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Sunday, January 8, 2012
93% Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
A rare and sentimental view/glimpse into the life of Kevin Clash, a real-life puppeteer who got his start on Sesame Street working for the likes of some man known as Jim Henson! Born in 1960, Kevin had a youthful fixation on felt and string and beady-eyes and he was first introduced to Henson on an early Thanksgiving morning when he was assigned to "play" Cookie Monster (!) on the Jim Henson's Muppets float at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! He was handed a costume and a flashlight ... and the rest is history (we-could-pun-it-up with: puppetry!). Being that Clash was highly-successful on such a large-scale stage, Clash was awarded with a close friendship with his idolized-mentor (!) and he became influential in his own-right while on his tenure with various Henson Productions including Sesame Street, The Muppet Show etc. It was Clash's quiet confidence (and genius) that allowed him to re-discover and re-invent Henson's earlier, yet-still-unsuccessful puppet, Elmo! After actor Jason Segel's glorious, worldwide re-introduction of Jim Henson's other work, The Muppets (featuring the world's MOST famous frog/pig combo) in their first brand-new feature film in nearly two decades (!); it is only fitting and fair that Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey is also shedding some much-deserved light on a tale of dedication, devotion, artistry, loyalty, and perseverance. We are provided with both Elmo and Clash's backstory and it is made even more-special as we discover that Elmo IS our prize as he is one of those constants in life. Lending "just enough" prestige to the project, Whoopi Goldberg's (Ghost, The Muppets, The Color Purple) narration reminds us that in relationship-to-some-things, we will always be kids-at-heart.
January 5, 2012Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/being_elmo_a_puppeteers_journey/
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Saturday, January 7, 2012
Obama admin to force airlines to disclose the full fare, fees and all, up front (Americablog)
Friday, January 6, 2012
Oil price stays around $103 per barrel (AP)
Oil prices were little changed Wednesday as traders booked profits after a 4-percent surge at the start of the year.
Here's how energy contracts traded:
On the New York Mercantile Exchange:
Benchmark crude rose 26 cents to finish at $103.22 a barrel.
Gasoline rose 3.66 cents to end at $2.7852 a gallon.
Heating oil rose 5.17 cents to finish at $3.0899 a gallon.
Natural gas rose 10.3 cents to end at $3.096 per 1,000 cubic feet.
On the ICE Futures exchange in London:
Brent crude rose $1.57 to finish at $113.70 a barrel.
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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Olympus promises to go after erring executives (AP)
TOKYO ? Olympus Corp. vowed Wednesday to go after erring executives involved in an elaborate scheme to hide $1.5 billion of investment losses.
The Japanese camera and medical equipment maker said it will investigate some 70 people including former and current board members, auditors and other officials for their possible involvement in the deception that has become one of Japan's biggest corporate scandals.
President Shuichi Takayama bowed deeply in apology at a Tokyo hotel, a day after a third-party panel released the findings of an investigation that showed top executives who were "rotten to the core" had orchestrated the accounting cover-up spanning three decades.
The company said it hopes to avoid being booted off the Tokyo Stock Exchange by meeting the Dec. 14 deadline set by the bourse for reporting earnings, including its latest and revised reports going back five years.
Tokyo-based Olympus is also setting up panels of outsiders such as former judges and prosecutors to check on possibly faulty auditing, to reform management, and probe executive responsibility.
The company may target any wrongdoers in lawsuits, including possibly pursuing criminal charges, said Olympus official Nobuyuki Onishi.
The scandal burst into the spotlight after former Chief Executive Michael Woodford, a Briton, went public with his doubts about high fees for financial advice and expensive acquisitions. Woodford was fired in October.
Takayama said a decision on whether Woodford will return as head of the company will be decided at a shareholders' meeting, which will be held after the company releases its revised earnings. He did not give a date for the meeting.
"We do give some positive assessment to his action," he said.
Woodford has said he would like to see Olympus come clean, with him at the helm.
The independent panel found that as of 2003, Olympus had racked up 117.7 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in investment losses dating back to the 1990s.
A $687 million fee for financial advice and overvalued acquisitions of several companies had been part of the cover-up, which used overseas banks and several funds to keep the massive losses off the company's books.
"The management was rotten to the core and contaminated what was around it, creating in the worst sense a group mentality of the typical salarymen," the report said in a reference to Japan's culture of corporate loyalty.
It said it found no involvement of "anti-social groups," a euphemism for Japanese criminal gangs, as some news reports have speculated. The panel said it traced the money and the various funds used to cover up investment losses, and no underworld groups were involved.
Takayama said at least two former presidents knew about the scheme, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa and Masatoshi Kishimoto.
He said Olympus will beef up corporate governance and, after the investigation is over, operate under a new board. He did not elaborate on who the new members might be, and said shareholders will decide.
"We hope to be reborn as a renewed Olympus," said Takayama.
