Milan Fashion Week kicked off here on runescape gold Wednesday as catwalks rolled out in the downtown area and mostly fanfared the 2011spring/summer wear for women in love with elegance and home.
More than 169 collections of 71 international brands presented at the six-day event are celebrating a sort of return to motherly but sophisticated womanhood, said Lina Sotis, journalist from local newspaper Corriere della Sera.
"Men have had enough of steel-nerved zippy women," she told Xinhua, adding that 2011 spring/summer collections showcase the image of an elegant, home loving woman.
"The daywear style is chaste but sensuous and free. Long skirts are accompanied by wide bags that contain all a real woman needs for her busy day, from personal items to office papers," Sotis said.
Gucci staged its pageant on Wednesday. Fendi and Prada will display their collections on Thursday, and runescape accounts then Moschino and Versace on Friday, Emporio Armani on Saturday. Salvatore Ferragamo will come on Sunday, followed by Roberto Cavalli on Monday.
Organizers have come under fire for excluding collections for larger sizes. Notably, fashion designer Elena Miro, whose real name is Elena Miroglio, has not been invited as the fashion week's opener, but she presented a show on Wednesday outside of the official calendar.
A team of so-called anti-anorexia guards are monitoring models in the fashion week, reporting suspected cases of serious eating disorder which is usually caused by an obsessive fear of gaining weight.
For the first time in 30 years, all the catwalks and shows will be arranged in Milan's well-known historic venues, like La Scala Opera House and Giureconsulti Palace beside the Milan Duomo Cathedral to lure more visitors.
"The rush around and the runescape money instant emotion of meeting models, stylists and rock stars in the heart of Milan is simply alluring," said Concetta Leuzzi, a liberal art student when enjoying the live performance by catwalk models on one of the big screens in the city.
"As the fashion week moved downtown, it came closer to citizens, filling Milan with all kinds of shows and events. I prefer treating fashion as an attribute of culture," she said.
The sunny weather in Milan encouraged many tourists, as well as curious Milanese and important watchers, to stop for a long time in the hottest venues to see celebrities flocked by large crowds of media operators.
"I've never seen before so many people taking an active part in the fashion events. A number of fashion lovers also watched the catwalks live transmission," said Giordano Mantegna,a fashion PR working for Gucci House.
During the week, a glamorous fashion tram will run around Milan, with ten outstanding models on board. Shops and museums will stay open late, while a free bike-sharing service has been launched to help journalists and buyers move smoothly in the wow gold crowded city center.
2010年9月29日星期三
2010年9月27日星期一
More Education, More Problems? The Myth of Grad School
More Education, More Problems? The Myth of Grad School A few years wow gold ago, I found myself in a state of career transition. As I looked for a company that would hire me solely on the basis of having a few skills and a lot of promise, I was forced to listen to a barrage of advice from those closest to me. The overwhelming prescription for curing my professional ills? Graduate school.
My boyfriend encouraged me to go get a master’s in English. My parents cheerily reminded me that my alma mater offered MFA degrees in acting. Some even suggested that I get an MBA, since “those are always useful.”
Just to be clear, I already have a BFA in acting. I worked in the entertainment business and eventually became a full-time writer. How’d I do it? Instead of going to graduate school for an English or creative writing degree, I worked my butt off and eventually had enough experience to get editorial jobs. Mission accomplished, and with no extra debt in sight.
But sometimes it feels like, as a person with only a bachelor’s degree, I am in the minority. Many of my Gen Y peers have multiple BAs, BSs, MFAs, PhDs, and runescape gold MBAs, as well as an alphabet soup of other educational achievements. I know a couple of girls in their early thirties who have more degrees than jobs on their résumés.
You Can Go Home Again
Especially in times of economic turmoil, graduate school can seem like a pretty sweet idea. Can’t find a job? Get another degree! It lures you into a sweet, warm cocoon of security, a place where you can focus on higher learning for a few years while forgetting about the big, bad, scary world outside. School feels familiar. School feels safe. It’s become a de facto economic indicator, just like lipstick and hemlines, of terrible times—as the economy falters, applications to grad school inevitably increase. Everyone seems to have the same idea: get ahead of the pack by getting extra degrees. And if you’re already unemployed, why not fill in the hole in your résumé with some schooling?
Because it’s not a guarantee of future success or earning potential. To be sure, there are some careers that absolutely require an education beyond a bachelor’s degree, law and medicine among them. If you want to be any kind of psychologist, therapist, or counselor, you’ll need a master’s in psychology or social work, at the very least. Librarians need master’s degrees, as do those who work in public policy, academia, or the hard sciences. Postsecondary teachers need master’s degrees or PhDs, and even elementary and high school teachers need a master’s in some states.
But a lot of the degrees that people end up getting are next to pointless. (Sorry, Russian-literature majors.) In a 2007 analysis of master’s degree programs and their usefulness, MSN Money columnist Liz Pulliam Weston found a definite salary bump for those with a master’s in fields like science and engineering, while conversely, master’s degrees in the liberal arts and humanities had almost no payoff. (She actually discovered that people with liberal-arts master’s degrees earned less than those with only a bachelor’s degree.) So don’t believe recruiters runescape accounts who tell you that another degree in art history or philosophy will make you a more attractive job prospect.
Even the vaunted MBA isn’t immune to criticism. Although it’s generally considered a worthy investment, since many graduates significantly increase their salary upon graduation, there’s no evidence that an MBA from an inexpensive public institution is any more valuable than one from a prestigious private university. The difference between top MBA programs like Columbia or NYU and those at large public universities is mainly the connections and networking opportunities that are available.
A Professional Student
Before you commit to graduate school, it’s important to take a long, hard look at why you’re going and what you expect to get out of it.
What are your goals?
Before you set out to earn an advanced degree, education experts recommend that you have very clear and specific career aspirations. Get a master’s because it’s a requirement for the exact job you want, not because you think it might make you more marketable in a general way. If you don’t have a well-defined path, or if the job you want doesn’t really require advanced education, the better choice might be to simply buy wow gold keep pursuing jobs or to take night classes to boost your knowledge. Most humanities, liberal arts, and creative careers fall into this category. What these careers demand is experience, and all the education in the world can’t make up for a lack thereof.
However, while being a writer doesn’t require any specific degree, if your goal is to be the editor-in-chief of the New Yorker, a master’s might come in handy. Likewise, that art history degree is probably a good idea if you aspire to be the chief curator of a major museum. If you aim to work at the absolute highest levels of your industry, advanced education makes more sense.
What will the return on my investment be?
By going back to school, you’re investing both money and time, so you want to be sure that when you emerge from the program, you’ll have spent both wisely. Are the expected financial rewards worth the investment? An Ivy League MBA is expensive, but if your goal is to work on Wall Street, you’ll probably recoup those costs rather quickly. However, if you intend to work in a moderately paid area, such as philanthropy, you would do better with a reasonably priced MBA from a state school. In other words, don’t take on $100,000 of debt if your anticipated starting salary after graduation is only $60,000. The financial rewards of being a doctor make an expensive med school worth it—not so, the rewards of being a social worker or school psychologist.
Am I just afraid?
Do you want to go to runescape money graduate school because your career depends on it, or are you just unsure of what else to do? Many people love not only the intellectual stimulation of school, but also the feeling of safety it affords. It can be tempting to hide from the job market for a few years, but if the end result is emerging from school just as unprepared for a career as you were before, it’s probably not a smart decision. At that point, you’ll be in more debt, you’ll be older, and you’ll have that much less experience than your peers in your industry.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with education, of course; most people find master’s programs personally fulfilling, even if the programs don’t turn out to be career boosters. But the important thing is to make the decision in line with your future goals. You may be happy with the knowledge you gain in graduate school, but you probably wouldn’t like emerging from school with a mountain of debt and another low-paying job.
