on general release on Thursday.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/cellar-victim-kampusch-raped-starved-in-film-of-ordeal/
Link To Post : Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Advanced Breast Cancer May Be Rising Among Young Women, Study Finds

The incidence of advanced breast cancer among younger women, ages 25 to 39, may have increased slightly over the last three decades, according to a study released Tuesday.

But more research is needed to verify the finding, which was based on an analysis of statistics, the study’s authors said. They do not know what may have caused the apparent increase.

Some outside experts questioned whether the increase was real, and expressed concerns that the report would frighten women needlessly.

The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that advanced cases climbed to 2.9 per 100,000 younger women in 2009, from 1.53 per 100,000 women in 1976 — an increase of 1.37 cases per 100,000 women in 34 years. The totals were about 250 such cases per year in the mid-1970s, and more than 800 per year in 2009.

Though small, the increase was statistically significant, and the researchers said it was worrisome because it involved cancer that had already spread to organs like the liver or lungs by the time it was diagnosed, which greatly diminishes the odds of survival.

For now, the only advice the researchers can offer to young women is to see a doctor quickly if they notice lumps, pain or other changes in the breast, and not to assume that they cannot have breast cancer because they are young and healthy, or have no family history of the disease.

“Breast cancer can and does occur in younger women,” said Dr. Rebecca H. Johnson, the first author of the study and medical director of the adolescent and young adult oncology program at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

But Dr. Johnson noted that there is no evidence that screening helps younger women who have an average risk for the disease and no symptoms. “We’re certainly not advocating that young women get mammography at an earlier age than is generally specified,” she said.

Expert groups differ about when screening should begin; some say at age 40, others 50.

Breast cancer is not common in younger women; only 1.8 percent of all cases are diagnosed in women from 20 to 34, and 10 percent in women from 35 to 44. However, when it does occur, the disease tends to be more deadly in younger women than in older ones. Researchers are not sure why.

The researchers analyzed data from SEER, a program run by the National Cancer Institute to collect cancer statistics on 28 percent of the population of the United States. The study also used data from the past when SEER was smaller.

The study is based on information from 936,497 women who had breast cancer from 1976 to 2009. Of those, 53,502 were 25 to 39 years old, including 3,438 who had advanced breast cancer, also called metastatic or distant disease.

Younger women were the only ones in whom metastatic disease seemed to have increased, the researchers found.

Dr. Archie Bleyer, a clinical research professor in radiation medicine at the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland who helped write the study, said scientists needed to verify the increase in advanced breast cancer in young women in the United States and find out whether it is occurring in other developed Western countries. “This is the first report of this kind,” he said, adding that researchers had already asked colleagues in Canada to analyze data there.

“We need this to be sure ourselves about this potentially concerning, almost alarming trend,” Dr. Bleyer said. “Then and only then are we really worried about what is the cause, because we’ve got to be sure it’s real.”

Dr. Johnson said her own experience led her to look into the statistics on the disease in young women. She had breast cancer when she was 27; she is now 44. Over the years, friends and colleagues often referred young women with the disease to her for advice.

“It just struck me how many of those people there were,” she said.

Dr. Donald A. Berry, an expert on breast-cancer data and a professor of biostatistics at the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said he was dubious about the finding, even though it was statistically significant, because the size of the apparent increase was so small — 1.37 cases per 100,000 women, over the course of 30 years.

More screening and more precise tests to identify the stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis might account for the increase, he said.

“Not many women aged 25 to 39 get screened, but some do, but it only takes a few to account for a notable increase from one in 100,000,” Dr. Berry said.

Dr. Silvia C. Formenti, a breast cancer expert and the chairwoman of radiation oncology at New York University Langone Medical Center, questioned the study in part because although it found an increased incidence of advanced disease, it did not find the accompanying increase in deaths that would be expected.

A spokeswoman for an advocacy group for young women with breast cancer, Young Survival Coalition, said the organization also wondered whether improved diagnostic and staging tests might explain all or part of the increase.

