Per-student pre-K spending lowest in decade

WASHINGTON (AP) ? State funding for pre-kindergarten programs had its largest drop ever last year and states are now spending less per child than they did a decade ago, according to a report released Monday.

The report also found that more than a half million of those preschool students are in programs that don't even meet standards suggested by industry experts that would qualify for federal dollars.

Those findings ? combined with Congress' reluctance to spend new dollars ? complicate President Barack Obama's effort to expand pre-K programs across the country. While Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius continue to promote the president's proposal, researchers say existing programs are inadequate, and until their shortcomings are fixed there is little desire by lawmakers to get behind Obama's call for more preschool.

"The state of preschool was a state of emergency," said Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, which produced the report.

During his State of the Union speech, Obama proposed a federal-state partnership that would dramatically expand options for families with young children. Obama's plan would fund public preschool for any 4-year-old whose family income was below twice the federal poverty rate.

If it were in place this year, the plan would allow a family of four with two children to enroll students in a pre-K program if the family earned less than $46,566.

Students from families who earn more could participate in the program, but their parents would have to pay tuition based on their income. Eventually, 3-year-old students would be part of the program, too.

As part of his budget request, Obama proposed spending $75 billion over 10 years to help states get these new programs up and running. During the first years, Washington would pick up the majority of the cost before shifting costs to states.

"It's the most significant opportunity to expand access to pre-K that this nation has ever seen," Barnett said of the president's proposal.

Obama proposed paying for this expansion by almost doubling the federal tax on cigarettes, to $1.95 per pack.

Obama's pre-K plan faces a tough uphill climb, though, with the tobacco industry opposing the tax that would pay for it and lawmakers from tobacco-producing states also skeptical. Conservative lawmakers have balked at starting another government program, as well. Obama's Democratic allies are clamoring to make it a priority.

To help it along, Duncan and Sebelius planned to join the report's researchers on Monday at a news conference to introduce the report, along with administration allies. They planned events later in the week to reiterate their support.

Yet those public events were unlikely to sway lawmakers who are already fighting among themselves over spending cuts that are forcing students to be dropped from existing preschool programs, the levying of higher fees for student loans and deep cuts for aid to military schools.

States spent about $5.1 billion on pre-K programs in 2011-12, the most recent school year, researchers wrote in the report.

Per-student funding for existing programs during that year dropped to an average of $3,841 for each student. It was the first time average spending per student dropped below $4,000 in today's dollars since researchers started tracking it during the 2001-02 academic year.

Adjusted for inflation, per-student funding has been cut by more than $1,000 during the last decade.

Yet nationwide, the amounts were widely varied. The District of Columbia spent almost $14,000 on every child in its program while the states of Colorado, South Carolina and Nebraska spent less than $2,000 per child.

"Whether you get a quality preschool program does depend on what ZIP code you are in," Barnett said.

Among the 40 states that offer state-funded pre-K programs, 27 cut per-student spending last year. In total, that meant $548 million in cuts.

Money, of course, is not a guarantee for students' success. But students from poor schools generally lag students from better-funded counterparts and those students from impoverished families arrive in kindergarten less prepared than others.

In all, only 15 states and the District of Columbia spent enough money to provide quality programs, the researchers concluded. Those programs serve about 20 percent of the 1.3 million enrolled in state-funded prekindergarten programs.

"In far too many states, funding levels have fallen so low as to bring into question the effectiveness of their programs by any reasonable standard," researchers wrote.

Part of the reason for the decreased spending are the lingering effects of the economic downturn in 2008, coupled with the end of federal stimulus dollars to plug state budgets.

"Although the recession is technically over, the recovery in state revenues has lagged the recovery of the general economy and has been slower and weaker than following prior recessions. This does not bode well for digging back out of the hole created by years of cuts," the researchers wrote in their report.

Nationally, 42 percent of students ? or more than a half million students ? were in programs that met fewer than half of the benchmarks researchers identified as important to gauging a program's effectiveness, such as classrooms with fewer than 20 students and teachers with bachelor's degrees.

That, too, suggests problems for Obama's plan to expand pre-K programs, especially if Washington insists its partners meet quality benchmarks to win federal dollars.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/per-student-pre-k-spending-lowest-decade-042832006.html

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Fire breaks out at collapsed factory in Bangladesh

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) -- A fire broke out late Sunday in the wreckage of the garment factory that collapsed last week in Bangladesh, with smoke pouring from the piles of shattered concrete and some of the rescue efforts forced to stop.

The fire came four days after the collapse, as rescuers were trying to free a woman they found trapped in the rubble. The flames broke out when sparks were generated by those rescuers trying to cut through a steel rod to reach the woman, said a volunteer rescuer, Syed Al-Amin Roman. At least three rescue workers were injured in the fire, he said.

Rescuers have retreated from the part of the wreckage where the fire erupted, but were still trying to reach any possible survivors in other parts of the destroyed eight-story building.

Firefighters were frantically hosing down the flames.

"Hopefully we will be able to control it," said Brig. Gen. Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, who is overseeing rescue operations.

It wasn't immediately clear what happened to the trapped woman.

The fire came hours after the owner of the illegally-constructed building was captured Sunday at a border crossing with India.

Mohammed Sohel Rana was arrested in Benapole in western Bangladesh, just as he was about to flee into India's West Bengal state, said Jahangir Kabir Nanak, junior minister for local government. Rana was brought back by helicopter to the capital Dhaka where he faced charges of negligence.

Rana's capture brought cheers and applause when it was announced on a loudspeaker at the site of the collapsed building in the Dhaka suburb of Savar.

At least 377 people are confirmed to have died in the Wednesday collapse. Three of the building's floors were built illegally. The death toll is expected to rise but it is already the deadliest tragedy to hit Bangladesh's garment industry, which is worth $20 billion annually and is a mainstay of the economy. The collapse and previous disasters in garment factories have focused attention on the poor working conditions of workers who toil for as little as $38 a month to produce clothing for top international brands.

Bangladesh's garment industry was the third largest in the world in 2011, after China and Italy, having grown rapidly in the past decade. The country's minimum wage is the equivalent of about $38 a month.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fire-breaks-collapsed-factory-bangladesh-165955376.html

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Google Search for iOS gets Google Now! All the great features of Android... locked in one little app

Google Search has just been updated and the big news is, it now includes Google Now! Yes, the card-style informational service, which includes traffic and weather updates, as well as information about sports teams and breaking news. That means iPhone and iPad owners get a taste of the same features Android users having been enjoying in Jelly Bean for almost a year.

Voice remains one of the core elements of Google Search, and works with the new Google Now features so, when Google isn't already serving up what you want, you can simply ask for it. For example, the traffic condition update can give you information on how long your commute will be before you leave for the day.

Unlike stock Android, where Google Now is a core service, on iOS it's locked inside the Google Search app, which limits its scope and convenience. Lack of Push Notification support makes that worse than it might otherwise be.

And, of course, you have to be willing to log into your Google account and give them access to location and other forms of data. That's the price of the virtual assistant. It knows all about you. If you don't want that, you don't get that.

• Free - Download Now

Thanks Eric for the tip!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/JJ3BWwYqIR8/story01.htm

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Visitors and residents: Students' attitudes to academic use of social media

Apr. 29, 2013 ? University of Leicester-led research has shown that university students behave very differently when using social media as part of their academic learning.

