Time created a slideshow of pictures of “Bill Clinton’s North Korea Rescue Mission,” documenting Clinton’s trip to North Korea and his return to the US with incarcerated journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were arrested on March 17 near the Chinese border of North Korea. The slideshow features some touching photographs of Ling and Lee as they were reunited with their families, and opens a window of insight to this historic journey.

The two Americans were originally sentenced to 12 years of hard labor, but a “special Pardon from Kim Jong Il freed the journalists to return home with Clinton. This trip had been in the works for months.The imprisoned journalists were apparently told they would be released if Bill Clinton visited North Korea, and the relayed this information to their families in calls home. While Clinton’s trip was officially a private humanitarian mission, but US officials researched and approved the journey.

The effort was criticized by former UN ambassador Michael Bolton, who suggested that the visit from Clinton granted the North Korean government legitimacy and lent firepower to their propaganda while giving Iran leverage in determining the release terms for US citizens held there.

After years of pressure from Greenpeace, Kimberly-Clark Corporation (producer of Kleenex, Cottonelle, and Scott tissues) has announced a new policy to conserve old-growth forests and increase usage of recycled fibers in tissues. Now, I guess it’s time to focus on toilet paper…

Check out this video from Greenpeace about the new policy:

Recently, there’s been a trend of designating events as scandalous by adding the suffix –gate. This practice apparently stems from some long-forgotten political scandal called “Watergate,” which involved a president. I guess that just serves to make “Beergate” an even more apt title for the current controversy surrounding the decisions of another president, Barack Obama.

Obama is trapped in a chain of events so monumental that it has merited two –gates. First it was Gates-gate, so named because the spark that lit this conflagration was the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates by Officer Sgt. James Crowley. Gates was now-famously arrested as he tried to gain entrance into his house despite a jammed door. The arrest quickly blew up into a national news story about racism, cops, and, of course, Barack Obama (whether you knew it or not, all national news stories are about Obama). Read the rest of this entry >>

An article published on The Economist’s website yesterday explores the tarnished truths of gold mining. Gold mining is often a highly-destructive process, as gold is pulled from vast open-pit mines, and separated from other minerals with highly toxic chemicals:

Extracting a single ounce of gold requires the removal of at least 60 tonnes of rock, leaving a scar on the landscape. And extracting it from this rock often means leaching it out with cyanide. Read the rest of this entry >>

In a great clip from last night’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Fallon goes to Comic-Con to pitch a brand new superhero. With mostly completed panels of a comic in hand, Fallon gauges the interest of Stan Lee, John Favreau, DC comic writers, the cast of Lost, and many more. Fallon’s new hero? The Recharger. His miraculous ability (born from disaster, of course): the ability to charge cell phones. And possibly laptops as well.

Naysayers may provide some poor feedback on Fallon’s pet project, but Fallon works hard to make his dream, born of 20 years of work, come to reality. That being said, I wouldn’t mind seeing The Recharger on a regular basis. I often need that extra cell phone charge, and as long as I’m willing to wait “a couple hours”, The Recharger could save my day (although, perhaps not my life). However, his solar-powered motif would add a nice, green touch to anyone’s life.
Read the rest of this entry >>

Page 425: Not that scary.

There has been some controversy about what is actually included in the new health care bill, including questions about the content of page 425. The controversy about page 425 seems to stem from an interview Fred Thompson conducted on his radio show with Betsy McCaughey, founder of Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID), general patient advocacy and health care policy buff, and former Lieutenant Governor of New York under Republican Governor George Pataki.

She made news in February when she criticized the Obama stimulus package, claiming the legislation hid secret provisions that would “Ruin Your Health.” Her claims were criticized and deemed factually inaccurate by Keith Olbermann and non-partisan site FactCheck.org.

Not unsurprisingly given her history, she is currently claiming that the new legislation hides secret provisions that will force senior citizens to attend counseling sessions about assisted suicide. In other completely expected news, McCaughey’s claims have been thoroughly debunked. This seems to suggest that the controversial claims about page 425 are yet another example of partisan scare tactics designed to frighten the public about legislation without addressing the actual content of the proposed law.

McCaughey

So, should you worry about the bill’s language on page 425? Not unless you’re Betsy McCaughey.

photo from Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, via Wikipedia (cc)

The program has gone by a number of names: Car Allowance Rebate System, Cash for Clunkers, or simply CARS. However, no matter what you call it, it went fully into effect at the beginning of this weekend.

The CARS program is surprisingly simple. If you have an old car with low gas mileage (under 18 mpg for cars, slightly different requirements apply for trucks), and you buy a new car with improved gas mileage (again, certain limits apply), you get cash back from the government towards the purchase of the new car. The amount of cash is significant, as well: either $3,500 or $4,500 depending on how good the mileage is on your new car.

There have been questions as to how the mileage of both the old cars and new cars are calculated, and what cars qualify and don’t qualify. Luckily, the CARS website provides an easy calculator to help you determine if your car is eligible. Just go to this website, and enter the information for your old car, and the new car you’re thinking about buying. The site will tell you whether or not you qualify, and how much money you’ll receive. The money is coming from the government, not the dealers, so most dealers will be happy to help you with this process as well. Read the rest of this entry >>

Editor’s note: We’re publishing a series of interviews with filmmakers and others who work in Iranian cinema. Many of our subjects were involved with the Iranian Film Festival last year. Today’s interview is with Iranian born Saeed Shafa, who currently lives in the United States and is the founder of both the Iranian Film Festival – San Francisco, which will enter its second year this September, and the longer-established Tiburon International Film Festival.

Brannack McLain: You were born in Iran, but have lived in the United States for more than 30 years. Has your Iranian-American identity shaped the way you view film?

Saeed Shafa: It has. In most cases, I feel like [I am] looking in from the outside, even though I am somewhat familiar with the situation in Iran. The thing is there is a big difference between the views of those Iranians who have lived outside the country for so long, and those who live in Iran and experience the situation on a daily basis. We can only sympathize with the people of Iran from a distance. That is unfortunate, due to the gap and differences in the views of everyone based on their background and age. Read the rest of this entry >>

Editor’s note: We’re publishing a series of interviews with filmmakers and others who work in Iranian cinema. Many of our subjects were included in the programming of the Iranian Film Festival last year. In this post, we talk with Mohammad “Mo” Gorjestani, a San Francisco-based, Iranian-born filmmaker. He discusses the political and cultural climate in Iran, and his hopes for the future of the country. Read his comments, and check out his short film The Shade online.

Brannack McLain: I understand that you were born in Tehran, but moved to California’s Bay area during the Iran-Iraq War. When exactly did you move, and how old were you at the time? How do you think memories of your childhood in Iran have guided your cinematic goals and vision?

Mo Gorjestani: My family and I left Iran near the end of 1987 and went to Turkey where we stayed for months in motels. Finally, in May of 1988 we moved to San Jose, CA where my father had spent some time between 1960 and 1975. As far as my childhood, if anything it has motivated me to learn more about where I came from because I remember so little. I remember the Iran/Iraq War and hearing the sirens of the city go off, going downstairs into our shelter with all the lights off, and hearing the windows rattle as the bombs landed. I think subconsciously those experiences and knowing where I came from have allowed me to appreciate life and value it more, and that is really the type of cinema I want to be a part of. I want to make films that celebrate the struggle for righteousness and show the consequences of ignorance.

BM: Inversely, has your focus as a filmmaker changed the way you view Iranian culture and Iran?

MG: I have been around the arts my whole life given that both of my parents are artists, so I have been fortunate to see the world in a creative scope. By making films I have learned about how talented Iran itself is as a country. The filmmakers in Iran must translate their messages through metaphors and symbolism more than any other country because of the restrictions and censorships on what they can show. It has also allowed me to put an example to the notion that the people of Iran do no agree with the government. The reason being most Iranian films are banned by the government but many are hot items on the street and people do want to see them. Iran directors focus on the new wave of our culture which is a much more western and independent culture, so no matter what the government is saying that artist and filmmakers are the real voice of what is of interest in Iran. Read the rest of this entry >>

As you may know, the House unveiled a new healthcare bill last week. Reactions have begun to roll in, and the consensus is not unexpectedly… mixed.

— A left-leaning NYT editorial praised the bill:

House Democratic leaders have unveiled a bill that would go a long way toward solving the nation’s health insurance problems without driving up the deficit…. This is a bill worth fighting for.

…. The result would be near-universal coverage at a surprisingly manageable cost to the federal government. Read the rest of this entry >>