| PJ's profileLink to PJs worldPhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
31 May Economist articlesThe new Economist has some interesting articles that i just printed in COLOR (our B&W printer is down yeh!) for some reading on the airport today: SURVEY: BUSINESS AND CLIMATE CHANGE Cleaning upMay 31st 2007 Business is getting down to cutting carbon, but needs more incentives to make much difference to climate change, argues Emma Duncan (interviewed here)The environment Cleaning upMay 31st 2007 How business is starting to tackle climate change, and how governments need to helpWhat I've learnedMay 31st 2007 Tony Blair reflects on the lessons of his decade as Britain's prime minister30 May Forbidden BroadwayI am going for this show tonight, here is some background research:
'Forbidden Broadway' is a fine Manhattan transferSnippet: Memo to Gerald Allessandrini, Venerable Satirist & Producer of 'Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit': Forbidden Broadway - Original Website
Snippet: Forbidden Broadway was first seen at Palsson's Supper Club on New York's Upper West Side in January 1982. An unemployed actor, Gerard Alessandrini, wanted a showcase for his talents. He decided to assemble some of the musical parodies of Broadway shows he had written since childhood into a nightclub act. Critics and audiences were wowed and it has since become New York's longest running musical comedy revue. Forbidden Broadway has won Drama Desk, Obie and Outer Critics Circle. Most of its victims (stars and casts) make a point of stopping by to see what Gerard Alessandrini has done to them. ...
Snippet: Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit, is a new installment of huge satire and aim at variety of targets including the:" Thoroughly Modern Millie," "Wicked," "Assassins," "Nicole Kidman," "Hugh Jackman," and more. This revamped superb version of Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit will include some new and sensational jabs at La Cage aux Folles' Robert Goulet, Sweet Charity's Christina Applegate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wools's famous Kathleen Turner and Doubt's Cherry Jones. This huge edition of Forbidden Broadway pokes severe fun at such Broadway shows as Avenue Q, All Shook Up, Mamma Mia, Wicked, and Good Vibrations.
Snippet: Forbidden Broadway: SVU plays its final performance at the 47th Street Theatre April 15, having played 69 previews and 816 regular performances at the Off-Broadway venue. The Gerard Alessandrini revue will return June 13 with a brand-new show celebrating the long-running revue's 25th anniversary.
During its annual hiatus from the 47th Street Theatre, the New York production of Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit will play a limited run at Chicago's Royal George Theatre. Performances at the Illinois venue begin April 19. Snippet: The old adage, "always leave audiences wanting more" couldn't be more apropos for this hilarious, fast-paced musical revue playing at the Royal George Cabaret Theatre. Gerard Alessandrini's sassy satire, named after the popular Law and Order, features snippets from most of the recent Broadway-in-Chicago productions.
Snippet:Nothing is off limits in this year’s 25th incarnation of the long-lived and much laughed at send up of musical theater, Forbidden Broadway. The current production, Special Victims Unit, skewers, bastes and roasts to a turn, any and all Broadway cash cows and icons of popular theater in this utterly hilarious cabaret review. Electricity - Elton JohnI am totally in love with this song, already heard it about 10 times today...I dont know why, but its so haunting! like a fire deep in side.... impossible to hide... suddenly I am flying... electricity... electrrrricity!