For me? Not going to graduate school is the best decision I ever made, and I routinely counsel aspiring writers against it. If I’d joined a master’s program in 2007, I’d be graduating about now, in debt and with no more discernible job experience than when I started. Except instead of being twenty-seven, I’d be thirty, and instead of having one cheap wow gold useless degree, I’d have two.
My boyfriend encouraged me to go get a master’s in English. My parents cheerily reminded me that my alma mater offered MFA degrees in acting. Some even suggested that I get an MBA, since “those are always useful.”
Just to be clear, I already have a BFA in acting. I worked in the entertainment business and eventually became a full-time writer. How’d I do it? Instead of going to graduate school for an English or creative writing degree, I worked my butt off and eventually had enough experience to get editorial jobs. Mission accomplished, and with no extra debt in sight.
But sometimes it feels like, as a person with only a bachelor’s degree, I am in the minority. Many of my Gen Y peers have multiple BAs, BSs, MFAs, PhDs, and runescape gold MBAs, as well as an alphabet soup of other educational achievements. I know a couple of girls in their early thirties who have more degrees than jobs on their résumés.
You Can Go Home Again
Especially in times of economic turmoil, graduate school can seem like a pretty sweet idea. Can’t find a job? Get another degree! It lures you into a sweet, warm cocoon of security, a place where you can focus on higher learning for a few years while forgetting about the big, bad, scary world outside. School feels familiar. School feels safe. It’s become a de facto economic indicator, just like lipstick and hemlines, of terrible times—as the economy falters, applications to grad school inevitably increase. Everyone seems to have the same idea: get ahead of the pack by getting extra degrees. And if you’re already unemployed, why not fill in the hole in your résumé with some schooling?
Because it’s not a guarantee of future success or earning potential. To be sure, there are some careers that absolutely require an education beyond a bachelor’s degree, law and medicine among them. If you want to be any kind of psychologist, therapist, or counselor, you’ll need a master’s in psychology or social work, at the very least. Librarians need master’s degrees, as do those who work in public policy, academia, or the hard sciences. Postsecondary teachers need master’s degrees or PhDs, and even elementary and high school teachers need a master’s in some states.
But a lot of the degrees that people end up getting are next to pointless. (Sorry, Russian-literature majors.) In a 2007 analysis of master’s degree programs and their usefulness, MSN Money columnist Liz Pulliam Weston found a definite salary bump for those with a master’s in fields like science and engineering, while conversely, master’s degrees in the liberal arts and humanities had almost no payoff. (She actually discovered that people with liberal-arts master’s degrees earned less than those with only a bachelor’s degree.) So don’t believe recruiters runescape accounts who tell you that another degree in art history or philosophy will make you a more attractive job prospect.
Even the vaunted MBA isn’t immune to criticism. Although it’s generally considered a worthy investment, since many graduates significantly increase their salary upon graduation, there’s no evidence that an MBA from an inexpensive public institution is any more valuable than one from a prestigious private university. The difference between top MBA programs like Columbia or NYU and those at large public universities is mainly the connections and networking opportunities that are available.
A Professional Student
Before you commit to graduate school, it’s important to take a long, hard look at why you’re going and what you expect to get out of it.
What are your goals?
Before you set out to earn an advanced degree, education experts recommend that you have very clear and specific career aspirations. Get a master’s because it’s a requirement for the exact job you want, not because you think it might make you more marketable in a general way. If you don’t have a well-defined path, or if the job you want doesn’t really require advanced education, the better choice might be to simply buy wow gold keep pursuing jobs or to take night classes to boost your knowledge. Most humanities, liberal arts, and creative careers fall into this category. What these careers demand is experience, and all the education in the world can’t make up for a lack thereof.
However, while being a writer doesn’t require any specific degree, if your goal is to be the editor-in-chief of the New Yorker, a master’s might come in handy. Likewise, that art history degree is probably a good idea if you aspire to be the chief curator of a major museum. If you aim to work at the absolute highest levels of your industry, advanced education makes more sense.
What will the return on my investment be?
