News for today's 2018: 10/23/11

The Haunting Melody of The Uninvited (1944)

11:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJ19yJFWXwRMBbC-7ZI7HoFz5t4dTa5p_wjBhbSeIyl1HgQqTuY3xgV3FDyuwZUQe_n_swHv4Hn8vVZLxOKFaqpwbu7_9SzS9LQqBMST84ACjnd96N13U8W8mwjIIwFD9E2-EqCE8vI_u/s1600/the+uninvited+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJ19yJFWXwRMBbC-7ZI7HoFz5t4dTa5p_wjBhbSeIyl1HgQqTuY3xgV3FDyuwZUQe_n_swHv4Hn8vVZLxOKFaqpwbu7_9SzS9LQqBMST84ACjnd96N13U8W8mwjIIwFD9E2-EqCE8vI_u/s400/the+uninvited+2.jpg" width="279" /></a></div>  The Uninvited, from Paramount Pictures in 1944, is an elegantly spooky Rebecca-esque romance with more than one haunting quality. Yes, Windward House, the sea cliff-situated home central to the story, is haunted by a malevolent woman’s ghost, but the film’s music is equally haunting (though not at all spooky). <a name='more'></a> <div class="MsoNormal">Victor Young (who composed the film’s Rachmaninoff influenced score) and his orchestra introduced “Stella by Starlight” in The Uninvited. The melody is a thematic refrain throughout, but takes center stage in a romantic scene between Ray Milland (Roderick Fitzgerald) and Gail Russell (Stella Meredith). The pair is spending an evening together at Windward House and Rick begins to play the music, which he has written, on his grand piano: <div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/B96ApEvaoBY" width="420"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Jan. 2013 update: sadly this video is no longer available on YouTube) </div> Victor Young wasn't Academy Award-nominated for his rhapsodic score for The Uninvited, but did garner 22 Oscar nominations over his prolific career. He was nominated for as many as four films in a single year, but his only win came posthumously, for Around the World in 80 Days (1956). His scores for Golden Boy (1939) and Written on the Wind (1956) were among many nominated for the gold statuette - and he also scored The Palm Beach Story (1942), Shane (1953), Johnny Guitar (1954) and The Country Girl (1954). Young died in 1956 with hundreds of film credits to his name.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">As with Laura, another notable film of 1944 with an evocative musical theme, song lyrics were composed for "Stella by Starlight" after The Uninvited was released and became a popular movie. In 1946 Oscar-winning lyricist Ned Washington (“When You Wish Upon a Star”/Pinocchio and “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’”/High Noon) created lyrics to accompany the music. In 1947, two versions of "Stella by Starlight," one recorded by Frank Sinatra the other by the Harry James Orchestra, climbed the pop charts. In 1952, iconic saxophonist Charlie Parker made the first jazz recording of the tune; the song remains both a popular standard and jazz standard today.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/P94vB3mLRzc" width="420"></iframe></div></div></div>

The Haunting Melody of The Uninvited (1944)

The Uninvited, from Paramount Pictures in 1944, is an elegantly spooky Rebecca-esque romance with more than one haunting quality. Yes, Windward House, the sea cliff-situated home central to the story, is haunted by a malevolent woman’s ghost, but t…