(Music by Elton John, Lyrics by Lee Hall) I can't really explain it, I haven't got the words It's a feeling that you can't control I suppose it's like forgetting, losing who you are And at the same time something makes you whole It's like that there's a music, playing in your ear And I'm listening, and I'm listening, and then I disappear And then I feel a change, like a fire deep inside Something bursting me wide open, impossible to hide And suddenly I'm flying, flying like a bird Like Electricity, electricity Sparks inside of me, and I'm free, I'm free It's a bit like being angry; it's a bit like being scared Confused and all mixed up and mad as hell It's like when you've been crying And you're empty and you're full I don't know what it is, it's hard to tell It's like that there's some music, playing in your ear But the music is impossible, impossible to hear But then I feel it move me Like a burning deep inside Something bursting me wide open Impossible to hide And suddenly I'm flying Flying like a bird Like Electricity, electricity Sparks inside of me And I'm free, I'm free Electricity sparks inside of me And I'm free, I'm free Oh, I'm free 29 May Dan Flavin (1933–1996), untitledDan Flavin was wicked cool when it came to using space and tubelights, I saw his exhibit in MCA and it was awesome! This is my new desktop.  Dan Flavin (1933–1996), untitled (to you, Heiner, with admiration and affection), 1973. unnumbered, certified, green fluorescent light modular units, 4 ft. high, 4 ft. wide, length variable. Dia Art Foundation. Photo: Florian Holzherr, courtesy Dia Art Foundation. LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Dan Flavin: A Retrospective, the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to minimalist artist Dan Flavin’s full career. Regarded as one of the most innovative artists of his generation, Flavin is best known for creating art almost entirely of commercially-available fluorescent light tubes. Although he used common materials, Flavin’s art is complex in design and often relates to specific architectural contexts. Co-curated by Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, and Tiffany Bell, Director of the Dan Flavin catalogue raisonné, the exhibition features more than forty of Flavin’s seminal fluorescent light works. Also presented is a special reconstruction of the corridors made for the E.F. Hauserman Co. showroom, formerly located at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles. Dan Flavin: A Retrospective remains on view through August 12, 2007—it will be the final destination of ...More Cosmetic Surgery goes EthnicInteresting article about the future of cosmetic surgery or for that matter for any surgery in future. I was always facinated when any medical show (most recently Greys and Scrubs) would tackle with race and culture issues. Cosmetic Surgery Goes EthnicShifts in Culture And Treatments Attract Minorities
Washington Post Staff Writer
The advertising slogan is a sly double entendre: Washington's Cultura Medical Spa bills itself as "a place where it's appropriate to treat people based on the color of their skin." Founded six years ago by two African American physicians -- cosmetic dermatologist Eliot F. Battle Jr., an expert in laser treatments, and Monte O. Harris, a board-certified otolaryngologist who specializes in rhinoplasty and other facial plastic surgery -- Cultura is one of the first centers in the country to focus on the burgeoning field known as "ethnic plastic surgery." Mongolia Articles, Books and MoviesSo as I am gearing up to my upcoming trip to Mongolia: In the search of Geghis Khan's tomb with professor John Woods from Univeristy of Chicago, here is the information that he has provided us and I have already ordered about 4 books from Amazon, added the movie titles on my netflix list and printed out all the articles that he sent. I am listing out the information below:
Reading List
The two basic guides—Claire Sermier, Mongolia, Empire of the Steppes (Odyssey Illustrated Guides) and Bradley Mayhew, Mongolia, (Lonely Planet) are both quite good and available at Savvy Traveler. Lonely Planet also publishes a Mongolian phrasebook.
For a more detailed history, see the old but still useful Rene Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia and the newer D. O. Morgan. The Mongols. The best scholarly biography of Chinggis Khan is Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy, but there are others. You will certainly want to read Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. For more recent history, see Bat-Erdene Baabar, History of Mongolia (also titled Twentieth Century Mongolia). Finally, I think Jasper Becker, The Lost Country, Mongolia Revealed is really quite good, but I’m not sure how available it is. (I’ve seen all of them on Amazon.) There are a quite few entertaining fictionalized accounts of Chinggis Khan’s life and legacy ranging from Harold Lamb’s Genghis Khan, Emperor of All Men (1927) to today’s Clive Cussler’s Treasure of Khan and Conn Iggulden’s Genghis, Birth of an Empire.
Finally, if you’d like me to send you an electronic copy of the Secret History of the Mongols, please let me know.
I realize that these books are all very general. Should you wish to go more deeply into the rise of the Mongol Empire in China, Russia, the Middle East, and Central Asia, I can provide a more detailed reading list.
Films
Here are some films about Mongolia and its environs with excellent cultural content.
