Those who have shed many a tear over Jodi Picoult’s bestseller, My Sister’s Keeper are in for a disappointment when they watch Nick Cassavetes’s version of the tale. The fault does not lie in the plot, performance or casting but at the climax of the tale which has been changed by the film team to make it less heart wrenching.
My Sister’s Keeper, the movie, centers on a hostage situation of a different vibe. This time round it is an 11-year-old girl who is incessantly pressured by her parents to donate blood, bone marrow, and even a kidney to postpone the inevitable death of her leukemic older sister, Kate, for whom she is a rare blood match. Finally at the brink of entering her teenage years Anna decides to take matters, and the right to her body, in her own hands by suing her parents for the decisions that they have made to sacrifice her health to keep her terminally ill sister alive.
Though the film seems to religiously follow the novel in most incidents the changes are evident towards the end of the story. Picoult’s novel sees Anna as the sacrificial lamb which saves Kate while the film’s less emotional ending shows Kate’s demise, leaving a handful of beautiful memories with her family. However the filmmakers have made the movie in such a manner so that Julia’s, Campbell’s love interest and one of the main characters in the original tale, absence is not conspicuous.
Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women:
Rape Red. Grave Green. Booze Brown. No, these are not new macabre colours introduced by a paint manufacturer with a zero sense of humour. These are colours that ‘happen’ to people. To women. All over the world, millions of women suffer in silence as they are physically tormented, sexually abused and denied their basic human rights.
As the world marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women today, the ‘colours of domestic violence’ - actually close-up images of bruises and skin abrasions suffered by abused women, tell us a chilling story. All the women featured in the advertisements are dead. Yes, domestic violence kills. These ‘colours’ are part of a powerful advertising campaign launched this week by a French anti-domestic violence group. (Surprisingly for France, the advertisements are in English).
The images are initially meant to suggest a work of art, but upon closer reading, they’re revealed to be the result of assault and abuse against women. This is the type of message that the world needs to hear – that violence against women, in whatever form, is unacceptable in civilised society.
The United Nations defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.
Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. According to UNIFEM, at least one in three women in the world has suffered from violence, usually by someone known to her. A recent multi-country study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that up to 71 percent of women aged 15 to 49 reported physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lives. Abused women often suffer from isolation, depression, inability to work and loss of income.
Short, long-term consequences
In every country, developed and developing, women and girls suffer from widespread and multiple forms of violence. It takes place in the home, on the streets, in schools, the workplace, during conflict and in times of peace. It also takes the forms of female infanticide in the preference for boys, child marriage, female genital mutilation, “honour” killings and other forms of femicide.
Meet the “top ten” of Crawford Academy they are a group of wealthy and beautiful teenagers. In the top ten’s spare time they enjoy drinking at the local tavern and playing chicken on the local draw bridge. Virginia has just been accepted into this prestigious group and lucky for her it’s about to be her eighteenth birthday, someone in the group however is killing other members. Virginia had better get to the bottom of all of this or there isn’t going to be anyone left alive to come to her birthday party.
REVIEW:
Directed by: J. Lee Thompson
Starring: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane
“Virginia I’ve got a knife…Virginia don’t go away.”
Back in 1981 the slasher film was the king of the genre here in America. It seemed as if every holiday or event that could occur in a teenager’s life was being made into some sort of body count film. Leave it to the people that were behind the earlier film My Bloody Valentine to turn their attention to yet another rite of passage in a young teenager’s life, their eighteenth birthday. Like My Bloody Valentine Happy Birthday to Me is just as cruel and it was promoted with the tag line “Six of the most bizarre murders you will ever see!”
The launch of the country’s first communication satellite, Supreme SAT I, which was scheduled for yesterday afternoon, from Xichang Satellite launch centre in China, was postponed due to bad weather, the satellite’s joint-owner Supreme SAT Satellite Company said.
It said the launch had been put off by about five days and they would later announce the new date.
The satellite will be positioned above Sri Lanka in the Geo-Stationary orbit at 87.5 degrees East in just seven minutes and this will be operational for commercial purposes in the region.
The word "Belief" can be defined as a feeling of real and true trust on what one believes. When people face problems, fall sick, they sometimes seek spiritual assistance by making "Vows", performing "Bodhi Poojas" to the Bo-Tree where the Buddha attained Enlightenment. They earnestly believe that these rituals will be a blessing to help the sick one to recover his or her illnesses.
An unquestioning "Faith", the confidence will always help the patient, as it will bring much confidence to him. Mentally it will be a soothing balm to his mind.
This may have been the main reason that "Bodhi Poojas" are presently very closely linked in the Bodhi Culture of the Sri Lankan Buddhist. Therefore, whenever one of their dear one's fall sick, they hold Bodhi Poojas by offering flowers, watering and reciting verses invoking the blessings.
A Bodhi Pooja will be held at the Gangaramaya Temple, Colombo today at 5.00 p.m. to invoke blessings on former South African born England Cricket Captain, internationally reputed cricket commentator par-excellence, a true Ambassador of Sri Lanka - Tony Greig, whom all Sri Lankan cricket fans love.
The monks’ abode (Sangha Wasa) of the Kataluwa Ranwella ancient temple in Habaraduwa, Galle was completely gutted in a fire that broke out within its premises on Monday night due to what is suspected to be an electrical short circuit.
The pristine printing machine believed to be the oldest printing machine in Sri Lanka which had printed the first ever national newspaper ” Lanka Loka ” that was housed in the Sangha Wasa was completely burnt down in the fire.
At the time of the incident Chief Incumbent of the temple Ven. Delagama Sugathawansa thera had been out of the vihara visiting a neighbouring temple and a resident monk Ven Ahangama Hemananda thera who was present had noticed smoke rising into the air from a section of the vihara.
Sri Lanka's first communication satellite is expected to be launched on November 22, 2012 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China. This geostationary satellite would become operational by mid-2013 for commercial purposes. Picture released by the supremeSAT Pvt Ltd shows officials making final touches before the launch on Thursday (22).
Imagine this... It is late evening, quite dark and there is heavy rain. You are driving your two-seater car along a lonely road in a remote area. The nearest town is 40 minutes away and you have petrol only to reach the town. The petrol station will open only the following morning. The cell phone network is out so communication is not possible.
Suddenly you pass a bus-stop and see three people waiting for the bus which will come in four hours: A sick, old woman who looks as if she is about to die (The old woman reminds you of your mother, who died of cancer when you were 15 years old. You always regretted that you couldn’t care for her); an old friend (Years ago, while visiting you, this friend, seeing your interest in his brand new racing car, gave you the car keys and asked you to enjoy a short drive. You met with a serious accident while driving. This friend pulled you out of the car to safety even risking his own life); and the missing partner you have been dreaming about (You meet this partner after eight years. If you miss this opportunity, it will be gone forever.)
Which one would you offer a ride to, knowing very well that you could accommodate only one passenger in your car?
Some of you readers may have come across this question in emails that are circulated.
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director of the Astrobiological Center at the Buckingham University, England said the recent phenomenon of red rain in Sri Lanka is reportedly similar to the red rain in Kerala in 2011 and 2009 which definitely had some cosmic connection.
In an email interview with this correspondent he said, “from all reports I have heard,I think the red rain in Sri Lanka is similar to the red rain of Kerala of 2001 and 2009. Professor Godfrey Louis (of Kerala) together with colleagues and students have been studying this material now for over five years.”
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe further said, “The red colour is not due to dust by red pigmented microorganisms resembling algae but unlike any known algae on Earth. We have shown that the original proposal by the botanic authorities in India that these are due a known algal bloom blown up from trees has been investigated by us and disproved.”
Wickramasinghe also said the investigating team have obtained optical microscope and electron microscope images of the Kerala red rain that they published last year in the paper, Growth and replication of red rain cells at 121oC and their red fluorescence authored by Rajkumar Gangappa, Chandra Wickramasinghe Milton Wainwright, Godfrey Louis and Santhosh Kumar and presented at the SPIE meeting in San Diego, California.
Wickramasinghe also said, “As far as the Kerala red rain is concerned, there is a mysterious microorganism that has defied identification so far. We have not been able to convincingly extract any DNA from them and Prof Louis has maintained that there is no DNA, but it can multiply at very high temperatures under high pressure conditions. I think there are all the signs of an alien bug! The Kerala red rain was preceded by a sonic boom that was heard, probably indicating that a fragment of a comet exploded in the atmosphere and unleashed the red cells that became incorporated in rain. I suspect the same could be true of the Sri Lankan rain, but I would like to have samples to confirm this. I should also say that reports of red rain are found throughout history all the way back to biblical times. I think this could be more evidence for cometary panspermia theory.”
Chandra Wickramasinghe is the chief proponent of the theory that life spread throughout the universe hitchhiking on comets. The phenomenon is known as panspermia.
The number of tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka rose 15.5 percent in October compared to the corresponding month in 2011. The growth percentage in October is low, however, compared to September, which recorded an 18.1 percent growth, Sri Lanka Tourism data revealed.
The number of foreign tourists increased 16 percent to 774,151 during the first 10 months of this year compared to 667,569 last year.
The number of arrivals last year was 855,975. Sri Lanka Tourism has set an ambitious target of attracting one million visitors by the end of this year.
Tourism industry experts are optimistic that the country will reach this target due to the steady growth on a monthly basis.
They also stress the need for an adequate number of hotel rooms and skilled workers to woo visitors.
Sri Lanka was recognised as one of the safest destinations to travel by a globally renowned magazine this year. Fifteen Lankan chefs also brought honour to the country by winning 14 Gold medals at the Culinary Olympics in Germany.
Rare showers of red rain fell for over 15 minutes in Sewanagala, Monaragala and Manampitiya,Polonnaruwa yesterday morning hours of yesterday and day before yesterday. According to Meteorology Department sources red rain fell heavily in these areas and the reason has not been found yet.
Red rain in Sewanagala and Manampitiya left red frost on the ground. This is the first time red rain was witnessed in Sri Lanka. The Health Ministry Secretary informed Medical Research Institute (MRI) Director Dr Anil Samaranayake to conduct a study to ascertain the reasons for red rain by taking water samples from Monaragala and Polonnaruwa.
Increase in the acidity of the air and sand storms are the usual reasons for red rain. However, there are no sand storms in Sri Lanka. India had red rain last year and Indian scientists discovered a variety of micro organisms as a reason for the rains. Since the micro organisms had no DNA, they guessed it had to be a strange phenomenon.
The MRI is carrying out research to find the exact reason for red rain in Sri Lanka.
“Money doesn’t bring us much happiness… I can’t hug and cling on to my Ferrari forever…”
Wealthy Consultant Surgeon Richard Teo’s final lecture
Consultant surgeon Richard Teo in Singapore who was 40 years old passed away on the 18th of October due to a lung cancer. He has reached success and become a billionaire by following the vision that happiness is in the hands of money. He has been working as a popular cosmetic surgeon in his final days earning huge sums of money.
Yet he has become very disappointed after knowing the disease he has been inflicted with. Then, he has realized that he is left with a small period of time and he has decided to serve the people during that short period of time. He has finally mentioned that: “I can’t be holding on to my Ferrari all my life.” Few days before his death, he has addressed medical students and shared his experience which is very popular in the internet these days. Few lines extracted from his speech are as below:
“I am a product of the modern society. I was able to adapt to the modern world since my childhood days. I come from a middle class family. I was constantly told that happiness could be reached by success and that success is all money. Thus, I was very competent since my childhood. I wanted to go to the best school and I wanted to be the best. I won awards, medals and became the first at everything. You may be aware that becoming an eye surgeon is a very popular field. I went after that and I was also selected to it. I have won an award for using laser to cure problems related to the eye. I got two patent licenses as well. One was on using medical equipment and the other was for using laser but I didn’t earn any money. So as soon as I finished, I decided that it was enough.
I realized that private medical practice will help me to earn a lot of money and my interest shifted to cosmetic surgery as it was very popular in the world. I stopped my practice on the way and started a private clinic for cosmetic surgery.
Unfortunately, people don’t pay respect to their family doctor. Instead they respect popular doctors. People who are reluctant to pay S $20 are ready to pay thousands and ten thousands to beautify themselves. So I decided to become a cosmetic surgeon without been a normal doctor. Accordingly, the business reached utmost success. At first the clients had to wait for a week to get an appointment, later they had to wait for months. I had work on a fulltime basis. People were so interested on their physique. It was such a business. Then I hired another doctor, gradually the number of doctors increased and seven doctors to work under me. We earned about a million dollars during the first year. Yet that wasn’t enough for me as I was crazy about money. I worked in Indonesia to serve the richest Indonesians.
When I earned such a lot of money, I wandered as to what to do? I joined a racing club. Then I started to go to Malaysia on weekends for races. When I earned more money, I bought a Ferrari.
Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids may be a female-driven movie but it comprises a handful of genuine characters and some hilarious incidents which makes it an entertaining watch for audience from all walks of life.
Having lost her cake bakery business Annie is forced to share an apartment with a brother a sister who seems to be the incarnations of Tweedledee and Tweedledum in ‘Alice in Wonderland.’She sets about trying to regain her lost dignity and confidence by trying to organize the perfect wedding for her best friend Lillian but bad luck gets in the way yet again, this time in the form of a snobbish and rich beauty named Helen who is vying to become Lillian’s new best friend.
Together with the bride-to-be and her arch rival, Annie leads the rest of the bridesmaids, a hilarious group of conflicting personalities from the naïve and conservative Becca to the disillusioned mother-of-three Rita and overweight Megan, on a wild dance up the aisle so that we almost wonder if the wedding will actually take place in one piece.
Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, author, translator, and photographer who has lived in the Himalayan region for over forty years. He was born in France and has a PhD in cell genetics from the renowned Institut Pasteur. Since completing his doctorate he has focused on Buddhist practices, living in India, Bhutan, and Nepal and studying with some of the greatest Buddhist teachers. Matthieu has served as the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama since 1989. He is a board member of the Mind and Life Institute, an organization dedicated to collaborative research between scientists and Buddhist scholars and meditators. He is engaged in research on the effect of mind training and meditation on the brain at universities around the world.
Matthieu is the author of several books including The Monk and the Philosopher, The Quantum and the Lotus, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill and The Art of Meditation. He donates proceeds from his books and much of his time tohumanitarian projects in the Himalayan region and preservation of Tibetan cultural heritage.
Buddhist monk is world's happiest man
UPPER DOLPA, Nepal — As he grins serenely and his burgundy robes billow in the fresh Himalayan wind, it is not difficult to see why scientists declared Matthieu Ricard the happiest man they had ever tested.
The monk, molecular geneticist and confidant of the Dalai Lama, is passionately setting out why meditation can alter the brain and improve people's happiness in the same way that lifting weights puts on muscle.
"It's a wonderful area of research because it shows that meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree but it completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are," the Frenchman told AFP.
Ricard, a globe-trotting polymath who left everything behind to become a Tibetan Buddhist in a Himalayan hermitage, says anyone can be happy if they only train their brain.
Neuroscientist Richard Davidson wired up Ricard's skull with 256 sensors at the University of Wisconsin four years ago as part of research on hundreds of advanced practitioners of meditation.
A year that has already seen the demise of one print institution – Encyclopaedia Britannica – has now marked the end of another. Newsweek magazine will publish its last print edition in December and re-launch in an all-digital format in 2013.
This, along with the continued decline in major print publication sales numbers, has made some believe that this is further evidence of the decline of the print media. They say the spell of the slow death of print publications has begun, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and to a certain extent, feature phones with Internet access.
The proponents of this view believe that the physical wares – newspapers, books and magazines - will no longer be the primary or most profitable means of delivering and interacting with media; news, fact, entertainment or education.
Their arguments expand further. “It’s not that print is bad. It’s that digital is better. It has too many advantages: Omnipresence, speed, permanence, search ability, the ability to update, the ability to remix, targeting, interaction, marketing via links and data feedback. Digital transcends the limitations of - and incorporates the best of – individual media. More important than any of that, of course, is that digital reduces the incremental cost of production and distribution of content to zero. And as every newspaper can tell you: It’s impossible to compete with free”.
We’ve all witnessed a major shift in how content is produced and disseminated - especially over the past five years. From the death of major newspapers to the migration of magazines to tablets and eBook Readers, there’s certainly cause to assume the end of print is imminent. But is it? This debate has gone back and forth for some time now.
Whatever side you fall on, it’s undeniable that how we consume content continues to evolve – and publishing industry executives have obviously taken note. My personal belief is that print media will never die, but digital platforms will continue to play a big part in the publishing world.
Reasons
Maybe the digital media is overtaking the print media, but I believe the reasons may be a bit different than most people think. As I sat on my couch reading the Sunday Observer and watching a replay of the T-20 cricket match, it occurred to me that the true source of the demise of print media might be a little more subtle.
One of the scariest moments of a sometimes-adventurous life has been when holding my two crying little ones as their mother was taken to hospital by ambulance - absolutely crippled with the pain of a migraine headache.
She has suffered them since teenage years - and I had seen some bad episodes - but the head-splitting pain of this particular migraine was truly awful. It was so bad she thought she was dying.
And she is not alone - an estimated 12 per cent of Australians and 25 million Americans suffer from the malady, 75% of them being women.
In Australia the Centre for Applied Economic Research at the University of New South Wales put the cost of migraines at between $302 million and $721 million a year. This is apportioned to loss of productivity and medical costs.
The World Health Organisation has put migraines at No. 12 in the Top 20 leading causes of disability in females. For men and women, migraines register 19th.
Famous people who are believed to have suffered migraines include Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Saint Paul, Thomas Jefferson, Edgar Allan Poe, Miguel de Cervantes, Friedrich Nietzsche, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Pablo Picasso, Lewis Carroll, Sigmund Freud and Vincent Van Gogh.
Julie Taymor’s 2002 biopic of Mexico’s best known 20th-century artist Frida Kahlo is an attempt at grand scale movie making. However the enthusiasm is lost in monotony half way through the tale.
For one Frida runs for 123 minutes in a slow moving pace and with only a few incidents taking place on screen. The movie sheds light on the mystery behind Frida’s paintings which seem to be the result of a traumatic accident during her adolescent as well as her tumultuous personal life with fellow artist and communist Diego Rivera.
The story opens in what could have been noted as one of the climaxes of Frida’s life: her unexpected visit to her debut solo exhibition. The viewers are confused on what exactly is taking place as they see a bedridden woman hurried out of the house and put on a vehicle along with her bed. Then the tale goes back into the past showing the same woman, Frida, during her youth. She gets on a bus to Coyoacán, fighting with her boyfriend about Marx and Hegel. When the bus crashes into a tram Frida is knocked unconscious and covered in blood and gold dust which had been in the possession of one of the passengers. Afterwards, recuperating in bed, she begins to paint. Her tragedy is heightened when her boyfriend tells her that he has to leave the country with his parents. The only means in which she can let her emotions loose was on canvas.
Australia is all set to woo highly skilled population from the region including in Sri Lanka in a bid to create an educated, productive work force to boost its economy, the PTI reported. According to minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen, the government in its 'Asian Century White Paper' released yesterday, has highlighted the opportunities for the nation's growth by building deeper and stronger links with Asian region.
"Even with the government's unprecedented investment in tertiary education and up-skilling Australians, we need migrants who bring their specialist skills to Australia," he said.
Seven of the top 10 source countries in Australia's 2011-12 migration programme are in the Asian region: India, China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam.
Making movies takes different shapes. Some are aimed at satisfying the popular market while there
are a few others who aim at making artistic quality productions that please the aesthetic appetite. ‘Karma’ which was directed by Prasanna Jayakody as his second film had an additional aim, that was to reach international cinema and attract international producers. Rasitha Jinadasa one of the co-producers of ‘Karma’ shared with the TV Times the long term target to promote the country’s cinema internationally.
“Prasanna revealed the idea of ‘Karma’ in 2007when we were going around the world with his first film ‘Sankara’” said Rasitha who also runs his own TV production house.
“What we learnt from screening ‘Sanakara’ in foreign festivals was that there are many funding agencies out there to fund independent art house movies,”
Inspired by this discovery Rasitha and Prasanna started developing the film from 2008 which was completed in 2010.
“Prasanna’s first concept of ‘Karma’ was not similar to what we see today but a story with similar sub plots,” Rasitha who had been working with Prasanna in the same video production house for a long time said.
The duo took the film in search of an international producer but failed.
On your feet! Evidence suggests that long hours in office chairs or sitting watching TV will shorten your life
Are you sitting comfortably? Well, you had better stand up. Sitting is the latest health hazard, according to a study published this week, showing that being sedentary for hours at a time increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease and premature death.
The research, from the University of Leicester and published in the journal Diabetologia, combined the results of 18 studies and nearly 800,000 people. It found that prolonged sitting doubled the risk of diabetes and heart disease, and that the risk wasn’t eliminated for those people who took regular exercise. Sitting is a low energy activity and it may be risky because it makes our bodies think we are in energy storage mode. This makes our bodies resistant to insulin (which mops up glucose), increasing the level of glucose in the blood and reducing levels of good cholesterols while increasing levels of bad ones. All of these changes increase the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
