Saturday, October 27, 2007

Gay Talese wants to go to Iraq. “It so happens there is someone that’s working on such a thing right now for me,” the 75-year-old legendary journalist and author told David Shankbone. “Even if I was on Al-Jazeera with a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be pleading with those bastards! I’d say, ‘Go ahead. Make my day.'”

Few reporters will ever reach the stature of Talese. His 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, was not only cited by The Economist as the greatest profile of Sinatra ever written, but is considered the greatest of any celebrity profile ever written. In the 70th anniversary issue of Esquire in October 2003, the editors declared the piece the “Best Story Esquire Ever Published.”

Talese helped create and define a new style of literary reporting called New Journalism. Talese himself told National Public Radio he rejects this label (“The term new journalism became very fashionable on college campuses in the 1970s and some of its practitioners tended to be a little loose with the facts. And that’s where I wanted to part company.”)

He is not bothered by the Bancrofts selling The Wall Street Journal—”It’s not like we should lament the passing of some noble dynasty!”—to Rupert Murdoch, but he is bothered by how the press supported and sold the Iraq War to the American people. “The press in Washington got us into this war as much as the people that are controlling it,” said Talese. “They took information that was second-hand information, and they went along with it.” He wants to see the Washington press corp disbanded and sent around the country to get back in touch with the people it covers; that the press should not be so focused on–and in bed with–the federal government.

Augusten Burroughs once said that writers are experience junkies, and Talese fits the bill. Talese–who has been married to Nan Talese (she edited James Frey‘s Million Little Piece) for fifty years–can be found at baseball games in Cuba or the gay bars of Beijing, wanting to see humanity in all its experience.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s interview with Gay Talese.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

A ScotRail train travelling from Glasgow to the towns of Oban and Mallaig in Scotland accidentally diverted onto the wrong track tonight. Some passengers initially thought the train had derailed when it swerved and braked hard at Ardlui.

Two sets of points at Ardlui railway station had been incorrectly set. The train hit them at 19:50 at sufficient speed to potentially damage them, although the train was able to reverse after they had been inspected.

The service was stranded at the station for some time. Although much of the train snaked away from the platform, the rearmost door was still aligned with the platform, allowing passengers including our correspondent to get off and see the situation for themselves. Several passengers photographed and videoed the surreal scene on mobile phones.

No other trains were struck in the incident, but the train to Glasgow in the opposite direction was also left waiting at the platform while the situation was resolved. The diverted train ultimately reversed off the points and away from the station, then realigned itself with the platform. It was able to continue with a 30 minute delay.

The incident adds to troubles on the West Highland Line this weekend. On Friday a train leaving Oban at midday departed without reservation slips marking seats booked by passengers, and that train was delayed for 40 minutes at Crianlarich, where the train joins with the Mallaig service to form a single train heading to Glasgow.

More serious incidents occurred in 2012, when a train heading from Oban to Glasgow struck a landslip caused by heavy rains but did not derail, and in 2010, when a train derailed, caught fire, and was left dangling over a nearby road. Trains travelling both to and from Glasgow struck trees on the line on the same day in 2011, one near Crianlarich and one near Ardlui.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

In 1999, Bernard Weber started the New7Wonders foundation, and eight years, 200 candidates and 100 million votes later, seven man-made structures now have something in common – they all hold the title of ‘Wonder’. Weber claims he started the foundation to ensure that “everybody can decide what the new seven wonders should be and not some government, not some individuals, not some institutions.”

Nominated structures had to be built or discovered before the year 2000, and out of the 200 nominations, only twenty-one were left by the early part of last year. Voting had been taking place for six months, but only recently did voting result in server crashes, causing the foundation to encourage text message voting.

