Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/GjiYEAJr7d8/why-you-shouldnt-buy-anyone-a-french-press
jessica chastain nook tablet eagles magic johnson involuntary manslaughter stevens johnson syndrome verdict in michael jackson trial
সোমবার, ১৯ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১১
Why You Shouldn't Buy Anyone a French Press [Coffee]
রবিবার, ১৮ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১১
Grammy-winning singer Cesaria Evora dies at age 70 (AP)
LISBON, Portugal ? Cesaria Evora, who started singing as a teenager in the bayside bars of Cape Verde in the 1950s and won a Grammy in 2003 after she took her African islands music to stages across the world, died Saturday. She was 70.
Evora, known as the "Barefoot Diva" because she always performed without shoes, died in the Baptista de Sousa Hospital in Mindelo, on her native island of Sao Vicente in Cape Verde, her label Lusafrica said in a statement on its website. It gave no further details.
Evora retired in September because of health problems. In recent years she had had several operations, including open-heart surgery last year.
She sang the traditional music of the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa, a former Portuguese colony. She mostly sang in the version of creole spoken there, but even audiences who couldn't understand the lyrics were moved by her stirring renditions, her unpretentious manner and the music's infectious beat.
Her singing style brought comparisons to American jazz singer Billie Holiday. "She belongs to the aristocracy of bar singers," French newspaper Le Monde said in 1991, adding that Evora had "a voice to melt the soul."
Evora's international fame came late in life. Her 1988 album "La Diva Aux Pieds Nus" ("Barefoot Diva"), recorded in France where she first found popularity, launched her international career.
Her 1995 album "Cesaria" was released in more than a dozen countries and brought her first Grammy nomination, leading to a tour of major concert halls around the world and album sales in the millions.
She won a Grammy in the World Music category of the 2003 awards for her album "Voz D'Amor".
Evora, known to her close friends as Cize (pronounced see-ZEH), was the best-known performer of "morna," Cape Verde's national music. It is a complex, soulful sound, mixing an array of influences arising from the African and seafaring traditions of the 10 volcanic islands.
Evora was born Aug. 27, 1941, and grew up in Mindelo, a port city of 47,000 people on the island of Sao Vicente, where sailors from Europe, America, Africa and Asia mingled in what was a lively cosmopolitan town with a fabled nightlife.
The local musical style borrowed from those cultures, defying attempts to classify it.
"Our music is a lot of things," Evora told The Associated Press in a 2000 interview at her home. "Some say it's like the blues, or jazz. Others says it's like Brazilian or African music, but no one really knows. Not even the old ones."
Evora was 7 years old when her father died, leaving a widow and seven children. At 10, with her mother unable to make ends meet, she was placed in an orphanage.
"I didn't like it. I value my freedom," she told the AP.
At 16, when Evora was doing piecework as a seamstress, a friend persuaded her to sing in one of the many sailors' taverns in her town. As her popularity grew, she was also rowed out into the bay to sing on anchored ships.
She received no pay ? just free drinks. She used to smile when she recalled her fame as a heavy cognac drinker. And she sadly recalled the exact day ? Dec. 15, 1994 ? she had to give up drinking for her health's sake.
Evora didn't think much of her international stardom and she went back to Mindelo whenever she could. She rebuilt her childhood home, turning it into a 10-bedroom house where friends and family often stayed over, and she always made sure she was home for Christmas.
A heavy smoker for decades, Evora was diagnosed with heart problems in 2005. She suffered strokes in 2008 and in September 2011, when she announced she was retiring.
