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Robert De Niro was his charming self at the press conference regarding the jury’s decisions about Cannes this year. He grinned affably at the full room of journalists, and quipped — in his usual near-inarticulate bumbling style — that why did they pick x or y film to win a prize, “well most of us here thought that film was very good.” The term “most of us” was repeated in most of his answers, giving rise to the suspicion that this was a year where consensus was not the norm (especially as some of the other jurors, such as Olivier Assayas, tellingly began their responses with: “Speaking for myself…”)
When it came to discussing why the Dardenne film The Kid with A Bike won, in tandem with Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, the Grand Prize, De Niro expressed a more unanimous decision:
“This was the best solution for what we all felt about the movies.”
The Dardenne brothers are an institution at Cannes: they have had several films in the competition in the last fifteen years, and have won the Palme d’Or twice.
“We have a love story with Cannes,” Luc Dardenne said to me earlier that week, one sunny morning on the Marriott terrace. “It is thanks to Cannes that our cinema is known, even in Belgium. Cannes makes our films sell throughout the world.”
One reason the brothers are so beloved at Cannes — and successful world-wide — is that their films inspire good feelings: you feel the integrity, concern and ethics of the two

By guest blogger Arran Stephens, founder of Nature’s Path Foods, North America’s largest organic breakfast food company, and author of The Compassionate Diet: How What You Eat Can Change Your Life and Save the Planet
Genetic engineering artificially and imperfectly alters the germ of life latent in the seeds that have sustained us all for aeons and aeons on this fragile Mother Earth, with many known and yet-unknown consequences.
Allowing corporations, governments, and scientists the power to play God with our food supply on a massive scale, and then keep this huge secret hidden from the populace, is the worst form of hubris and subtle tyranny. Sooner or later, nature sends her debit, for which we all have to suffer, and wonder why.
This issue has polarized the food world.
On one side are the corporations that stand to profit monetarily, acting (knowingly or unknowingly) under the guise of common good, of ending world hunger, of reducing pesticides and advancing science (promises which genetic engineering has failed to deliver on). On the other are the too-often unheard voices demanding transparency, proof, freedom, justice, sustainability, and health.
We, the latter, having looked at both sides of the issue, have decided to take a stand for the greater common good.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

I was eight months pregnant when I met two Basque radicals living in Cuba, Rosa and Carlos, or at least that’s what they called themselves then. They invited us to their Miramar mansion for a party with troubadours and chorizos. They had some sources for Serrano ham and dried fruit, foods we only knew of from the movies. But not even the aromas and flavors could dispel our rising doubts as we observed

Jean Dujardin, a famous French television actor, just won the best actor award at Cannes for his role as a silent movie star in Michel Hazanavicius’ film The Artist.
The Artist was one of the most interesting films in the competition this year, as technologically out there as Avatar. It was the first silent black-and-white movie ever in the Cannes competition. Indeed, it was a shock to come to the screening and see the story develop — and never turn to

Have you ever felt like you have been robbed after paying at the gas pump? You’re not the only one, especially if you happen to be Hispanic.
Our community is suffering the most during this new spike of gas prices. According to a study by California’s Public Policy Institute (PDF), 83 percent of Latinos agree that pain at the pump is causing them financial hardship, as compared to 54 percent of non-Hispanic Whites.
The study also revealed that we Latinos dedicate 5.4 percent of our income to gas and car-related expenses; that is one percentage point higher than the rest of the population. We are, however, the most willing to carpool and eager to buy a fuel-efficient car.
And while you dig for the last coin in your pocket, Big Oil is throwing a fiesta of historic proportions. ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips reported a staggering $34 billion in profits in the first quarter of the

Happy Tuesday everyone, here’s my Top 5 for May 24, 2011 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
In the NBA playoffs, Dallas now leads Oklahoma City three games to one after their 112-105 overtime win in game four.
Chicago’s Joakim Noah was fined $50,000 for his anti-gay slur at a fan. That’s half of what Kobe Bryant got fined because Bryant’s was aimed at a ref.
In the NHL playoffs, Boston is one game away from the Stanley Cup finals leading Tampa Bay three games to two.
Tiger Woods is now ranked 12th in the world. It’s the first time he hasn’t been in the top 10 in 14

US new home sales rose for the second month in a row in April, climbing 7.3% on the month before, figures

The trial has opened in Florida of a young US woman accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter in 2008.

Prosecutors base their case on forensic evidence they say shows Casey Anthony, 25, kept Caylee Anthony's dead body in the boot of her car.

But they have no witnesses or confession linking Ms Anthony to the 2008 death, and forensic experts are unable to say how the child died.