Urga (1991). A simple man of the vast grasslands of China, the shepherd Gombo lives with his wife, three children and grandmother in a ger on the Inner Mongolian steppe. They are pleased with their rustic conditions, until a Russian truck driver, Sergei, gets stuck with his truck nearby. The cultural gap between Gombo and Sergei seems unbridgeable—but maybe they can learn a few things from each other.
Genghis Blues (1999). The extraordinary odyssey of a US musician of Cape Verdean ancestry to Tannu Tuva, a Turkic region in Russian Central Asia just north of Mongolia, where nomadic people throat sing more than one note simultaneously, using vocal harmonics. A bluesman, Paul Pena, blind and recently widowed, taught himself throat singing and was by chance invited to the 1995 throat-singing symposium in Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva. Helped by the “Friends of Tuva,” Pena makes the arduous journey there. Singing in the deep, rumbling kargyraa style, Pena gives inspired performances at the festival, composes songs in Tuvan Turkic, washes his face in sacred rivers, expresses the disorientation of blindness in foreign surroundings, and makes a human connection with everyone he meets. We will have the occasion to hear this throat singing in its Mongolian form on our trip.
The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003). Springtime in the Mongolian desert, South Gobi aimag. A family of nomadic shepherds assists the births of their camel herd. One of the camels has an excruciatingly difficult delivery but, with help from the family, out comes a rare white colt. Despite the efforts of the shepherds, the mother rejects the newborn, refusing it her milk and her motherly love. When any hope for the little one seems to have vanished, the nomads send their two young boys on a journey through the desert, to to the aimag center Dalangadzad in search of a musician who is their only hope for saving the colt’s life.
The following are listed just for fun.
The Conqueror (1956). Probably one of the worst films ever made (certainly the worst John Wayne ever made), it’s so bad, it’s almost good. In medieval Mongolia, the warlord Temujin (John Wayne) must do battle against the rival tribe that killed his father. The battles pale in comparison with Temujin’s home life, as he attempts to woo the heart of the red-haired Tartar prisoner Bortai (Susan Hayward) whom he has captured in a raid. He must also deal with various intrigues within his palace. Eventually, Bortai falls to his manly charms, Temujin defeats his enemies within and without, and is acclaimed Chinggis Khan.
Genghis Khan (1965). Not quite as bad as John Wayne’s turkey The Conqueror, but getting there. The film makers here dumped historical accuracy in favor of developing a Ben-Hur-Messala type confrontation between Genghis Khan (Omar Sharif, at the height of his popularity) and his nemesis, a scowling bewhiskered Jamuga (Stephen Boyd—none other than “Messala” himself in Ben Hur.) None of the other actors can be imagined as Central Asians or Mongolians by any stretch—Greek Telly Savalas and Alabaman Woody Strode come closest. Eli Wallach, as the Khvarazmshah makes an acceptable sly villain, and not an unbelievable Levantine, though in reality the Khvarazmshah was a Central Asian Turk. There is plenty of action and cruelty and the concluding battle between Sharif and Boyd is pretty in-your-face stuff. Production values were OK and suitably epic-ish in feel. The wheels start to fall off though with Robert Morley as the Chinese Emperor, and worse, mega-British James Mason as Kam Ling, as likely a Chinese adviser to Morley as Adam Sandler playing Abraham Lincoln. Both act as though they wandered in from a road company production of The Mikado.