Some students happily use social networking to share information about their course with their peers, in a similar way to how they might talk to friends on Facebook.

Others are much more targeted in their use of online tools -- and will only log on to get the information they need, when they need it.

For the study, all 257 undergraduate students in the University's School of Biological Sciences were asked to use the social media site Google+ as part of a key IT and numeracy skills module.

The students were able to discuss parts of the module on the site.

At the end of the term, the students had contributed thousands of posts and hundreds of thousands of words to Google+.

The researchers analysed these contributions, along with students' responses to a questionnaire about how they found the module.

They analysed the contribution to find out what users were talking about, and who was talking to whom. They also analysed the results from the questionnaire to find out why users communicated as they did.

They found that there were significant differences between students' use of social media -- and individual participants displayed "Visitor" and "Resident" characteristics.

The Visitors and Residents model for online engagement was put forward by University of Oxford researchers David White and Dr Alison Le Cornu in 2011.

In this model, "Visitors" use the internet in functional terms as a tool, while "Residents" see the Internet as a social space.

The University of Leicester-led study suggests the Visitors and Residents model is valid -- and is the first study to suggest this using statistical methods.

Fiona Wright conducted the study as part of her final year project of her Biological Science degree.

She said: "In order to know how to effectively teach using social media one needs to understand the student's motivation to use it. Such paradigms, if proven correct, help educators to approach this problem, increasing student engagement with tasks.

"Students of today often spend a large amount of their free time using social media, so if this tool could be used effectively for academic purposes it would be a great resource for teachers in higher education."

The paper was co-written with Dr Alan Cann, a senior lecturer in the Department of Biology -- who leads the IT and Numeracy Skills for Biologists module.

Dr Alan Cann said: "Although social media forms a prominent part of most student's lives and is increasingly becoming part of academic environments, there has been little work investigating how students use and respond to social networks for formal academic purposes (as opposed to informal use).

"This is some of the first evidence which validates the Visitors and Residents model, and so it gives important insights into students reactions to social tools as part of a working environment.

"Although the Visitor and Resident labels only represent the extremes of a continuum of behaviour, this study has produced statistical evidence that Residents report online tools to be more useful academically than Visitors do.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Leicester, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Fiona Wright, David White, Tony Hirst, Alan Cann. Visitors and Residents: mapping student attitudes to academic use of social networks. Learning, Media and Technology, 2013; : 1 DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2013.777077

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/tK2kysxXFDM/130429094946.htm

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Owner arrested as Bangladesh building toll reaches 372

By Ruma Paul and Serajul Quadir

DHAKA (Reuters) - The owner of a factory building that collapsed in Bangladesh killing hundreds of garment workers was arrested on Sunday trying to flee to India, police said, as fears grew that the death toll could rise sharply with as many as 900 still missing.

Mohammed Sohel Rana, a leader of the ruling Awami League's youth front, was arrested by the elite Rapid Action Battalion in the Bangladesh border town of Benapole, Dhaka District Police Chief Habibur Rahman told Reuters.

Speaking near the site of the wreckage of Rana Plaza, which housed several factories making low-cost garments for Western retailers, junior minister for local government Jahangir Kabir Nanak told reporters that Rana would be brought to Dhaka by helicopter.

Authorities put the latest death toll at 372, four days after the country's worst-ever industrial accident.

Four people were pulled out alive on Sunday and rescuers were working frantically to save several others trapped under the mound of broken concrete and metal, fire services deputy director Mizanur Rahman said.

"The chances of finding people alive are dimming, so we have to step up our rescue operation to save any valuable life we can," said Major General Chowdhury Hassan Sohrawardi, coordinator of the operation at the site.

About 2,500 people have been rescued from the wrecked building in the commercial suburb of Savar, about 30 km (20 miles) from the capital, Dhaka.

Officials said the eight-storey complex had been built on spongy ground without the correct permits, and more than 3,000 workers - mainly young women - entered the building on Wednesday morning despite warnings that it was structurally unsafe.

Police said one factory owner gave himself up following the detention of two plant bosses and two engineers the day before.

Local news reports said the mother of building owner Rana, who was not being held, died of a heart attack on Saturday evening.

Anger over the disaster has sparked days of protests and clashes, with police using tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to quell demonstrators who set cars ablaze. On Sunday, however, the roads were quiet.

The main opposition, joining forces with an alliance of leftist parties which is part of the ruling coalition, called for a national strike on May 2 in protest over the incident.

BUILT ON A FILLED-IN POND

Wednesday's collapse was the third major industrial incident in five months in Bangladesh, the second-largest exporter of garments in the world behind China. In November, a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory in a suburb of Dhaka killed 112 people.

Such incidents have raised serious questions about worker safety and low wages, and could taint the reputation of the poor South Asian country, which relies on garments for 80 percent of its exports. The industry employs about 3.6 million people, most of them women, some of whom earn as little as $38 a month.

Emdadul Islam, chief engineer of the state-run Capital Development Authority (CDA), said on Friday that the owner of the building had not received the proper construction consent, obtaining a permit for a five-storey building from the local municipality, which did not have the authority to grant it.

Furthermore, another three storeys had been added illegally, he said. "Savar is not an industrial zone, and for that reason no factory can be housed in Rana Plaza," Islam told Reuters.

Islam said the building had been erected on the site of a pond filled in with sand and earth, weakening the foundations.

Since the disaster, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has asked factory owners to produce building designs by July in a bid to improve safety.

(Writing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hope-survivors-fades-bangladesh-building-toll-reaches-363-082504472.html

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Last pieces of 1 World Trade Center are rising

FILE - One World Trade Center rises above the lower Manhattan skyline, April 13, 2013 in New York. It is already New York?s tallest building. But when the last pieces of its spire go up to the roof Monday, April 28, the 104-floor skyscraper will be one step away from becoming the highest in the Western Hemisphere. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - One World Trade Center rises above the lower Manhattan skyline, April 13, 2013 in New York. It is already New York?s tallest building. But when the last pieces of its spire go up to the roof Monday, April 28, the 104-floor skyscraper will be one step away from becoming the highest in the Western Hemisphere. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - In this file photo of April 26, 2013, from Bayonne, N.J., One World Trade Center rises behind the Statue of Liberty in New York. It is already New York?s tallest building. But when the last pieces of its spire go up to the roof Monday, April 28, the 104-floor skyscraper will be one step away from becoming the highest in the Western Hemisphere. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - In this file photo of April 18, 2013, construction cranes work on assembling the rising spire on top of One World Trade Center in New York. It is already New York?s tallest building. But when the last pieces of its spire go up to the roof Monday, April 28, the 104-floor skyscraper will be one step away from becoming the highest in the Western Hemisphere. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? One World Trade Center already is New York's tallest building.

And when the last pieces of its spire rise to the roof ? weather permitting ? the 104-floor skyscraper that replaces the fallen twin towers will be just feet from becoming the highest in the Western Hemisphere.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the spire pieces plus a steel beacon will then be lifted at a later date from the rooftop to cap the building at 1,776 feet.

Installation of the 800-ton, 408-foot spire began in December, after 18 pieces were shipped from Canada and New Jersey.

The spire will serve as a world-class broadcast antenna.

