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With Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa in full swing we might all need a little energy boost, so here’s some super-positive fuel from Blitz the Ambassador from his set at WOMEX 2011 in Copenhagen.
The multi-level Koncerthuset was the setting for four nights of world music of every possible shade, from ethnographic to eclectic. Blitz the Ambassador is surely one of the latter, and one of those hard to categorize artists; he’s an amalgam of Ghanaian and Western influences, taking what he likes best from each to create his music and his message. If you think you hear Afrobeat, Hip Hop or HighLife coming off the stage, you’re right.
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Earlier this fall, one of Time magazine’s covers asked a profound question, “Can you still move up in America?” Likewise, in a special Thanksgiving interview, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CBS’s Bob Schieffer that she believes the struggling U.S. public school system is the nation’s biggest problem: Both of these statements emphasize an underlying concern that has been growing throughout the country, namely, that tomorrow’s generation won’t have a shot at the American Dream and the opportunity to have a better quality of life because our educational system no longer provides the path.
These concerns are valid. The data show that an individual’s chances of reaching the middle class drop significantly without pre-reading and math skills in early childhood (0-5 years), basic reading and math skills in middle childhood (5-12 years), a high school diploma with a GPA of greater than 2.5 in adolescence (12-19 years), a post-secondary degree, or equivalent family income at the transition to adulthood (19-29 years). And yet, nearly half of America’s public schools did not meet federal achievement standards this year, according to the Center on Education

After the recent Reykjavik District Court decisions penalizing a journalist for reprinting publicly-available information and presenting both sides of a domestic dispute, the Icelandic Supreme Court has taken some baby steps towards establishing a free press in Iceland.
The newspaper DV reported that Iceland’s most successful soccer player, Eiur Smri Gujohnsen, had received large loans from a bank without adequate collateral. When the banks failed in 2008, their lending practices came under intense public scrutiny, and Gujohnsen’s situation was singled out by the press as emblematic of the favoritism shown to the rich and famous.
Although he had been featured prominently in European media for years, Gujohnsen felt his personal privacy had been invaded when his shady financial dealings came to light and filed a libel suit against the journalist. The district court sided with him, but, in a rare display of common sense, the Supreme Court ruled that the public discussion of this matter was protected by the Icelandic Constitution’s free speech guarantee. Not only were the lending practices of the banks a matter of public concern, but Gujohnsen’s salary had been widely reported; additionally, his gambling addiction had been written about in the foreign press.
Even though the reporter ultimately prevailed, this matter still stands as a warning to Icelandic

MILWAUKEE — “Sour grapes!”
You’ve been hearing that a lot lately here in the Badger State. A half-million petition signatures in a matter of weeks can do that — make certain folks just a little tetchy, I mean. Hypersensitive.
Call it Recall Reaction Syndrome.
You get a recall campaign up and running against some prominent state official — a recently elected governor, say (in Wisconsin, say) — and his defenders start complaining that you’re nothing but a “sore loser.” You want a “do-over.”
It’s “sour grapes!” they cry.
No it’s not. In fact, they’re barking up the wrong fruit!
Don’t think grapes — think

Source:Associated Press
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DALLAS — Ty Lawson scored 20 of his 27 points in the first half and the Denver Nuggets faced little resistance on their way to a 115-93 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night.The reigning champion Mavericks were drubbed for a second straight game, routinely giving up easy baskets in both. They allowed Denver to score 20 unanswered points in the second quarter — prompting boos during a particularly lousy part of that drought — and were down by 33 late in the third quarter.Denver, playing its opener, saw how porous Dallas’ defense was in its opener against Miami and quickly took advantage. The Nuggets scored on 19 of their 25 possessions in the second quarter. They made only 12 baskets in the second half, yet still cruised to victory.Andre Miller and Al Harrington each scored 18 points. Danilo Gallinari had 15 points and seven rebounds, and Arron Afflalo scored 11.Lawson made 10 of 15 shots, going 3 of 6 on 3-pointers. He also had four assists.Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 20 points, and didn’t play in the fourth quarter for the second straight game, yet another indication of how thoroughly the Mavs have been drubbed.Sean Williams — the 13th guy Dallas used — scored 12 points in 11 energetic minutes. He played so hard that as he checked out of the game, he threw up in front of the Dallas bench, drawing all sorts of laughs from teammates and team owner Mark Cuban. Fans nearby gave him a standing ovation as ushers mopped up the mess. It was symbolic of both the lack of a training camp to get players in shape after the lockout, and the way Dallas’ season is going.Without Tyson Chandler anchoring the defense, the Mavs are routinely giving up 30 points per quarter. Coach Rick Carlisle is trying to find a lineup combination that will click on either end of the court. As bad as the defense was, Dallas also went 9:52 between baskets over the middle two quarters, missing 14 straight shots.The boos came with 1:08 left in the second quarter, when a steal near midcourt turned into a three-on-none fast break. The Nuggets had enjoyed so many easy baskets at that point that they didn’t even bother doing anything fancy, with Gallinari softly tossing the ball to Harrington for a routine dunk that made it 65-41.Jason Kidd scored 12 points, Vince Carter scored 11 and Rodrigue Beaubois scored 10. Aside from Nowitzki and Kidd, the other three starters (Shawn Marion, Brendan Haywood and Delonte West) scored a combined 11 points.Lamar Odom scored three points, making only 1 of 10 shots.West started at shooting guard instead of Carter, who started on opening night. Jason Terry replaced West to start the second half.Game notes Dallas is 0-2 for the first time since 2006-07, which is also the last time the Mavs were coming off a trip to the NBA finals. That team actually went 0-4, yet wound up winning 67 games. … Denver got Rudy Fernandez and Corey Brewer in a trade from Dallas during training camp. Fernandez scored eight points and Brewer had five. … The Mavs forced a shot-clock violation on the opening possession of the second half and drew one of the biggest cheers of the night. They ended up keeping the Nuggets below 30 points in the quarter, yet Denver grew its lead anyway.
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Manchester, New Hampshire — “Are you guys volunteers or paid staffers?” I navely ask two Gingrich supporters I’d been talking to at Newt’s New Hampshire HQ in Manchester. “I’m the state director for New Hampshire,” one of them tells me. That such a prominent politico in a presidential campaign would take the time to speak to a student writing for an obscure online British newspaper (albeit one with an impressive name, Erudition) was one of several great surprises I experienced during a brief visit to the Granite State.
As a British student living in England, I had previously only been able to enjoy the race for the Republican nomination in front of a computer screen in the

While Hollywood is gearing up for the Golden Globes on January 15th (also known as the precursor to its version of the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards), the political world, or “Hollywood for ugly people” as it is sometimes jokingly called, is gearing up for its own Golden Globes: the first presidential primaries, before its own Super Bowl next November. Therefore I thought it only fitting to give awards for the best short films (aka political ads) this year, with a particular focus on the presidential primary ads.
Though a recent analysis published in the New York Times noted that voters in the early primary states have been subjected to about two-thirds fewer ads than they had at this point in the last presidential primary, they have still endured thousands of them. Those outside of the early primary states tend to only see those that are particularly controversial or quirky, depriving us (or perhaps sparing us) of the countless others. Some of them

In Edward Girardet’s fine new book, Killing the Cranes (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2011), there is this damning sentence: “Simply put, it was the U.S. backing for the Islamic extremists in the 1980s that helped produce the current military quagmire in Afghanistan.”
I first met Ed Girardet in 1987, in Peshawar, Pakistan, the frontier town that served as the staging area for jihad and the nerve center for journalists covering the Afghan-Soviet conflict. By then Ed had been reporting on Afghanistan for almost a decade, mostly for the Christian Science Monitor, since just days after Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul in late December, 1979. The Monitor in those days was highly respected for its coverage of world news, and Ed became their most highly regarded foreign

It seemed like the afterthought in the payroll tax cut extension fight, a small consolation prize to the Republicans on what should have been the easiest of bi-partisan votes. But the two-month clock is now ticking on whether Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s environmentally disastrous tar sands. If we want him to make the right decision and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations. Of course we need to keep pressuring

On January 1, 2012 Southern California will celebrate the grand opening of a series of underwater parks that stretches from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. The parks will join a growing statewide network called for under California’s landmark ocean protection law, the Marine Life Protection Act. Soon, the state will have a system of “marine protected areas” dotting the coast like a string of gems, that protect iconic areas like Point Reyes, Big Sur, and La Jolla.
Southern California’s new marine protected areas were planned by local residents with guidance from

If you are poor, chances are it is your own fault. At least that’s what Americans thought in 2001. In a National Public Radio poll from that year, about half of those surveyed said the poor are not doing enough to pull themselves out of poverty.
Now, one would think that since the recent economic crisis predictably has led to increased poverty people would start blaming circumstances more than the poor. This has not been the case in the United