Sitting In A Zen Garden In Pocatello I Ponder The Oddness Of Life

2:35 PM Tukiyooo 0

On a soft Autumn afternoon, under blue Idaho skies, I sit in a Japanese gazebo in the Zen garden of the Pocatello airport. I live in Las Vegas, the neon capital of the Western Hemisphere. There is no neon here, just stillness. Inside the airport, there is no one at ticketing, no one in the closed cafe, no other passenger. Eventually, a pleasant young woman in a TSA uniform comes out to join me. She is not checking to see if I am a security threat. No, instead she tells me her life story and many of her hopes and dreams. She is from Preston on the Utah border but would like to live in San Diego someday. She was in Athens, Georgia once for training back when she was in the car business, and was captivated by the green antiquity. After she goes, I remember this weekend at the Diocese of Idaho Convention. I was the after dinner speaker. I began, "It is a sweeter thing for me to be here than most of you can imagine," then told them the story of how 30 years ago God had saved my life from cynical despair through the gracious agency of the Episcopal Church in Idaho. "I was born here," I told them, "through an at risk spriitual pregnancy and an arduous labor." It was a sweet thing to be here and the people this weekend were as kind and human as ever. I told them that "when I could not see God, I saw you." The truth is I still cannot see God anywhere so clearly as in the rumpled, fallible, oft-times maddening collection of people who stumble along together as the church. It takes better spiritual x ray vision than I have yet achieved to see God behind the opaque pride of the arrogantly disbelieving and the spiritually advanced alike -- though I still try. Here I saw a few old friends from those distant decades. I saw newer friends whom I know from national gatherings of those who try to be the church in the wild and sometimes lonely places like Pocatello, Blackfoot, Arco, Austin, Eureka, Ely, and Pioche. And I met new people: a retired admiral with bushy white eyebrows who settled in Idaho Falls after giving up his life on nuclear submarines; a tall handsome middle school teacher who discovered how rich he was while teaching English in Turkey; a lawyer who was once a high roller in the state bar but now serves as the chancellor for this church. I flew here 3 days ago, changing planes in Salt Lake, waiting for my connection in "the back 40" where all the planes are going to Great Falls, Helena, St. George, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Grand Junction. I don't know what possessed me to ever leave the West. "How could I sing King Alpha's song in a strange land?" I did not tell Jesse these things. How do I know what she needs? Perhaps she too needs an exile from this arid spaiousness; perhaps for her an urban exile in San Diego or back in the land of green antiquity. I suppose I did. And I know I may leave this land again someday. Out here even the mountains are transitory. They erupted recently in geological time and may collapse in some seismic shift one of these days. As the Bishop of Idaho often says, "Life is short. There is so little time to be kind." So this is not my life forever. Today, it is given to me to sit in a Zen garden at an empty airport in Pocatello and shake my head over just how odd that is.

Sitting In A Zen Garden In Pocatello I Ponder The Oddness Of Life

BRICS to save EUROPE?