With the beacon at its peak to ward off aircraft, the spire will provide public transmission services for television and radio broadcast channels that were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, along with the trade center towers.

Overlooking the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the high-rise is scheduled to open for business in 2014.

The tower is at the northwest corner of the site, which is well on its way to reconstruction with the 72-story 4 World Trade Center and other buildings.

Monday's celebration of the reconstructed trade center comes days after a grisly reminder of the terror attack that took nearly 3,000 lives: the discovery of a rusted piece of airplane landing gear wedged between a nearby mosque and an apartment building ? believed to be from one of the hijacked planes that ravaged lower Manhattan.

As officials prepared to erect the spire, the office of the city's chief medical examiner was working in the hidden alley where debris may still contain human remains.

The new tower's crowning spire is a joint venture between the ADF Group Inc. engineering firm in Terrebonne, Quebec, and New York-based DCM Erectors Inc., a steel contractor.

The world's tallest building, topping 2,700 feet, is in Dubai.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-29-World%20Trade%20Center%20Spire/id-ed7a141aa8a649799040b123e73e506f

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Stolen 'Pulp Fiction' car found 19 years later

VICTORVILLE, Calif. (AP) ? Authorities say the classic Chevrolet convertible featured in the film "Pulp Fiction" has been found nearly two decades after it was stolen.

The San Bernardino County Sun reports (http://bit.ly/15ZvJWK ) movie director Quentin Tarantino's 1964 Chevelle Malibu was recovered in the San Francisco Bay area earlier this week.

John Travolta's character drove the cherry red car in the movie.

Sheriff's Sgt. Albert Anolin said an investigation into an old Malibu in the desert city of Victorville on April 18 led detectives to another Malibu in the Oakland area. They then confirmed that vehicle belonged to Tarantino and was reported stolen in 1994.

Authorities say the car's current owner is not believed to be involved in its theft and is considered to be a victim of a fraud.

A message seeking Tarantino's comment was not immediately returned.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stolen-pulp-fiction-car-found-19-years-later-043357221.html

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5 Facts you should know about Payday Loans - Enterprise Dojo

Payday loans, also known as cash advance, is an easy finance option for those who are in need of some instant cash. There are many businesses providing this service across the country and this happens to be a popular source of finance amongst many Americans. So if you are interested in this type of credit, here are 5 essential facts listed below which will help you understand what cash advance is and how it works -

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1. Don?t worry about the credit score

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If you have a not-so-fair financial past and poor credit score, don?t worry. Unlike traditional bank loans, there is no credit check when it comes to get approved for these types of credits. Instead of your credit, these types of loans are secured by your employment.

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2. You must have a secured employment

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The money you borrow from the lender, will be secured through the total amount of money you make. This signifies that your salary must be higher than the combined amount of the loan and additional fees. Make sure the employment is consistent and regular and note that any sort of freelance work or occasional employment is not counted. Some companies even require the borrower to have the job for a minimum time, before the loan will be sanctioned. There is also a minimum salary requirement which is usually something around 800 dollars per month, excluding all the taxes.

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3. Make sure you have a bank account

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It is through your bank account the lender will get paid. If the cash becomes due, he posts the charge to your account. Moreover, it will take much longer to get the credit approved if you don?t have a bank account. However, don?t forget to keep your banking information with you, especially the routing number as it will be needed to deposit money to your account.

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4. Be truthful to your lender

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While applying for a loan, make sure you provide absolutely correct information. Remember that being truthful to your lender is probably the most important factor to get approved for the loan. If you think that you can?t fulfill all the approval requirements, tell him and he will try to help you in every possible ways.

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5. It?s a short term finance option

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The costs and features of payday loans make them suitable for short term requirements. Due to the high fees of borrowing, they prove to be very expensive when you think of a long term involvement.? Usually the fees vary from 15 to 35 dollars for every 100 dollars and the time period, usually allotted for repayments is 14 days.

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So, these are some of the basic facts that will help you get the best payday loans.

Source: http://www.enterprisedojo.com/5-facts-you-should-know-about-payday-loans/

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Taxing Internet sales could level the field: Adoption of state option ...

Congress shied away for years from the idea of fixing a blanket federal requirement for online businesses to collect and remit state and local sales taxes on online purchases. The bill now being debated in the Senate -- the Marketplace Fairness Act -- tackles this needlessly thorny issue from a different angle. It would give state governments the option to require all but small businesses, those with sales of less than $1 million, to collect and remit state and municipal sales taxes.

Adoption of this state option should be an easy call for Congress, but apparently nothing related to taxes and business lobbyists is easy. A uniform federal law would have been desirable and more efficient. But the Marketplace Fairness Act is the next best measure. Certainly its passage is necessary.

Online businesses and retailers that now escape paying their fair share of state and local taxes are unfairly undermining the nation's bricks-and-mortar stores on Main Street and in malls. Their tax avoidance robs communities everywhere of local jobs and local taxpayer support for the myriad public services that taxpayers and shoppers themselves rely on for essential public services in their home communities.

Online tax avoidance in many cases also directly sponges off bricks-and-mortar stores by enabling shoppers to browse and test products they see in local stores, and then to go online to purchase them just to avoid local sales taxes. The end result of all this tax unfairness, of course, is that it will let online merchants eventually drive local businesses, jobs, tax revenue and local commercial vitality into the ground.

This mercenary dynamic explains why eBay is fiercely contesting the Marketplace Fairness Act. Its sales strategy reflects the model that Amazon has now outgrown: eBay, too, wants to cannibalize the sales of bricks-and-mortar stores long enough to get big enough and rich enough in market-share to have huge warehouses everywhere. Though this process would make billionaires of online CEOs, it would kill many Main Street businesses and shopping malls in many communities.

Absent passage of the bill for tax fairness for bricks-and-mortar stores, e-commerce, of course, will continue its rocket-pace rise of recent years. Online sales went from $995 million in 1999 to $2.34 trillion by 2006, and it has continued to rise since then. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates state governments lose $23 billion annually in sales taxes, mainly to online commerce -- most of it business-to-business. Tennessee officials reckon the state loses more than $400 million annually in uncollected sales taxes.

The tax losses to states arise from a myopic 1992 Supreme Court ruling which held that businesses that don't have a physical presence, or "nexus," in a given state do not have to pay sales taxes in that state. The high court obviously failed to foresee the digital and online commerce era, which now provides universal nexus for every online business to every state through any Internet-connected device.

A smartphone provides a personal portal to a mall, an outfitter or a muffler shop. With a bar-code scanner, it can instantly fatten commercial behemoths like Amazon, eBay and Overstock.com, by rapaciously making mincemeat of local stores.

Advocates of the Marketplace Fairness Act, including senators in Tennessee and most other states, correctly contend the bill would level the playing field for bricks-and-mortar businesses at all levels of commerce. Its opponents, mainly from the few states have no sales taxes, argue it's unfair to their online businesses that sell products in other states. They further argue that collecting sales taxes for local and state governments around the country would be a massively onerous and needlessly bureaucratic nightmare. But that's not true at all.

New software makes sales tax collection and remittance work an easy, seamless process. Many large bricks-and-mortar retailers with online businesses have perfected the software to meet that requirement. eBay, a hypocritical critic of the Marketplace Fairness Act, also uses such software to help its merchants which do collect and remit state and local taxes.