She had a son and a daughter by different men but never married. Family details were not immediately available.
china aircraft carrier barbara walters most fascinating person 2011 unclaimed money blake griffin clippers golden globe nominations los angeles clippers
Video: Tea Party favorite reappears on the 2012 political scene
10 chilling super-nerdy snow sculptures
By Sean FallonNerd Approved? If there's one thing that I miss about living in an area that sees snowy, wintry weather, it's making snowmen. I mean, it just doesn't feel right to make a snowman out of dirt while wearing shorts.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45689454#45689454
donald glover julio cesar chavez jr jason segel turducken power rangers jungle fury power rangers jungle fury ufc 139 fight card
শনিবার, ১৭ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১১
Christopher Hitchens, militant pundit, dies at 62
FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2010 file photo taken from video author and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens speaks during an appearance in Birmingham, Ala. Vanity Fair reports Hitchens died on Thursday Dec. 15, 2011 at the age of 62 from complications of cancer of the esophagus his magazine. The magazine reports he died in the presence of friends at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2010 file photo taken from video author and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens speaks during an appearance in Birmingham, Ala. Vanity Fair reports Hitchens died on Thursday Dec. 15, 2011 at the age of 62 from complications of cancer of the esophagus his magazine. The magazine reports he died in the presence of friends at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves, File)
FILE - Essayist Christopher Hitchens speaks during a debate on Iraq and the foreign policies of the United States and Britain, in this Sept. 14, 2005 file photo taken in New York. Vanity Fair reports Hitchens died on Thursday Dec. 15, 2011 at the age of 62 from complications of cancer of the esophagus his magazine. The magazine reports he died in the presence of friends at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. (AP Photo/Chad Rachman)
Cancer weakened, but did not soften Christopher Hitchens. He did not repent or forgive or ask for pity. As if granted diplomatic immunity, his mind's eye looked plainly upon the attack and counterattack of disease and treatments that robbed him of his hair, his stamina, his speaking voice and eventually his life.
"I love the imagery of struggle," he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. "I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient."
Hitchens, a Washington, D.C.-based author, essayist and polemicist who waged verbal and occasional physical battle on behalf of causes left and right, died Thursday night at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer, according to a statement from Vanity Fair magazine. He was 62.
"There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar," said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. "Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."
He had enjoyed his drink (enough to "to kill or stun the average mule") and cigarettes, until he announced in June 2010 that he was being treated for cancer of the esophagus.
He was a most engaged, prolific and public intellectual who wrote numerous books, was a frequent television commentator and a contributor to Vanity Fair, Slate and other publications. He became a popular author in 2007 thanks to "God is Not Great," a manifesto for atheists.
Long after his diagnosis, his columns and essays appeared regularly, savaging the royal family, reveling in the death of Osama bin Laden, or pondering the letters of poet Philip Larkin. He was intolerant of nonsense, including about his own health. In a piece which appeared in the January 2012 issue of Vanity Fair, he dismissed the old saying that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
"So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion," he wrote. "It is our common fate. In either case, though, one can dispense with facile maxims that don't live up to their apparent billing."
Eloquent and intemperate, bawdy and urbane, Hitchens was an acknowledged contrarian and contradiction ? half-Christian, half-Jewish and fully non-believing; a native of England who settled in America; a former Trotskyite who backed the Iraq war and supported George W. Bush. But his passions remained constant and targets of his youth, from Henry Kissinger to Mother Teresa, remained hated.
He was a militant humanist who believed in pluralism and racial justice and freedom of speech, big cities and fine art and the willingness to stand the consequences. He was smacked in the rear by then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and beaten up in Beirut. He once submitted to waterboarding to prove that it was indeed torture.
Hitchens was a committed sensualist who abstained from clean living as if it were just another kind of church. In 2005, he would recall a trip to Aspen, Colo., and a brief encounter after stepping off a ski lift.
"I was met by immaculate specimens of young American womanhood, holding silver trays and flashing perfect dentition," he wrote. "What would I like? I thought a gin and tonic would meet the case. 'Sir, that would be inappropriate.' In what respect? 'At this altitude gin would be very much more toxic than at ground level.' In that case, I said, make it a double."
An emphatic ally and inspired foe, he stood by friends in trouble ("Satanic Verses" novelist Salman Rushdie) and against enemies in power (Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini). His heroes included George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Gore Vidal (pre-Sept. 11). Among those on the Hitchens list of shame: Michael Moore, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong il, Sarah Palin, Gore Vidal (post Sept. 11) and Prince Charles.
