Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/193552213?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Deciphering the Super Bowl: XLVI is Greek to kids (AP)
NEW YORK ? Kids LOL and OMG each other all the livelong day, but ask them to decipher the XLVI of this year's Super Bowl and you might as well be talking Greek.
They may know what X means, or V and I, but Roman numerals beyond the basics have largely gone the way of cursive and penmanship as a subject taught in the nation's schools.
Students in high school and junior high get a taste of the Roman system during Latin (where Latin is still taught, anyway). And they learn a few Roman numerals in history class when they study the monarchs of Europe.
But in elementary school, "Roman numerals are a minor topic," said Jeanine Brownell of the early mathematics development program at Erickson Institute, a child-development graduate school in Chicago.
That's not how Joe Horrigan remembers it.
"I went to Catholic school. I still have bruised knuckles from not learning them," said the NFL historian and spokesman for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
What's wrong with good ol' 46 to describe this year's Super Bowl between the Giants and the Patriots on Sunday?
"`Number 46,' it just kind of sounds like an inventory. `Inspected by Joe,'" said Joe, who is LX years old. "Those Roman numerals, they're almost like trophies."
Any football fan worth his weight in nachos will find a way to figure out the Super Bowl number from one year to the next, but shouldn't kids have some sense of the Romans as an actual numbering system?
"My son is in first grade and this recently came up when we were clock shopping," said Eileen Wolter of Summit, N.J. "He couldn't believe they were real numbers. They only ever get used for things like copyrights or sporting events, which in my humble opinion harkens even further back to the gladiatorial barbaric nature of things like the Super Bowl."
Gerard Michon isn't much of a football fan, either, but he keeps a close eye on Super Bowls over at Numericana.com, where he dissects math and physics and discusses the Roman system ad nauseam.
Starting with Super Bowl XLI in 2007, he has been getting an abnormal number of game-day visits from football fans with a sudden interest in Roman numerals. On the day of last year's Super Bowl XLV, so many people visited that Michon's little server crashed. When the dust cleared, he had logged 15,278 hits, more than 90 percent landing on "XLV."
"Last year was total madness," Michon said, in part "because so many people were wondering why VL isn't a correct replacement for XLV." When the Super Bowl started, the games were assigned simple Roman numerals "that everybody knows," he said. Now "it looks kind of mysterious."
The use of Roman numerals to designate Super Bowls began with game V in 1971, won by the Baltimore Colts over the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 on Jim O'Brien's 32-yard field goal with five seconds remaining. Numerals I through IV were added later for the first four Super Bowls.
"The NFL didn't model after the Olympics," said Dan Masonson, director of the league's corporate communications. Instead, he said, the Roman system was adopted to avoid any confusion that might occur because of the way the Super Bowl is held in a different year from the one in which most of the regular season is played.
Bob Moore, historian for the Kansas City Chiefs, credits the idea of using Roman numerals to Lamar Hunt, the late Chiefs owner and one of the godfathers of the modern NFL. (History also credits Hunt with coming up with the name "Super Bowl" for the big game.)
"The Roman numerals made it much more important," Moore said. "It's much more magisterial."
Or as Michon put it: Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur ? "Anything stated in Latin looks important."
Linsey Knerl, who is homeschooling her five children in Tekamah, Neb., is teaching them Roman numerals, showing her oldest ? who is 13 ? how to decipher chapter numbers while reading "Oliver Twist."
"I realize that it may not seem to be the most culturally relevant thing you can teach kids these days," she said. "But if kids can get what LOL and ROFL mean, things like XXII should be a piece of cake."
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Monday, January 30, 2012
The Volokh Conspiracy ? The Legal Whiteboard: Hello World
Welcome to the blogging world, Bill Henderson and Andy Morriss and their new blog, The Legal Whiteboard. ?It promises to fill an important missing link in the discussion of the future business models of the legal profession and legal education. ?From the inaugural post by Bill Henderson:
?
According to a lot of reputable media outlets, the sky is falling for both legal education and legal services.? I understand the basis for this conclusion.? A lot of lawyers, young and old, are unemployed or underemployed.? The debt loads of graduating students are staggering.? The established ?brand? law firms are doing something they have never done before ? shrink, or at least not grow.? This puts lawyers on edge and has a tendeny to spawn unhealthy, short-sighted behavior. ?The federal government, through the direct lending of the Department of Education, continues to fuel the lawyer production machine.? So things may get worse before they get better.
Despite the fact that I am one of the go-to people on the speaker circuit when it comes time to talk about structural change, I am not in the sky-is-falling camp.? Instead, I see a lot of opportunities for lawyers, law students and legal educators to do very important and creative work.? What is most exciting about this work is that it will make society better off ? law will become better, faster and cheaper. ?Many legal services will become more standardized, productized and commoditized.? I realize that these words will rankle some of the old guard, particularly those still making a good living under the bespoke model.? But clients ? including corporations, government and ordinary citizens?will love it.? Professional ideals will remain the cornerstone of successful legal enterprises, but denying the exigencies of the marketplace is, to my mind, unprofessional.
Because clients and society want better, faster and cheaper law, I believe lawyers (including legal educators) have a professional duty to ardently pursue this goal.? The hardest part of this assignment ? and the most vexing and interesting ? is how to parlay this transformation into a decent living.
Many people assume that the new paradigm means lawyers working longer hours for lower wages.? That is one future business model.? But I think it utterly lacks imagination.? Lawyers are problem solvers.? To my mind, the growing price elasticity for legal services and legal education is just a very difficult problem.? And whenever I am faced with a very difficult problem, I typically start writing out my thoughts on a massive whiteboard.? (I am told it is quite a spectacle to behold.)? I am also someone who loves to collaborate.? With an outward facing Legal Whiteboard, I am hoping to elicit the genius of my fellow travelers.
Source: http://volokh.com/2012/01/28/the-legal-whiteboard-hello-world/
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Want your enemies to trust you? Put on your baby face
ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2012) ? Do baby-faced opponents have a better chance of gaining your trust? By subtly altering fictional politicians' faces, researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem examined whether minor changes in appearance can affect people's judgment about "enemy" politicians and their offer to make peace. In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the research showed that peace offers from baby-faced politicians had a better chance of winning over the opposing population than the exact same offer coming from more mature-looking leaders.
"The Face of the Enemy: The Effect of Press-reported Visual Information Regarding the Facial Features of Opponent-politicians on Support for Peace" was authored by Dr. Ifat Maoz, Associate Professor in the Noah Mozes Department of Communication and Journalism, and Head of the Smart Family Institute of Communications, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Prof. Maoz provided Jewish-Israeli respondents with a fictional news item containing a peace proposal and a fictional Palestinian leader's photograph. The photograph was manipulated to appear as either baby-faced or mature by making a 15% change in the size of eyes and lips. Respondents were then asked to evaluate the peace offer and rate the trustworthiness of the politician who offered it.
