stringbook
By Mort Rosenblum and Mar Cabra
January 25, 2012
Jack mackerel, rich in oily protein, is manna to a hungry planet, a staple in Africa. Elsewhere, people eat it unaware; much of it is reduced to feed for aquaculture and pigs. It can take more than 5 kilos (11+ pounds) of jack mackerel to raise a single kilogram of farmed salmon.
Yet stocks have dropped from an estimated 30 million metric tons to less than 3 million in two decades … An eight-country investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists of the fishing industry in the southern Pacific shows why the plight of the jack mackerel foretells the progressive collapse of fish stocks in all oceans.
Their fate reflects a bigger picture: decades of unchecked global fishing pushed by geopolitical rivalry, greed, corruption, mismanagement and public indifference … The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization was formed in 2006, at the initiative of Australia and New Zealand along with Chile, which often shuns international bodies.
Its purpose was to protect fish, particularly jack mackerel. But it took almost four years for 14 countries to adopt 45 interim articles aimed at doing that. Only six countries have ratified the agreement.
Meantime, industrial fleets bound only by voluntary restraints compete in what amounts to a free-for-all in no man’s water at the bottom of the world.
From 2006 through 2011, scientists estimate, jack mackerel stocks declined by 63 percent.
Working aquatic-elephants like Rajan used to be a regular sight in the Andaman Islands, south of India, but this 60-year-old five tonne Asian elephant is the last of his kind. Thanks to the introduction of motor boats and other energy-saving technology, Rajan no longer needs to swim miles between islands to work for his masters, but can now enjoy swimming purely for pleasure. Rajan still swims for ten minutes twice a day, completing about 500 yards before heading back to shore. Brazilian Photographer, Daniel Botelho, 30, travelled to the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean after hearing stories of islanders swimming with the giant beasts. He said: “I almost got killed by the elephant during one photo shoot. Suddenly a swell came and took me and the elephant by surprise. I was stuck in the sand because of the crash of the wave. He did his best not to kill me - I felt him rolling on top and away from me.” Picture: Daniel Botelho / Barcroft Media
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New behind-the-scenes photos from the White House from December 2011 (or, as we like to think of it: new excuse to post a photo of Bo).
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President Obama Delivers Remarks at the HRC’s Annual National Dinner, October 1, 2011 (X)
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Michelle Obama On ‘iCarly’: Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress Share First Lady Stories : Huffington Post
By Jordan Zakarin
January 11, 2012
Obama plays a version of herself, one who happens to have been moved by an episode of the web show within a show—think NBC’s “30 Rock” for tweens—put on by Carly, Freddie (Kress) and their friends Gibby (Noah Munck) and Sam (Jennette McCurdy).
The guest part is more than a mere cameo; the First Lady’s TV-self visits Carly after learning that the webcasting teen’s father, an Air Force pilot, has had his return home delayed by another redeployment. To her credit, the cast said, Obama took on the challenge of learning a substantial amount of dialogue … In what is sure to be the most memorable clip from the episode, the First Lady shuffles, claps and lets loose in one of the show’s patented Random Dances. For that scene, she had a little advance help.
“She was talking about how her daughters had shown her some moves so she wouldn’t be embarrassing on camera,” Kress recalled, to which Cosgrove added, “I dont know why, I kind of expected her to be a little shy about it, but she wasn’t at all—she got really into it, she had a lot of good moves.”
(Source: vimeo.com)
Anti-Love Poem
Sometimes you don’t want to love the person you love
you turn your face away from that face
whose eyes lips might make you give up anger
forget insult steal sadness of not wanting
to love turn away then turn away at breakfast
in the evening don’t lift your eyes from the paper
to see that face in all its seriousness a
sweetness of concentration he holds his book
in his hand the hard-knuckled winter wood-
scarred fingers turn away that’s all you can
do old as you are to save yourself from love—Grace Paley
4 notes (via itmademyheartbeat & elsewards)
By Emily Nussbaum
January 23, 2012
The first season began with the Titanic disaster; the second plunges us into the trenches of the First World War, emphasizing the ways in which battle causes class distinctions to at once dissolve and become more starkly apparent. As veterans return from the front, Downton becomes an auxiliary hospital, an event that confronts its wealthier inhabitants with the uselessness of their lives. (Well, most of them; Maggie Smith’s fabulously haughty dowager isn’t having any mournful breakthroughs.) The season begins slowly, but with each episode the pace intensifies; and just when you feel that you can’t take another dignified refusal there’s a resonant insight. “‘Flattered’ is a word posh people use when they’re getting ready to say ‘no,’” one suitor in a cross-class flirtation says.
The Complete Oral History of Party Down: Movies + TV : Details
THE CREATORS AND CAST—INCLUDING PAUL RUDD, ADAM SCOTT, AND JANE LYNCH—REVEAL ALL THE WILD ANTICS FROM THE CULT COMEDY SERIES CANCELED BEFORE ITS TIME.
By Whitney Pastorek
February 7, 2011
LIZZY CAPLAN, Casey Klein: I found out about the show probably the weekend before we started shooting. Adam and I have the same agent. And I had never met Adam, but my agent told me about this show he was doing. So I talked to Adam on the phone, and I don’t know if he tries to play it cool or whatever, but he can be kind of charmless when he doesn’t know you. So I had a pretty awkward monotone conversation with Adam and somehow that convinced me to do the show, even though he really was totally boring on the phone. I was like, “Who is this grumbly kid?” I had no idea.
ADAM SCOTT: We were auditioning lots of people, and so I was like, “What about Lizzy Caplan?” From knowing her work, I thought she and I would have chemistry. But also I knew that if we didn’t, she was good enough to pretend that we did and pull it off. And luckily, we actually did, and she didn’t have to pretend. Or, you know what? Maybe she was pretending the whole time and I just didn’t know it. She’s that good.
LIZZY CAPLAN: I thought that he hated me for a really long time. By “for a really long time” I mean like three weeks. I didn’t really get his sense of humor at first. He’s very dry, like, need a glass of water when you talk to him dry. And then eventually I realized that half the stuff he was doing that I didn’t understand was his attempts at being funny.
ROB THOMAS: Originally, we’d imagined Henry and Casey being the same age, mid-thirties. Whereas Henry had given up hope in his career, Casey was supposed to still be dogged and determined. So Lizzy changed the way we perceived it a little, but we felt very good to have her.
Paul Barton took his piano to “the mountains of Kanchanaburi to play for some very old, injured and handicapped elephants, especially a blind elephant Plara immediately behind the piano.”
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