"We have known for a long time that Prince Charles' empty sails are so rigged as to be swelled by any passing waft or breeze of crankiness and cant," Hitchens wrote in Slate in 2010 after the heir to the British throne gave a speech criticizing Galileo for the scientist's focus on "the material aspect of reality."
"He fell for the fake anthropologist Laurens van der Post. He was bowled over by the charms of homeopathic medicine. He has been believably reported as saying that plants do better if you talk to them in a soothing and encouraging way. But this latest departure promotes him from an advocate of harmless nonsense to positively sinister nonsense."
Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1949. His father, Eric, was a "purse-lipped" Navy veteran known as "The Commander"; his mother, Yvonne, a romantic who later kill herself during an extra-marital rendezvous in Greece. Young Christopher would have rather read a book. He was a "a mere weed and weakling and kick-bag" who discovered that "words could function as weapons" and so stockpiled them.
In college, Oxford, he made such longtime friends as authors Martin Amis and Ian McEwan and claimed to be nearby when visiting Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton did or did not inhale marijuana. Radicalized by the 1960s, Hitchens was often arrested at political rallies, was kicked out of Britain's Labour Party over his opposition to the Vietnam War and became a correspondent for the radical magazine International Socialiam. His reputation broadened in the 1970s through his writings for the New Statesman.
Wavy-haired and brooding and aflame with wit and righteous anger, he was a star of the left on paper and on camera, a popular television guest and a columnist for one of the world's oldest liberal publications, The Nation. In friendlier times, Vidal was quoted as citing Hitchens as a worthy heir to his satirical throne.
But Hitchens never could simply nod his head. He feuded with fellow Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn, broke with Vidal and angered freedom of choice supporters by stating that the child's life begins at conception. An essay for Vanity Fair was titled "Why Women Aren't Funny," and Hitchens wasn't kidding.
He had long been unhappy with the left's reluctance to confront enemies or friends. He would note his strong disappointment that Arthur Miller and other leading liberals shied from making public appearances on behalf of Rushdie after the Ayatollah Khomeini called for his death. He advocated intervention in Bosnia and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
No Democrat angered him more than Clinton, whose presidency led to the bitter end of Hitchens' friendship with White House aide Sidney Blumenthal and other Clinton backers. As Hitchens wrote in his memoir, he found Clinton "hateful in his behavior to women, pathological as a liar, and deeply suspect when it came to money in politics."
He wrote the anti-Clinton book, "No One Left to Lie To," at a time when most liberals were supporting the president as he faced impeachment over his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Hitchens also loathed Hillary Rodham Clinton and switched his affiliation from independent to Democrat in 2008 just so he could vote against her in the presidential primary.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, completed his exit. He fought with Vidal, Noam Chomsky and others who either suggested that U.S. foreign policy had helped caused the tragedy or that the Bush administration had advanced knowledge. He supported the Iraq war, quit The Nation, backed Bush for re-election in 2004 and repeatedly chastised those whom he believed worried unduly about the feelings of Muslims.
"It's not enough that faith claims to be the solution to all problems," he wrote in Slate in 2009 after a Danish newspaper apologized for publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that led Muslim organizations to threaten legal action. "It is now demanded that such a preposterous claim be made immune from any inquiry, any critique, and any ridicule."
His essays were compiled in such books as "For the Sake of Argument" and "Prepared for the Worst." He also wrote short biographies/appreciations of Paine and Thomas Jefferson, a tribute to Orwell and "Letters to a Young Contrarian (Art of Mentoring)," in which he advised that "Only an open conflict of ideas and principles can produce any clarity." A collection of essays, "Arguably," came out in September 2011 and he was planning a "book-length meditation on malady and mortality." He appeared in a 2010 documentary about the topical singer Phil Ochs.
Survived by his second wife, author Carol Blue, and by his three children (Alexander, Sophia and Antonia), Hitchens had quotable ideas about posterity, clarified years ago when he saw himself referred to as "the late" Christopher Hitchens in print. For the May 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, before his illness, Hitchens submitted answers for the Proust Questionnaire, a probing and personal survey for which the famous have revealed everything from their favorite color to their greatest fear.