Although both images were based on the same original, the baby-faced politician was judged as more trustworthy and his peace proposal received greater support than the same offer from the mature-faced politician.
"People generally associate a baby face with attributes of honesty, openness and acceptance," explains Prof. Maoz, "and once you trust your adversary, you have a greater willingness to reach a compromise."
Previous studies have shown that viewers can form judgments of trustworthiness after as little as 100 milliseconds of exposure to a novel face. Certain facial features evoke feelings of warmth, trust and cooperation while minimizing feelings of threat and competition. People with babyish facial characteristics like large eyes, round chin and pudgy lips are perceived as kinder, more honest and more trustworthy than mature-faced people with small eyes, square jaws, and thin lips. Baby-faced people also produce more agreement with their positions.
But while past research indicates that the appearance of politicians from one's own country affects attitudes and voting intentions, this is the first study that systematically examines the impact of politicians' faces from the opposing side in a conflict.
These conclusions are especially important as the dominance of TV and Internet, combined with the proliferation of photo-ops, photo-shopping and image consultants, means politicians' faces are seen more than ever and their appearance has a greater chance of affecting the impressions, attitudes and opinions of media consumers.
The study also gauged how manipulating facial features affected populations with different pre-existing attitudes, by overcoming hawkish and dovish participants' resistance to change and increasing their perceptions of opponents as trustworthy. Surprisingly, while study participants with hawkish positions held markedly negative initial attitudes towards peace and the opponents in a conflict -- attitudes that tend to be rigid and resistant to change -- they showed a more significant response than dovish respondents to differences in facial maturity.
The study suggests that in situations of protracted conflict, the face of the enemy matters. Visual information conveying subtle, undetected changes in facial physiognomy were powerful enough to influence perceivers' judgments of the opponent-politician and of the proposal he presented for resolving the conflict.
The findings of this study also have important practical implications regarding the mobilization of public opinion in support of conflict resolution. Previous research has shown that images of politicians are often manipulated in media coverage to appear more or less favorable and that such manipulations affect citizens' attitudes and voting intentions towards politicians from their own state and country. This study shows that manipulating the favorability of media images of opponent political leaders in intractable conflict may also have a marked effect on public attitudes, and that media coverage presenting favorable images of opponent leaders may have the potential to mobilize public support for conflict resolution through compromise.
Prof. Maoz adds that there are situations in which a baby-face is not advantageous: "Although features of this type can lend politicians an aura of sincerity, openness and receptiveness, at the same time they can communicate a lack of assertiveness. So people tend to prefer baby-faced politicians as long they represent the opposing side, while on their own side they prefer representatives who look like they know how to stand their ground."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Hebrew University of Jerusalem, via AlphaGalileo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Ifat Maoz. The Face of the Enemy: The Effect of Press-reported Visual Information Regarding the Facial Features of Opponent-politicians on Support for Peace. Political Communication, 2012 (in press)
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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/~3/hnNFD0vOIgk/120129151046.htm
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Taylor Lautner and Sara Hicks: Back Together?
Might Taylor Lautner and Sara Hicks be back together?
The Twilight Saga and Abduction star took his 19-year old ex-girlfriend to a performance of OVO by Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica last night.
The pair, who dated in high school, were photographed coming out of the event, while an insider tells Us Weekly they "have been hanging out a lot in L.A., seeing a few shows and going to dinner."
Hicks is now a Los Angeles Clippers cheerleader.
Lauter, who has been linked in the past to both Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez, split with Lily Collins in September.
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/taylor-lautner-and-sara-hicks-back-together/
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Video: Researchers show how viruses evolve, and in some cases, become deadly
Friday, January 27, 2012
In the current issue of Science, researchers at Michigan State University demonstrate how a new virus evolves, which sheds light on how easy it can be for diseases to gain dangerous mutations.
The scientists showed for the first time how the virus called "Lambda" evolved to find a new way to attack host cells, an innovation that took four mutations to accomplish. This virus infects bacteria, in particular the common E. coli bacterium. Lambda isn't dangerous to humans, but this research demonstrated how viruses evolve complex and potentially deadly new traits, said Justin Meyer, MSU graduate student, who co-authored the paper with Richard Lenski, MSU Hannah Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.
"We were surprised at first to see Lambda evolve this new function, this ability to attack and enter the cell through a new receptor ? and it happened so fast," Meyer said. "But when we re-ran the evolution experiment, we saw the same thing happen over and over."
Researchers at Michigan State University demonstrate how a new virus evolves, shedding light on how easy it can be for diseases to gain dangerous mutations. Credit: Michigan State University/Jeremy Polk, National Science Foundation
Through research conducted at BEACON, MSU's National Science Foundation Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Meyer and his colleagues' ability to duplicate the results implied that adaptation by natural selection, or survival of the fittest, had an important role in the virus' evolution.
When the genomes of the adaptable virus were sequenced, they always had four mutations in common. The viruses that didn't evolve the new way of entering cells had some of the four mutations but never all four together, said Meyer, who holds the Barnett Rosenberg Fellowship in MSU's College of Natural Science.
"In other words, natural selection promoted the virus' evolution because the mutations helped them use both their old and new attacks," Meyer said. "The finding raises questions of whether the five bird flu mutations may also have multiple functions, and could they evolve naturally?"
###
National Science Foundation: http://www.nsf.gov
Thanks to National Science Foundation for this article.
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Russians win Australian Open women's doubles
Russians win Australian Open women's doubles
JUSTIN BERGMANJUSTIN BERGMAN, Associated Press?
?Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, left, and compatriot Vera Zvonareva, right, pose with the trophy, surrounded by ball boys after winning their women's doubles final against Italy's Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)
Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, left, and compatriot Vera Zvonareva, right, pose with the trophy, surrounded by ball boys after winning their women's doubles final against Italy's Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)
Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, left, and compatriot Vera Zvonareva, right, hold the trophy after winning their women's doubles final against Italy's Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)
Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, front, and Vera Zvonareva hug after winning their women's doubles final against Italy's Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)
Italy's Sara Errani, left, and Roberta Vinci, play a shot against Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva, in the women's doubles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012.(AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)
Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, right, and Vera Zvonareva talk during a break as they play Italy's 'Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in the women's doubles final at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) ? Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva of Russia captured the Australian Open women's doubles title on Friday, beating Italian duo Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.
Kuznetsova, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, and Zvonareva are both known primarily for their singles play, although each has one previous Grand Slam doubles title with a different partner.
The unseeded duo hadn't played together since the French Open last year.