The core issue in this debate is simply tax fairness. No state or city should lose their local commercial vitality to tax-avoiding monopolistic Internet companies just to enrich their distant billionaire CEOs.

Source: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/apr/25/taxing-internet-sales-could-level-the-field/

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Why Red Velvet Cupcakery and BGR Are Franchising in the Persian ...

Red Velvet Cupcakery owner Aaron Gordon thought it was a scam the first time he was contacted about opening a shop in the Middle East.

?Dear Mr. Aron,? began an email from Malik Awan in January 2010. ?We would like to open dialogue with you for the opening of Red Velvet within Qatar?s prestigious project?The Cultural Village.? The $15 billion project, the message went on to say, was conceptualized by His Highness Sheikh Jasim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the former crown prince of Qatar, and would also include a beach, boardwalk, opera house, museums, boutique hotels, and more.

?I was immediately skeptical,? Gordon says. ?I thought it was some kind of shyster because how in the world would the crown prince have possibly tasted our cupcakes??

But after Awan, a retail consultant for the project, called and emailed about 20 times, Gordon called him back. It turned out that Al-Thani had traveled to D.C. several times at the height of the cupcake craze and loved Red Velvet. So, four or five times in the weeks following their conversation, a representative from the Qatari embassy picked up a few dozen cupcakes from the shop and sent them on an overnight flight to Doha.

Next, Awan said he wanted to bring Gordon to Doha. But Gordon had no intention of opening a shop overseas and barely knew a thing about Qatar. He agreed to go if they bought him and his father/business partner tickets to Qatar and Dubai, which he?d always wanted to visit.

Before he knew it, Gordon was on a first-class flight. As he departed the plane upon landing, Gordon noticed a black limousine on the tarmac. ?The guy looks up and goes, ?Aaron Gordon??? he recalls. ?Are you serious? Who do you think I am, Michael Jackson? I just make cupcakes.? In the whirlwind week that followed, Gordon and his father stayed in the finest hotels, ate in the best restaurants, and talked plans about bringing Red Velvet to the Cultural Village project.

Gordon eventually agreed to a franchise deal, and his head baker Lindsey Walker decided to move across the world to oversee the shop. The former crown prince paid for the million-dollar buildout of the cupcake shop, which has curved, shiny red walls and ceilings and furniture shaped like giant cupcakes. ?It?s probably 10 times more expensive than any shop I?ve ever built,? says Gordon, who collects 7 percent of the cupcakery?s sales, amounting to $30,000-$40,000 a year. Gordon, who also owns Tangysweet, has licensed the rights to the frozen yogurt shop in Doha, too, although it hasn?t been built yet overseas.

Red Velvet may not be the only familiar D.C. business heading to the Persian Gulf. In recent years, wealthy oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates have become hotspots for American restaurant franchises. Pinkberry, Shake Shack, P.F. Chang?s, IHOP, Potbelly, and The Cheesecake Factory all have locations in the Middle East, as do celebrity chefs like Alain Ducasse, Gordon Ramsay, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

Washington-area restaurant groups are getting in on the action, too: Arlington-based Elevation Burger has multiple locations, while BGR: The Burger Joint is working on a possible deal in Dubai. There?s hardly a fast casual concept in town that hasn?t at least been approached about the prospect. The owners of Sweetgreen, Georgetown Cupcake, H &pizza, and Taylor Gourmet say they?ve all been pitched opportunities to franchise in the region.

?There?s crazy amounts of money,? says Dan Rowe, CEO of Alexandria-based franchise development company Fransmart. While well-financed American companies might invest $1 or $2 million developing a franchise, Rowe says, it?s not unusual for those in the Middle East to invest $10 million in the first year and more than that the second?in cash.

Most residents of the countries where U.S. restaurants are expanding speak English, and they love American brands. Rowe says he?s done about 40 deals in the last five to six years in the Middle East, including Vapiano, Elevation Burger, and zpizza. The concepts that work there are the concepts that work here, he says, particularly if they have anything to do with burgers, pizza, diner food, sandwiches, or cupcakes. (French and Mexican food flops, while Italian is popular.)

?The biggest thing is street cred. They want a brand that?s already got a story,? Rowe says. ?Even Elevation Burger. It?s here in Washington, D.C., and that?s a big deal. The whole grassfed organic free-range meat, fries cooked in olive oil?even if an Arab started the concept on their own, it wouldn?t have quite the appeal because it didn?t come from the States.?

Elevation Burger already has seven locations in the Middle East, with seven more coming just this year. ?It seemed a little pie in the sky until we met somebody who we thought was really capable,? says founder Hans Hess, who visited the region for the first time last year and is on his second trip this month. ?I did have a sense of how good of a market it was for an American concept.?

Hess declines to say exactly how much more sales his stores do in the Middle East. ?I can tell you it?s much, much higher,? he says. On average, Rowe says the Middle East franchises tend to do 50 to 100 percent more business than their American counterparts. Part of the reason is that restaurants and malls are the center of social life there. In Saudi Arabia, for example, where Elevation has a franchise in Riyadh, the government does not allow movie theaters, bars, or dance clubs. With temperatures reaching 140 degrees, restaurants are one of the few refuges from the heat to hang out with friends.

Most restaurants get an upscale lift when they open in the Persian Gulf. ?They?re very brand-conscious, very fashion-conscious,? Rowe says. ?Any of our restaurants that are over there tend to look a little bit nicer than the rest of the chain...They use the best finishing, the best furniture; they overhire with labor.? Elevation Burger installed more expensive tiles and light fixtures overseas, and the Dubai location has a 17-foot sign out front. Real estate is limited, so in order to get leases, the restaurants need to impress the landlord, Hess says.

But in general, the restaurants try to replicate as much of their American outposts as possible. Almost all the food supplies, kitchen equipment, and furniture are shipped in from the U.S., allowing restaurants to use many of their same vendors. Meanwhile, restaurants must work through staffing agencies that bring in employees from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and dozens of other countries all over the world.

Walker has a two-year contract as head baker at Red Velvet, which will end in June. She says moving from D.C. to Qatar was an opportunity to travel, work with other nationalities, and broaden her culinary abilities. ?There?s not really much differences,? she says of the cupcake shop?s locations. ?The only thing I can think of is that all of our ingredients are imported, so we have to wait a bit longer for some stuff.?

During the week, the shop does more business with Qataris. On weekends, it draws a mostly expat crowd. For both groups, Walker says, the ?Southern Belle? red velvet cupcake is the best seller. While cupcake mania may be dying down in the U.S., it?s just getting started in the Middle East: New York?s Magnolia Bakery just opened in Doha, and Sprinkles has a location in Kuwait.

There?s also a whole set of Islamic dietary laws these eateries must comply with, including bans on pork and alcohol (with a few limited exceptions in certain countries). Elevation Burger?s veggie burger used white wine vinegar, so it had to change the recipe. Beer-battered onion rings and anything topped with bacon wouldn?t work, either, says BGR?s Mark Bucher.

Other menu changes have to do with cultural tastes. For example, Red Velvet serves more tea than coffee, and it added ice cream to the menu to help combat the heat. Elevation Burger offers ?fancy fries? with melted cheese and other toppings. At a U.S. location, the burger shop gets maybe 20 total orders of the dish a week. But at its Middle Eastern locations, 80 percent of fries have cheese?so much that Elevation Burger had to install additional equipment to more efficiently melt cheese.

Another thing that doesn?t happen often in the U.S., Hess says: Sometimes a diner will buy one of everything on the menu and set it out in front of him. ?He?ll have four sandwiches, a milkshake, a drink, a cheese fry, and a regular fry, a veggie burger,? Hess says. ?It?s not that he?s going to eat all of it. It?s a sign of wealth.?

But not everyone gets rich overseas. For every success story like Elevation Burger, Hess says he?s personally heard 10 failures: Stores close, partners don?t carry through on their commitments, and at worst, there?s protracted litigation. ?The problem selling to the ultra-wealthy is it?s just one of several projects for them,? Hess says. ?It?s very financially oriented, so sometimes those groups lose interest, and sometimes they find a better deal, and there?s so many ways to lose over there.?

Everything is harder, Rowe adds, whether it?s getting a location, employees, or products, and there are also other banking and legal hurdles that come with opening a business overseas.

Some D.C. restaurateurs have passed on the chance to expand. In January, Taylor Gourmet co-owner Casey Patten says he was approached about franchising H Street NE cheesesteak spot Taylor Charles Steak & Ice in Dubai. He heard that Tony Luke?s Cheesesteaks from Philadelphia was killing it in Bahrain. But the conversations didn?t last long. Patten says he?s not interested in taking time away from ?what we know is great? to go chase a quick buck somewhere else.

Still, many restaurateurs find the relatively low risk tempting. ?If it works over there, it?s amazing, right? People may hear about it and know about it,? Patten says. ?If it fails over there, no one?s going to know.?

Additional reporting from Doha, Qatar, by Sam Hasler.

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Photo by Sam Hasler

Source: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2013/04/24/cupcake-diplomacy-why-d-c-area-eateries-are-opening-franchises-in-the-persian-gulf/

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?Stoopid Tall? bike is over 14 feet tall

MUNICH, April 23 (Reuters) - Barcelona centre half Gerard Pique acknowledged his team were thoroughly second best as Bayern Munich romped to a 4-0 win in their Champions League semi-final first leg at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday. "They gave us a thrashing," he said. "We will try to turn it around in the return leg (on May 1) and put in a good performance for the fans. "They were better and faster than us. There is no point talking about the referee, there is no excuse." Arjen Robben, who sparkled on the wing for Bayern and scored one of the goals, hailed his team's spectacular performance. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/stoopid-tall-bike-over-14-feet-tall-212924545.html

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Death toll in Bangladesh building collapse at 175

Rescuers lower down a survivor from the debris of a building that collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. An eight-storey building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh?s capital on Wednesday, killing dozens of people and trapping many more under a jumbled mess of concrete. Rescuers tried to cut through the debris with earthmovers, drilling machines and their bare hands. (AP Photo/A.M.Ahad)

Rescuers lower down a survivor from the debris of a building that collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. An eight-storey building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh?s capital on Wednesday, killing dozens of people and trapping many more under a jumbled mess of concrete. Rescuers tried to cut through the debris with earthmovers, drilling machines and their bare hands. (AP Photo/A.M.Ahad)

Bangladeshi rescuers squeeze through a gap to help pull out survivors spotted in the debris of a building that collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. An eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh?s capital on Wednesday, killing dozens of people and trapping many more under a jumbled mess of concrete. Rescuers tried to cut through the debris with earthmovers, drilling machines and their bare hands. (AP Photo/A.M.Ahad)

Rescue workers use clothing to lower down survivors from the site of a building that collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. An eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh?s capital on Wednesday, killing dozens of people and trapping many more under a jumbled mess of concrete. Rescuers tried to cut through the debris with earthmovers, drilling machines and their bare hands. (AP Photo/A.M.Ahad)

Rescuers carry a survivor out from the debris of a building that collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. An eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh?s capital on Wednesday, killing dozens of people and trapping many more under a jumbled mess of concrete. Rescuers tried to cut through the debris with earthmovers, drilling machines and their bare hands. (AP Photo/A.M.Ahad)

People and rescuers gather after an eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. Dozens were killed and many more are feared trapped in the rubble. (AP Photo/ A.M. Ahad)

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) ? With deep cracks visible in the walls, police had ordered a Bangladesh garment building evacuated the day before its deadly collapse, but the factories flouted the order and kept more than 2,000 people working, officials said Thursday. At least 175 people died when a huge section of the eight-story building splintered into a pile of concrete slabs.

The disaster in the Dhaka suburb of Savar came less than five months after a blaze killed 112 people in a garment factory and underscored the unsafe conditions faced by Bangladesh's garment workers, who produce clothes for brands worn around the world. Some of the companies in the building that fell say their customers include retail giants such as Wal-Mart.

Hundreds of rescuers, some crawling through the maze of rubble in search of survivors and corpses, worked through the night and into Thursday amid the cries of the trapped and the wails of workers' relatives gathered outside the building, which housed numerous garment factories and a handful of other companies.

"Save us brother. I beg you brother. I want to live," moaned Mohammad Altab, a garment worker pinned tightly between two concrete slabs and next to two corpses.

"It's so painful here ... I have two little children," Altab said, his voice weak from exhaustion.

After the cracks were reported Tuesday, managers of a local bank that also had an office in the building evacuated their workers. The garment factories, though, kept working, ignoring the instructions of the local industrial police, said Mostafizur Rahman, a director of that paramilitary police force.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association had also asked the factories to suspend work starting Wednesday morning, hours before the collapse.

"After we got the crack reports, we asked them to suspend work until further examination, but they did not pay heed," said Atiqul Islam, the group's president.

On Thursday morning, the odor of rotting bodies wafted through holes cut into the building. Junior minister for Home Affairs, Shamsul Haque, said that by late Thursday morning a total of 2,000 people had been rescued from the wreckage.

Brig. Gen. Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, who is overseeing army rescue teams, said the death toll had climbed to 175 as of Thursday afternoon.

Dozens of bodies, their faces covered, were laid outside a local school building so relatives could identify them. Thousands of workers' family members gathered outside the building, waiting for news, as thousands of garment workers from nearby factories took to the streets across the industrial zone in protest.

The garment manufacturers' group said the factories in the building employed 3,122 workers but it was not clear how many were in the building when it collapsed.

A clearer picture of the rescue operation is likely to be available by afternoon, officials said.

Searchers worked through the night to probe the jumbled mass of concrete with drills or their bare hands, passing water and flashlights to people pinned inside.

"I gave them whistles, water, torchlights. I heard them cry," said fire official Abul Khayer late Wednesday, as he prepared to work late into the night.

Abdur Rahim, an employee who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that the cracks in the building were no cause for concern, so employees went inside.

"After about an hour or so, the building collapsed suddenly," Rahim said. The next thing he remembered was regaining consciousness outside.

On a visit to the site, Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters the building had violated construction codes and that "the culprits would be punished."

Abdul Halim, an official with the engineering department in Savar, said the owner was originally allowed to construct a five-story building but he added another three stories illegally.

Local police chief Mohammed Asaduzzaman said police and the government's Capital Development Authority have filed separate cases of negligence against the building owner.