His vision of earthly bliss: "To be vindicated in my own lifetime."
His ideal way to die: "Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around)."
Associated Presspay it forward haunted houses favicon.ico favicon.ico footloose best iphone 4 case best iphone 4 case
শুক্রবার, ১৬ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১১
Boogaard Death Calls Fighting into Question in NHL (Time.com)
"What if?"
As NHL commissioner Gary Bettman spoke about the future of fighting in hockey at an NHL Board of Governors meeting this week, that question kept nagging at me. As in, what if there is in fact a link between hockey fighting and some of the tragedies that have befallen the NHL recently? Even if a link hasn't been conclusively proven, shouldn't the strong possibility that fighting is leading to some players' long-term brain damage be enough to eliminate the practice altogether from the game?
An exhaustive, three-part New York Times series chronicling the life and death of former New York Rangers enforcer Derek Boogaard, who died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and a painkiller in May, has intensified the debate about fighting on the ice. Boogaard got into nearly 200 scuffles in his pro career and incurred multiple concussions; for the last few years of his life, he battled substance abuse. In a postmortem analysis of his brain, a Boston University lab diagnosed Boogaard with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease found only in people who have suffered repeated head trauma. Symptoms of CTE include depression, memory loss and problems with impulse control. (See why head hits are causing a concussion crisis.)
Hockey fighting is a long-standing ritual in which players drop their gloves and are allowed to engage in a bare-knuckled boxing match in the middle of the rink for a minute or two before referees break it up. In baseball, football, basketball and soccer, the officials don't step back and let players brawl during play. International hockey disallows fighting; so does the American collegiate game.
The Boogaard tragedy raises a fundamental question that the sport can't easily ignore. If fighting were phased out of the NHL, could similar future tragedies be avoided? If the NHL truly cares about player safety ? and its heavier fines and suspensions for blatant head hits while the puck is in play suggest as much ? why not remove a practice that involves, you know, dozens of blatant head hits? Isn't permitting hockey fighting the height of hypocrisy?
Bettman would surely take issue with that charge, but you have to give him some credit for honesty: he essentially admitted this week that economics keeps brawls in the game. "Our fans tell us that they like the level of physicality in our game, and for some people it's an issue, but it's not as big an issue in terms of fans and the people in the game to the extent that other people suggest it is," Bettman said at the meeting, in regards to fighting. "I think people need to take a deep breath and not overreact." (See the physics behind concussions.)
Eliminating hockey fighting, however, seems far from an overreaction. No, we don't know for sure if Derek Boogaard's fighting caused his death or even his addictions. But here's what we do know: CTE has been diagnosed only in victims who suffered blows to the head. (It was originally diagnosed in boxers and was called dementia pugilistica, or punch-drunk syndrome.) Some CTE victims were not addicts; Boogaard, and others, were. Boogaard's drug use could have heightened the depression and memory lapses he suffered near the end of his life. But his CTE certainly could have caused his depression and cognitive issues and the lack of impulse control that led to his addiction. So it's entirely possible that if Derek Boogaard hadn't fought, he'd be alive.
Furthermore, Boogaard's is not an isolated case. Two other late hockey enforcers have been diagnosed with CTE: Bob Probert, one of the most prolific fighters in the game, who died of heart failure at age 45 in 2010, and Reggie Fleming, a bruising player from hockey's prehelmet era who died in 2009 at 73. Fleming had suffered from dementia and other CTE symptoms for the last 30 years of his life. Two other enforcers died this summer: Rick Rypien, who committed suicide after battling depression for 10 years, and Wade Belak, who died of a hanging (which Belak's family has said was accidental). Their brains have not been examined; CTE can be diagnosed only postmortem.
"Policy and rule changes should not be made prematurely from knee-jerk reactions," says Robert Stern, co-director of the Boston University Center for the Study of CTE. "However, we must take logical steps and measured steps to reduce exposure to brain trauma." Harsher penalties and suspensions for fighting ? currently, the combatants go to the penalty box for a mere 5 min. ? and a directive to refs to play immediate peacemaker are perfectly logical and measured.