Articles New York Times, March 26, 2004 FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW; Ritual and Trust in Mongolia (Not Just Another Camel Tale) By ELVIS MITCHELL
NYT, June 3, 2004 CURRENTS: CALIFORNIA—DÉCOR; Inside the Gorgeous Tents Of Gobi Desert Camel Herders By Frances Anderton
NYT, June 4, 2004 FILM REVIEW; When Mother Love Fails, The Community Steps In
Chicago Tribune, June 18, 2004 ‘Camel’ is a lovely respite from modern life By Ellen Fox
Mongolians Return to Baghdad, This Time as Peacekeepers By James Brooke New York Times, September 25, 2003
Refugee Plan For Mongolia Adds to Dispute on North Korea By James Brooke New York Times, September 28, 2003
Mongolia Is Having a Mine Rush By James Brooke New York Times, October 3, 2003
Mongolians and Koreans: Twins With Minimal Sibling Rivalry By James Brooke New York Times, October 12, 2003
In Mongolia, a Tilt Toward a Free Market By James Brooke and Jargal Byambasuren New York Times, October 21, 2003
Gers and Perhaps Golf on a Mongolian Vacation By James Brooke November 16, 2003
New York Times. June 11, 2004 Asian Scavengers Feed China's Hunger for Steel By JAMES BROOKE
The New York Times, June 21, 2004 Ruling Party’s Slick Campaign in Mongolia Has Rough Edges By JAMES BROOKE
Landlocked Mongolia’s Seafaring Tradition By James Brooke, The New York Times, July 2, 2004
Golfing Mongolia: A 2.3-Million-Yard Par 11,880 By James Brooke, The New York Times, July 4, 2004
Mongolia’s Shifting Ties: More China, Less Russia By James Brooke July 9, 2004, New York Times
NALAIKH JOURNAL: Mongols Go From Camels to Jeeps and a Superhighway By James Brooke The New York Times, July 15, 2004
A Post-Soviet Surprise : This booming democracy is an oddity in Central Asia By Ron Gluckman Newsweek, September 15, 2003
Battle for Mongolia's Soul - Economist 12-23-06
DNA Test to Check for Genghis Khan Kin By The Associated Press, New York Times, July 6, 2004
Genghis Khan family reunion would be huge by RYAN TAYLOR 9 August 2004 Kitchener-Waterloo Record
IS GENGHIS KHAN AN ANCESTOR? MR. DNA KNOWS By Claudia Dreifus New York Times, June 8, 2004
LETTER FROM ULAANBAATAR Seeking a man about a horse On a quest of international importance, Evan Osnos looks for Montana in Mongolia Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2007
Mongolia’s gold rush: Blessing or curse? Precious metals bring prosperity, but also troubles By Evan Osnos eosnos@tribune.com Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent, May 13, 2007
A Novel, by Someone, Takes China by Storm By HOWARD W. FRENCH New York Times, November 3, 2005
The Great Mongolian Gold Rush The land of Genghis Khan has the biggest mining find in a very long time. A visit to the core of a frenzy in the middle of nowhere. By Grainger David Fortune, December 22, 2003
The Man Who Would Be Khan A new breed of American soldier—call him the soldier-diplomat—has come into being since the end of the Cold War. Meet the colonel who was our man in Mongolia, an officer who probably wielded more local influence than many Mongol rulers of yore by Robert D. Kaplan The Atlantic Monthly, March 2004
The Secret in the Steppes Thought Safe for All Time Despite Misgivings in Mongolia, Explorers Hope to Find Site of Genghis Khan’s 800-Year-Old Tomb By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, February 9, 2006; Page A20
Prof Woods has sent me all these articles, so I have a soft copy of them but not links. If someone who is reading this is interested in any of the articles, feel free to let me know your email and I will send it out to you. I have them ready to be read, printed on my desk. I should have read all these by next weekend. Story of Hu Jia, activist in China (maybe the only one alive)Recently I had a long discussion with someone on one of my flights regarding how the chinese government has been exploiting the people by completed crushing the people's voice, moving the farmers outside the cities, plans to shut down the plants before the olympics (by declaring it as a national holiday) so the pollution is reduced when they let outsiders in. Ofcourse, this is nothing new for communist regimes but this time they are doing it while opening their borders and successfully bribing other countries by keeping their pockets full. How long will media be able to ignore this???Enemy of the stateHu Jia has long been a thorn in the side of the Chinese government. Last week, about to fly to Europe to talk on human rights, he was detained and accused of threatening state security. It's only the latest attempt to silence him, says Sami Sillanpää, who followed Hu for more than a year as he was kidnapped, illegally imprisoned and deprived of essential medicines Tuesday May 22, 2007 The Guardian 25 May Creation MuseumSumier just sent me this '27 million dollar waste of money' museum to prove a point that is so ridiculous! Comment from another friend, Deepali and she is right on the mark: 'scary is what i'm thinking. what i could do with $27 million. i'm
sure there are no starving people in the world that could have been fed
