Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Acting teacher and director Milton Katselas died Friday at age 75, after suffering from heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He began the Beverly Hills Playhouse in 1978 and taught acting classes there to noted actors including George Clooney and Gene Hackman. Katselas is survived by a sister and two brothers.

Katselas directed an off-Broadway production of Edward Albee‘s The Zoo Story, and received a Tony Award nomination for his 1969 direction of Butterflies are Free. Actress Blythe Danner won a Tony Award for her role in Butterflies are Free under Katselas’ direction. He moved to California to direct the film version of that play, and went on to direct films and television movies. Actress Eileen Heckart received an Academy Award for her role in the film version of Butterflies are Free.

Katselas directed the San Francisco and Los Angeles productions of the play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead! by playwright James Kirkwood, Jr. In his author’s notes in the publication of the script, Kirkwood acknowledged Katselas, and wrote that the plays were “directed with incredible energy and enthusiasm by Milton Katselas, to whom I am extremely indebted”.

Katselas directed the television movie Strangers: Story of a Mother and Daughter, and actress Bette Davis received an Emmy Award for her role in the movie. Katselas taught many famous actors including Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Gere, Robert Duvall, Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Goldie Hawn, Christopher Walken, Burt Reynolds, George C. Scott, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Alec Baldwin, and Patrick Swayze. Katselas was credited with being able to nurture actors with raw talent so that they could develop strong Hollywood careers. He utilized innovative techniques in his courses – one course called “Terrorist Theatre” had a simple premise: successfully get an acting role within six weeks or leave the course.

He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to parents who had immigrated from Greece, and graduated from Carnegie Mellon. He studied acting with Lee Strasberg in New York at the Actors Studio, and received advice from directors Joshua Logan and Elia Kazan.

Katselas was a prominent Scientologist, and a July 2007 profile on Katselas in The New York Times Magazine observed that some of his students stopped taking courses at the Beverly Hills Playhouse because they felt they had been pressured to join the Church of Scientology. According to the article, Katselas credited Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard “for much of his success in life”, and one of his students works at Scientology’s Celebrity Centre. The article commented that some in Los Angeles view the Beverly Hills Playhouse as “a recruitment center for Scientology”.

Katselas met L. Ron Hubbard after moving to California, and began studying Scientology in 1965. The New York Times Magazine reported that he had reached the level of “Operating Thetan, Level 5, or O.T. V.” in 2007. According to The New York Times Magazine when Scientologists proceed up the “The Bridge to Total Freedom” they learn the story of Xenu, and that: “75 million years ago the evil alien Xenu solved galactic overpopulation by dumping 13.5 trillion beings in volcanoes on Earth, where they were vaporized, scattering their souls.” A Church of Scientology publication, Source, lists Katselas as reaching O.T. V. in 1989.

Though some actors felt pressured to join the Church of Scientology after taking courses at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, at least one individual felt Katselas was not active enough with the organization. Actress Jenna Elfman left the Beverly Hills Playhouse because she felt Katselas was not committed enough to Scientology. Katselas had previously directed Elfman in half of Visions and Lovers: Variations on a Theme, two one-act plays about relationships that he had written himself. In 1999 Katselas had planned to adapt the script of Visions and Lovers to a film version, and Elfman was set to reprise her role from the play. In an article in Variety about the project, Elfman commented on her experience working with Katselas: “He is brilliant, and knows me so well as a person and an actress that he gets the most out of me.”

Other prominent Scientologist actors who have studied under Katselas include Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Lee, and Leah Remini. According to Rolling Stone, Katselas also recruited actress Kelly Preston to Scientology. Actress Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson), told Scientology publication Celebrity that Katselas motivated her to get more active in Scientology, and she stated she took the organization’s “Purification Rundown” and her life “took off completely”.

Anne Archer was introduced to Scientology while studying at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, as was former Scientologist and now outspoken critic actor Jason Beghe. Beghe told Roger Friedman of FOX News in April 2008 that “He [Katselas] gets kickbacks”, and that he was brought to a Scientology center by fellow Beverly Hills Playhouse classmate Bodhi Elfman, Jenna Elfman’s husband. In a 1998 article for Buzz Magazine, Randye Hoder wrote “In his class, Katselas is careful not to label anything as a tenet of Scientology, but there is no question that the church’s influence seeps into the playhouse.”