Ms Anthony has pleaded not guilty, and says a babysitter kidnapped the child.

The trial is being held in Orlando in the US state of Florida, though jurors are being selected elsewhere due to the intense media scrutiny the case has garnered

Alzheimer’s disease is in the news every day. Some stories offer hope, such as promises to end Alzheimer’s in five years or that biological markers will make early diagnosis possible in a very short time–as if knowing that you have a dementia will help you.
Informed experts know that despite positive scientific research news, medications to improve cognition are presently useful only for some people some of the time and only when prescribed judiciously. The news about medication is particularly disappointing lately. For example, the off-label use of a much prescribed drug in early stages of Alzheimer’s has been found to be ineffective–Drug Memantine Ineffective for Mild Alzheimer’s, Study Finds.
In fact, nonpharmacological lifestyle changes are more promising for immediate help, with often reported significant statistical correlations or causal relationships between improved quality of life among those with dementia and music, exercise, knowing a second language, or taking a walk–London Telegraph Article Hour walk Cuts Alzheimer’s Risk.
Should we continue to wait anxiously for a pill to solve our problems with dementia or is it time to search seriously for other ways to deal with this condition? It depends on our time-frame.
For your and my children and grandchildren, scientific and pharmaceutical discoveries may herald a positive

Back in 1969, John Lennon famously wrote, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.”
Well, here in May 2011, while labor peace is not always at hand, maybe we can at least give labor truth a chance. Unfortunately, telling the truth seems to be increasingly difficult for the CEOs of our multinational corporations when talking about “Making It In America” and saving and creating American jobs. And Exhibit A right now is Jim McNerney, who is the Chairman, President and CEO of the Boeing Company.
The reason I am picking on Mr. McNerney is that he is defending Boeing’s decision to retaliate against its union workforce in Everett, Washington, by moving thousands of jobs to a non-union location in South Carolina, with statements that are among the most misleading and disingenuous by a major American CEO

If you live in Austin, you can almost breathe the Lance Armstrong legend in the air. Everybody intimately knows the tale and its grand parameters. Who has such athletic accomplishments; especially after cancer? His greatness and, indeed, humility were made even more manifest when he established a foundation to help in the global quest to end cancer. We have in our midst, many Texans believe, an individual who is exceptional in character and

I am staring down a copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
I have not read this book, but if you were standing in my hallway and plucked it from the shelf, I might nod vaguely at you and say something like, ‘Kundera is moving’ before quickly changing the subject to James Joyce. Not Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man because, though I have three editions of it, coming-of-age novels are trite in the home of a nearly 31-year-old single woman. No, I’d be more likely to chat about Araby, nuzzled safely in a short story collection sleeping on my highest

Warning: graphic content
In this week’s video, I joined some guys from Arkansas who I met on YouTube for a night of catching frogs. It was precarious. We showed up around 10pm in a small town near Jonesboro Arkansas. Better judgement may have suggested an initial meet and greet preceding the late night boat ride into the flooded backwaters of

The scandal-plagued chairman of the DC Council, Kwame Brown, best known for asking city taxpayers to pay for a “fully loaded” Lincoln Navigator worth $2,000 a month, is joining with other GOP-style Democrats to slash city services for the poor. At the same time, they’re opposing the mayor’s proposal to raise $35 million in added taxes from Washington’s richest residents — and, amazingly, the council is moving to give away $19 million in revenue through repealing some taxes for the rich altogether.
With the vote scheduled Wednesday, The Washington Examiner reports that a backroom deal was apparently struck Monday evening with Brown when Marion Barry, the former crack-smoking mayor and still a councilman, agreed to reverse his support for tax increases on the rich in exchange for property tax abatements for some churches in his district.
The pending budget deal could still cut over $100 million from critical services for the poor, disabled and homeless from the social services budget, roughly two-thirds of all proposed cuts. The safety-net is already so tattered that homeless mothers with infants in tow have been given bus fare to ride the buses all night rather than shelter. As a result ,Save Our Safety Net, a group leading a loose coalition of progressive safety-net advocacy organizations, called for protests Tuesday at noon at DC’s City Hall, the Wilson

For many people, a diagnosis of diabetes seems to bring nothing but limitations and restrictions. But for 82-year-old Sandra, a diabetes diagnosis has translated into a great array of mealtime options. That’s thanks to her home health aide, Betty.
Every morning, on her way to Sandra’s Manhattan apartment, Betty swings by the supermarket for reconnaissance. “I tell her, apples are on sale today, the cabbage and collard greens look good,” explains