The results were announced at a ceremony hosted by Hilary Swank, Ben Kingsley and Bollywood star Bipasha Basu in Lisbon, Portugal. Out of the twenty-one, the following seven were announced as the new ‘Wonders of the World’:

• Great Wall of China, in northern China. It was created in the 5th century BC to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire. The Wall is the world’s longest human-made structure, stretching over 6,400 km (4,000 mi).
• Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The giant statue of Jesus Christ is 38 m (105 ft) tall and weighs 700 tonnes. The statue is located at the peak of the 700 m (2296 ft) Corcovado mountain, overlooking the city of Rio.
• Machu Picchu, above the Urubamba Valley, Peru. It is a city created by the Inca Empire, located on a mountain ridge. Machu Picchu was forgotten for centuries by the outside world, however not by the locals. It was brought to international attention by archaeologist Hiram Bingham in 1911.
• Petra, in Jordan. It is famous for having many giant stone structures carved into the rock. The site was revealed to the Western world by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812, but remained accessible only to Europeans until after World War I.
• Chichen Itza, on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. It is a large archaeological site originally built by the Maya civilization. Chichen Itza was a major regional center in the northern Maya lowlands. Archaeological data suggest that Chichen Itza’s collapse was violent.
• Taj Mahal, in Agra, India. It is a white marble mausoleum generally considered the finest example of Mughal architecture. Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned it for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and it was constructed between 1632 and 1648.
• Colosseum, in Rome, Italy. It is a giant amphitheatre located in the centre of the city, and was capable of seating around 50,000 spectators. It was constructed between 70 AD and 80 AD, and used for nearly 500 years for a variety of events.

Although the foundation had large amounts of public support, UNESCO, the United Nations cultural program, distanced themselves from the project, saying it had “no link whatsoever” to the project. UNESCO currently keeps tabs on 851 places in its ‘World Heritage Sites‘ program.

Left out of the Seven are the Pyramids of Giza, to which a respected Egyptian antiquities expert replied that the pyramids are a “symbol of the genius of the ancient people.” The foundation announced that the pyramids would have “honorary status” with the seven. The pyramids were the only remaining of the original Seven Wonders.

Weber claims that now that the man-made wonders have been chosen he has a new task: choosing the seven natural wonders of the world. He says he will start his new project immediately.

Saturday, July 2, 2005

MTV Networks launched a new cable channel to 10 million homes Thursday featuring movies, documentaries and original programming targeting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender audience becoming the first 24-hour digital cable network offered in the United States on several cable providers and satellite systems.

Logo will present original series, documentaries and specials as well as a library of over 200 lesbian and gay films. The cable channel is also teaming up with CBS News to cover lesbian and gay stories and headlines.

While the channel debuted Thursday, Viacom, the parent comany of Logo, had still not signed licensing agreements with several of the largest cable providers including Comcast and Cox. DirecTV signed a deal Wednesday making Logo available to 13 million households, and Time Warner and Atlantic Broadband have committed to carry the network.

Advertisers will include Orbitz, Tylenol, Motorola, Miller Lite, Lions Gate Films and Subaru wishing to market to the coveted 25-to-49 age range providing an opportunity to reach out to the lesbian and gay market.

Opposition to the new channel was expected with MSNBC quoting Janice Crouse, senior fellow at Concerned Women for America, a conservative public-policy women’s organization based in Washington, D.C., calling Logo “another example of an assault on children’s innocence, a means of legitimizing a homosexual lifestyle, mainstreaming homosexuality in a positive and appealing way.”

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) hails the launch of Logo.

“Logo has the potential to reach millions of American television viewers with images and stories that can play a vital role in broadening understanding of our lives, our families and our relationships,” says GLAAD Entertainment Media Director Damon Romine. “MTV Networks has a long history of groundbreaking gay and lesbian programming, and devoting an entire network to telling our stories gives us cause to celebrate.”

“What these networks provide is something new: an unprecedented opportunity for gays and lesbians to see ourselves depicted as we are, rather than as others see us,” Romine says. “At its best, television holds up a mirror to our lives, and the advent of these three networks means that LGBT viewers can now see themselves more accurately and fully reflected in that mirror.”