"We were a last-moment sign-up for doubles and I think we were pretty good at it," Kuznetsova said to the crowd at Rod Laver Arena after the match.
Errani and Vinci were playing in their first Grand Slam final together. Their previous best result was reaching the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open last year.
The Italians started off strongly, breaking the Russians four times to win the opening set. But they only converted one of 13 break chances the rest of the match, wasting five break points in the final game of the third set alone.
"I think we had chances in the beginning of the second set. We lost three games with 15-40 when they were serving. Also in the last game, we had some balls to make the break but we didn't make it. It happens," Errani said.
Kuznetsova and Zvonareva are the first unseeded pair to win the Australian Open women's doubles title since Alona and Kateryna Bondarenko did it in 2008.
Zvonareva previously won the 2006 U.S. Open with Nathalie Dechy, and Kuznetsova captured the 2005 Australian Open with Alicia Molik.
Associated PressPeople, Places and Companies: Svetlana Kuznetsova, Vera Zvonareva, Sara Errani, Roberta Vinci, Rod Laver, Kateryna Bondarenko, Nathalie Dechy, Alicia Molik, Australia, Russia
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Outrage as bodies pile up at Cook County morgue
Cook County officials say they are being forced to change morgue procedures due to an overflow of unclaimed bodies. Charlie Wojciechowski reports.
By Dick Johnson and Michelle Relerford, NBCChicago.com
CHICAGO ? Outraged pastors and community activists on Friday descended upon the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office and called for an independent investigation after reports that bodies have been piling up for weeks.
At least one activist openly called for the facility's director, Dr. Nancy L. Jones to step down.
"Somebody needs to be held accountable for what happened," said Dawn Valenti, who works to help families find missing loved ones.
Read original story at NBCChicago.com
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle a day earlier said Jones will remain -- for now -- but called for a top-to-bottom review of the facility.
"This is a reminder of how my ancestors -- how the remains of our ancestors were treated like garbage," Peggy Hudgens said through tears at the building at 2121 W. Harrison St.
Hudgens claimed to have been trying to resolve her brothers death and burial since October.
The issue has been simmering for months, if not years. As many as 363 bodies were reportedly once collected in a cooler designed to hold just 300. Ministers gathered Friday to pray for the deceased and to call for justice.
Anti-violence community activist Andrew Holmes was among the protesters and wondered aloud about the accountability of missing persons at the morgue.
"We want those deceased finger-printed and identified. We still have a lot of missing, unclaimed and missing people that have not been found," he said.
Holmes focused specifically on Carmelita Johnson, a woman who'd gone missing and was ultimately found in the facility. Her family said they tried to find her for more than a year. Johnson has since been buried.
The Illinois Department of Labor said it's also opened an investigation into "worker safety issues."
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Friday, January 27, 2012
EU and Haiti sign deal to lengthen rural highway (AP)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ? The Haitian government and European Union have signed an agreement for building a road to connect the capital with the country's second largest city.
The European Union will spend 40.7 million euros ($52.6 million) on a project that will first pave a dirt national highway linking the central towns of Hinche and St. Raphael. It is 27 miles (44-kilometer) long.
The second phase of the project calls for the highway to be extended 20 miles (33 kilometers) from St. Raphael to Cap-Haitien, a coastal city on the northern end of Haiti.
The work is to begin in 2012. Organizers hope the paved highway will improve commerce between the north and the capital.
The agreement was signed Wednesday.
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Official: Iraq will take legal action over US raid (AP)
BAGHDAD ? Iraq will take legal action to ensure justice for the families of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians killed in a U.S. raid in Haditha seven years ago, a government spokesman said Thursday, after the lone U.S. Marine convicted in the killings reached a deal to escape jail time.
Residents in Haditha, a former Sunni insurgent stronghold of about 85,000 people along the Euphrates River valley some 140 miles (220 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, have expressed outrage at the American military justice system for allowing Staff Sgt. Frank Wultrich to avoid prison.
"The Haditha incident was a big crime against innocent civilians," said Ali al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the Iraqi government. "We will follow up all legal procedures and judiciary measures" to seek justice in the case, he added.
Al-Moussawi did not offer specifics and the Iraqi Justice Ministry declined to comment.
Wultrich was convicted of a single count of negligent dereliction of duty. He faces having his rank reduced but he will not go to jail as a part of a plea agreement that ended his long-awaited manslaughter trial.
He has apologized for the loss of life, but has said his squad did not behave badly or dishonorably. He also has defended his order to raid homes in Haditha as a necessary act and acknowledged to instructing his men to "shoot first, ask questions later" after a roadside bomb killed a fellow Marine.
Wultrich's sentence Tuesday ended a six-year prosecution that failed to win any manslaughter convictions in one of the worst attacks on Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops during nine years of war. Eight Marines were initially charged in the case. One was acquitted and six others had their cases dropped.
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Egyptians Mark the Tahrir Square Revolution's Anniversary (Time.com)
Courtroom No. 24 at the South Cairo Court is a tumultuous microcosm of postrevolution Egypt. Its wooden benches are packed with men, women and children talking, yelling, never still, as tea and soda vendors weave through the crowd, while a judge inaudibly reads out the names of the defendants on more than a dozen unrelated cases to indicate that their trials have been postponed. Just another day in the life of a country beset by sclerotic bureaucracy and endemic corruption: Egyptians are long accustomed to the fact that everything there takes a long time.
The message of the popular uprising that began one year ago and in just 18 days ended the three-decade reign of President Hosni Mubarak was quite different: Egyptians don't have to wait passively and patiently in hope of getting a fair shake; things can happen remarkably quickly when they take their destiny into their own hands. That's why many have taken to the streets repeatedly over the past year, occupying Tahrir Square, railroads and the doorways of ministries, making demands previously believed to be beyond reach. As the country marks the first anniversary of the uprising on Jan. 25, thousands will take to the streets once again, not only celebrating last year's achievement but also to take up unfinished business. The lesson of Mubarak's ouster for many Egyptians has been that toppling a dictator is not the same as toppling his regime. (Read "Is There Still Hope for a Democratic Egypt?" by Wael Ghonim.)
The crowded halls of Egypt's courts represent both the country's unrelenting woes -- inefficiency, corruption, opacity and even the irrelevance of laws without accountable governance -- and also the revolution's hopes. Justice was the most widely shared goal of the diverse array of Egyptians who joined the uprising, and yet most would concur that it remains elusive. The security men and regime officials accused of killing hundreds of protesters during the rebellion, and in demonstrations since, have mostly gone unpunished. Activists claim that in the year since the uprising, more than 12,000 civilians have appeared before closed military courts, but the trial of the ousted President has dragged on since August. On Monday, according to CNN, Mubarak's attorney argued that his client should be tried in a special court because, technically, he never signed a document certifying his resignation from the presidency. Not that such legal minutiae will determine the court's decision, concedes one jurist. "Till now, the way you get your rights in court is what's your wasta [connections] and who's your cousin," says Hossam Mikawi, a judge at the South Cairo Court.
Mubarak has more wasta than most. Those currently running the country, and deciding such crucial matters as how much authority the newly elected parliament will have, are generals appointed by the ousted President. A few hundred protesters rallied outside the parliament's opening session this week, calling it a relatively nominal step on the road to democracy. "We are here to tell them that the revolution has not ended," said Mohamed Fat'hi, an accountant, who stood among the protesters. "We are here to tell them that we are still going to be in Tahrir, that our cousins were killed in Tahrir and that we have not seen justice." Those protesting outside of parliament are largely drawn from the secular liberal revolutionary groups that led the uprising but were eclipsed by Islamists -- moderate and radical -- once the country's electorate was asked to choose its leaders. Many of them now fear a pact that will enable the Islamists to rule in exchange for accepting immunity for the generals. (See photos of police and protesters clashing in Cairo.)
In Egyptian courtrooms, where there is no jury and -- Mikawi concedes -- judges frequently base their rulings on personal opinion or political allegiance, the power dynamic has changed little over the past year. "It's not about it being difficult to change, it's the uneasiness of touching the judicial system in Egypt," says Ezzat Khamis, the chief judge at the South Cairo Court. Regime-appointed judges like the 66-year-old Khamis have little incentive to change the system that brought them to power. "Till now, the justice system is fulfilling its duty in delivering justice to the people," says the old-guard judge. Mubarak's regime never interfered in the system either, he adds. "Nobody in any institution of this country has any say in the judges' ruling. The only thing that rules is the conscience and the law, and anyone who tries to affect a ruling -- from the President to the lowest employee -- will be tried."
But rights groups and many liberal judges and lawyers dispute Khamis' view. For years, the courts served as little more than a rubber stamp for the regime, they say, and when they ruled against the regime -- on issues like the release of political prisoners -- they were simply ignored. Ahead of the old order's rigged elections, the judges received pay rises to buy their silence, says Mikawi. The key to making real changes, he says, is creating an independent judiciary. (Watch TIME's video "An Islamic Crowd Fills Cairo's Tahrir Square.")
But with Mubarak's authoritarian shoes having been filled by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), little has changed, which is why so few officials have been held accountable for the deaths of democracy activists. "The Ministry of Justice chooses the investigators and what to investigate, and the SCAF rules the Ministry of Justice," Mikawi says. "And so what is the result of these investigations? The Maspero incident, Mohamed Mahmoud," he says, listing some of the clashes that left a total of nearly 80 protesters dead in the past three months of 2011. "Of course, we have nothing."
Perhaps anticipating trouble on the rebellion's anniversary, the SCAF on Tuesday repealed Egypt's Emergency Law. Wednesday will see a host of events and marches planned by political parties, officials, activists and even the military to celebrate last year's events. But others will go to protest. Says Mikawi: "The 25th of January is either going to be a birth certificate or a death certificate for the revolution." The staying power of the protest camp will signal that the revolution continues. But a poor showing will underscore the shift from the streets to the elected parliament as the locus of the push for democratization.
Mikawi is confident: a year ago, protesters achieved something momentous in just 18 days, and he believes they have the ability to do it again. "Of course we won't have the same numbers that we had on the first January 25th, but we will have numbers," he says. "We need just to send the message."
-- With reporting by Sharaf al-Houran / Cairo
See how democracy can work in the Middle East.
Watch TIME's video "Mubarak's Gone, but So Are the Tourists and Their Money."
View this article on Time.com
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Egypt stocks surge after uprising anniversary (AP)
CAIRO ? Egypt's stock market posted its strongest gains in about 10 months, with the benchmark index rallying over 7 percent on Thursday as the peaceful passing of the one-year anniversary of the uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak injected optimism.
The Egyptian Exchange's briefly halted trade after the broader EGX100 index hit a 5 percent circuit-breaker ? a measure aimed at calming the market. It continued its climb after trading resumed, closing up 5.76 percent and gaining almost 300 points, or 7.18 percent, by the end of the trading day.
"There is a gradual stability (in the political scene) emerging day by day, and there is growing confidence in the economy, day by day," said Khaled Nagah, trading manager at Mega Investments.
He said that even if the market declines slightly next week, "I'm not worried. What's really important is that there be some political stability ... and that's emerging."
The gains built on a solid week of advances by the index as the country's newly elected parliament met for the first time on Jan. 23. That optimism received a boost after the demonstrations throughout Egypt on Wednesday passed with little of the violence that has marred other such gatherings over the past few months.
"Local institutions and many investors were aggressively waiting for Jan. 25 to pass peacefully to build positions," said Mostafa Abdel-Aziz, a senior broker with Mideast investment bank Beltone Financial's brokerage arm.
After the successful convening of the parliament session and the relative peace of the anniversary, those investors "who didn't have the guts to get in before just did it," he said.
The day's rally on the market was the strongest since the Egyptian Exchange restarted in March after a nearly two month closure last year, following the start of the uprising that pushed Mubarak from power in mid-February. Since then, the Egyptian stock market was dogged by losses, and ended 2011 with losses of over 45 percent on the EGX30.
Traders said that foreign investors, who had been unloading their positions for much of last year, stepped aggressively back into the market on Thursday.
"There were a lot of short squeezes in the market, which justifies the significant foreign buying," said Abdel-Aziz. "Everybody is closing their short positions."
While investors found some measure of a silver lining, Egypt faces daunting challenges.
The country's economy has been battered over the past year, with net international reserves down 50 percent by the end of December, and economic growth projected to be anemic at best. Unemployment is up, while little progress has been made in addressing some of the core issues that led to the uprising, such as jobs, housing and income equality.
After having initially turned down the offer, Egyptian officials, faced with worries about a mushrooming budget deficit, have asked the International Monetary Fund for a $3.2 billion support package. Economists say the funds, while welcome, could be too little, too late to help Egypt avert a devaluation in its currency that would open the door to higher inflation.
Nagah said that the IMF talks appear to have buoyed investor confidence, indicating to those who had sold their positions last year that some financial lifelines could be extended to the interim government to smooth the road to democracy.
Investor concerns about Egypt have revolved largely around the uncertainty in the country's political transition. The youth and secular groups that spearheaded the uprising want the country's military rulers, who took over from Mubarak, to hand over power now instead of by the end of June, as the generals have stated.