6:48 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>Any chance that the BRICS will save Europe is receding  Article by Sreeram Chaulia, republished with the permission of the author   <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHvvG0YtkRZD3qd7nyLLpXt6wFGstDLakDuikptmXjTH_zVSPsL9fi07C11LSmDgJajpDRIGRcO-HcqjjsluoigBZqwGZPG72dLJAYS46do7z3awsFt2_gtGNq1I_Rhn8yt0Mf_SRbgw3J/s1600/1319182719792.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHvvG0YtkRZD3qd7nyLLpXt6wFGstDLakDuikptmXjTH_zVSPsL9fi07C11LSmDgJajpDRIGRcO-HcqjjsluoigBZqwGZPG72dLJAYS46do7z3awsFt2_gtGNq1I_Rhn8yt0Mf_SRbgw3J/s320/1319182719792.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brazil’s ambitious attempt to forge an internal consensus within the so-called ‘BRICS’ grouping for a timely financial intervention to save Europe’s diseased southern economies has gone nowhere. The finance ministers of the BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- just met in Washington D.C. to discuss this idea, but Beijing, New Delhi, Moscow and Pretoria have poured cold water on Brasilia’s proposal for coordinated bond-buying from the Eurozone’s fiscally weakest governments, Greece, Spain and Italy. That outcome reflects the varied economic structures, conditions and models that prevail in individual BRICS nations. Brazil holds nearly 80 percent of its US$352 billion foreign exchange reserves in US dollars and is nervous about the growing levels of public debt in the American economy. It seeks diversification of its reserves away from the dollar and is hence calling for the BRICS to pool their capital and announce a big bond-buying spree for the Eurozone’s weak links. Brazil’s calculus dovetails with that of China, which has been making similar noises about the unreliability of the US dollar. With US$3.2 trillion in reserves, only 25 percent of which are held in euro-denominated assets, China has room aplenty to acquire bonds of European countries like Italy. When Chinese premier Wen Jiabao expressed willingness to lend “a helping hand and increase our investment in the European economy" at the recent World Economic Forum annual meeting in Dalian, he clearly had diversification of reserves in mind along with concerns about falling European consumption of Chinese exports. Yet, one sees a rare divergence of views within the Chinese establishment on the wisdom of buying bonds from European economies that resemble sinking ships. The lack of foreseeable growth prospects in the Eurozone’s southern economies make them risky bets. Chinese citizen bloggers have been posting angry messages on management of foreign reserves, railing against investing in the Eurozone that is “influenced by political factors, and not on market fundamentals. Serious weighing of pros and cons of buying Italian Euro bonds is underway in China, attesting to the genuine fear that there is, as yet, no well-developed alternative to the US dollar for safekeeping of one’s reserves. India falls in this same band of uncertainty. Its official comments on Brazil’s Euro bond-buying idea have been lukewarm. With only 20 percent of its US$320 billion foreign reserves in Euro-denominated assets, India has room to buy bonds of cash-strapped European countries. However, The Economic Times quoted an Indian finance ministry official as saying that “we will maintain the 20 percent ratio.” India’s economic growth forecast has been marked down in the last few months to less than 8 percent by many analysts, showing that the renewed global downturn has not left it untouched. Yet, as is the reflex reaction in a period of anxiety, Indian authorities are sticking to the safety of the dollar. In any case, like South Africa, which has only US$50 billion in foreign reserves, India is a relatively small player to execute systemically sizeable bond purchasing of Eurozone countries’ debts. Russia too has rebuffed the Brazilian proposal for concerted BRICS action to buy Euro-denominated debt. Some 45 percent of Russia’s foreign reserves of US$543 billion are already held in euros and its European strategy is less centered on the continent’s southern economies and more on Germany, which is the nodal recipient of Russian gas through the newly launched Nord Stream pipeline. If at all Russia were to buy more bonds from a European country, it would be German euros, not those of Italy, Spain or Greece. Should the 17 member states of the Eurozone overcome objections within their domestic political arenas and issue ‘Eurobonds’ guaranteed by the whole group, BRICS countries would find them more attractive vehicles to invest their reserves. Ironically, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has been alert to dangers of “excess liquidity” and inflow of hot money from rich nations. Private wealth, including that from the Euro zone, is flowing in the reverse direction, i.e. away from the OECD centres and towards BRICS. To wish for public wealth to go in the opposite way (towards Europe) is to vainly hope that governments are less savvy than private investors when it comes to return-on-investment calculations. Unlike private investors, governments do have one additional variable to consider when deciding where to place their reserves— political influence and image as ‘responsible’ actors who come to the aid of the ailing. A private pension fund’s moral compass is distinct from that of a sovereign wealth fund. The latter is motivated by competition for security and prestige with other states, geopolitical spaces that need to be filled, leverage and quid pro quos that can be extracted in other spheres for investing one’s reserves. It is because of these factors that we hear China and Brazil talking up the possibilities of buying more European bonds. Misalignment between private capital and public capital is a structural problem that is skewing the global economy. Can advanced economies restrict the outflow of private capital seeking higher interest rates in emerging economies? If money can stay at home and be channeled into buying public debt, it would be beneficial for calming choppy macroeconomic seas in the EU and the US. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Western corporations sitting on trillions of dollars of cash are not doing their bit at all in boosting employment or bailing out governments of advanced economies that are in hock. If giant Western companies share the burden of debt restructurings in the countries where they are headquartered, money from BRICS sovereign funds would not even be needed. Restrictions on capital movements saved Malaysia in the late 1990s and could do the same in the US and the Eurozone. But it takes political will to force big businesses to buy local public debt in the interests of overall macroeconomic stability of the OECD countries. Private capital does not have nationalism, but it must be controlled to prevent disasters in the making such as a possible collapse of the euro. Capital which is several times the combined weight of the BRICS’ foreign exchange reserves can be brought to revive the Eurozone if only highly profitable transatlantic corporations can be induced to buy European bonds. In November 2010, the billionaire private investor Warren Buffett authored an article to profusely thank ‘Uncle Sam’ for the expensive bailouts which prevented corporate America from caving in during the financial meltdown. It is now apt for the US and European governments to demand a payback in the form of their corporations buying local public debt. The Japanese model of locally headquartered companies buying their own government’s bonds is more viable for the Eurozone than to expect the parachute to materialize from the BRICS. Unless risks and losses are privatized, the “lesser depression” (as the current global slump has been described by economist Bradford DeLong) will keep extending the pain. (Sreeram Chaulia is Vice Dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs in Sonipat, India, and the first ever B. Raman Fellow for Geopolitical Analysis at the Takshashila Institution. His new book, ‘International Organizations and Civilian Protection: Power, Ideas and Humanitarian Aid in Conflict Zones’, was published recently by I.B. Tauris, London.) </div>

BRICS to save EUROPE?

Any chance that the BRICS will save Europe is receding Article by Sreeram Chaulia, republished with the permission of the author Brazil’s ambitious attempt to forge an internal consensus within the so-called ‘BRICS’ grouping for a timely financial i…

Can it really get any worse?