The company's bookkeeping is now under investigation in Japan, the U.S. and Great Britain. Woodford has met with authorities in all three countries.
The scandal has cast a harsh light on Japanese corporate governance, which has been criticized as lagging global standards.
Kikukawa, who tapped Woodford as his successor to lead Olympus, has since resigned from the board.
When questioned why Olympus had developed such a shady corporate culture, Takayama replied: "The management system had become too much about one man."
___
Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Russians vote in election test for Vladimir Putin (Reuters)
MOSCOW (Reuters) ? Vladimir Putin's ruling party could see its vast parliamentary majority cut back on Sunday in elections widely seen as a test of his popularity ahead of an expected return to the presidency early next year.
Voters turned out from the Pacific to the Baltic coasts in the world's biggest country where Putin restored central control and revived the economy in a 2000-2008 presidency. He remains by far the most popular politician in the country but there are signs Russians may be wearying of a cultivated strong man image.
Some voters expressed disgust with a parliamentary poll they said was likely to be rigged. Others said they backed the United Russia party of Putin, who has continued to exert influence as Prime Minister since yielding the presidency to Dmitry Medvedev under a constitution forbidding more than two consecutive terms.
"I support United Russia. I like Putin. He is the strong leader we need in our country," said Nikolai, a 33-year-old customs officer in Vladivostok, a port city of 600,000 people on the Pacific and the biggest city in Russia's Far East.
Some said they would vote for Just Russia or the Communists, who retain support largely among poorer sections of the population two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the advent of a free market system.
Polls show Putin's party is likely to win a majority but less than the 315 seats it currently has in the 450-seat lower house of parliament, known as the Duma.
"It is time for something to change so I am going to vote for the (nationalist party) LDPR. So far this seems the only party that can resist United Russia," 24-year-old event manager Yekaterina Makarova said in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
If Putin's party gets less than two-thirds of seats, it would be stripped of its so called constitutional majority which allows it to change the constitution and even approve the impeachment of the president.
HACKING ATTACK
Opposition parties say the election is unfair because the authorities support United Russia with cash and television air time. They also predict vote rigging to boost United Russia.
The independent Ekho Moskvy radio station said its website had been shut down by hackers early on Sunday morning.
"It is obvious that the election day attack on the site is part of an attempt to prevent publishing information about violations," the station's editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov wrote on the radio's Twitter account.
Independent election watchdog Golos said it was excluded from several polling booths in the Siberian Tomsk region, according to Interfax news agency. Moscow prosecutors launched an investigation last week into Golos' activities after lawmakers objected to its Western financing.
Supporters say the former-KGB spy saved Russia during his presidency from the chaos of the immediate post-Soviet era and supplied the longest and steepest economic expansion in a generation. He also used military force to crush a rebellion in the southern Muslim region of Chechnya that tested the fabric of a federation spanning 9,000 Km (5,600 miles).
Russian customs officers held the director of an independent election watchdog for 12 hours at a Moscow airport on Saturday. The United States said it was concerned by "a pattern of harassment" against the watchdog.
PUTIN'S PARTY
Putin remains by far Russia's most popular politician and the 59-year old leader is the ultimate arbiter between the clans which control the world's biggest energy producer.
But his party has had to fight against opponents who have branded it as a collection "swindlers and thieves" and a growing sense of unease among voters at Putin's grip on power.
"I shall not vote. I shall cross out all the parties on the list and write: 'Down with the party of swindlers and thieves,'" said Nikolai Markovtsev, an independent deputy in the Vladivostok city legislature On the Pacific seaboard.
"These are not elections: this is sacrilege," he said, adding that the biggest liberal opposition bloc had been barred from the vote by the authorities.
Opponents say Putin has crafted a brittle political system which excludes independent voices and that Russians are growing tired of Putin's cultivated tough man image.
An outburst of boos and whistling at Putin by fans at a Moscow martial arts fight and a sharp fall in opinion poll ratings during the election campaign had raised concerns Putin may be losing his renowned political touch.
Putin is almost certain to win the March 4 presidential election but signs of disenchantment are extremely worrying for the Kremlin's political managers. Putin's self-portrayal as the anchor of Russian stability hinges on his popularity.
In an attempt to reinvigorate his party, which President Medvedev is leading into the election as part of a job swap announced in September, Putin has sent his closest allies to lead United Russia in some of Russia's 83 regions.
Russians in the Far East region braved temperatures as low as minus 41 degrees Celsius (minus 42 Fahrenheit) to vote eight hours before polls opened in Moscow.
Chukchi reindeer herders living across the Bering Sea from Alaska voted in late November as did some oil workers on rigs pumping the lifeblood of Russia's $1.9 trillion economy, with their ballots taken out by helicopter to be counted.
(Editing by Ralph Boulton)
($1 = 30.8947 Russian roubles)
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge)
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