Habibur Rahman, police superintendent of the Dhaka district, identified the owner as Mohammed Sohel Rana, a local leader of ruling Awami League's youth front. Rahman said police were also looking for the owners of the garment factories.

Among the textile businesses in the building were Phantom Apparels Ltd., Phantom Tac Ltd., New Wave Style Ltd., New Wave Bottoms Ltd. and New Wave Brothers Ltd. According to their website, the New Wave companies make clothing for major brands including U.S. retailers The Children's Place and Dress Barn, Britain's Primark, Spain's Mango and Italy's Benetton. Benetton's communications department said in an email to The Associated Press that people involved in the collapse were not Benetton suppliers.

Jane Singer, a spokeswoman for The Children's Place, said that "while one of the garment factories located in the building complex has produced apparel for The Children's Place, none of our product was in production at the time of this accident."

Dress Barn said that to its knowledge, it had not purchased clothing from the factories involved since 2010. Primark, a major British clothing retailer, confirmed that one of the suppliers it uses to produce some of its goods was located on the second floor of the building.

In a statement emailed to The Associated Press, Primark said it was "shocked and deeply saddened by the appalling incident." It added that it has been working with other retailers to review the country's approach to factory standards and will now push for this review to include building integrity. Meanwhile, Primark's ethical trade team is working to collect information, assess which communities the workers come from and provide support "where possible."

Mango denied reports it was using any of the suppliers in the building. However, in an email statement to the AP, it said that there had been conversations with one of them to produce a batch of test products.

Kevin Gardner, a spokesman at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the second-largest clothing producer in Bangladesh, said the company is investigating to see if a factory in the building had been producing for the chain at the time of the collapse.

The collapse was even deadlier than the November factory fire that drew international attention to working conditions in Bangladesh's $20 billion-a-year textile industry. The country has about 4,000 garment factories and exports clothes to leading Western retailers, and the industry wields vast power in the South Asian nation.

The Tazreen factory in the fire lacked emergency exits, and its owner said only three floors of the eight-story building were legally built. Surviving employees said gates had been locked and managers had told them to go back to work after the fire alarm went off.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-25-AS-Bangladesh-Building-Collapse/id-85a03eea8c964d0bbe283b7a04b74186

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Marshall Monitor headphones available now for $200, we go ears-on

When you've got legitimate rock-sound credentials, why wouldn't you make headphones? Right? To that end, Marshall is back with a new pair -- called Monitor -- to sit at the top of its existing range. Players in the current market seem to have found the sweet spot between premium pricing and street credibility, and there's no change here. Priced at $200, the Monitor is pit against other sets that mix style-consciousness with claims of quality audio. It's not all about looks, though: the Monitor sports a proprietary "F.T.F" (Felt Treble Filter) system that lets you change the sound for a different high-end response.

Under the hood is a 40mm driver, and the same gold, black and leather stylings we saw on the Major model. This time, however, Marshall opted for an over-ear fit, and threw in a few other goodies too. These include the increasingly popular 3.5mm pass-through jack (so friends can plug in and share your music), a collapsible design, a detachable part-coiled cable and in-line remote. The Monitor is available starting today for the aforementioned $200. But, if you want to know a little more, we got our hands on a set -- head past the break for our first impressions.

Gallery: Marshall Monitor hands-on

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/25/marshall-monitor-headphones/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Lorenzo Fertitta says women?s groups are being used as a pawn by unions in fight for MMA in NY

While on Laurence Holmes podcast on the Score on Monday night, he asked me how it was being a woman covering such a male-dominant sport as mixed martial arts. I answered that while there were some problems and I did come up against some jerks from time to time, MMA was fantastic to me. I pointed out that the few jerks were rarely fighters.

So imagine my surprise when I heard from women's groups that I've long respected that the sport I cover is full of negative attitudes against women. As New York debates legislation sanctioning MMA, women's groups have protested because of the "violent nature of MMA."

"Due to the violent nature of mixed martial arts and the surprisingly high incidence of unchallenged sexism and misogyny displayed by certain fighters, commentators and other public figures associated with this sport, the prospect of legalization in New York state raises legitimate concerns about the increased exposure of our children to this new and potentially very negative influence," stated a bill introduced Friday by state Sen. Liz Krueger, who represents much of Manhattan's east side.

Have MMA figures said and done terribly misogynistic things? Absolutely. But so have NFL players. So have NHL players. Both football and hockey also feature violent collisions and catastrophic injuries. Where are the protests to evict the Buffalo Bills or New York Rangers from the state?

UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, who has been lobbying for MMA's sanctioning in New York for years, thinks that these women's groups are being used as a pawn by the Culinary Union.

?It?s actually kind of sad,? Fertitta said. ?These women?s organizations and women?s groups stand for great things ? yet they are being used as a pawn by the Culinary Union.?

The union has a beef with Fertitta and his brother Frank because they own the largest non-union casinos in Las Vegas. The union has contacted women's groups to bring their attention MMA's rise and possible sanctioning in New York. But what would make more sense for the union to focus on is that fighters don't have a collective bargaining agreement and aren't unionized.

Krueger and others have pointed to links between MMA and violence when no such link has been found. There is also no discussion of how MMA has empowered women as fighters, officials, media and fans, or how women have learned self defense techniques at MMA gyms across the country. Invicta FC, a promotion run by a woman that features women's bouts, must have escaped their view.

There are real problems facing women. Sexual violence, domestic abuse, unequal pay, unequal treatment in the workplace, sexual harassment, and many other serious issues face women every day. Let's focus on how we should solve those real issues, and not a sport that has no proven link to any of these problems.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/lorenzo-fertitta-says-women-groups-being-used-pawn-224954336--mma.html

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On the long road with filmmaker Vanessa Renwick | Oregon ArtsWatch

By BRIAN LIBBY

Although Vanessa Renwick has been making films in Portland for decades now, all the while expanding her vision and technical grasp while portraying a host of characters and places across the West, a retrospective this week at the Hollywood Theatre reminds us that her signature image may be a point-of-view shot from the 1998 film ?Crowdog.? Using a super-8 camera, Renwick simply photographed her own two feet, traipsing down the shoulder of a rural Western highway, following its white line like a grittier yellow brick road.

?Crowdog? chronicles a 1984 hitchhiking trip Renwick made in her early twenties, entirely barefoot, to South Dakota?s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Though her intent was to explore remnants of the FBI?s battles with the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, the film is really a travelogue about camaraderie and solitude. Sometimes on foot, sometimes hitching rides, Renwick and her protective wolf-dog, Zeb, encounter parties both friendly and unfriendly, but the Chicago-born filmmaker never loses her eagerness to connect with the mammoth American landscape. ?Crowdog? always returns to that central image: a pair of dirty feet in rhythmic motion along the road as Renwick and Zeb continue their journey. They?re not in Kansas anymore, but technically Kansas is only a few million steps (or even just one answered thumb) away.

Vanessa Renwick?s feet in ?Crowdog?

Countless Hollywood filmmakers from Robert Aldrich (?Kiss Me Deadly?) to David Lynch (?Lost Highway?) have used the dotted line of an unfolding highway as a kind of hypnotic dream-shot: the road as both escape and absolution. But Renwick makes the unfolding shoulder of the road her own, willing to shrug off the broken glass her bare feet inevitably step upon (she simply kept a pair of tweezers to pick out the shards) or the menacing figures that Zeb is there to scare away. Nothing can keep this woman tied down.