Another question popped into my head when I read some of Bettman's comments. Didn't he see what happened in the NFL? When CTE was first starting to be diagnosed in pro football players five or so years ago, the league tried to downplay the effects of concussions. Eventually, the NFL changed its tune. The league has funded research at the Boston University CTE lab, enforced stricter return-to-play guidelines for players who have suffered concussions, handed down stiffer penalties for players who take intentional head shots and even cut down the number of practices, all to reduce the overall incidents of head collisions. (See the top 10 sports moments of 2011.)
In response to these new tragedies in the NHL, Bettman has downplayed the link between concussions and CTE. "With respect to what Boston University might find on CTE, they're still looking at a very limited database," he said. "There's no control element, because you have to look at everything that went on in the person's life before you can make a judgment as to what a brain can show when you open it up ... I think it's unfortunate if people use tragedies to jump to conclusions that probably at this stage aren't supported."
No one is jumping to conclusions. Every CTE victim has been hit in the head. "I disagree with statements that call into question the link between repetitive brain trauma and CTE," says Stern. "CTE has been described in studies since the 1920s. To date there has not been a pathologically confirmed case of CTE who has not had a history of repetitive brain trauma." Stern's database is far from limited.
"There are no easy answers," Bettman said. There's one. Break up the fights.
Who should be TIME's Person of the Year 2011? Vote for your choice here.
See TIME's Top 10 Everything of 2011.
'); } } // REQUIRED VALUES google_ad_client = 'ca-timeinc-time-bah'; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '3'; // OPTIONAL, USED google_ad_type = 'text'; // type of ads to display google_ad_channel = 'article'; google_safe = 'high'; // -->
lisfranc injury ronan ronan diane sawyer clay matthews kenny chesney matt kemp
Musical based on 'Because of Winn-Dixie' planned (AP)
NEW YORK ? Plans are under way to create a musical based on Kate DiCamillo's book "Because of Winn-Dixie" with songs by Duncan Sheik and a real dog on stage.
Producers said Thursday they plan a workshop reading for the project this spring, followed by an out-of-town engagement and perhaps a spot on Broadway down the line. They've even found their star: Taran, an Irish Wolfhound, has been cast in the title role.
The musical, based on the 2000 novel, tells the story of a 10-year-old girl who gains confidence and rekindles her relationship with her father, thanks to a stray dog she finds one day at a Winn-Dixie supermarket. The novel was made into a film in 2005 starring Jeff Daniels, Cicely Tyson, Dave Matthews and Eva Marie Saint.
In addition to Sheik, who won a Tony Award for writing the music for "Spring Awakening," the producers have tapped Nell Benjamin to write the lyrics and story. She earned a Tony nomination of "Legally Blonde."
John Tartaglia, who made his debut as a puppeteer with "The Muppets" at age 16 and earned a Tony nomination for his puppetry in "Avenue Q," will direct the project. The budget estimate is between $6 million and $7 million.
The animal director will be Bill Berloni, who has trained dogs for more than a dozen Broadway shows and discovered the original Sandy for "Annie." He found Taran, who was adopted from a breeder in Connecticut. The musical will also have about 15 human actors.
The producers are Gerald Goehring, Michael F. Mitri and Dorothy Berloni.
make your mark stop loss stop loss thurston moore the island the island mcdonalds beating
বৃহস্পতিবার, ১৫ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১১
Deal of the Day ? 14? Dell Vostro 3450 Intel 2nd Gen 2.1GHz Core i3 Laptop
Today?s LogicBUY Deal is the pre-configured 14? Dell Vostro 3450 Core i3-2310M (2nd generation) 2.1GHz dual-core laptop in Aberdeen Silver for $464.? Features for this pre-configured model: 3GB memory, 320GB hard drive, fingerprint reader, HD webcam, DVD burner, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), 6-cell battery. $589 – $50 off – $75 [...]
how to cook a turkey ucla basketball walmart black friday sales walmart black friday sales michelle obama booed at nascar polio cutler
এতে সদস্যতা:
পোস্টগুলি (Atom)