Book description forFeminist Ryan Gosling: Feminist Theories from Your Favorite Sensitive Movie Dude (from Amazon):
What started as a silly way for blogger Danielle Henderson and her
classmates to keep track of the feminist theorists they were studying in
class quickly turned into an overnight sensation. Since its launch in
October 2011, the Feminist Ryan Gosling blog has close to 30,000
followers and more than 3 million page views per month.
In
this hilarious book based on the wildly popular blog, the author pairs
swoon-worthy photos of the steamy actor with sensitive feminist theories
and plenty of sweet talk. Included are 120 full-color photos and
captions throughout, with some of the best entries from the blog along
with 70 to 80 percent brand-new material for the book.
Can't wait to have my hands on Ryan Gosling this book.
The video features highlights from the high-quality 2008 French Open semifinal featuring Ana Ivanovic and her fellow Serbian, Jelena Jankovic. Ana, dressed in a sleek, pink adidas kit would go on to defeat JJ in three sets in this match, book her third Grand Slam final (her second straight for 2008), become the #1 ranked women's tennis player in the world and win her first Slam trophy (beating Russian Dinara Safina). Ana was arguably the most popular Serbian during this time, even more popular than her childhood friend and fellow tennis player, Novak Djokovic. She even got me to start watching tennis again because I just absolutely loved her game. She hits the ball very cleanly and has a lovely, but lethal, forehand that she could hit from different sides of the court even if off-balanced. Ana also has a made for Hollywood story to tell that made me adore her even more (imagine arranging your practice sessions while dodging NATO bombs in
war-torn Serbia and honing your tennis skills in an abandoned swimming
pool for lack of a better facility?).
Beautiful, smart, genuinely nice and charming (an anti-mean girl) and, most importantly, a very talented tennis player, Ana was the perfect face to represent the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) after Justine Henin's sudden retirement (she would come back in 2010 but then retire again in 2011 due to an elbow injury) and the Williams sisters inability to regularly compete in tournaments. The WTA finally hit the jackpot with Ana at #1 and Maria Sharapova at #2 (this was before Sharapova was sidelined by a shoulder injury that almost ended her career). Ana would, however, turn out to be the biblical Job of women's tennis. Niggling injuries, bad luck and humiliating losses (imagine losing in the second round of a Grand Slam tournament to the 188th-ranked player in the world while you're still #1 and be on the opposite end of probably the greatest upset in the history of sports) soon followed her Cinderella story. The pressure of being a marketable, top-ranked player was just too much for her to bear (for an account of her struggles for the past four years, click here). What followed was a long slump peppered with stops and gos, a loss in confidence and a dramatic fall in rankings (she fell to #65 in July of 2010). Fans (*ahem*) would get excited with a couple of good wins only to be deflated afterwards when she suffers a bad loss or when she picks up an injury that would derail her progress once again.
Amidst the bad breaks, heartbreaking losses and calls for her to drop tennis and take up modelling full time (the slump has thankfully never affected her good looks), Ana plodded on injury after injury and bad loss after another. She endured the endless questioning from the media about her poor form with enough insight, wit and self-deprecating humor (Ana fans picked up and learned to poke fun at her to cope with the heartbreaking losses). Always on the look out for ways to turnaround her game, Ana hired and fired several coaches (she's currently being coached by Nigel Sears) and just refused to give up. When Ana plays well, she's like an action hero who imperiously beats up her opponents to submission. When she loses, she's like a female version of Superman who wilts from kryptonite and steals defeat from the jaws of victory.
Fast forward to today and she's still not the same player that she was back in 2008. While Ana seems to have had the best start of the year than she has had in the last couple of years (a good showing at the Australian Open, Dubai and Indian Wells), she has so far not found her form on clay just yet. Considered her best surface (she was a back-to-back French Open finalist in 2007 and 2008), she is so far struggling on clay (4-8 win-loss record on this surface since 2010, currently 1-2 this year), which is unfortunate since she could pick up a lot of points during this time of the year to enable her to inch closer to the top 10 (she's currently at #15) and qualify for the WTA Year End Championships later this year. I hope she picks it up in her upcoming clay tournaments.
As a fan, I don't know if she could still be that fearless, adidas pink dress-wearing Ana from 2008 who managed to win a Grand Slam and get to #1 in one week (she hasn't reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal since winning the French Open in 2008). But there's still the hope and belief that her hard work and perseverance will be rewarded in the end. As much as people fell in love with her swimming pool story, nothing would be better than an uplifting comeback story. She's simply too nice and too talented not to have another shot at a Grand Slam title and a #1 ranking.
In a historic vote, the Supreme Court of the Philippines voted 14-0 to
reaffirm its ruling ordering Hacienda Luisita land to be distributed to
farmer beneficiaries. The Hacienda Luisita estate and sugar plantation
belongs to the Cojuangco side of President Benigno Aquino III and has
been the subject of a decades-long, bitter and bloody legal dispute.
President Aquino divested shares in Hacienda Luisita before taking
office in 2010, but Chief Justice Renato Corona has said that the
President has pushed for his impeachment because of the court’s rulings
favoring farmers involved in the case.
While it can be argued that SC Chief Justice Renato Corona may have ruled against the Cojuangcos to spite President Noynoy Aquino (Corona is, after all, a midnight appointee of former President Gloria Arroyo and is being suspected of using his position to serve the disgraced former President's interests), PNoy should still take this opportunity to end the long-running Hacienda Luisita issue and distribute its land to its rightful owners, the Cojuangco family a.k.a. the President's relatives landless farm workers. CJ Corona will obviously earn a lot of political brownie points for this but the decision is still the right one and PNoy should do every single thing possible to make sure that the poor farmers get what is due them. Even Congressman Edcel Lagman (a former Gloria ally) is considering this a triumph of the late President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino's (also PNoy's mother) Comprehensive Agrarian Reform program (CARP). The SC's ruling of a lower valuation for Hacienda Luisita also benefits the government cost-wise since they would be compensating the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) at a much lower amount (they shouldn't even be compensated anymore since they've benefited from it for years at the expense of their farmers).
PNoy, who linked poverty to widespread corruption and repeatedly encouraged the public to tread the "daang matuwid" during his 2010 electoral campaign, should not only focus his sights on the likes of CJ Corona (who is himself suspected of having ill-gotten wealth and is currently on trial himself for alleged betrayal of public trust and violation of the Constitution). PNoy should grow a political backbone, tell his relatives to buzz off and instead encourage them to take the "straight path". I hope our dear President doesn't pass up on his "golden chance at greatness" and also take this opportunity to honor his mother and deliver on his campaign promise.
An appropriate punishment for this fascist murderer and enemy of multuculturalism would be lifetime, solitary imprisonment in a cell covered with happy pictures of people from all races, religion and ethnicity. This would be better than capital punishment or even waterboarding.
The man on trial here for killing 77 people last year in twin attacks
said Thursday that he regretted not having killed even more and that he
was justified in shooting young people at a political camp because
“regardless of their age, they had taken on political leadership roles.”
“No, I am not a child murderer,” the defendant, Anders Behring Breivik,
33, said in response to a prosecutor’s question. “If you take up
membership in a political party and seek a leadership position, then you
have chosen.”
He added, “In retrospect I would say there was no better political target in Norway.”
Mr. Breivik said he had also hoped to capture former Prime Minister Gro
Harlem Brundtland at the political camp, and to film himself beheading
her with a bayonet or knife, an execution technique that he credited to
Al Qaeda.
...
“The strategy was not to kill 69 people; the strategy was to kill them
all,” he said, betraying no sign of emotion. He added that he had
intended to shoot as many people as possible on the island and use the
surrounding waters as a “natural weapon” to drown the rest.
...
On Thursday, the fourth day of a trial that is expected to last 10 weeks, Mr. Breivik entered the courtroom without making the closed-fist salute he had used on the previous three mornings. A self-styled anti-Islamic militant, he has admitted the killings, but said he was acting to defend Norway against “Islamic colonization.”
...
Prosecutors depicted Mr. Breivik as a friendless loser who spent an
entire year playing computer war games in his mother’s home. Mr. Breivik
acknowledged that after an investment setback in December 2006, he had
moved into his mother’s Oslo house.
He told the court that he knew, even in 2006, that he wanted to carry
out a “suicide” attack. He said a psychiatrist’s report compiled since
the attacks, in which he was depicted as saying he decided on his plans
only in 2009, “was a lie.”
Mr. Breivik insisted that he did not have money problems, saying that
one of the prosecutors, Svein Holden, was “giving the impression that I
moved back home and rented a room in my mother’s house because I had
gone bankrupt.”
“But I wanted to preserve my funds,” Mr. Breivik said, “so I could spend
more time doing what I wanted to do, which was write my manifesto” — a
rambling 1,500-page justification of his rampage that detailed his
thoughts about the danger posed to Europe by multiculturalism and Islam.
With Mr. Holden and the other prosecutor, Inga Bejer Engh, taking a
sharply more aggressive approach than in previous days, Mr. Breivik
appeared sullen, and several times accused them of trying to “humiliate”
him.
Mr. Breivik said he had taken the year beginning in December 2006 as a
“sabbatical,” during which he spent 16 hours a day playing the video
game World of Warcraft.
“I know it is important to you and the media that I played this for a
year,” he told the court in response to Mr. Holden’s questions. “But it
has nothing to do with July 22. It is not a world you are engulfed by.
It is quite simply a hobby.”
“I had been dreaming about it all my life, to take a sabbatical to do
what I always dreamed about,” he said. “Some people want to sail around
the world. Some people want to play golf.”
He said he spent four months through February 2010 playing another game,
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, for six hours a day. That game, he said,
helped him hone his shooting skills because he was able to practice with
the aid of its holographic sight.
...
Without the “training” of the video game, he said, “I would not have been able to do this.”
As he drove to the island, he said, he heard on the radio that the bomb
had gone off and that it was thought to be an attack by Osama bin Laden.
Mr. Breivik smiled at the memory.
In response to a question, he said he considered himself an empathetic
person. But when asked how he showed his empathy, he said, “Right now I
am very tired. I can’t answer that.”
If Mr. Breivik is found to have been sane when he carried out the
killings, the presiding judges can sentence him to up to 21 years in
prison, with a provision to keep him behind bars longer if he is still
considered dangerous. If he is found to be insane, Mr. Breivik can be
kept in forced psychiatric care.
For a long time I wondered why I liked
watching tennis on clay so much, and why it looked so different, so much
more flowing, than it does on hard courts. Finally a friend clued me
in: “I think it’s the sliding.” Oh right, the sliding. That was it. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
I’ve read that all art forms aspire to musicality; to lose themselves
in the flow. So it must be with tennis. Its players expand their
palette when they walk onto clay—the drop, the lob, the angled volley,
we’ve seen plenty of all of them already this week in Monte Carlo. These
days, it seems more natural for players to find themselves at the net,
at least temporarily, on clay than it does on hard courts. Here you get
some help from the court: You can slide forward to pick up a drop shot,
and then slide back to the baseline to reach the lob that comes after
it.
Yes, it's also about the sliding for me. Amidst all that red (and even blue) dirt, I think players actually look more graceful playing on this surface than in a hard court or a grass court.
More from the article:
Perhaps, also, it's because genius doesn’t get you all that much. Think about Andy Murray,
another player gifted by the Hands Gods. The ever-sober Murray can do
virtually anything with the ball, but he mostly chooses to play it
straight and solid. Every so often, though, he’ll relax enough to do a
little showing off. Up 5-0 in the first set against Viktor Troicki
on Monday, Murray hit a forehand at an extreme angle, and with an
extreme amount of topspin, that crossed the net and immediately dove to
the court—it was a circus shot, and something I’d never seen before.
Pleased with his success, Murray tried it again on the next ball, put it
in the net, and yelled at himself. He must know that geniuses look
cool, but you can’t count on them.
Ok, got it. No more acting cool from now on, Andy.
Another excerpt:
“Stay
hungry, stay humble,” was how Mary Carillo once summed up the tennis,
and life, advice that Toni Nadal gives to his nephew Rafael. It’s worked
well. Today, Nadal made his 2012 debut at Monte Carlo, a tournament
he’s won the last seven years. Toni was where he’s been for all of those
years, in the front row at the end of one sideline.
What, rationally, could Rafa have to prove, to himself or anyone
there, after all of those wins? Plenty. Everything. Watching him—this
year in a peach shirt—you might have thought he was still trying to
break through for title number one. He played with the same look of
concerned concentration, the same nervous energy contained by a
semi-superstitious attention to ritual, the same earnest looks of
encouragement shared with Toni, the same temporary jitters when trying
to serve out a set, the same spring in his step after winning a point
and slowed-down tempo after losing one, and, when he needed them, the
same dive-bomb passing shots hit on the full, clay-scattering slide.
Otherwise, it was a pretty routine win.
Hunger: The most useful talent of all.
I may not be a big Rafa Nadal fan but I really appreciate the guy's desire to always improve himself and his dedication to the sport.
Tarana Akbari, 12, screams in fear moments after a suicide
bomber detonated a bomb in a crowd at the Abul Fazel Shrine in Kabul on
December 06, 2011. 'When I could stand up, I saw that everybody was
around me on the ground, really bloody. I was really, really scared,'
said the Tarana, whose name means 'melody' in English. Out of 17 women
and children from her family who went to a riverside shrine in Kabul
that day to mark the Shiite holy day of Ashura, seven died including her
seven-year-old brother Shoaib. More than 70 people lost their lives in
all, and at least nine other members of Tarana's family were wounded.
The blasts has prompted fears that Afghanistan could see the sort of
sectarian violence that has pitched Shiite against Sunni Muslims in Iraq
and Pakistan. The attack was the deadliest strike on the capital in
three years. President Hamid Karzai said this was the first time
insurgents had struck on such an important religious day. The Taliban
condemned the attack, which some official viewed as sectarian. On the
same day, a second bomber attacked in the northern city of
Mazar-i-Sharif. Karzai said on December 11 that a total of 80 people
were killed in both attacks. Published December 7, 2011
This is probably one of the most heartbreaking photos that I've ever come across. It's sad that this kind of loss and destruction still exists up to this day.
While the Philippines remained locked in a stalemate with China over the
disputed Panatag (Scarborough) shoal in the West Philippine Sea (also
South China Sea), Filipino and Chinese officials in Beijing launched the
"2012-2013 Philippines-China Years of Friendly Exchanges (YFE)."
According to a news release
of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the YFE,
launched on April 11, promotes cultural and people-to-people exchanges
between the two countries.
The Beijing launch, hosted
by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign
Countries (CPAFFC) and China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, came nearly a
month after the Philippine launch of YFE last March 20.
President
Benigno Aquino III and Chinese President Hu Jintao designated 2012 and
2013 as the Philippines-China Years of Friendly Exchanges during
Aquino's State Visit to China in August 2011.
Andy Murray just debuted his new battle look for the upcoming clay and grass tournaments. I just don't know if this bald look is menacing enough, though. Is he strategizing this early or does he simply adore his current coach (tennis legend Ivan Lendl) too much?