Even now, as Renwick has gone on to become one of Portland?s most respected filmmakers and installation artists (she?s a regular on the city?s gallery scene as much as at the movie theater), it?s almost surprising when I learn she?s in town: The 52-year-old artist?s DNA seems that of the nomad, eager to put more calluses and scars on her feet as if they are her own perverse beauty marks.

Renwick will be at the Oregon Movies, A to Z two-night retrospective of her poetic short films and documentaries called ?Raw, Raucous and Sublime: 33 Years Of Vanessa Renwick,? April 25 and 26, at the Hollywood Theatre (7:30 pm, 4122 NE Sandy Boulevard). The programs offer not only the chance to revisit her impressive and evolving body of work but also a reminder that the term ?experimental film,? under which her films are generally categorized, can be misleading. There is nothing avant-garde about Vanessa Renwick?s films and videos: no esoteric abstraction, no shots continuing for minutes on end, no winking irony, no mystery to what she?s trying to say. Instead, Renwick?s shorts, be they a series of diary entries guided by her narration or a succession of documentary portraits about fellow outsiders (a kooky Centralia garbage artist, a Satan worshiper, jockeys at Portland Meadows), are straightforward in structure and earnest in tone.

****

Renwick was part of a small wave of Portland experimental film talents who gained notoriety in the late ?90s and early ?00s such as Miranda July, who would go on to direct Sundance Film Festival favorites like Me and You and Everyone We Know, and Matt McCormick, who founded the Peripheral Produce screening series and the PDX Film Fest. At these screenings ?Renwick?s work first found acclaim, as she went on to win the PDX Fest?s central event, the Peripheral Produce Invitational, numerous times.

?Vanessa Renwick was a powerful influence on me in my twenties,? July wrote in a testimonial for Renwick?s new video collection, NSEW. ?Here is a woman who has taught herself how to make movies, following her own rules about what movies can be and creating them in ways that are personal, organic, and sometimes wildly risky. Her body of work is substantial and important, and radiates with love and anger and sense of real joy in the gritty specifics of life (and death) on earth.?

Still from Vanessa Renwick?s ?The Yodeling Lesson?

My first encounter with Renwick?s work, in 2000, wasn?t in a movie theater but in a gallery where I was working at the time. Her film ?The Yodeling Lesson? was playing on a TV set powered by a stationary bicycle. If one was willing to pedal along, onto the screen came the story of a woman riding up a hill on North Mississippi Avenue, past freeway overpasses and warehouses. When she reaches the top of the hill and coasts back down the hill, her clothes suddenly disappear. The rider is unperturbed, as if the freedom of nudity is only the natural expression of her visceral thrill. Like with ?Crowdog,? Renwick seemed to be expressing more than a Zoo Bomber-style sense of wonder about everyday life as protection against its inevitable disappointments and tragedies. She also wanted to take us along.

Over the ensuing years, Renwick has continued evolving as a documentarian and installation artist. One landmark is her 2001 film ?Richart,? co-directed with Dawn Smallman, about Tacoma artist Richard Tracy, a former psychiatric patient whose life was reborn when he decided to become an artist. His entire home and front and back yards are teeming with his assemblages of garbage, but Tracy?s manic personality is its own kind of performance art. ?Every time I have a dream, it?s a solution,? he says in one memorable moment, lying down for a power nap after leading a trio of teenagers through an exercise in decorating automobile hubcaps.

RICHART from Collective Eye Films on Vimeo.

?Vanessa?s seeking, unsatisfied kind of freedom will?never reach the end of the road,? author William T. Vollmann writes, in another testimonial from NSEW. (Vollmann appeared in Renwick?s 1999 film ?The Ugly Movie.?) ?But her movies are not only about herself, or about the borders and patterns she sees. She gives love and recognition to the strivings of other outlaws. The result is a rare public spiritedness.?

Renwick also has created a noteworthy collection of found-footage collages, particularly drawing from the Prelinger Archives, that offer glimpses of people and places far off Hollywood?s path. Especially captivating is ?Britton, South Dakota,? taken from a series of 16mm reels shot by a theater owner, Ivan Besse, during the Great Depression; he?d shoot a few seconds of children and other passers-by outside the theater and then run montages of them for a few moments before movie screenings as a marketing effort to draw customers. Renwick picks up on the distinctive non-narrative quality of the footage, and presents it nearly as-is, without editing it into any kind of story. ?The lack of narrative invites dressing these cinematic dolls with futures, now histories,? Renwick wrote on her website.

?Britton, South Dakota? won the Gus Van Sant Best Experimental Film award at the prestigious Ann Arbor Film Festival. One could also argue that it?s a sequel, or perhaps a prequel, to ?Crowdog? and its barefoot pilgrimage to South Dakota. Be it through everyday life or the world of cinema, Renwick seeks out those without guile.

In recent years, Renwick?s ?Portrait? series has chronicled a series of disappearing places in the Northwest, reflecting upon the temporality of any place we congregate or place meaning. 2005?s ?Portrait #1: Cascadia Terminal,? about a grain terminal in Vancouver, BC, that services up to 300 train cars a day but also was a longtime hang-out place for local kids to imbibe drugs, alcohol and each other?until post September 11 security concerns made it inaccessible. A wordless film driven by Tara Jane O?Neil?s score, combined with the visuals? hybrid look (16mm film embellished with video-based sepia tone after-effects), it was called ?at once soothing and transfixing? by director Michael Almereyda, who gave the film a Judge?s Award at the 2005 NW Film & Video Festival.

2006?s ?Portrait #2: Trojan? is a kind of artful crowd-pleaser or thinking person?s YouTube clip. One of the only Renwick films shot by someone else (veteran Hollywood cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards, who shot Gus Van Sant?s To Die For among many others) and one of her only works on 35mm film, the five-minute short, also wordless with a score by Sam Coomes of indie-rock band Quasi, views the controlled implosion of the Trojan nuclear power plant. There is a sort of liberal glee implied in watching this symbol of 1970s-80s industry collapse, yet in this moment of destruction?particularly watching it in a post-Fukushima world?one also gets a sense of the destructive power of the nuclear reactor itself.

Portrait#2: Trojan from Vanessa Renwick on Vimeo.

Exceptional as ?Portrait #2: Trojan? may be, closer to her essence is ?Portrait #3: House of Sound,? a history of a Portland record store of the same name that became both a film and an installation at the New American Art Union. The film fuses black and white stills and images to evoke the store?s past glories and present-day absence, with audio from a radio broadcast tribute to the shop giving voice to former customers and workers there. The House of Sound, as Renwick conveys, wasn?t just a record store but part of a host of African American-owned businesses, particularly jazz clubs, that flourished in Portland in the years after World War II before urban planning, economics and changing demographics saw them disappear.

?In retrospect, the lost neighborhood has come to seem like a flashing sliver of Harlem itself, a beacon of livelier, more colorful times in a part of town only recently rediscovered by developers,? writes novelist and screenwriter Jon Raymond of ?Portrait #3.? ?Renwick?s response to the loss of the House of Sound is characteristically stalwart and unintrusive. Like a kind of hospice nurse of community architecture, she has quietly tended the patient, dressing its wounds, cleaning its body, making room for relatives to view the remains. She has collected family histories and arranged the services. Here, now, the sign rests, surrounded by votive candles, as ghostly images and voices, remembering, float in the air.?