In addition, the dominance of Islamists in the recent parliamentary elections injected new questions and worries about Egypt's political course, with some worried that instead of economic reform, the powerful Muslim Brotherhood that won 47 percent of the parliament seats would focus more on religion. The group, however, has said its main priority is to get the economy back on its feet.
"All told, the market's early positive reaction to Egypt's new parliament may be short-lived if external and fiscal financing needs are not addressed soon," said London-based Capital Economics in a recent research note.
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Arab monitor mission to Syria limps on amid rifts (Reuters)
BEIRUT (Reuters) ? An Arab observer mission will limp on in Syria after a Gulf pullout led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar but the two have also engineered an unprecedented Arab League call for President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday also asked the U.N. Security Council to endorse their Syria plan, which Damascus has rejected as blatant interference in its affairs.
The exit of 55 Gulf monitors dealt another blow to the 165-strong team's credibility, after a month in which bloodshed raged on in their midst, although a remaining monitor insisted they would be replaced and the mission would be unaffected.
"The decision to leave was political," said a Gulf observer heading for Damascus airport on Wednesday, asking not to be named. "Islamic and Arab countries will send more monitors."
Asked if their departure would damage the mission, he said with a smile: "Not really, we are all Arabs."
The monitoring mission has been condemned by Syrian opposition groups as a mechanism to buy more time for Assad to try to crush demonstrators and armed rebels. But the mission, with its limited mandate to observe but not investigate, also allowed an internally divided League and an equally divided U.N. Security Council to defer concrete action on Syria.
Nevertheless, the League's demand that the autocratic Assad end his 11-year-rule as part of a power transition in Syria is unprecedented in its 67-year history.
"What have the Arab League guys been drinking?" asked Rami Khouri, a Beirut-based analyst who hailed the new approach.
The observer mission is the first mounted by the Arab League, awoken from its former somnolence by a wave of popular revolts that toppled three entrenched Arab rulers in 2011.
Figures given by Syrian opposition groups and the state news agency SANA suggest that hundreds of people have been killed since the monitors arrived, although their leader, Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, put the death toll at just 136.
He said the level of killings had dropped. But Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told a news conference on Tuesday that the number of civilians, soldiers and policemen killed in Syria had tripled since the Arab monitors arrived, accusing rebels of "exploiting their presence."
The League's call last year for a no-fly zone to protect Libyans from Muammar Gaddafi's forces paved the way for a Western air campaign that helped rebels oust him, breaking the 22-member body's tradition of superficial solidarity.
Unlike the peripheral Libya, Syria straddles the main fissures of Middle East conflict, including its alliances with Iran and Hezbollah, reinforcing Arab League reluctance to seek another outside military intervention in an Arab country.
However, the League surprised many diplomats by setting a timetable for Assad to hand power to his deputy, pending formation of an interim unity government, constitutional and security reforms, and elections.
All the League's members backed the call for Assad to go except for Syria, suspended for ignoring an earlier Arab peace deal, and Lebanon, which "dissociated" itself in a nod to the political power of pro-Syrian Lebanese groups such as Hezbollah.
The Saudi-led push for a strong Arab stance stems in part from the kingdom's Sunni rulers' desire to weaken their Shi'ite regional adversary Iran by dislodging Assad, whose Shi'ite-rooted Alawite minority rules Sunni-majority Syria.
Syria has itself pointed out the irony of Gulf monarchies leading demands for democratic reforms that they shun at home.
Peter Harling, Syria analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the Arab League had been engaged constructively and that without the observers the violence might have been worse.
"Unfortunately, its more assertive members are those with the least credibility to take the lead: Gulf monarchies that united to put down popular protests in Bahrain tend to adopt a sectarian perspective on regional events and have paid only lip service to reforms at home," he wrote in Foreign Policy.
"Other Arab countries are essentially in disarray, bogged down by domestic tensions, fearful of more regional instability, and distrustful of the West, given its track record of making things worse, not better, in this part of the world."
Harling said the Arab plan gave Syria a chance to "recognize the reality of its domestic crisis and negotiate an exit, while fending off any risk of hands-on Western involvement."
Qatar, which took part in the military campaign in Libya, has proposed sending Arab troops to Syria, an idea that so far has left other Arab countries cold, including Saudi Arabia.
"The Saudis don't want a precedent of military intervention for democracy promotion," said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at Oklahoma University. "What about Bahrain or even the Shi'ites of the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia who have been demonstrating for change and the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy?"
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/wl_nm/us_syria
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Family, football meant everything to Joe Paterno
FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2010 file photo, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno leaves Beaver Stadium after his weekly NCAA college football news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010 in State College, Pa. Paterno, the longtime Penn State coach who won more games than anyone else in major college football but was fired amid a child sex abuse scandal that scarred his reputation for winning with integrity, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. He was 85. (AP Photo/Pat Little, file)
FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2010 file photo, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno leaves Beaver Stadium after his weekly NCAA college football news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010 in State College, Pa. Paterno, the longtime Penn State coach who won more games than anyone else in major college football but was fired amid a child sex abuse scandal that scarred his reputation for winning with integrity, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. He was 85. (AP Photo/Pat Little, file)
FILE - In this Sept. 4, 2004 file photo, Penn State coach Joe Paterno leads his team onto the field before an NCAA college football game against Akron in State College, Pa. Paterno, the longtime Penn State coach who won more games than anyone else in major college football but was fired amid a child sex abuse scandal that scarred his reputation for winning with integrity, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. He was 85. (AP Photo /Carolyn Kaster, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 6, 1999, file photo, Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, right, poses with his defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky during Penn State Media Day at State College, Pa. In a statement made Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, retired Penn State assistant coach Sandusky, who faces child sex abuse charges in a case that led to the firing of Paterno, says Paterno's death is a sad day. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)
A woman pays her respects at a statue of Joe Paterno outside Beaver Stadium on the Penn State University campus after learning of his death Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
A flag and Penn State scarf are displayed on a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno outside Beaver Stadium on the Penn State campus as fans pay their respects after learning of Paterno's death Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Other than family, football was everything to Joe Paterno. It was his lifeblood. It kept him pumped.
Life could not be the same without it.
"Right now, I'm not the coach. And I've got to get used to that," Paterno said after the Penn State Board of Trustees fired him at the height of a child sex abuse scandal.
Before he could, he ran out of time.
Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred forever by the scandal involving his one-time heir apparent, died Sunday at age 85.
His death came just 65 days after his son Scott said his father had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Mount Nittany Medical Center said he died at 9:25 a.m. of "metastatic small cell carcinoma of the lung," an aggressive cancer that has spread from one part of the body to an unrelated area.
Friends and former colleagues believe there were other factors ? the kind that wouldn't appear on a death certificate.