Anne Archer’s husband and fellow Scientologist, producer Terry Jastrow, commented to The New York Times Magazine that Katselas changed the way he experiences life on a day-to-day basis: “I go out in the world and look at human behavior now. I see a woman or man interacting with a saleslady, and I see the artistry in it. Life is an endless unspooling of art, of acting, of painting, of architecture. And where did I learn that? From Milton.”

Actor Anthony Head of Buffy the Vampire Slayer spoke highly of Katselas in a 2002 interview with San Francisco Chronicle: “He’s this wonderfully intuitive teacher and his premise is basically: The only real barriers are the ones we put in front of ourselves. If you say, ‘My character wouldn’t do that’ — bollocks! Ultimately it’s you who wouldn’t say that. Who knows what your character might do.” In the acknowledgements of her 2004 autobiography Are You Hungry, Dear?: Life, Laughs, and Lasagna, actress Doris Roberts wrote: “I thank my friend and acting teacher, the incredible Milton Katselas, for his insights, wisdom, and inspiration, which have helped make me the actress that I am.”

Katselas authored two books: Dreams Into Action: Getting What You Want, first published in 1996 by Dove Books, and Acting Class: Take a Seat, which came out earlier this month. Dreams Into Action, a New York Times Bestseller, sought to modify motivational acting exercises to the field of business.

In an interview in the 2007 book Acting Teachers of America, Katselas commented on his experiences as an acting teacher over the years: “I have very special teachers here at the Beverly Hills Playhouse—some have been with me for over twenty-five years. I believe that to make a difference over the long haul, we need to train teachers. I really care about the craft of acting. It’s absolutely necessary to take the time and patience to really develop an actor.”

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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Attorney John Wolfe, Jr. of Chattanooga, Tennessee won 68,105 votes for 42 percent of the total in Tuesday’s Arkansas Democratic Party presidential primary. He came in first in 36 counties and finished only 16 points behind President Barack Obama, who won the primary with 95,382 votes for 58 percent. The result tops prison inmate Keith Russell Judd’s 41 percent West Virginia primary showing against Obama two weeks ago as the strongest outing for a Democratic challenger thus far. According to The Green Papers, Wolfe qualified for 19 Democratic National Convention delegates, which the party has already announced they will deny.

Wolfe, who is concerned about the influence of Wall Street in the Obama administration, announced his primary challenge to Obama last year. So far, along with Arkansas, he has qualified for the primary ballot in New Hampshire, Missouri, Louisiana and Texas. Before Tuesday, his strongest showing came in Louisiana, where he won 12 percent overall with over 15 percent in some congressional districts, qualifying him for delegates. However, these were stripped after the party claimed Wolfe had not filed the necessary paperwork. He has announced plans to take legal action against the party, and in an interview with Wikinews last week, commented, “the Democratic Party decided to avert, quite flagrantly, the will of the people and assign all the delegates to Mr. Obama, even though their bylaws, the rules themselves say that the results of the primary are binding…They forsook their own law in order to make it look like there was unanimous support for Obama.”

Although President Obama has won enough delegates in this election cycle to secure the Democratic Party nomination, previously unknown challengers such as Wolfe have qualified for delegates. In March, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry and perennial candidate Jim Rogers qualified for delegates in Oklahoma, but later had them stripped by the party for not filing delegate slates and, in Terry’s case, not qualifying as a bona-fide candidate. The same outcome occurred for Judd in West Virginia, and as mentioned above, for Wolfe in Louisiana and Arkansas.

After the Arkansas Democratic Party announced prior to Tuesday’s vote that any delegates Wolfe gains will not be seated, Wolfe told The Daily Caller he would pursue further legal action, proclaiming, “It will be a summer of litigation. … I hate to do it against my own party, but they’re acting as if this guy [Obama] is some kind of emperor.”

The last Democratic Party presidential incumbent, Bill Clinton, faced fewer challenges than Obama during his 1996 primary election, but the party still had to deal with a candidate that won delegates. Challenger Lyndon LaRouche qualified for delegates in Louisiana and Virginia that year, but the party stripped these, claiming LaRouche’s views were “explicitly racist and anti-Semitic.” Like Wolfe, LaRouche proceeded to sue the party, but was unsuccessful.