instead of pushing a religious ideology. it's no wonder they believe
the end of the world is coming -- they're directly contributing to it!' Museum Review | Creation Museum
Adam and Eve in the Land of the DinosaursPETERSBURG, Ky. — The entrance gates here are topped with metallic Stegosauruses. The grounds include a giant tyrannosaur standing amid the trees, and a stone-lined lobby sports varied sauropods. It could be like any other natural history museum, luring families with the promise of immense fossils and dinosaur adventures. But step a little farther into the entrance hall, and you come upon a pastoral scene undreamt of by any natural history museum. Two prehistoric children play near a burbling waterfall, thoroughly at home in the natural world. Dinosaurs cavort nearby, their animatronic mechanisms turning them into alluring companions, their gaping mouths seeming not threatening, but almost welcoming, as an Apatosaurus munches on leaves a few yards away. What is this, then? A reproduction of a childhood fantasy in which dinosaurs are friends of inquisitive youngsters? The kind of fantasy that doesn’t care that human beings and these prefossilized thunder-lizards are usually thought to have been separated by millions of years? No, this really is meant to be more like one of those literal dioramas of the traditional natural history museum, an imagining of a real habitat, with plant life and landscape reproduced in meticulous detail. For here at the $27 million Creation Museum, which opens on May 28 (just a short drive from the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport), this pastoral scene is a glimpse of the world just after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, in which dinosaurs are still apparently as herbivorous as humans, and all are enjoying a little calm in the days after the fall. 24 May Al Gore in the Guardian todayA drive for global domination has put us in greater dangerMoral authority, which is our greatest source of strength, has been recklessly put at risk by this wilful president Al Gore Thursday May 24, 2007 The Guardian The pursuit of "dominance" in foreign policy led the Bush administration to ignore the UN, to do serious damage to our most important alliances, to violate international law, and to cultivate the hatred and contempt of many in the rest of the world. The seductive appeal of exercising unconstrained unilateral power led this president to interpret his powers under the constitution in a way that brought to life the worst nightmare of the founders. Any policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the US and recruits for al-Qaida, but also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating terrorists who wish to harm and intimidate America. Instead of "dominance", we should be seeking pre-eminence in a world where nations respect us and seek to follow our leadership and adopt our values. With the blatant failure by the government to respect the rule of law, we face a great challenge in restoring America's moral authority in the world. Our moral authority is our greatest source of strength. It is our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations of this wilful president. The Bush administration's objective of attempting to establish US domination over any potential adversary was what led to the hubristic, tragic miscalculation of the Iraq war - a painful misadventure marked by one disaster after another, based on one mistaken assumption after another. But the people who paid the price have been the American men and women in uniform trapped over there, and the Iraqis themselves. At the level of our relations with the rest of the world, the administration has willingly traded respect for the US in favour of fear. That was the real meaning of "shock and awe". This administration has coupled its theory of US dominance with a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, regardless of whether the threat to be pre-empted is imminent or not. The doctrine is presented in open-ended terms, which means that Iraq is not necessarily the last application. In fact, the very logic of the concept suggests a string of military engagements against a succession of sovereign states - Syria, Libya, North Korea, Iran - but the implication is that wherever the combination exists of an interest in weapons of mass destruction together with an ongoing role as host to, or participant in, terrorist operations, the doctrine will apply. It also means that the Iraq resolution created the precedent for pre-emptive action anywhere, whenever this or any future president decides that it is time. The risks of this doctrine stretch far beyond the disaster in Iraq. The policy affects the basic relationship between the US and the rest of the world. Article 51 of the UN charter recognises the right of any nation to defend itself, including the right to take pre-emptive action in order to deal with imminent threats. 21 May New Books in India - Recommendations from HTSome interesting books in here, I can probably pick some up on my upcoming trip to India.
Book Shelf: New Books in the Market Democracy,
retailing, fashion shopping in New Delhi, Indo-Pak relations and Essays
on Hinduism form some of the subjects of our shortlisted books in our
column Book Shelf
livemint.com
Discordant democrats: Five steps of consensus By Arun Maira Publisher: Penguin Pages: 200 Price: Rs 395 (Hard bound) Without any jargon and/or
intellectual rambling, a pointer is raised on building a healthy
democracy and on the importance of not leaving the task to politicians
alone for unless people, across levels involve themselves, the agenda
of reshaping the world they inhabit will remain incomplete. The
book provides a roadmap to collaborative governance, provides insights
through extensive research from India and abroad, throwing light on
consensus building and collaborative action. The book is
divided into two parts. The first part describes the structures and
systems of democracy and explains the vital role that
consensus-building processes must play in democracies. The second part
presents principles and tools for consensus building. A
hugely engaging and contemporary writing style, he combines theories
and concepts with real incidents, analyzing their impact. He titles his
chapters with interesting phrases like “the boundaries around people
like us”; “ways of mass dialogue”, “Argumentative Indians and
Americans” and ends it with “finding solutions, taking decisions, the
toughest of the lot.” Arun Maira is Chairman of the Boston
Consulting Group in India and his work combines hands-on leadership and
consulting experience of over 40 years. Pakistan in a changing strategic context Editors: Ajay Darshan Behera and Mathew Joseph C Publisher: Knowledge World Pages384 Price Rs 620 (Paperback) The
book attempts to establish an understanding of the evolving strategic
environment and how Pakistan is placed within that context. Divided
into four sections, it explores multiple views with one section
exclusively devoted to an analysis of changes taking place within the
strategic environment for Kashmir and Pakistan’s strategy to deal with
Kashmir in the changing context. Historical
policies as also Indo-Pak relations forms a central concurrent theme,
though the latter poses more questions than answers. But that is the
entire premise of the book, for it is directed at policy makers,
academics, senior corporate leaders and journalists who can help create
consensus and a clear path ahead. AD Behera is the
officiating director of the Centre for Strategic and Regional Studies,
University of Jammu. He has been visting fellow to various US
institutes of higher learning. M Joseph is also a Fellow at the same
institute in Jammu, holding a specialization in International Politics
and South Asian Studies. The Heart of Hindusthan: Collection of seven essays By Dr S Radhakrishnan Publisher: Rupa & Co. Pages: 111 Price: Rs 150 (Paperback) Not just targeted at those who are students of
religion or dharma and believers of Hinduism, they are directed at
anyone who wants to experience the Indianness, which though corrupted
and altered in the name of modernism, commercialization or even
secularism, still eludes the common man and student. While
it puts in perspective what Indian philosophy is and what lies at the
heart of Hinduism and Hindu dharma, it goes beyond that by telling you
about Islam, Christian doctrine and Buddhism and places the
relationship that Hinduism has with other relations in a geo-political
context. The fashion guide to shopping in Delhi By Mallika Singhania and Shruti Rathi Publisher: Rupa & Co. Pages: 330 Price: Rs 295 (Paperback) Of
particular use is basic information on which markets are open on which
days for that is often a googly even for locals who forget that Greater
Kailash is closed on Tuesdays while neighouring South Extension is shut
on Mondays. With a glossary of common words used in apni Dilli’s
fashion parlance, like ‘aari work’, ‘chand tare ka kaam’, ‘badla work’
and traditional heavyweights like ‘Pashmina’, ‘Kanjeevaram’ and
‘Kalamkari’ it offers a cultural round-up, taking the uninitiated on an
India trip. The approximate price band of
products is an added advantage for it prepares the shopper before a
shopping excursion. The language is a bit over enthusiastic, but for a
first time attempt, acceptable. Also the range of products can be
expanded in the second edition: jewellery and anecdotes, mythological
tales, even details like Richard Gere brought a stole from here or Liz
Taylor picked up a Parsi border from there kind of stuff, which can be
a fascinating pull for the inveterate shopper who thrives on what