Many have wondered why it took as long as it did to introduce a national LGBT cable channel considering the success of mainstream network shows like “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

Sunday, October 2, 2005

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed 757 lawsuits against people who they alleged illegally shared music online. The vast majority of the lawsuits, 693, are against people who used peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as eDonkey and LimeWire to exchange music files. Of the remaining lawsuits, 64 are against students at 17 different universities who used the Abilene Network and a peer-to-peer file sharing program called i2hub.

The i2hub program is designed for use in sharing files over the Abilene Network. The Abilene Network is a high speed network in use by 207 U.S. universities. It was designed by Internet2 to provide a high speed alternative for researchers and other educators to share information. The Abilene Network allows for very high speed connections, many times faster than DSL or Cable connections. The RIAA became a corporate member of Internet2 two weeks ago.

Over the past two years, the RIAA has filed more than 14,800 lawsuits against people accused of illegally sharing music online. Over 3,400 of these cases were settled for an average of between $4,000 to $5,000 each. Almost 500 of these lawsuits were against students using the Internet2 network.

Monday, April 4, 2005

The wedding of Britain’s Prince Charles to Camilla Parker Bowles was postponed by one day to allow Prince Charles to represent the Royals at Friday’s funeral of Pope John Paul II. The Royal’s wedding will now be celebrated on Saturday, April 9.

The Prince cut short his Swiss skiing holiday and returned to London today. He will make travel arrangements for his trip to The Vatican on Friday, and attend a memorial service for the pope at London’s Westminster Cathedral this afternoon. Mrs. Parker Bowles will accompany him today, according to his Clarence House office.

Parker Bowles will not be joining Prince Charles for the Pope’s funeral. However, Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, will be in attendance.

The change in wedding plans threw Windsor businesses in disarray, where hotels had taken bookings for Friday wedding parties. The owner of a crafts center there, Kashmir Dhillon, had to order fresh tea towels with the April 9 date. “We will be the only ones with the 9th on it if it goes ahead,” she said.

A series of postponements have hampered the Prince’s and Parker Bowles’ wedding arrangements. Initially they were planning to use Windsor Castle, but were unable since it was not licensed for civil ceremonies. After it moved to a more meager town hall setting, the Queen decided not to attend, immediately generating rumors of a royal snub.

The Queen will still attend the blessing ceremony at Windsor Castle afterwards.

There also was debate over what name Parker Bowles would take should her husband become King. Prince Charles liked “princess consort,” but the government says she must be called “queen,” whether she uses the title or not.

Final arrangements for the wedding will be announced soon, according to the prince’s spokesperson.

Prince Charles divorced his first wife, Princess Diana in 1996, a year before she died in an automobile accident in Paris.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

In an effort to ease complaints by the U.S. and Europe about a heavy influx of low priced Chinese goods, China will raise export tariffs on 74 categories of textile products in June. This follows plans from the U.S. to impose quotas on Chinese textiles and clothing.

Products likely to see an increase from the Chinese move include synthetic fiber shirts, trousers, knit shirts and blouses, cotton shirts, and combined cotton yarn. Last week, similar restrictions were imposed by the U.S. on cotton trousers, knit shirts, and underwear. Currently, a 2.5 cent charge per item is imposed; the new tariff will raise this to the equivalent of 12 cents per piece now. While this is a fourfold increase, it is not expected to affect consumer prices. Because of this, some doubt the tariff will have any effect on correcting the trade imbalance.

This move is in response to U.S. trade quotas imposed due to concerns that increased Chinese goods would put U.S. textile manufacturers out of business. According to Auggie Tantillo, executive director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, a textile industry group in the U.S., the move will preserve 10,000 U.S. jobs. The new U.S. trade quota will limit the growth of Chinese textile imports to 7.5 percent compared with shipments over the past year.

Prior to January 1, a global quota system helped regulate the trade. With the quota system gone, fears have arisen that a flood of Chinese goods could undercut U.S. competitiveness in the market. China is able to market its goods cheaply due to an artificially weak yuan. The U.S. Treasury criticized the China yuan policy as “highly distortionary”, posing a major risk to China’s economy itself and to global economic growth. They challenged China to revalue its currency to bring it to a level they believe will allow fairer competition between global manufacturers.