Regardless of whether the party ultimately awards the delegates, some analysts say the results provide insights into voters’ perception of Obama. Peter Grier of The Christian Science Monitor explained that “white working-class voters”, who make up a majority in Arkansas, “have been disproportionately hurt by the economic downturn, and they’re resistant to what they see as Obama’s liberal health-care reforms and support of gay marriage.” Republican Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma argued “Obama fares poorly in states like … Arkansas because he has nothing in common with them. They are rural, he is urban. They are populist, he is elitist. And in case anyone hadn’t noticed, they are conservative while he is liberal.” Former Democratic Congressman Charlie Stenholm largely agreed, commenting “The most significant factor is the perception/reality that the Obama administration has leaned toward the ultra-left viewpoint on almost all issues.”

Others have dismissed the results, arguing it is a foregone conclusion that Obama will not win Arkansas in the general election, and that opposition there may be the result of racism against Obama, the first African American president. Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post published an article questioning whether racism played a role and concluded that though it likely did, “simply labeling [the people of] Arkansas who backed Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe over the incumbent as ‘racists’ is a major oversimplification.” University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato warned Democrats against overlooking the results, saying “Obama will never carry white working class. But he can’t afford to lose it by massive margins, either.”

The Associated Press asked a few Arkansas voters how they cast their ballot and why. One voter, described as a 57-year-old resident of Lonoke, Arkansas, said she voted for John Wolfe because she “wasn’t satisfied with Obama” and had a particular concern about Social Security. An 85-year-old retiree from Little Rock, Arkansas said he also voted for Wolfe, but called it “a wasted vote…I guess you just do it in opposition.”

As for the Obama supporters, one Little Rock voter said he cast his ballot for Obama, even though “I am not entirely happy with what he is doing.” Another, identified as a 51-year-old attorney from Lonoke, said she voted for Obama and fully supports him because “he stands up for what he believes in and he has not wavered.” One 73-year-old retired aircraft mechanic said he voted for Obama because “they don’t have but two names on the ballot: President Obama and that other guy [John Wolfe], [and] I don’t know anything about the other guy.”

In other races on Tuesday, “uncommitted” won a similar margin as Wolfe against Obama in the Kentucky Democratic primary. On the Republican side, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney easily won both the Arkansas and Kentucky primaries with 68.3 percent and 66.8 percent, respectively.

The next primary will be held May 29 in Texas. Wolfe will be on the ballot alongside Obama, historian Darcy Richardson, and activist Bob Ely.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued proposed calorie labeling rules requiring most retail food vendors to display the calorie counts in items on their menus and menu boards. The proposed rules, issued Friday and expected to be finalized in 2012, would apply to most restaurants, snack bars, vending machines, coffee shops, drive-through restaurants, and convenience and grocery stores.

The US Congress required the rules in the health-care reform law passed in 2010. The rules proposed by the FDA must undergo a public comment period before they are finalized and take effect, said Michael R. Taylor, Deputy Director for Foods at the FDA.

The proposed regulations pertain to businesses devoting more than 50 percent of their floor space to the sale of food or that consider themselves restaurants, specifically food-selling chains with at least 20 stores nationally. Included are candy stores, bakeries, and ice-cream parlors.

The FDA’s proposed guidelines specify that chains post the calorie counts of foods and drinks on menus and menu boards or next to the food item, such as at a salad bar. The menu is to prominently exhibit the calorie content of each item in a way customers can see easily, giving them the same information packaged foods prepared at home currently provide. The information must be displayed in “clear and conspicuous” print and colors.

Many cities and states have passed laws requiring calorie labeling on menus, beginning with New York City in 2008. California implemented a similar law in January, although many counties are waiting for the release of the federal guidelines before they begin enforcement. Some fast-food chains there, such as McDonald’s and Starbucks, are displaying calorie counts on menus in some of their stores.

The rules are intended to curb the national obesity epidemic since, according to FDA estimates, one third of the calories people consume yearly come from food eaten out. In a statement issued yesterday, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services said, “Giving consumers clear nutritional information makes it easier for them to choose healthier options that can help fight obesity and make us all healthier.”

Excluded from the rules are businesses whose primary product is not food sales but that sell it, such as bowling alleys, airports and airplanes, amusement parks, hotels and movie theaters. Alcohol is also excluded.

Thursday, May 4, 2006

Most U.S. soft drink companies will stop selling their soda products at high schools across the nation as part of a soft drink industry deal that aims to reduce childhood obesity.

The agreement, announced Wednesday morning by the William J. Clinton Foundation, means that the nation’s biggest beverage distributors, Coca Cola Co., Pepsico, Cadbury Schweppes PLC, and the American Beverage Association, will pull their soda products from vending machines and cafeterias in schools serving about 35 million students, according to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint initiative between the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association.

“This is an important announcement and a bold step forward in the struggle to help America’s kids live healthier lives,” said Bill Clinton, according to a press release from the foundation. “These industry leaders recognize that childhood obesity is a problem and have stepped up to help solve it. I commend them for being here today and for taking this important step. There is a lot of work to be done to turn this problem around but this is a big step in the right direction and it will help improve the diet of millions of students across the country.”

Under the agreement, high schools will still be able to purchase drinks such as diet and unsweetened teas, diet sodas, sports drinks, flavored water, seltzer, and low-calorie sports drinks for resale to students.

The companies plan to stop soda sales at 75 percent of the nation’s public schools by the 2008-2009 school year, and at all schools in the following school year. The speed of the changes will depend in part on school districts’ willingness to change their contracts with the beverage distributors, the release said.

California had already banned soda sales at Logan and other state high schools, starting in July 2007, under a bill signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. “California is facing an obesity epidemic,” he said at the time. He said he plans for the ban to be the first step in creating a healthier California.

The bill banning soda sales, SB965, was introduced last September by Senator Martha Escutia of State Senate District 30 in Southern California. SB965 is one of several bills signed into law to “eliminate junk food and soda from campuses, and to increase the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables available to students,” said Schwarzenegger. The new law will go into full effect by July 1, 2007.

State law already bans soda sales at the lower grade levels.

Elsie Lee Szeto, the director of Food and Nutrition Services of New Haven Unified School District in Union City, California, said that, under the new law, no less than 50 percent of all beverages sold to students between a half hour before school begins and a half-hour after school will have to meet specific criteria that include alternatives like fruit based drinks that are comprised of no less than 50 percent fruit juice and have no added sweeteners. All milk sold will be two percent fat milk, soy milk, and other similar non-dairy milk.

About 16 percent of our nation’s children and adolescents are overweight or obese – nearly four times more than forty years ago, according to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

According to the Center of Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a non-profit advocacy group in Washington D.C., two out of three teenagers in California drink soda everyday. The average intake for males 13 to 18 is three or more cans of soda a day.

A recent study by researchers of Children’s Hospital Boston showed a connection between consumption of sugary drinks and childhood obesity.

Children’s Hospital Boston’s Cara Ebbeling, PhD, and David Ludwig, MD, PhD, led a controlled trial for 103 children ages 13 to 18. Half of the teens, picked randomly, were sent non-caloric beverages of their choosing. The remaining teens were asked to continue their regular eating and drinking habits as a control group.

After six months, the group that had received the calorie-free drink deliveries had an 82 percent decrease in the consumption of sugary drinks, while the control group continued unaffected. The body mass index of the drink delivery group decreased, while the control group had a slight increase. Other factors such as exercising and television viewing did not change in either group.

Ebbeling concluded that one 12-oz sugary drink every day converted to a one pound weight gain over 3 to 4 weeks. “It should be relatively simple to translate this intervention into a pragmatic public health approach. For example, schools could make non-caloric beverages available to students by purchasing large quantities at low costs,” she said.

The agreement announced today “is really the beginning of a major effort to modify childhood obesity at the level of the school systems,” said Robert H. Eckel, president of the American Heart Association.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The 2006 Liverpool Biennial art festival will start its ten week run on September 16, finishing on the November 26. The exhibition uses public places located across the city.

Installation will be situated at sites across the city including St. George’s Hall and Church of St Luke with specialist centers such as the Bluecoat Arts Centre, FACT centre, Tate Liverpool and the Walker Art Gallery providing exhibition space.

The international ’06 exhibition includes 35 commissioned works, while the 24th John Moores Exhibition of Contemporary Painting is the UK’s longest running open painting competition.

The Independents is an art exhibition that runs alongside the Biennial. Several shorter festivals will run over this period including the Hope Street festival.

Monday, June 1, 2009

In a televised speech from the White House at 16:00 UTC today, President of the United States Barack Obama presented a reorganization plan following the 12:00 UTC announcement by General Motors that it had filed for bankruptcy and Chapter 11 protection from its creditors, the largest bankruptcy of a U.S. manufacturing company.