others (read prominent/celebrity) have done. It Happened in India By Kishore Biyani with Dipayan Baishya Publisher: Rupa & Co. Pages: 268 Price: Rs 99.00 Tracking the
story of Biyani who has in a way written his own success story, one
which has had its share of ups and downs, criticism and a writing off
by those who were aghast at his antics and recklessness, even being
ridiculed for being a ‘baniya company’ has survived to tell his story. The
man has created and built Pantaloons and Big Bazaar and is now bullish
about capturing the entire Indian consumption space from building
shopping malls to selling insurance, he has gotten under the skin of
the Indian consumer and is confident of delivering what it takes to
satiate that growing consumer appetite/need. Company
strategies, reports and stories of how they got their well known
campaigns right are detailed. The text is interspersed with
motivational lines which echo the ‘maverick entrepreneur’ nee ‘Rajah of
Retail’ sentiments along with a few photographs. Like most
of its products, the book too is priced to target a large reading
audience. Interesting to know what made the man tick and what helped
him make his first million. Dipayan Baishya who has co-authored the
book is a business writer and a Wharton School product. The Smell of Rat Rubs OffHow cool is this poetry on falling in love with a rat with a spiritual slant.. The Smell of Rat Rubs Off Once again you've fallen for the lure
20 May Sicko is SockoI gotta take time off to see this, I bet it not less sensational than rest of his stuff. He knows how to sell to the democratic audience! Cannes Journal Saturday, May. 19, 2007 By RICHARD CORLISS http://www.time. com/time/ arts/article/ 0,8599,1623337, 00.html?cnn= yes George W. Bush recognized there was a crisis in the American health care system. But he thought the problem was that physicians' six-figure incomes weren't high enough. "Too many good docs are getting out of the business," the graduate of Yale and Harvard said in his homespun way in September 2004, two months before he was reelected. "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." These days it's almost too easy to make fun of the President; he's a lame duck who needs medical attention, and fortunately he can afford it. (And if he couldn't, his bills would be paid for by the people, as is the health care of all Senators and Congressmen. ) Besides, Michael Moore had his instructive Bush-bashing in Fahrenheit 9/11, the highest-grossing documentary of all time, earning $119 million at the domestic box office and lots more overseas. So after beginning Sicko with this Bush malapropism, Moore stays pretty clear of Dubya jokes, pausing only to mention the extravagant amounts the medical industry gives to elected officials (including one-time health-care reformer Hillary Clinton). Instead, he lards his new documentary with stories of ordinary Americans whose health insurance did not cover the diseases and accidents their plans should have paid for and whose prescription drugs were unaffordable. Continue this article at: http://www.time. com/time/ arts/article/ 0,8599,1623337, 00.html?cnn= yes 17 May 100 Best Spiritual Books of the 20th CenturyI need this list so then next time I am looking around for books... well I will have a lot more to read than I can handle at one time (even if I never finish them :-)---------------------
GMT in WSJ on retail health clinicsI have been reading Galen institute's emails for years now. Its nice to see this article, there has been a lot of talk about these new 'minute' clinics in the heathcare world. Good article. Customer Health CareBy GRACE-MARIE TURNER
May 14, 2007; Page A17 It's Friday evening and you suspect that your child might have strep throat or a worsening ear infection. Do you bundle him up and wait half the night in an emergency room? Or do you suffer through the weekend and hope that you can get an appointment with your pediatrician on Monday -- taking time off your job to drive across town for another wait in the doctor's office? Every parent has faced this dilemma. But now there are new options, courtesy of the competitive marketplace. You might instead be able to take a quick trip on Friday night to a RediClinic in the nearby Wal-Mart or a MinuteClinic at CVS, where you will be seen by a nurse practitioner within 15 minutes, most likely getting a prescription that you can have filled right there. Cost of the visit? Generally between $40 and $60. These new retail health clinics are opening in big box stores and local pharmacies around the country to treat common maladies at prices lower than a typical doctor's visit and much lower than the emergency room. No appointment necessary. Open daytime, evenings and weekends. Most take insurance.