China has disputed the charges of the U.S. Treasury. Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said, “I believe they are not reasonable”.

Laura Jones, a representative of large retailers, also criticized the move, saying “These restrictions on imports from China will do absolutely nothing to help the U.S. textile industry — and the government knows it.”

China has seen a boom in economic growth in recent years due to growing trade surpluses with the West, but economists worry that the trade gap will cause longer term global economic problems. China’s textile and apparel exports are the most noteworthy example, with exports up over 1,000 percent in some categories this year and the rapid loss of marketshare and jobs by U.S. textile manufacturers.

Beginning in 1978, the Chinese economy has been transforming from a Soviet-style centrally planned economy to more of a free market style system, under the rigid political control of Communist Party of China.

To this end, the government has leveraged foreign trade to stimulate economic growth. The result has been a fourfold increase in GDP, making China the sixth largest economy in the world. By 2012 the People’s Republic of China may have the highest GDP in the world.

According to U.S. statistics, from 1999 to 2004 China’s trade surplus with the U.S. doubled to $170 billion. Wal-Mart is China’s seventh largest export partner, just ahead of the United Kingdom.

However, the gains from their “socialist market economy” have not been without problems. The Chinese leadership has often experienced the worst results of socialism and capitalism: bureaucracy, lassitude, corruption, and inflation. Inflation rates have been an on-going challenge, reaching as high as 17% in 1995.

Environmental deterioration is a longer-term threat to economic growth. In 1998, the World Health Organization reported that China had seven of the 10 most-polluted cities on Earth. Another concern among some economists is that China’s economy is over-heating, and due to its global economic expansion this could have major repercussions among other nations.

Typically, wages have been low and working conditions poor, with workers living in restrictive dormitories and working at boring factory jobs. However, recent labor shortages have started improving conditions, and raising the minimum wage towards the equivalent of 100-150 US dollars per month. The labor shortages are in part a result of a demographic trend caused by strict family planning.

• “Economy of the People’s Republic of China” — Wikipedia, May 22, 2005
• “China raises tariffs on textile exports. Beijing hoping to counter criticism from U.S., Europe.” — CNN, May 21, 2005
• “China to increase export tariffs” — CNN, May 19, 2005

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

NASA‘s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the latest robotic spacecraft destined for Mars, arrived at Kennedy Space Center‘s Shuttle Landing Facility on April 30 aboard a C-17 cargo plane and was delivered to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to begin processing. Launching is scheduled for August 10, 2005.

With a mission time line through 2010, the MRO will conduct studies of the Martian atmosphere, surface and subsurface in far greater detail than previous missions. Possible landing sites for future Mars landings will be evaluated and the orbiter will also act as a high-data-rate communications relay for surface missions.

“Great work by a talented team has brought Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to this milestone in our progress toward a successful mission,” said Jim Graf of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) project manager for the mission.

Multiple mechanical assembly operations and electrical tests are scheduled to verify the craft’s readiness for launch. A May test to verify communication abilities through NASA’s Deep Space Network will be conducted and in June deployment of the high gain communications antenna will be tested. A deployment test is also scheduled for the Orbiter’s large solar arrays.

The MRO will be filled with hydrazine fuel in July for its “Mars orbit insertion burn” which reduces the craft’s velocity and places it in orbit about the red planet. July 26 will see the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter installed in an Atlas V rocket fairing for final assembly with the rocket on July 29.

After the scheduled launch, the MRO will spend seven months cruising to Mars and another six months aerobraking after orbital insertion. A variety of scientific instruments on board will be used to search for geological evidence of past seas, ancient shorelines. The craft was built near Denver by Lockheed Martin Space Systems which also supplies the Atlas V launch vehicle.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project. International Launch Services, a Lockheed Martin joint venture, and Lockheed Martin Space Systems are providing launch services for the mission.

More information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is available at: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter website