February 20, 2011Jeopardy Just the Start for Watson
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Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/02/20/jeopardy_just_the_start_for_watson_250829.html
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Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose books include "Late Edition: A Love Story" and "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War."
(CNN) -- So there is Abraham Lincoln -- Henry Fonda, actually, in a stovepipe hat -- walking toward the horizon as the gorgeous strains of an orchestra swell up behind him. Soon the orchestra is joined by a choir, the strings and the voices blending into a beautiful, almost ethereal, rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Thunder crackles in the cinematic sky.
Monday is Presidents Day, and in anticipation I treated myself to a viewing of "Young Mr. Lincoln," the 1939 movie about the 16th president's early life as a lawyer in Illinois. The film was purposefully inspiring, of course, sentimental and warmhearted. As it concluded -- the viewer was left to surmise that where Lincoln was heading, bathed in all that music and all that thunder, was toward his, and the nation's, future -- the thought occurred that such movies may be a thing of the past.
Not movies about Lincoln; there will always be a market for those, and in fact a spate of them are said to be either in production or in the planning stages. But uplifting feature-film biographies about more contemporary presidents -- life stories told admiringly, earnestly, with the intent to attract paying customers to brick-and-mortar movie theaters -- seem now to be an anachronism. And it may be worth taking a moment to ask ourselves whether this is the fault of our presidents, or of the times we live in, or of us.
Such movies -- the life stories of the presidents, delivered straight and with an implied crisp salute of respect -- were once a staple of the American entertainment menu: "Sunrise at Campobello," about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "PT 109," about John F. Kennedy, the various Lincoln movies ("Abe Lincoln in Illinois" followed "Young Mr. Lincoln" into theaters just one year later) ... there was even, in the 1940s, a big-budget film about the life of Woodrow Wilson. The assumption seemed to be that American audiences out for the evening longed to be edified by rousing tales of the men who had made it all the way to the White House. The movies played it literal and clear-eyed; presidents, on the screen, were people to be highly regarded and emulated.
But starting with "All the President's Men" and the era it depicted, that changed. Suddenly moviegoers seemed to feel that before they even bought their tickets they already knew enough -- too much -- of the officially sanctioned versions of the presidents' lives. Oliver Stone made his three presidential movies -- "JFK," "Nixon" and "W."-- and there was no danger that they would ever be confused with "Young Mr. Lincoln."
It is difficult to even imagine any contemporary president getting the full-out reverential feature-film treatment in the new America; quite apart from the specific qualities and flaws of our recent presidents, one reason we're unlikely to see such movie-theater renditions of their lives is that since the 1960s we have gazed upon our actual presidents so continually on television that the real men have become quasi-movie stars by default. We have seen their movies, in nightly newscast installments.
Television itself, both cable and over-the-air, has often been an easier place for scripted presidential biographies (and for documentaries) to find a home, but even that has come into question. Television projects about Ronald Reagan and about JFK have run into much-reported turmoil because of the political passions the portrayals have aroused in people who believed that the films were intended to be knife jobs, aimed at men whose reputations their supporters were determined to defend.
Presidents will continue to make their way to movie-theater screens; "Frost/Nixon" was a wonderfully written and acted drama, but Richard Nixon, audiences knew in advance, was going to come out the vanquished, the foil. There will always be a place for valorous fictionalized presidents-who-never-were; "The American President," "Dave," "Air Force One"-- ticket buyers will never lose their willingness to root for a cinematic president who in real life never held office.
But the main reason we may not see blithely laudatory feature film bios in the future is that they might risk drawing laughs from (or inciting fistfights among) the conditioned-to-be-reflexively-partisan audience members out in the dark. Show-business executives seem to have concluded that our contemporary presidents of the post-Eisenhower years simply won't pass marketplace muster as box-office heroes anymore. For better or for worse, we may feel that we have become too smart for that.
It makes you wonder, were Lincoln to be elected president in the 21st century, if even he would have a chance of making it to the big screen in a way that would exalt him. Our flesh-and-blood presidents are no longer who Hollywood likes to glorify; maybe if they were cyborgs, they'd be an easier sell.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of Bob Greene.
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/-vGhCgHHqMc/index.html
Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/18/133862029/new-republic-egypts-revolts-could-unravel-sudan?ft=1&f=1057
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The current mayor, Richard M. Daley, has been in office for 22 years, and this is the first open race for mayor in decades. Many Chicagoans like to complain about Daley's autocratic style and the corruption on his watch at City Hall, but voters re-elected him time and again, by huge margins, as they did his father.
The Business Of Leading Chicago
The current mayor is especially well liked in Chicago's business community, so as movers and shakers sat down this week at a luncheon hosted by the City Club of Chicago, Daley's legacy loomed large over the race to be his successor.
"I think the mayor had a terrific sense of what was necessary to build Chicago as a global city," says Lew Collens, president emeritus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. "He's been very focused on that; he's done an extraordinary job."
Collens says there is one candidate who is best able to continue moving Chicago forward and close a massive $600 million budget deficit, but he declined to say who that is. Other business and civic leaders, though, had no qualms about singing the praises out loud of the front-runner in the race, Rahm Emanuel.
"I think he's a real solid leader — kick rear-end, possibly, and not take any names," Chicago attorney Jerry Latherow says. "Maybe I'd like to see him do it a little bit more delicately, but I think he'll get things done."
Emanuel's Lead Pits Him Against 50 Percent
To be sure, there were supporters of the other major candidates at the City Club luncheon, but Emanuel leads Chicago's mayoral race in most polls by a 2-to-1 margin. He's earned the major newspapers' endorsements and has raised a whopping $13 million for the campaign — almost quadruple the amount raised by the next closest candidate.
Paul Green, director of the Institute for Politics at Chicago's Roosevelt University, says Emanuel is essentially in a race to top 50 percent of the vote in order to avoid going to a run-off election in April against whoever comes in second.
"One of my favorite lines about politics is, there's no such thing as a silver medal. You either win or you lose. Well, in this election, there could possibly be a reward for the silver medal," Green says. "If Rahm Emanuel doesn't get 50-percent plus one, you're in the playoffs."
Other Candidates On The Attack
With Emanuel teetering right around that 50-percent line in the polls, his opponents are sharpening their attacks.
In the last debate between the candidates Thursday night, City Clerk Miguel del Valle appealed to Latino voters by hitting Emanuel on immigration reform.
"The fact of the matter is that Rahm Emanuel referred to immigration as the 'third rail of politics' when he advised his colleagues in Congress not to pursue immigration reform," del Valle said.
Former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun tried to boost her standing among black voters by also attacking Emanuel's record in Congress.
"Mr. Emanuel voted against the Congressional Black Caucus 128 times," she said, adding that he also "voted against issues having to do with poverty and sending water to drought-starved Africa."
After the debate, former Chicago School Board President Gery Chico, who is second in most polls, added, "I think you saw Rahm Emanuel on the defense for just about 60 minutes and that's because he's spent 60 days evading questions and the truth about those questions."
For his part, Emanuel tried to remain above the fray. "You can call me whatever names you want," he said. "I'm not here about calling names, I'm here about focusing on the problems facing the city of Chicago."
But Emanuel has been quietly taking his shots, too, with robocalls and nonstop ads. The mud will likely continue to fly all the way up to Tuesday's election.
Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/19/133893957/Chicagos-Mayoral-Race-Enters-Homestretch?ft=1&f=1014
Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/19/133902694/Leaks-Shows-U-S-Condescension-Toward-Berlusconi?ft=1&f=1003
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Liftoff is set for late Thursday afternoon. Senior managers voted unanimously Friday on the new launch date after discussing the fixes made since the shuttle's grounding in early November.
Cracks in the external fuel tank were discovered after a launch attempt was foiled by leaking hydrogen gas. It's taken this long to understand and repair the cracking, which could have harmed the shuttle during liftoff.
The shuttle will carry six astronauts and a humanoid robot, along with a full load of supplies, to the International Space Station. One of the human crew is a substitute, replacing an astronaut who was injured last month in a bicycle crash.
Astronaut Timothy Kopra helped train his fill-in after he stepped down and was instrumental in keeping the flight on track, officials said. He was supposed to be the lead spacewalker.
NASA opted for a Thursday liftoff at 4:50 p.m., even though a European cargo vessel will be docking at the space station that morning. Officials normally prefer more time between arriving spacecraft, but they want to get Discovery flying as soon as possible given its lengthy delay.
The shuttle launch may be put off if something goes wrong with the docking of the European freighter.
As for the cracks in Discovery's external fuel tank, engineers traced the problem to overly brittle material combined with assembly issues. The cracking was confined to some of the aluminum alloy struts in the center of the tank, which holds instruments but no fuel. The damaged struts were patched, and the others reinforced as a precaution.
Mike Moses, a launch manager, described the thin 6-inch patches as metal Band-Aids. Engineers made certain, through testing, that the repairs would not make things worse and introduce even more risk. The overriding objective was "do no harm," he noted.
If any cracking is detected once the tank is filled, the launch will be called off, Moses said.
NASA worried that the underlying cracks could have caused foam insulation to break off the tank and slam into Discovery, as it did during Columbia's doomed mission in 2003.
Another problem cropped up last week: A measuring gauge broke at the launch pad, and one of the falling pieces gouged a tiny slit in the fuel tank foam. No repairs were necessary because of the location on the bottom back side of the tank.
Launch director Mike Leinbach said he was proud of the way the shuttle team paid attention to "not just the 800-pound gorilla" — the fuel tank cracking — but all the other work to ready the shuttle.
Distractions stemming from layoffs and the end of the shuttle program, as well as NASA's uncertain future, have not affected on-the-job performance, Leinbach said. In fact, some laid-off technicians were called back temporarily to help with the fuel tank repairs.
This will represent the end of Discovery's flying career. NASA is retiring the three remaining shuttles this year, leaving orbital trips to private companies so it can focus on interplanetary travel. Until the private sector can take over crew hauls, NASA will have to pay millions of dollars to Russia for astronaut trips to and from the space station.
Getting Discovery off on its final journey — so late — will be like opening Christmas presents the week after, Leinbach said.
"Reprieve, I don't know if that's the right word for it," he told reporters. "People like to see it launch, the fruits of their labor, and that's what we'll get next Thursday."
If all goes well during the shuttle mission, NASA may order up a once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunity before Discovery leaves the space station. One of the Russian capsules briefly would undock for a so-called flyaround, allowing its three-man crew to take pictures of the space station and attached shuttle, as well as cargo ships sent by the Russian, Japanese and European space agencies.
It will be the first time so many spacecraft, representing so many space station partners, are parked at the orbiting lab at the same time.
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Online:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission—pages/shuttle/main/index.html