Strange bonds of trust and self-deception tend to grow between journalists and their subjects. Janet Malcolm examines these fraught encounters in a fascinating book, The Journalist and the Murderer, which focuses on the relationship between Joe McGinniss, the best-selling author of Fatal Vision, and Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret physician convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters.
Malcolm’s book is especially interesting for its diagnosis of the ethical problems posed by the standard print interview:
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without

I love that my house is messy. I love that there are dishes on the coffee table and socks carelessly tossed around the living room. I love that several slightly used tissues are peeking out from under the pillows on the couch, next to my son’s ever-present guitar. And I love that the smoothie shaker sits next to a mostly empty glass of milk, all conveniently located in front of the TV, where a lot of basketball is being watched.
Mostly, I love that wherever I look, I see signs of my boy, that six-foot-five fella who has been scarce around here because of that college thing he has going

US President Barack Obama says he will visit the tornado-hit state of Missouri on Sunday, straight after returning from a six-day tour of Europe.

Sunday's huge tornado cut a path some six miles (10km) long and at least half a mile wide through the city of Joplin, killing at least 116 people.

President Obama said the tornado was "devastating and heartbreaking".

He vowed the US government would "do absolutely everything we can" to help victims recover and rebuild.

Meanwhile, the US National Weather Service warned of more storms on Tuesday, with the risk for severe weather increasing later in the

If you watch Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (and I’m not recommending you do), you’ll gain a whole new understanding of the phrase “art film.”
Malick isn’t a visual story-teller; he’s a visual artist whose medium happens to be film. With each successive film, he moves farther and farther away from the conventional understanding of terms like plot, character and action.
Indeed, you can count on two hands the number of scenes in The Tree of Life (which just won the Cannes Film Festival) that involve characters actually speaking in view of the camera. You frequently hear their voices – but it’s rare that Malick’s camera actually shows anyone talking.
Story? Well, if I had to summarize it, I’d say that Malick’s film is about a father (played by Brad Pitt) who lives to regret the harsh way he treats his preadolescent sons. Eventually one of those sons grows up to be Sean Penn, who learns to forgive his father (in his 10 or so minutes of screen time).
And that, I believe, is what the takeaway would be for the average person who saw this film unprepared – that and the fact that Malick takes almost 140 minutes to tell a story that could be the length of a TV movie (or

Ireland is known for many things: rolling green hills, stunning landscapes, ancient castles, endless pubs and bottomless glasses of Guinness. On any given night in Dublin you’ll make new friends while ordering fish and chips or devouring a homemade Shepherd’s Pie in one of the dozens of pubs that line Dublin’s streets. But venture outside the city limits and you might discover a new Ireland – one with the same green hills and endless views that preserves the history and heritage of Ireland’s people and culture, but that also offers a bit of new to go along with the beloved old.
Powerscourt, one Europe’s great garden treasures in the Wicklow mountains, is home to some of the most beautiful country estates in

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
– Proverbs 29:18
Within you, there is a destiny waiting to be born — a life of such purpose, creativity and contribution that its light would blind you if apprehended it in its fullness. But to actualize it, you must dive beneath the surface tension of the mind’s need to control the present. You must project into the future, tap into a vision for your life bigger than your TV screen (or at least your computer screen) and bring your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions into integrity with it.
It sounds difficult to

There is nothing more certain and unchanging than uncertainty and change.
– John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Have you ever noticed how in one moment you can be ecstatically happy and then suddenly depressed? How you can be friends with someone and then they become an enemy? How something is good and then turns sour, like a delicious mango that becomes rotten?
The world around us is not the same as it was just a moment ago. Babies have been born, people have died, clouds have passed overhead, waves have risen and fallen. Who we are now is not who we were last year, last week, yesterday, even a few minutes

In mindfulness meditation practice, we are instructed to rest our attention on our breathing as a way to focus and stabilize our mind. This is an ancient and time-honored approach that clearly has relevance for those of us living in the modern world — who are often racing around, feeling stressed out, and having a hard time catching up with ourselves!
For those of us practicing in this way, several questions seem to come up over and over again — one of them is usually expressed something like this:
“I see the point of trying to develop more steadiness and ease in my state of mind. I am now able from time to time to notice myself thinking and bring my attention back to my breath, but when strong emotions come up in meditation, I do not seem to be able to let go of those so easily. They are captivating and disturbing, and are compelling me to look more deeply at their history and

DNA found on the clothes of a New York hotel maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her matches that of the former IMF chief, US media reports say.

The unconfirmed reports cited sources close to the investigation.

More tests from the room where the alleged attack took place are pending.

Mr Strauss-Kahn denies the charges, and resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund last week to defend himself.

He is under house arrest in a New York apartment, after a judge granted him a $1m (£620,000) bail last