“We’re looking at this data with caution,” said the spokeswoman, Michelle Esser. “We don’t want to invite panic or alarm.”

She said it was important to note that the findings applied only to women who had metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, and did not imply that women who already had early-stage cancer faced an increased risk of advanced disease.

Dr. J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said he and an epidemiologist for the society thought the increase was real.

“We want to make sure this is not oversold or that people suddenly get very frightened that we have a huge problem,” Dr. Lichtenfeld said. “We don’t. But we are concerned that over time, we might have a more serious problem than we have today.”

Read More..

DealBook: Tribune Hire Banks to Weigh a Sale of Its Newspapers

4:43 p.m. | Updated

The Tribune Company has hired investment banks to weigh a sale of its top newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, the media conglomerate said on Tuesday.

The media company, which emerged from bankruptcy late last year, has retained JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners as advisers, a spokesman for Tribune said.

The spokesman, Gary Weitman, added that the move was prompted by unsolicited expressions of interest in the newspapers from various suitors.

“Hiring outside financial advisors will help us determine whether that interest is credible, allow us to consider all of our options, and fulfill our fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders and employees,” he said in the statement.

Tribune’s move comes as little surprise. Speculation has been swirling around the media industry for some time that a number of potential suitors had emerged for the company’s holdings. That group may include News Corporation, which is in the middle of spinning off its newspaper holdings from its far bigger Fox entertainment operations. That new company may consider acquisitions as a way to gain more clout and reap cost savings.

Another potential buyer is Aaron Kushner, who owns a group of newspapers that include the Orange County Register and who has been publicly vocal about his interest in the Tribune properties.

Peter Liguori, Tribune’s recently appointed chief executive, told The Los Angeles Times last month that he had not ruled out a sale of the company’s newspaper brands but added that he wasn’t “going into this job with a fire-sale sign.”

Tribune is considered likely to hold onto its newspapers, which also include The Baltimore Sun and The Hartford Courant, if the price it fetches is not high enough.

A sale would help Tribune focus more on its bigger broadcasting operations, which includes WGN America and 24 stations across the country. Mr. Liguori himself is a television veteran, having formerly worked in News Corp.’s TV division and at Discovery Communications.

Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008, just one year after the media concern was taken over by the billionaire Samuel Zell in a deal that relied heavily on borrowed money.

The company emerged from Chapter 11 protection on Dec. 31, under the control of the investment firms Oaktree Capital and Angelo, Gordon, as well as JPMorgan.

It left bankruptcy in relatively healthy financial condition, reporting about $9.8 billion in assets and $1.3 billion in liabilities as of Dec. 30.

Evercore was hired earlier this month to advise The New York Times Company as it considers a sale of its New England media assets, principally The Boston Globe.

Shares in Tribune, which trade over the counter, were up 1.3 percent on Tuesday at $53.50. That values the media conglomerate at about $3 billion.

News of the hiring of the banks was reported earlier by CNBC.

Read More..

Oscars 2013: An 'Argo' night at Academy Awards

For the second straight year, the movie business fell for itself.

"Argo" — in which a Hollywood producer and makeup artist help engineer the rescue of six Americans from Iran — won the top prize at the 85th Academy Awards, one year after the silent film story "The Artist" took the best picture Oscar.

"I never thought I'd be back here. And I am," producer-director Ben Affleck said in accepting the best picture trophy Sunday night, 15 years after he won an original screenplay Oscar for "Good Will Hunting" and then saw his career fall into a tailspin that included "Gigli" and "Daredevil."

FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2013 | Winners

"It doesn't matter how you get knocked down in life. That's going to happen," said Affleck, who wasn't nominated for directing "Argo," one of nine films in the best picture race. "All that matters is that you've got to get up."

"Argo," which became the first movie to win best picture without its director being nominated since 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy," collected two other Academy Awards, for editing and adapted screenplay. But it was not the evening's most recognized film: That honor went to Ang Lee's "Life of Pi," which won four Oscars — for directing, visual effects, cinematography and score.

"Thank you, movie god," said Lee, whose movie came into the evening with 11 nominations, one behind Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln." The film about the 16th president helped Daniel Day-Lewis make movie history, as he became the only man to ever win three lead actor statuettes. "Lincoln" won one other prize, for production design.

The song-and-dance heavy ceremony, hosted by Seth MacFarlane, hewed closely to a traditional awards show script, but there were several surprises. First Lady Michelle Obama, who joined the ABC telecast from the White House, announced "Argo" as the best picture. And the ceremony featured only the sixth tie in Oscar history and the first since 1994, with the sound editing award split between "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Skyfall." For the first time in Oscar history, six best picture nominees were $100-million blockbusters.

The ceremony was billed as a tribute to music in film, and boasted a number of extravagant musical numbers — including a medley of songs from movie musicals and an appearance by Barbra Streisand, who sang "The Way We Were." The telecast also paid homage to the long running James Bond series, with Adele singing the theme from "Skyfall" and Dame Shirley Bassey performing the theme from 1964's "Goldfinger."

Oscars 2013: Nominee list | Red carpet | Highlights

Jennifer Lawrence, 22, nabbed the lead actress prize for her role as an emotionally unstable widow in "Silver Linings Playbook" — and promptly tripped over her long dress walking up the stairs to accept her statuette. The crowd quickly gave her a standing ovation. "You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and that's embarrassing," Lawrence said to the applauding crowd at the Dolby Theatre.

The evening's very first award — for supporting actor — was a shocker, with long shot Christoph Waltz winning for his role as bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" over favored contenders Robert De Niro ("Silver Linings Playbook") and Tommy Lee Jones ("Lincoln"). Waltz, who won the same award three years ago for Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," dedicated his prize to his writer-director, who also won the Oscar for original screenplay. "We participated in a hero's journey — the hero being Quentin," Waltz said.

Tarantino pulled off a mild surprise with the screenplay triumph for his slave-revenge tale. He dedicated his award to his eclectic cast of actors. "I actually think if people know my movies 30-50 years from now it's because of the characters I create," Tarantino said.

Anne Hathaway's supporting actress win for her emotionally raw portrayal of a doomed seamstress in "Les Misérables" was hardly as startling. The 30-year-old had been the odds-on favorite to win since the film first screened for members of the Motion Picture Academy in late November. "It came true," she stage-whispered as she picked up her trophy for her performance, the centerpiece of which is the lament "I Dreamed a Dream."

Oscars 2013: Backstage | Quotes | Best & Worst moments

Some of the evening's wins were bittersweet.

The animated feature Oscar was shared by "Brave" directors Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, an unusual pairing given that Chapman was fired from the Pixar Animation Studios film and replaced by Andrews in the middle of production. "Making these are a struggle — it's a battle, it's a war," Andrews said backstage. "I was very happy it was him who took my place," Chapman said.

Rhythm & Hues Studios, the company behind "Life of Pi's" visual effects win, recently filed for bankruptcy and laid off hundreds of its employees. As Oscar winner Bill Westenhofer addressed the situation in his acceptance speech, he ran over time and the theme from "Jaws" began to play him off the stage. His microphone was cut off just as he said the words "I urge you all…"

William Goldenberg was a double nominee in the film editing category — he worked on both "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" — and won the prize for Affleck's CIA drama.

"Working at my father's deli, I had to do a million things at one time," Goldenberg said backstage about the best training for his job. "It really does prepare you for the multitasking it takes to be in an editing room."

Read More..

Why The Onion's C-Word Tweet Was Well-Intentioned — But Wrong

Last night, during the Oscars, the Twitter account for the satirical news site The Onion called Quvenzhané Wallis, the 9-year-old nominee for Best Actress, a c**t.

The online reaction was swift and enraged, inspiring a torrent of angry tweets, the hashtag #unfollowtheonion, and the condemnation of celebrities like Levar Burton. The reason for the outrage was obvious: The c-word is perhaps the most toxic, gendered slur in our language, and a profoundly shocking and offensive thing to say, particularly about a child. But it was also more complicated than it seemed.

Online reaction seemed divided into a few different camps: Some believed The Onion had taken an extremely ugly, misogynistic potshot at a child simply just for the LOLs, while others insisted – as people who are safely outside the firing range of cruel humor are wont to do — that it was “just” a joke, and thus deserved absolution beneath the great, all-encompassing immunity umbrella of j/k.

My reading of the situation was a little different; I don’t think The Onion called a 9-year-old girl a “c**t” because they thought it was “true,” or because they wanted to be offensive simply for its own sake. (Unlike Oscar host Seth MacFarlane, who has created a small comedy empire on the initially novel but now tiresome gimmick of comedy shock tactics, The Onion has built its audience on razor-sharp satire that is both relentlessly progressive and unwilling to pull punches.) Rather, I believe they made a shocking, ugly comment to point out that the way the media talks about women is often quite shocking and ugly.

It was well-intentioned. It was also wrong.

Context, as always, is crucial; the tweet came in the midst of an Academy Awards ceremony which also featured – courtesy of host Seth MacFarlane – an opening song titled “We Saw Your Boobs” whose lyrics reduced a long list of famous actresses to the movies where they could be seen topless; a tasteless joke about domestic violence; Jennifer Aniston inexplicably being called a stripper, and a comment that attributed the dogged focus of the Zero Dark Thirty analyst who helped catch Osama bin Laden to “every woman’s innate ability to never let anything go,” among other things.

Ostensibly, The Onion’s tweet points out the toxicity of the language our media, politics and culture use toward women by directing that same sort of gendered contempt toward a female that most people would agree doesn’t “deserve” it: a child. (The corollary being: Why do we think adult women “deserve” it?) That’s what often makes art and comedy useful, after all — their ability to point out the absurdities in the things we never question, in new ways that make us see them differently or feel differently about them.

The problem – as The Onion quickly realized, deleting the tweet within an hour – is that in the process of trying to satirize the media’s cruelty toward women, they actually ended up accidentally perpetuating it. Worse, they did it at the expense of a child, violating one of the cardinal rules of good comedy (and good humanity): Don’t punch down.

Evitably, these conversations inspire claims of “censorship” – a profound misunderstanding of the term that conflates free speech with an imaginary obligation by others to listen to it silently — and an insistence that nothing should be off-limits in humor. On the latter point, those critics are right: We should be able to broach any subject in comedy, just as we should in any other form of art or discourse. The important thing is what we choose to communicate with the jokes that we make; whether we use our free speech to say damaging, deleterious things, or as Lindy West rightly says the best comedians do, “use their art to call bullshit on those terrible parts of life and make them better, not worse.”

A joke is a statement just like any other, one that draws from and contributes to our ideas about society and culture. Saying that the content of someone’s words is functionally irrelevant because it makes us laugh is an insulting notion not only to the butt of the joke, but to the art of comedy itself, because it treats it like it doesn’t mean anything. It transforms it into the humor equivalent of the worst pornography, whose contents are simply a means to an end, and serve no purpose – and deserve no thought – beyond the release they give their audience. As long as it ends in guffaws, the line of thinking goes, the content is functionally irrelevant and deserving of no deeper thought or criticism.

The situation with The Onion is a little different, because their punchline – presumably – wasn’t about how funny or incongruous it is to call a little girl a c**t. It was an attempt to criticize the horrible ways that the media talks about women, which through a combination of poor judgment, poor phrasing, and a poor choice of medium actually turned into them calling a little girl a c**t.

And yes, it’s complicated, particularly in the world of comedy. There’s an entire (hilarious) blog devoted to people who don’t “get” that The Onion is a comedy site, and when comedians walk the line of satire and irony, there’s always going to be some disagreement about when they cross it. So at what point does satire intended to skewer sexism transform from mocking it to being it?

Here’s a hint: It has a lot more to do with the impact of your actions than your intentions because – and if we’ve learned anything from the idea of hipster racism, I hope it’s this – your intentions are not more important than the effect they have. Not meaning to cause harm is an explanation, not an excuse. And if this unfortunate incident offers us anything, it’s a teachable moment about the best way to respond when we screw up and say things that are sexist/racist/homophobic/insensitive without understanding their impact.

One common – and immensely dickish – response is that it’s “not a big deal,” and that it’s the responsibility of person who has been mistreated or marginalized to remove themselves and stop complaining about it. Which is an attempt not only to silence them and sanction spaces as overtly hostile to them, but also essentially a reenactment of that scene from The Simpsons where Bart and Lisa start walking toward each other while punching and kicking the air wildly, saying “if you get hit, it’s your own fault!”

The Onion, wisely, decided to take another tack, by acknowledging, owning and apologizing for the tweet on their Facebook page and site this morning:

Dear Readers,

On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting. No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire. The tweet was taken down within an hour of publication. We have instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures to ensure that this kind of mistake does not occur again. In addition, we are taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible. Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry.

Sincerely, Steve Hannah CEO The Onion

No one ever said that being a good person — or trying to understand the struggles and perspectives of people whose experiences are alien to us – would be easy. It’s a life-long process, and one where all of us are going to have moments where we accidentally step in it, either through ignorance or bad judgment.

But when the inevitable happens and someone tells us that we’ve screwed up, we’d all do well to take a page from The Onion and respond not with self-righteous anger, or eye-rolling irritation that we have to deal with the inconvenience of other people’s experiences, but rather a willingness to learn so that we can be the kind of person who is able to call bullshit on the cruelty, ignorance and absurd injustices of the world – not the kind of person who makes them worse.

Read More..

Satire site The Onion apologizes for offensive Oscar tweet

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Onion, a source for online and printed satire that routinely skewers celebrities, apologized on Monday for a what it called a crude and offensive tweet directed at nine-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis.

The Internet was abuzz with commentary after The Onion on Sunday night referred to the young Best Actress nominee using a four-letter term seen as perhaps the most offensive word in American English.

Steve Hannah, The Onion’s chief executive, found the tweet devoid of humor.

“On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars,” Hannah said in a statement. “It was crude and offensive – not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting.”

“No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire,” he said.

The Onion removed the tweet within an hour of its publication, instituted stricter new procedures for Twitter and took steps to discipline the people responsible, Hannah added.

“Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry,” Hannah wrote to the star of “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” who became the youngest ever Best Actress nominee and gleefully reveled in the honors bestowed upon her in the film awards season.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta, editing by G Crosse)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Satire site The Onion apologizes for offensive Oscar tweet
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/satire-site-the-onion-apologizes-for-offensive-oscar-tweet/
Link To Post : Satire site The Onion apologizes for offensive Oscar tweet
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Books: Gauging Faces and Bodies in the Botox Age

You never know what a little vanity will do for a person’s health. Some people bloom in their quest for physical improvement, others wither, and a few are completely destroyed. Despite centuries’ worth of efforts to penetrate the complicated thickets where health and beauty intertwine, there is always more to explore, as two new books make clear.

Dr. Eric Finzi, a dermatologist in the Washington area, has produced what may be the first authorized biography of botulinum toxin, the fearsome poison that, bottled into mild-mannered Botox, enhances foreheads everywhere. This little molecule does its good work by paralyzing muscles: In the forehead it inactivates the frown-producing corrugators, while used elsewhere on the head and body it can alleviate migraine headaches, stop problem sweating and ease the spasticity associated with a range of neurological diseases.

But even those who know all about the drug’s physical effects will be intrigued by Dr. Finzi’s narrative, because it turns out that cosmetic Botox may not be all about vanity after all. Research studies, including some by Dr. Finzi, have found that the substance appears to alleviate depression more safely and perhaps more effectively than the usual treatments.

That result at first seems trivial and obvious: If you stop frowning at people, they’ll like you more  and treat you better, and you won’t feel so blue. But the process turns out to be considerably more sophisticated and complicated, because it appears to apply even to people without visible frown lines.

Dr. Finzi calls it “noncosmetic cosmetic surgery” and traces the postulated mechanism to some of the lesser-known work of William James and Charles Darwin. Both thinkers argued that facial expressions are not just the outward manifestations of emotion, but vital links in the unconscious neurological processes that create emotion. In other words, if you cannot smile, you will never be as happy as if you could, and if you cannot frown, you will be unable to experience the full intensity of the negative emotions manifested by frowning, depression included.

This “facial feedback hypothesis” has found some modern confirmation in a study showing that injections of Botox into the forehead seem to inhibit activation of the amygdala, the brain structure thought to regulate all gut-wrenching emotion.

Dr. Finzi expands his narrative with a discussion of the subtleties of common facial expressions, including homage to interested parties like Norman Cousins and his idea that laughter could cure disease.

But the book’s major focus is the frown: Dr. Finzi offers anecdotes suggesting that taming overactive corrugators may save marriages and boost careers, and then, spinning some of the still largely debatable theories linking depression and anger with chronic disease, he postulates that Botox treatments may someday prove to help forestall heart disease and cancer.

That’s quite a set of achievements for one bad little molecule, gram for gram the most potent toxin we know. Dr. Finzi is no stylist, but the momentum of his argument keeps the reader with him for the duration (and undoubtedly quite a few overactive corrugators will be soothed into submission as a result).

The complexities of the face almost pale in comparison with those of the torso, as Abigail C. Saguy makes clear in “What’s Wrong With Fat?” “Once you put down this book you will never hear the word ‘obesity’ the same way again,” she promises, and she is absolutely correct.

Dr. Saguy, a sociologist at U.C.L.A., methodically teases out all the overtones of the loaded words we use to describe big bodies. These bodies are, after all, neither good nor bad, just big.

But “fat” often implies the coexistence of sloth, gluttony and self-indulgence. “Obesity” equals disease to medical professionals, while in the world of public health it is a raging epidemic with substantial global mortality. Those immersed in the conventional ideals of beauty see being overweight as an aesthetic disaster, but others find it sexually irresistible, and to activists “fat” has become a rallying cry, with weight-based discrimination a violation of social justice as deplorable as that stemming from race or gender.

In fact, the concept of bigness has become so laden with overtones good and bad — guilt, blame, fear, anger and desire, among others — that finding a value-free way to describe men and women who are larger than average has become almost impossible. “Heavy,” “plus-size,” “corpulent” and “fleshy” all carry weighty implications in one sphere or another.

Dr. Saguy analyzes it all, and asks why. She winds up paying particular attention to the debate in the medical world over the actual health consequences of being fat: Studies keep confounding the reigning supposition that thin is best with evidence that modestly overweight may be even better. Meanwhile, those who are larger than average are routinely blamed for their size, a phenomenon augmented by deplorably simplistic media coverage (unlike anorexia, interestingly enough, which is remarkably free of the same connotations of personal fault).

Much of Dr. Saguy’s text is academic and requires some determination to penetrate, but she also provides immensely readable nuggets, notably a brief discussion of her experiences attending an annual convention of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, where, seven months pregnant, she underwent a funhouse-mirror body-image transformation worthy of Alice in Wonderland. Like Dr. Finzi’s narrative deficiencies, hers fade into unimportance in the face of fascinating and illuminating material.

Read More..

Media Decoder Blog: Online Piracy Alert System to Begin This Week

The Copyright Alert System, a program of escalating warnings and prods against people suspected of online copyright infringement, is finally going into effect this week, more than a year and a half after the plan was announced as part of an agreement between the entertainment industry and five major Internet service providers.

The Center for Copyright Information, the organization created to administer the system, announced on Monday that the Internet providers would begin putting it in place “over the course of the next several days,” though it gave no specifics. The Internet companies are AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner Cable.

In the alert system, media companies monitor online traffic through a third party and can complain to Internet providers if a file is downloaded illegally. The suspected violator is then given the first of six warnings, some of which carry “educational” messages and must be acknowledged. After the fifth and sixth warnings, the customer’s Internet speed can be slowed to a crawl.

The Center for Copyright Information says it will not ask for repeat offenders’ Internet access to be blocked, but most service providers have the right to do that if a customer violates its terms of service. The findings can be contested for a $35 fee, to be refunded if an appeal is successful.

The introduction of the alert system has been notably slow. Nearly a year passed before the group had a leader in place, and its own prediction failed when it said in October that the system would be coming in two months. Part of the reason for that might be the relationships between media companies and Internet service providers, which in the past have often been adversarial over issues of piracy and control.

So-called graduated response programs like the Copyright Alert System have been tried in other countries, with mixed results. France’s Hadopi law, passed in 2009, set up a system of three “strikes,” culminating in a fine. More than a million warnings have been issued through that plan, but a recent government report said that its effects were “hard to evaluate precisely.”

Read More..

Oscars stage manager braces for his final cues to the stars

He delivered a forgotten harmonica to Stevie Wonder onstage at the Grammy Awards, supplied a shoulder to lean on for a post-hip-surgery Gregory Peck at the Oscars and served as a human Xanax for hundreds of other stars in the most terrifying and exhilarating moments of their careers.

Stage manager Dency Nelson, 61, works behind the scenes at the Oscars, plus at times the Grammys, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Teen Choice Awards, MTV Movie Awards and other shows. This year will mark his 25th — and last, he said — Academy Awards, as he plans to retire from one of show business' least known but most stressful gigs.

An anonymous but critical piece of the Hollywood awards season machinery, stage managers like Nelson control the chaos of the live TV broadcast — they deliver the correct winning envelopes, ensure that the pop-up microphone actually pops up and, most delicately, orchestrate the flow of talent through the stage wings.

Oscars 2013: Nominee list | Ballot | Trivia | Timeline

An avuncular former hippie with twinkling green eyes, a silver earring and a scruffy, salt-and-pepper beard, Nelson is stationed in the stage-right wings, a hot spot where most of the Oscar telecast's jittery presenters enter and elated winners exit.

"It's like air traffic control," he said one recent afternoon at the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center, where he was preparing for Sunday's show. "Ninety percent of the people in the room don't know my name, but when they round the corner and come into the wings there's a smile, 'Oh, that guy.'"

Even seasoned performers rely on stage managers for assurance in the unforgiving medium of live TV, and backstage figures like Nelson develop a rapport with stars they see at multiple shows.

Last year, before Meryl Streep stepped onto the Oscar stage to present an award, she reviewed her script, smoothed her gown and cast a tentative glance at Nelson. "You'll push me out when it's time?" she asked. He gently led the actress by the arm to the edge of the curtain, sending her off to face an audience of 40 million.

An hour later, after winning lead actress for "The Iron Lady," the first person an emotional Streep saw was Nelson, with a chair and a welcome water bottle.

"Dency's businesslike, but he makes people comfortable," said American Film Institute founder George Stevens Jr., who met him when the recent college grad was lugging heavy film reels for the L.A.-based nonprofit. Charmed by the young man's work ethic, nearly four decades later Stevens still hires him to stage-manage the "Kennedy Center Honors" and "Christmas in Washington" shows every year.

Many of the approximately 500-person backstage crew at the Oscars have been performers themselves, including head stage manager Gary Natoli (Nelson's boss) and a stage manager who specializes in talent, Valdez Flagg, both former actors and dancers.

TIMELINE: Academy Award winners

According to guild minimums, the stage managers must make at least $746 for a 12-hour day, and many work other steady jobs. Thanks to the proliferation of performance-based reality shows such as "American Idol" and "The Voice," there's a lot of work available for the specialized group who know how to do it.

Nelson has stage-managed the game show "Let's Make a Deal" and the syndicated variety program "The Wayne Brady Show."

"Anyone can do this job as long as nothing goes wrong," said Flagg. "If you can't go with the flow, you won't last. You'll freak out."

The year Wonder forgot his harmonica, for instance, the Grammys crew had to think quickly — how do you subtly signal a blind man? Ultimately, Nelson asked the director to frame a tight shot on the singer's face while he sneaked up from below and tugged on Wonder's pant-leg. At the Emmys, when an impostor tried to walk off with "Hill Street Blues" star Betty Thomas' trophy, Nelson skidded on stage with another.

And then there's that other occupational hazard: jerks. "People are just nervous in some cases and take it out on you," Nelson said with a shrug.

This year's Oscar telecast is a particularly taxing one for the stage crew, with many singing and dancing casts to maneuver. The consequences of a missed cue can be dire — at several points in the show, 34.5-foot lifts built into the stage floor will open to move scenery pieces.

Nelson, who grew up in Menlo Park the son of an Army auditor, originally wanted to be an actor. As a child he hosted the Andy Williams Christmas show by himself in front of the Christmas tree, with a toilet paper roll as a microphone.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in theater, he took a job as a driver and mail clerk for AFI and worked behind the scenes as "the guy who guarded the doughnuts" for the 1970s soap opera parody "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and a cue card man for "Saturday Night Live" and David Letterman.

Play-at-home ballot: Have you made your picks yet?

Along the way he continued to act in commercials, basement theaters and tiny walk-on roles (in Woody Allen's "Manhattan," you can see Nelson stride across Park Avenue carrying an attaché case). "I wasn't really getting anywhere," he said. "I just saw my actor colleagues, their talent, and saw I'm not that."

The frustrated performance experience, however, gives Nelson a nuanced understanding of what the people he's pushing into the lights on Oscar night are feeling. "There have been plenty of times where I have held a trembling hand and smiled," he said. "I so admire anyone who can do that."

The stage crew prepares with the thoroughness of a military campaign. During rehearsals, Nelson marks his show rundown with different colors of highlighters and pens, noting when he'll send a performer upstage or where a piece of scenery will move. Unlike some younger stage managers, he still uses paper, not an electronic device, for storing his "road map."

In a change this year, six college film students will deliver the trophies onstage, instead of the usual cadre of models who float from show to show. On Wednesday, Nelson was coaching them on the subtle art of statuette distribution.

"Let the kiss and hug happen," he said, his hands stained with red ink from jotting notes on his script, six roles of tape swinging from his belt. "Just linger upstage, let that traffic happen."

At Nelson's first Oscars, before the students were born, Jack Lemmon was the host. Over the years, Nelson said he's noticed an evolution in the awards show scene, as older performers who approached show business with a certain gentility have given way to a more casual and sometimes cruder generation.

"I'm no prude, but there was a certain formality and respect to things," he said. "I'm sorry to see it go, although I understand the financial necessity 'cause it's about the ratings."

A married father of one grown daughter, Nelson lives in Hermosa Beach and is active in Democratic party politics and environmental causes; he helped found a nonprofit devoted to alternative vehicles called Plug in America (he owns two electric cars). Especially engaged in the union to which stage managers belong, the Directors Guild of America, this year he received the guild's Franklin J. Schaffner Award for service.

He said he's retiring to devote more time to his political passions, but he also appears ready to shed the pressures of awards season.

"I don't want to make any mistakes," Nelson said. "The worst is just before the show starts. That's awful. That last hour in the wings.... It's not calm inside. As I am nearing my retirement, I just keep thinking of Jack Nicholson's line in 'Terms of Endearment' ... 'Inches from a clean getaway.'"

Play-at-home ballot: Have you made your picks yet?

rebecca.keegan@latimes.com

Read More..

Wired Space Photo of the Day: Glowing Gas in Omega Nebula

This image is a colour composite of the Omega Nebula (M 17) made from exposures from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2). The field of view is approximatelly 4.7 x 3.7 degrees.

Image: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin. [high-resolution]

Caption: ESO

Read More..