"You can die of heartbreak. I'm sure Joe had some heartbreak, too," said 82-year-old Bobby Bowden, the former Florida State coach who retired two years ago after 34 seasons in Tallahassee.
Longtime Nebraska coach Tom Osborne said he suspected "the emotional turmoil of the last few weeks might have played into it."
And Mickey Shuler, who played tight end for Paterno from 1975 to 1977, held his alma mater accountable.
"I don't think that the Penn State that he helped us to become and all the principles and values and things that he taught were carried out in the handling of his situation," he said.
Paterno's death just under three months following his last victory called to mind another coaching great, Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant, who died less than a month after retiring.
"Quit coaching?" Bryant said late in his career. "I'd croak in a week."
Paterno alluded to the remark made by his friend and rival, saying in 2003: "There isn't anything in my life anymore except my family and my football. I think about it all the time."
The winningest coach in major college football, Paterno roamed the Penn State sidelines for 46 seasons, his thick-rimmed glasses, windbreaker and jet-black sneakers as familiar as the Nittany Lions' blue and white uniforms.
His devotion to what he called "Success with Honor" made Paterno's fall all the more startling.
Happy Valley seemed perfect for him, a place where "JoePa" knew best, where he not only won more football games than any other major college coach, but won them the right way. With Paterno, character came first, championships second, academics before athletics. He insisted that on-field success not come at the expense of graduation rates.
But in the middle of his final season, the legend was shattered. Paterno was engulfed in a child sex abuse scandal when a former trusted assistant, Jerry Sandusky, was accused of molesting 10 boys over a 15-year span, sometimes in the football building.
Outrage built quickly after the state's top law enforcement official said the coach hadn't fulfilled a moral obligation to go to authorities when a graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, reported seeing Sandusky with a young boy in the showers of the football complex in 2002.
McQueary said that he had seen Sandusky attacking the child with his hands around the boy's waist but said he wasn't 100 percent sure it was intercourse. McQueary described Paterno as shocked and saddened and said the coach told him he had "done the right thing" by reporting the encounter.
Paterno waited a day before alerting school officials and never went to the police.
"I didn't know which way to go ... and rather than get in there and make a mistake," Paterno told The Washington Post in an interview nine days before his death.
"You know, (McQueary) didn't want to get specific," Paterno said. "And to be frank with you I don't know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it."
When the scandal broke in November, Paterno said he would retire following the 2011 season. He also said he was "absolutely devastated" by the abuse case.
"This is a tragedy," he said. "It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."
But the university trustees fired Paterno, effective immediately. Graham Spanier, one of the longest-serving university presidents in the nation, also was fired.
Paterno was notified by phone, not in person, a decision that board vice chairman John Surma regretted, trustees said. Lanny Davis, the attorney retained by trustees as an adviser, said Surma intended to extend his regrets over the phone before Paterno hung up him.
After weeks of escalating criticism by some former players and alumni about a lack of transparency, trustees last week said they fired Paterno in part because he failed a moral obligation to do more in reporting the 2002 allegation.
An attorney for Paterno on Thursday called the board's comments self-serving and unsupported by the facts. Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations, lawyer Wick Sollers said.
"He did what he thought was right with the information he had at the time," Sollers said.
The lung cancer was found during a follow-up visit for a bronchial illness. A few weeks later, Paterno broke his pelvis after a fall but did not need surgery.
The hospital said Paterno was surrounded by family members, who have requested privacy.
Paterno had been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation after what his family called minor complications from his cancer treatments. Washington Post writer Sally Jenkins, who conducted the final interview, described Paterno then as frail, speaking mostly in a whisper and wearing a wig. The second half of the two-day interview was done at his bedside.
On Sunday, two police officers were stationed to block traffic on the street where Paterno's modest ranch home stands next to a local park. The officers said the family had asked there be no public gathering outside the house, still decorated with a Christmas wreath, so Paterno's relatives could grieve privately. And, indeed, the street was quiet on a cold winter day.
Paterno's sons, Scott and Jay, arrived separately at the house late Sunday morning. Jay Paterno, who was his father's quarterbacks coach, was crying.
"His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled," the family said in a statement. "He died as he lived. He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community."
Paterno built a program based on the credo of "Success with Honor," and he found both. He won 409 games and took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl games and two national championships. More than 250 of the players he coached went on to the NFL.
"He will go down as the greatest football coach in the history of the game," Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said after his former team, the Florida Gators, beat Penn State 37-24 in the 2011 Outback Bowl.
The university handed the football team to one of Paterno's assistants, Tom Bradley, who said Paterno "will go down in history as one of the greatest men, who maybe most of you know as a great football coach."
"As the last 61 years have shown, Joe made an incredible impact," said the statement from the family. "That impact has been felt and appreciated by our family in the form of thousands of letters and well wishes along with countless acts of kindness from people whose lives he touched. It is evident also in the thousands of successful student athletes who have gone on to multiply that impact as they spread out across the country."
New Penn State football coach Bill O'Brien, hired earlier this month, offered his condolences.
"There are no words to express my respect for him as a man and as a coach," O'Brien said in a statement. "To be following in his footsteps at Penn State is an honor."
Paterno believed success was not measured entirely on the field. From his idealistic early days, he had implemented what he called a "grand experiment" ? to graduate more players while maintaining success on the field.
The team consistently ranked among the best in the Big Ten for graduating players. As of 2011, it had 49 academic All-Americans, the third-highest among schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision. All but two played under Paterno.
"He teaches us about really just growing up and being a man," former linebacker Paul Posluszny, now with the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars, once said. "Besides the football, he's preparing us to be good men in life."
Sandusky, who has maintained his innocence, lauded his former boss in a statement that said: "He maintained a high standard in a very difficult profession. Joe preached toughness, hard work and clean competition. Most importantly, he had the courage to practice what he preached."
Paterno certainly had detractors. One former Penn State professor called his high-minded words on academics a farce, and a former administrator said players often got special treatment. His coaching style often was considered too conservative. Some thought he held on to his job too long, and a move to push him out in 2004 failed.
But the critics were in the minority, and his program was never cited for major NCAA violations. The child sex abuse scandal, however, did prompt separate inquiries by the U.S. Department of Education and the NCAA into the school's handling.
Paterno didn't intend to become a coach. He played quarterback and defensive back for Brown University and set a school record with 14 career interceptions, but when he graduated in 1950 he planned to go to law school. He said his father hoped he would someday be president.
But when Paterno was 23, a former coach at Brown was moving to Penn State to become the head coach and persuaded Paterno to come with him as an assistant.
"I had no intention to coach when I got out of Brown," Paterno said in 2007 in an interview at Penn State's Beaver Stadium before being inducted into college football's Hall of Fame. "Come to this hick town? From Brooklyn?"
In 1963, he was offered a job by the late Al Davis ? $18,000, triple his salary at Penn State, plus a car to become general manager and coach of the AFL's Oakland Raiders. He said no. Rip Engle retired as Penn State head coach three years later, and Paterno took over.
At the time, Penn State was considered "Eastern football" ? inferior ? and Paterno courted newspaper coverage to raise the team's profile. In 1967, PSU began a 30-0-1 streak.
But Penn State couldn't get to the top of the polls. The Nittany Lions finished second in 1968 and 1969 despite perfect seasons. They were undefeated and untied again in 1973 at 12-0 again but finished fifth. Texas edged them in 1969 after President Richard Nixon, impressed with the Longhorns' bowl performance, declared them No. 1.
"I'd like to know," Paterno said later, "how could the president know so little about Watergate in 1973, and so much about college football in 1969?"
A national title finally came in 1982, after a 27-23 win over Georgia at the Sugar Bowl. Another followed in 1986 after the Lions intercepted Vinny Testaverde five times and beat Miami 14-10 in the Fiesta Bowl.
They made several title runs after that, including a 2005 run to the Orange Bowl and an 11-1 season in 2008 that ended in a 37-23 loss to Southern California in the Rose Bowl.
In his later years, physical ailments wore the old coach down.
Paterno was run over on the sideline during a game at Wisconsin in November 2006 and underwent knee surgery. He hurt his hip in 2008 demonstrating an onside kick. An intestinal illness and a bad reaction to antibiotics prescribed for dental work slowed him for most of the 2010 season. He began scaling back his speaking engagements that year, ending his summer caravan of speeches to alumni across the state.
Then a receiver bowled over Paterno at practice in August, sending him to the hospital with shoulder and pelvis injuries and consigning him to coach much of what would be his last season from the press box.
"The fact that we've won a lot of games is that the good Lord kept me healthy, not because I'm better than anybody else," Paterno said two days before he won his 409th game and passed Eddie Robinson of Grambling State for the most in Division I. "It's because I've been around a lot longer than anybody else."
Paterno could be conservative on the field, especially in big games, relying on the tried-and-true formula of defense, the running game and field position.
He and his wife, Sue, raised five children in State College. Anybody could telephone him at his home ? the same one he appeared in front of on the night he was fired ? by looking up "Paterno, Joseph V." in the phone book.
He walked to home games and was greeted and wished good luck by fans on the street. Former players paraded through his living room for the chance to say hello. But for the most part, he stayed out of the spotlight.
Paterno did have a knack for jokes. He referred to Twitter, the social media site, as "Twittle-do, Twittle-dee."
He also could be abrasive and stubborn, and he had his share of run-ins with his bosses or administrators. And as his legend grew, so did the attention to his on-field decisions, and the questions about when he would hang it up.
Calls for his retirement reached a crescendo in 2004. The next year, Penn State went 11-1 and won the Big Ten. In the Orange Bowl, PSU beat Florida State, coached by Bowden, who was eased out after the 2009 season after 34 years and 389 wins.
Like many others, he was outlasted by "JoePa."
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Newcomer Gina Rodriguez wows Sundance as "Filly Brown" (Reuters)
PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) ? Gina Rodriguez may have arrived at the Sundance Film Festival as a complete unknown, but the 27-year Puerto Rican is leaving it an indie film star.
Rodriguez became the toast of the Sundance Film Festival's opening weekend playing the title character in new movie "Filly Brown," about a young Latina rapper struggling to keep her family together after her mom is jailed on drug charges.
When Filly gets a crack at musical stardom, she must make a choice between staying true to her poetic lyrics or accepting a deal that focuses on her sexuality but guarantees a paycheck.
Under the tutelage of Latin hip-hop record veterans Lisa "Khool-Aid" Rios and Edward "E-Dub" Rios, who served as the film's music producers, Rodriguez was so convincing as a singer that in a question-and-answer session after the film's premiere, audience members asked where they could buy her music.
The Hollywood Reporter said Rodriguez delivered a "magnetic star turn" and a "dynamic breakout performance" in a film where her screen time is split between churning out dramatic acting and rapping numerous hip-hop numbers.
With reactions and reviews like that, there can be little doubt that "Filly Brown" marks a career-making performance for Rodriguez, who last year appeared on TV soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful" and in a supporting role in the film "Go For It!"
She told Reuters that playing Filly Brown was amazing opportunity to portray a character with whom she could identify.
"It's a powerful Latina lead, and seldom do I get the opportunity to audition for something like that," said Rodriguez. "Filly is tough, or least she uses the toughness to hide her pain sometimes, and I think we all do that."
"Filly had a dream, and she didn't know how to go about doing it and she didn't really have help," Rodriguez said. "I can understand that."
FROM CHICAGO TO SUNDANCE
Born and raised in an inner city neighborhood of Chicago, Rodriguez "came from nothing" as the youngest of three sisters of Puerto Rican immigrants who stressed education with their daughters. Heeding that advice, Rodriguez's older sisters went on to become an investment banker and a lawyer, but Rodriguez wanted to act, much to her father's dismay.
She studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and worked in theater before booking her first guest-starring role on TV crime show "Law & Order." But it was her father seeing her play Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in an American Stage production of "Casa Blue" that served as a turning point for the young actress.
"He turned to me and said he was proud," said Rodriguez, her eyes tearing up. "Having him accept what I did, that was my big break. It's so important to me to make my father and mother proud. And I want to do it with integrity and respect."
With buzz building, she already has secured a talent development deal at the ABC television network and is plotting to work on a movie where she'd play a female boxer.
Additionally, now that she's a legitimate music artist thanks to the songs she recorded in "Filly Brown," Rodriguez is not averse to pursuing a music career.
"I've always had an alter ego; I sing in the shower like everybody else does," she laughed.
She is spending time in a recording studio with Khool-Aid and E-Dub, both of whom helped Rodriguez find her voice and introduced her to Latino hip-hop and artists and others.
But even as movie and music executives come knocking at her with the riches promised by stardom, Rodriguez wants to use any new fame to be a role model for young Latina girls.
"I want to give a voice to these girls in the 'hood where I grew up and let them know that you can be an investment banker, or a doctor, and we can portray that on screen," said Rodriguez.
"Any dream you have takes hard work, doesn't happen overnight and you shouldn't be afraid of that," she said. "If you put your heart and soul into it, and you do it with honesty and integrity and respect, you will succeed. I am a testament to that."
(Reporting By Zorianna Kit; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Senate Legislation Targets Aggressive Recruiting Of Veterans By For-Profit Colleges
Over the past two years, for-profit colleges have been aggressively recruiting returning veterans in an effort to tap into billions of dollars in federal benefits available for soldiers to pay for college.
Not only have the schools have been eager to capture a new source of revenues, but former soldiers represent an added benefit for the industry: a way to secure more federal student loan and grant money.
By law, for-profit colleges must come up with at least 10 percent of their revenue from sources other than federal student aid programs in order to keep that money flowing.
The 90 percent threshold, known as the 90/10 rule, was put in place to ensure that at least 10 percent of the revenues at for-profit schools would come from the private sector, according to congressional testimony and reports from the early 1990s.
Yet many schools are complying with the requirement for private funds by dipping into a separate government revenue stream: educational benefits given to former military personnel.
The military subsidies, part of the new GI bill passed by Congress in 2008, aren't technically considered federal student aid funds, which gives corporations an incentive to actively pursue veteran enrollments.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) on Monday said he will propose legislation that would prevent for-profit colleges from counting the military assistance money as private funding. He, along with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), plans to introduce the measure this week.
Durbin's legislation would, for the purpose of for-profit colleges, consider any benefits from the GI bill and the Department of Defense tuition-assistance program to be federal student aid revenues. The bill would also lower from 90 percent to 85 percent the amount of money that schools can receive from the federal government.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups say current practices have resulted in many returning veterans being steered into high-cost programs of dubious value.
Since the GI bill went into effect in 2009, it has "inadvertently created a federal bonus for the for-profit schools," Durbin told HuffPost.
"For-profit college companies have created aggressive marketing plans and a sales force specifically designed to target and enroll as many veterans, service members and family members as possible," Durbin said at a Monday forum on for-profit colleges and veteran enrollment in Chicago.
QUESTIONS ABOUT OUTCOMES
Trade groups representing for-profit colleges say that their schools are providing flexible course offerings and crucial career training for veterans returning from duty.
"Career colleges are proud to offer members of the military and veterans access to higher education and job training for in-demand careers," Penny Lee, managing director of the Coalition for Educational Success, an industry lobbying group, said in a statement.
Yet veterans advocates argue that the GI bill has created perverse incentives for the industry to prey on soldiers. Holly Petraeus, who handles military affairs issues at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, appeared with Durbin at Monday's forum and has raised concerns at past Senate hearings.
"Unfortunately, I think military folks at this point are seen like a dollar sign wearing a uniform for many recruiters in a for-profit model," she said at a hearing in July. "They're seen as cash that enables them to sell more of their product, and that's unfortunate," added Petraeus, who is married to CIA director and former Army General David Petraeus.
For-profit colleges are, on average, nearly twice as expensive as public four-year universities and cost nearly five times as much as public community colleges. But the expense of obtaining a college degree at a for-profit institution isn't necessarily translating into success in the workplace. A recent report by Harvard researchers found that students exiting for-profit colleges are more likely to be unemployed in the years after graduation than are those finishing traditional universities.
For-profit schools have higher graduation rates than public community colleges for short-term programs of two years and less but have significantly lower graduation rates for bachelor's degree programs.
While questions have been raised about whether these schools truly serve former military personnel, the institutions themselves have much to benefit from obtaining military subsidies.
PUBLIC FUNDS FUEL FOR-PROFIT SCHOOLS
The stakes involved are enormous for the for-profit college industry. For-profit institutions have struggled to find students willing to put up their own money for their programs but have ended up attracting mostly lower-income students who require federal aid. In order to create a private stream of revenue to comply with the 90/10 law, some schools have even gone so far as to increase tuition for some of their programs so that students must find outside private loans beyond what they receive from the government.
Complying with the law has become a central concern of higher-education companies and their shareholders. On quarterly earnings calls, executives at for-profit college companies are constantly quizzed about compliance with the law, and many have referenced the veteran-recruiting strategy in public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Internal documents from Kaplan University provided to Senator Harkin's staff showed a list of objectives related to recruiting of military, including "Grow our military enrollments to 9K per year by 2011" and "Improve 90/10 by 5 %." Among the strategies to achieve these goals were "Drive awareness via print advertising in key military publications and targeting key military installations."
As things stand today, many of the largest for-profit colleges receive more than 85 percent of their revenues from federal student aid programs, not counting military benefits. The Apollo Group, which owns the University of Phoenix, noted in a recent filing that 86 percent of its cash revenues came from federal student aid subsidies.
The Washington Post Co., which owns Kaplan University, another major industry player, said in a quarterly filing that a number of its schools could be in violation of the 90/10 rule this year, based on recent enrollment trends. Because of this, several Kaplan-run schools could be at risk of losing access to their federal funds, according to the filing.
In general, for-profit college corporations are enormous beneficiaries of government aid, relying almost entirely on the federal government for revenues and profits. In 2010, the industry took in more than $30 billion in federal student loan and Pell Grant dollars. And the eight largest for-profit college corporations received more than a half-billion dollars in veterans' assistance money from the Post-9/11 GI Bill during the 2010-11 school year.
Overall, for-profit colleges received nearly 40 percent of the $4.4 billion money given out under the GI bill program since 2009, despite educating only a quarter of the veterans using those benefits. By contrast, public colleges instructed 59 percent of the veterans and took in 40 percent of the GI bill money.
PROSPECTS FOR REFORM
Durbin will find that obtaining support for his bill will be a tough task,
as most Republicans in Congress have traditionally been strong backers of for-profit colleges. The current House speaker, John Boehner, was a strong supporter of eliminating the 90/10 rule when he chaired the House Education and Workforce Committee from 2001 to 2006.
The for-profit college industry has also hired many Democratic lobbyists in recent years, including former House Speaker Dick Gephardt, and lawmakers on the left have increasingly come to the aid of the industry. Lee, who heads the industry trade group, was a former top adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and a senior staff member on the Democratic National Committee.
"The industry is going to fight tooth and nail," Durbin said. "There's so much money at stake here -- millions if not billions of dollars."
Related on HuffPost:
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Monday, January 23, 2012
Razzies worst-movie awards shift to April Fool's (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? Hollywood's award season is going to linger on through April Fool's Day this year.
Organizers of the Razzies have changed the schedule for their nominations and prize ceremony. The spoof on the Academy Awards picks the year's worst films.
The Razzies used to announce contenders the night before the Oscar nominations, which are coming Tuesday.
Razzies founder John Wilson announced Sunday that nominations this season will be released Feb. 25, the eve of the Oscar ceremony. Winners of the Razzies will be announced on April 1.
Wilson says Razzies organizers have long wanted to have their awards coincide with April Fool's Day.
A news release announcing the change also notes that it will give the 600 Razzies voters "additional time to see the dreck they will eventually nominate."
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