I’m increasingly convinced that this point is of central importance: the national debate we’re about to have must come down to specifics, to cases, to the actual role of actual programs in our actual lives.
If not — if the debate stays up at 40,000 feet-we will be stuck in miasma of ideological-tweaking generalities, with conservatives like Romney and Gingrich plucking knee-jerk heartstrings (block that metaphor!) in ways that don’t merely mislead. They employ upside-down logic to avoid dealing with the real challenges we face in today’s political economy.
As much astute writing has picked up in recent days, these themes are being hammered by Republican candidates on the trail. It’s all this rhetoric about “entitlement” vs. “opportunity.”
By rhetoric, I mean something quite specific: language that generalizes to the point where its non-specificity loses touch with the reality of underlying topic.
You will really learn nothing accurate or even true about the nation’s system of so-called entitlement programs from listening to Mitt Romney, for

By David Jensen, Craft Beer Expert for Menuism.com
Photo: David Jensen
“In Belgium, there are no styles,” proclaims Peter Bouckaert, Brewmaster of New Belgium Brewing. This statement exemplifies the individuality, non-conformity and creativity of Belgian brewers. Notwithstanding their individualism, Belgian brewers have strong ties to their history and tradition of brewing. What does all this mean to the Belgian beer drinker? It’s simple: you can have two beers that are technically the same style, and feature some similar attributes, but taste quite

It seemed like the afterthought in the payroll tax cut extension fight, a small consolation prize to the Republicans on what should have been the easiest of bi-partisan votes. But the two-month clock is now ticking on whether Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s environmentally disastrous tar sands. If we want him to make the right decision and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations. Of course we need to keep pressuring

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We shouldn’t be surprised that BP has ditched its solar division to concentrate on its core business of pumping oil from increasingly risky areas of the earth. We all knew, deep in our hearts, that this company’s love affair with alternative energy was never more than a casual flirtation.
By Autumn 2010 the writing was on the wall. Katrina Landis, given the unfortunate job of heading up BP’s alternative energy division, said at the time that “you simply cannot compete with China’s ability to produce PV panels that have the quality required to satisfy Western customers.” For a company that prides itself on finding ways to beat the competition through innovation and engineering excellence, this is a rather humbling statement.
What BP did this week is to admit that it will play no part in what is likely to be the defining energy source of the 21st

Like many multigenerational families of American Jews, my parents conversed with my grandparents in Yiddish rather than English. I have friends whose second family language was Armenian.
One of the joys of living in San Francisco is the huge variety of speech we hear in public. When a diverse population faces off with tourists from around the world, the language stew becomes extra spicy.
Last year I was riding a MUNI bus when a cranky old white man turned to two middle-aged Asian women engaged in a heated discussion and screamed “This is America, goddamit. Speak English!”
His failure to understand that their conversation was none of his business was every bit as pathetic as his inability to grasp that, whether these people had been born here or arrived as immigrants, they were probably citizens of the United States of

Beautiful skin starts with good nutrition. Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet high in fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and whole grains, including foods from all the basic food groups to make sure your skin gets the nutrients it needs. The most-recycled tip I hear from both my facialist and my clients is this one: Drink plenty of water during December and January to prevent excessive dryness.
I have put together a list of foods (that you likely have in your kitchen) for their nutritional

There are bartenders who make a living mixing cocktails, and baristas whose wages are earned behind espresso machines. There are high-concept tea masters, sommeliers, and soda jerks, too. At home we are never expected to be any of these, but when guests arrive for your holiday parties some simple instruction might be helpful. After all, there’s a week’s worth of celebrating still to be

It’s unusual to have Steven Spielberg competing with himself at the box office this holiday weekend, but there he is – with The Adventures of Tintin and now with War Horse.
Based on the popular children’s book that inspired the Tony-winning Broadway production, War Horse is exactly what it advertises itself to be: a schmaltzy tale of a boy and his horse, set against the backdrop of Irish poverty and World War I.
The horse, named Joey, is barely a yearling when it catches the eye of both the down-on-his-luck farmer Ted Narracott (Peter McMullan) and his teen-age son, Albert (Jeremy Irvine). Albert has seen the horse practically since the day it was born, has watched it grow and tried to make its acquaintance as he passed its field each day.
Then in a stroke of drink-fueled ego, the tenant farmer Ted bids every cent he has to deny Joey to his landlord, the obnoxious Mr. Lyons (David Thewlis). The horse is worthless as a plow horse, which is what Ted