Much like the response to Hurricane Katrina, private companies are far ahead of the government in answering Americans' needs, this time for more accessible and more affordable health care. Political leaders across the country seeking to expand government's role in health care should take note. Thousands of free-standing primary care clinics have been operating for years in malls and main streets around the country, often staffed by physicians and many offering a broad range of health services. The retail health clinics are creating a new model with more limited services at lower prices and almost always staffed by nurses. The Convenient Care Association estimates there are about 325 of these retail clinics operating nationwide today. Seventy-six of them are in Wal-Marts in 12 states, but the company announced last month it will expand to 400 clinics by the end of the decade and 2,000 in five to seven years. They will be run by outside firms, including for-profit ventures like RediClinic as well as local and regional health plans and hospitals. The industry is rapidly expanding. You can find a MinuteClinic in the CVS on the Strip in Las Vegas. But you also will find many locally-run clinics in pharmacies and food stores across America, such as the Express Clinic in Miami, MediMin in Phoenix, and Curaquick in Sioux City, whose motto is "Get well soon." 2007 Tony Award NominationsI am so glad to see Alliance Theater nominated for the best regional theater, I ushered there for 3 years! -------------- 
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Brian F. O’Byrne (seated) as Alexander Herzen, the central figure of Tom Stoppard’s trilogy “The Coast of Utopia.” In “Salvage,” the final play, Herzen is living in exile in England. More Photos > By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: May 14, 2007
A complete list of this year's nominees, with links to the original New York Times reviews. more...16 May From Prison Bars to Bar ExamI try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. --Charlotte Bronte
Inspiration of the Day: Top 10 picks at this years CannesFrench connectionsFrom Michael Moore's healthcare exposé to the Coen brothers' Tex- Mex shootout, Peter Bradshaw picks the top 10 films at CannesWednesday May 16, 2007 The Guardian  Ones to watch... (From top left) Wong Kar-Wai's My Blueberry Nights, Ian Curtis biopic Control, Michael Moore's Sicko and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Study: Vitamins tied to prostate cancerThere are studies are prove this and very soon there is a counter study that proves something completely opposite.. should we just stop believing studies? How do we believe either of them? WASHINGTON - There's more worrisome news about vitamins: Taking too many may increase men's risk of dying from prostate cancer. The study, being published Wednesday, doesn't settle the issue. But it is the biggest yet to suggest high-dose multivitamins may harm the prostate, and the latest chapter in the confusing quest to tell whether taking various vitamins really helps a variety of conditions — or is a waste of money, or worse. Government scientists turned to a study tracking the diet and health of almost 300,000 men. About a third reported taking a daily multivitamin, and 5 percent were heavy users, swallowing the pills more than seven times a week. Within five years of the study's start, 10,241 men had been
diagnosed with prostate cancer. Some 1,476 had advanced cancer; 179
died. Maakad ManMy sister sent this yesterday.. its sooo funny! http://www.makkadman.com/ 09 May Expressionistic!Love this work.. going to be my new desktop. Alexei Jawlensky, Russian, 1864-1941, Mystical Head: Head of an Angel, 1917-1918. Oil and pencil on textured cardboard. 13-7/8 x 12 in. Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection. P.1953.569. © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.  PASADENA, CA.- The Norton Simon Museum presents Alexei Jawlensky (1864–1941), an exhibition featuring more than 100 paintings and works on paper by this renowned 20th-century artist. One of the Blue Four, a group of Expressionist artists represented by dealer Emmy (Galka) Scheyer, Jawlensky and his contemporaries redefined modern art with an innovative artistic philosophy that rejected the idea of an objective reality. Motivated by an inner response to their subject matter, and influenced by sources such as medieval art, folk art and non-Western art, these artists created subjective, highly emotional and spiritual images composed of distorted forms and non-naturalistic colors. The installation at the Norton Simon Museum includes works from the major phases of Jawlensky’s career, including such series as “Variations on a Landscape Theme,” “Mystical Heads,” and “Meditations.” In addition, the special friendship between Jawlensky and Scheyer ...More |
|||||||||||||||||
![[Photo]](http://www.wsj.com/public/resources/images/ED-AF817_turner_20070513153807.jpg)
|
|