Describing the problem with the company as one that had been “decades in the making,” Obama explained the rationale behind his proposed reorganization plan for General Motors. He stated that his intent was not to “perpetuat[e] the bad business decisions of the past,” and that loaning General Motors money, when debt was its problem, would have been doing exactly that. His plan, he stated, was for the United States government, in conjunction with the governments of Canada and Ontario (which he thanked for their roles alongside the government of Germany which he thanked for its role in selling a corporate stake in GM Europe), to become shareholders in General Motors. The United States government would hold a 60% stake. The government will give GM a capital infusion of US$30 billion in addition to the funds it has already received.

Of the government ownership he stated that he refused “to let General Motors and Chrysler become wards of the state”, and described the bankruptcy of Chrysler, and the bankruptcy of General Motors that he envisioned as being “quick, surgical, bankruptcies”. He pointed to the bankruptcy of Chrysler as an example of what he envision for General Motors, but stated that General Motors was a “more complex company” than Chrysler.

Responding to challenges voiced by political opponents, before the speech, that the federal government would actively participate in the affairs of the restructured company, he stated that he had “no interest” in running GM, and that the federal government would “refrain from exercising its rights” as a corporate shareholder for the most part. In particular, he stated that the federal government would not exercise its rights as a shareholder to dictate “what new type of car to make.” He stated that he expected the restructured GM to make “high quality, safe, and fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow,” and several times described what he anticipated as “better” and “fuel-efficient” cars, after a streamlining of GM’s brands.

He said to the general public that “I will not pretend that the hard times are over.” He described the financial hardship that some — shareholders, communities based around GM plants, GM dealers, and others — would undergo as a “sacrifice for the next generation” on their parts, so that their children could live in “an America that still makes things,” concluding that one day the United States might return to a time when the maxim (a widely-repeated mis-quotation of what Charles Erwin Wilson once testified before the U.S. Senate when nominated for the position of Secretary of Defense) would once more be true that “what is good for General Motors is good for the United States of America.”

Friday, March 20, 2009

New Jersey is considering a state-wide ban on Brazilian waxes, the removal of hair from the bikini area.

Although genital waxing has never really been allowed in the state, the New Jersey Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling plans to propose a ban with more specific legal wording, in response to two women who reported being injured during a wax. The board will consider the proposal at their next meeting on April 14.

If the measure passes, New Jersey may become the only US state to ban the practice outright.

Although millions of Americans engage in bikini waxes, which generally cost between $50 and $60 per session, the practice comes with risks. Skin care experts say the hot wax can irritate delicate skin in the bikini area, and result in infections, ingrown hairs and rashes.

Waxing on the face, neck, abdomen, legs and arms would continue to be permitted in the state under the proposed ban. Although New Jersey statutes have always banned bikini waxing, the laws were unclear and seldom enforced.

As a result, many salons from around the state have offered bikini waxing for years. Many salon owners spoke out against the proposed ban, which they said would severely damage their business.

“I really don’t know if the state can stop it at this point,” said Valentia Chistova, owner of the Monmouth County salon Brazil. “I know a lot of women who are really hooked.”

Saturday, July 10, 2010

File:North korean leader.jpg

According to the North Korean government, a US citizen, Aijali Mahli Gomes, has attempted suicide in a North Korean prison. In April, Gomes was sentenced to eight years of hard labour for illegally attempting to cross into the reclusive country in January, though his reasons for doing so remain unclear.

In addition to the prison term, the man was also fined the equivalent of US$700,000 for a “hostile act”.

“Driven by his strong guilty conscience, disappointment and despair at the US government that has not taken any measure for his freedom, he attempted to commit suicide,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency reported. This report did not specify where and how Gomes attempted suicide, or his state at present, only adding that Gomes “is now [being] given first-aid treatment at a hospital”, and that Swedish diplomats at their Pyongyang embassy who handle diplomatic affairs between the US and North Korea have been made aware of Gomes’ condition.

Gomes was an English teacher in South Korea before trying to cross into the North. Gomes had also attended rallies that supported human rights activist Robert Park, who crossed into the North to protest the Communist country’s poor human rights record. Park was later expelled from North Korea 40 days after he entered.

North Korea’s international relations remain tense after the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, and this report was issued just hours before the United Nations Security Council was expected to pass a resolution censuring the explosion of the Cheonan. North Korea has denied any involvement in the sinking of the warship and has declared that any sanctions from the international community will lead to war.