5:49 AM Tukiyooo 0

First, a huge thank you for all of your kind words and support. I read every comment and they fill my heart with gratitude. Each comment is very much appreciated and greatly lifts my spirits. Friday was a horrific day. We moved my sister to the assisted living home for hospice care. Even though I had explained to her several times that she was moving so her daughter (the insane one) would come visit her, at the last minute my sister decided she didn't want to go. It was beyond horrible. The crying and moaning tore my heart into pieces. After she was moved by ambulance she became non-communicative.She didn't want anything to do with any of us. She fell asleep or pretended to fall asleep. My crazy niece came by for five minutes and then left. Crazy niece didn't even visit yesterday. I was there all day and had a great visit with my sister for several hours. My other niece who is now seriously depressed only stayed a few hours. She was diagnosed as clinically depressed for the past 17 years and is on a multitude of drugs, bipolar,anti-anxiety, anti-psychotic and several anti-depressants. She's a sweet girl (well, 46 year old woman), but she's not much fun to hang out with. My brother came by a couple of times, bringing me his laptop and a giant TV for our sister's room. He's a laugh a minute so he hung out with us for a few hours. My sister napped off and on, but was awake most of the time I was there, from 9am to 7:30pm with a break when I went out to lunch and Walmart (yuk!) for some nails to hang pictures. She told me which pictures to hang and where. Her wedding picture made her cry and cry. It was so sad I thought I was going to die. She started talking very sweetly to the picture, and touching her husband's face in the picture, and cried. I told her it was okay to cry. It was just me and crying wasn't a bad thing. I couldn't understand her words but I think she was saying how much she missed him and loved him. I told her I knew she missed her husband of 51 years, and I told her how lucky she was to have been treated like a princess for all those years. We both cried and I held her. We had a lot of laughs yesterday too. I was trying to adjust her pillows and was having a heck of a time getting them in the position she wanted without pulling her hair. I told I was sorry I was Nurse Ratchet from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest but I was never trained in pillow fluffing. She yelled out "Ouch!", then laughed and laughed. She still has her sense of humor. It was a really great day with her. The people that work at the home are really nice and the owner that lives there is amazing and a great help in helping me accept this situation. Unfortunately my crazy niece called me when I got back to the hotel. She wants to get a morphine patch put on her mother so she'll be basically unconscious. My sister has sublingual morphine drops for pain, which work fine when she needs them. She doesn't need a patch with constant morphine. My niece got hysterical when I told her that her mother was drinking a lot of water. No food, but water. My niece insisted I was pouring it down her throat or holding the glass. I'm not, my sister holds the glass and drinks it. The conversation went really bad when I lost my temper over the morphine patch and then Linda said she couldn't visit because she "has three young boys" to take care of. I've heard this excuse thousands of times in the last four weeks. The "young" boys are 16, 14 and 9 and she has a husband that's perfectly capable of caring for them. For the very first time in four weeks I completely lost it and called her a stupid, crazy bitch, and I was sick to death of hearing about her "three f--king boys". Yes, not my finest moment but honest to God, I've had it with this woman. She may be my niece, but when this is over if I never hear her whiny voice or see her ugly, angry face again, I will be happy. I just want my sister's final days to be peaceful and comfortable. I want her to laugh and not be afraid and worried. Water is part of comfort care. My niece wants to withhold water, but fortunately it's in my sister's living trust to provide sustenance such as water and bread for comfort, just no feeding tubes. The morphine patch is ridiculous. She doesn't need it. I've blocked my crazy niece's phone numbers from my cell phone (there's an app that does that). If she visits her mother today (highly unlikely), I'll leave until she's gone. My hotel is two blocks from the home, so not a problem to just leave for a while. I know if she does visit it'll only be for a few minutes. Without me there for her to attack, it'll be better for everyone. Luckily for me her reputation is well known. I talked to Adult Protection Services yesterday and they knew all about the crazy niece. They work with the local hospital and had already received phone calls about my niece. Did I mention during the four days I was in Seattle she went to the hospital business office demanding to see someone in charge? No one was available so she laid her body down on the floor, blocking the entrance into the business office. She was physically carried out by security. Just one of her many crazy stunts these last four weeks, documented by the hospital and the police. My husband is flying up today. When I broke down a couple night's ago after a crazy niece encounter and couldn't stop crying so I could even talk to him, he said he'd fly up. I can't wait to see him. I'm sure today is going to be a better day. I'll avoid crazy niece, and I get to see my husband. And I still get to make my sister laugh.

Can it really get any worse?