?Thanks to Renwick, we are at least allowed a moment to mark the passage,? Raymond adds. ?Thanks to Renwick, the preservationist, we are granted the dignity of mourning.?

Vava and Zeb in Vanessa Renwick?s ?Crowdog?

This, above all, may be Renwick?s legacy as Portland filmmaker and artist: She began her career as a diarist and rabble-rouser, but what has carried through, no matter the subject matter, is her profound empathy: for the dispossessed, for the eccentric, for those who dream bigger dreams than they can afford, but who find a way to carve out spaces and lives for themselves?people like Renwick. For if you want to get away on a pilgrimage, you don?t need a car or even a pair of shoes. All you need is the willingness to accept the inevitable if occasional shards of glass under your feet.

Source: http://www.orartswatch.org/on-the-long-road-with-filmmaker-vanessa-renwick/

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Will the Bush Library Address Torture?

The George W. Bush Presidential Center dedication ceremony in Dallas this morning

Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

In 2007, I had the privilege of becoming the first director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. My job was to move Nixon?s presidential materials from the Washington, D.C. area, where they had been kept as federal property because of the Watergate investigation, to California, where Nixon?s friends and supporters had built a private library in 1990. My job involved transforming the once private library, which had a reputation for being a national center of Watergate denial, into a public, nonpartisan facility.

Sometime in 2010, I was surprised (and frankly, a little proud) when my boss at the National Archives told me that my name had been invoked in negotiations over the future George W. Bush Presidential Library. Apparently, the George W. Bush Foundation was worried ?some future Naftali? would ?want to put up a torture exhibit.?

It?s true that I had managed to anger Nixon loyalists. As part of the Nixon Library?s rebranding mission, I had brought in serious critics of the former president?notably Elizabeth Drew and John Dean?to the library and vowed to have an honest exhibit on Watergate. And the Nixonians made their feelings known. In 2009, the private Nixon Foundation sent a letter to every living former president denouncing me personally??Who is this Naftali,? a puzzled President Bill Clinton is said to have asked, ?and why should I care???for messing up the library system by trying to achieve nonpartisanship in Yorba Linda. The Bushies were apparently arguing for control of the temporary exhibit gallery to prevent it from being used by a future federal director for an exhibit that might cast Bush 43 in a negative light.

The creation of every new presidential library involves negotiations over an agreement?a treaty?between the federal government and the former president and his representatives. Called a Joint Use Agreement, the contract divides up responsibility for the space at the library between the private presidential foundation, which is usually dedicated to promoting the positive legacy of a president, and the American people. Areas controlled by the private presidential foundation, such as the impressive Air Force One Pavilion at the Reagan Library, can have partisan events such as Republican presidential debates. Those spaces controlled by the National Archives on behalf of the American people, however, are legally mandated to be nonpartisan.

In dealing with the Bush Foundation, the National Archives apparently held the line?as it did with the private Nixon Foundation?and, according to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum website, all of the galleries that will be dedicated today are indeed controlled by all of us. If the final agreement is anything like the treaty governing the Nixon Library, the National Archives has veto power on your behalf over all exhibits and programs at this new presidential library.

That?s right. Whatever you think of President George W. Bush, you control the Bush Library. And you should, since every year you will spend about $4 million on it?the same amount of public funds spent on every one of the 12 other presidential libraries.

One of the misconceptions about presidential libraries is that they are supposed to be shrines. (Don?t worry if you believe that?many presidential relatives do, too.) But Congress is not interested in creating shrines to the branch of government at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. It is one of the strange outcomes of the separation of powers doctrine that one branch has to pay to archive and display the documents and trinkets of a competing branch. In recent years, Congress has shown its displeasure by trying to narrow the streams of public money that go to presidential libraries. The younger President Bush had to raise a lot more money than his father, not just because construction costs had increased in 15 years, but because Congress expects the friends of presidents to create an endowment to help shoulder the burden of maintaining the buildings forever.

There?s nothing wrong with that necessarily. But in its zeal to reduce the public burden for these libraries, Congress has made them even more vulnerable to presidential friends and family. Unwilling to use public funds for these programs or exhibitions, Congress expects the library?s private presidential partner to foot that bill. The effect is that the National Archives finds itself passing the tin cup to raise money for museums, exhibits, and book talks from groups that are not interested in promoting objectivity.

The National Archives is nonpartisan; it is supposed to act in the spirit of open government and transparency and be a leader in the custodianship of history. Presidential families (though there are notable exceptions like the Truman, Johnson, Ford, and Carter families, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg) often oppose nonpartisan programming and have often placed obstacles in the way of releasing materials.

Another misconception is that, like it or not, presidents and their loyalists deserve a watering hole. Since we Americans regularly ?throw the bums out,? regardless of ideology, there are almost as many Democratic presidential libraries as Republican ones. So, why not let them be? Democrats can visit the Clinton Library and Republicans the Reagan Library.

I have to admit that this was my view until I ran one. These presidential libraries, however, have an educational mission that is much more important to the country than the reputation of a former president. Depending on the location, these libraries receive between 60,000 and 400,000 visitors a year. And students and teachers around the country use these libraries? online resources in the classroom. You cannot look at the faces of the kids and their teachers that come to your museum without feeling pangs of regret if what they see is not as accurate and informative as it could be. At the Nixon Library, 12,000 school kids on formal school tours visited each year. Before the National Archives took over in 2007, nearly 200,000 students had been taught that the Democrats used Watergate to overturn the electoral result of 1972 and that Richard Nixon did nothing that presidents before him had not done; the only difference was that he got caught.

Will the George W. Bush Library echo the insecurity of the president?s supporters who worried about letting the National Archives put up a future torture exhibit? The test will not just be the permanent galleries that we get a look at for the first time this week, but the tenor of the programs sponsored by the library. Will the library invite serious writers who opposed the Iraq War in the spirit of the Johnson Library?s invitation to Robert Caro? Will the school tours be run with an educational or a rehabilitative mission for the reputation of the 43^rd president? And what about the temporary exhibits sponsored by the library, will they be nonpartisan or just echo chambers for Bush-era White House spin?

The new Bush Library will be as nonpartisan as you want it to be. All of the libraries read the emails, letters, and social media about how they are doing their job and how they could do it better. If you are a teacher, contact the library and see what online materials they have for your students. And if you consider the materials one-sided, let them know. The Bush Library, like all other presidential libraries, will have an education specialist, paid by public funds, whose job will be to foster an inviting, ?no-spin? zone. If the public wants serious discussion about No Child Left Behind, the consequences of the Iraq War, or why the government crossed the line and used torture after 9/11, there is no good reason why these discussions cannot occur in the same building as where the documents that explain those policies exist.

Academic historians long ago shifted their focus away from the White House, but for most of us American history is still heavily presidential. What we learn about these outsize individuals marks what we think about ourselves. If children are taught that truth lies solely with the presidents of one stripe or another, that no president did wrong, that all presidents were consistent in what they thought or did, and that history flows from the Oval Office, then we invite a continuation of the toxic national politics that have made this country nearly ungovernable.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=170a7b278a8dd1be04931229b3879c3a

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