By going back to school, you’re investing both money and time, so you want to be sure that when you emerge from the program, you’ll have spent both wisely. Are the expected financial rewards worth the investment? An Ivy League MBA is expensive, but if your goal is to work on Wall Street, you’ll probably recoup those costs rather quickly. However, if you intend to work in a moderately paid area, such as philanthropy, you would do better with a reasonably priced MBA from a state school. In other words, don’t take on $100,000 of debt if your anticipated starting salary after graduation is only $60,000. The financial rewards of being a doctor make an expensive med school worth it—not so, the rewards of being a social worker or school psychologist.
Am I just afraid?
Do you want to go to runescape money graduate school because your career depends on it, or are you just unsure of what else to do? Many people love not only the intellectual stimulation of school, but also the feeling of safety it affords. It can be tempting to hide from the job market for a few years, but if the end result is emerging from school just as unprepared for a career as you were before, it’s probably not a smart decision. At that point, you’ll be in more debt, you’ll be older, and you’ll have that much less experience than your peers in your industry.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with education, of course; most people find master’s programs personally fulfilling, even if the programs don’t turn out to be career boosters. But the important thing is to make the decision in line with your future goals. You may be happy with the knowledge you gain in graduate school, but you probably wouldn’t like emerging from school with a mountain of debt and another low-paying job.
For me? Not going to graduate school is the best decision I ever made, and I routinely counsel aspiring writers against it. If I’d joined a master’s program in 2007, I’d be graduating about now, in debt and with no more discernible job experience than when I started. Except instead of being twenty-seven, I’d be thirty, and instead of having one cheap wow gold useless degree, I’d have two.
2010年9月26日星期日
63 Ways to Build Self-Confidence
Confidence is a tool you can use in your everyday runescape gold life to do all kinds of cool stuff, not least to stop second-guessing yourself, manage your fears and become able to do more of the things that really matter to you.
But not many people realise that their self-confidence works just like a muscle – it grows in response to the level of performance required of it. Either you use it or you lose it. That’s why I’ve given you 63 ways to grow your confidence so that you can become a giant.
Learning is a Good Thing, so sign up for that evening class and enjoy it.
Get out of your own head by asking your partner or best friend what you can do for them today.
Hit the gym. The physiological effects will leave you feeling great.
Go to a networking event and focus on how you can be helpful to other people rather than being nervous about your own stuff.
Get crystal clear on the things that truly matter to you. If they’re not in your life, you need to bring them in.
Write a list of the things you’re tolerating and putting up with in your life, then write down how you can remove, minimise or diminish each one.
Look at a great win or success you’ve experienced and give yourself credit for your part in it. Recognising your achievements is not egotistical, it’s healthy.
Next time you’re at a social event, don’t just stick with the people you know – go and have a conversation with someone you don’t know and you never know what – or who – you’ll discover.
Next time you talk yourself out of doing something (a party invite, a challenging project or whatever else), say ‘What the Hell’ and go do it anyway.
Do one thing each day that makes you smile (on the inside or on the outside).
Look for the patterns of thought that take you to a place where you start second-guessing or over-thinking. Now imagine that your best friend went through exactly the same thought process and ended up holding themselves back – what would you want to say to them?
Ask out that girl or guy you fancy the pants off (only if you’re single, don’t want to get you into trouble).
You have to keep your mind well fed, so write a list of 20 things that keeps your mind feeling nourished and make sure you’re giving them room in your life.
Stop playing different roles and runescape accounts squeezing yourself into boxes based on what you think people expect you to act like.
Learn to catch yourself every single time you tell yourself that you can’t have, won’t get or aren’t good enough to get what you want.
Take yourself off auto-pilot – make deliberate decisions on what really matters to you.
Next time you come up against a risk or a challenge, listen to what you tell yourself and look for a way that that inner dialog can be improved. Ask yourself, “What would make this easier?”
Scared of looking silly? You and everyone else. It’s no biggie so don’t let it stop you. Say it with me – “It just doesn’t matter.”
Don’t think for a second that you can’t be confident. There are already loads of things you do with natural self-confidence, you just have to notice them and get familiar with how it feels. Look for the things you do where the question of whether you’re confident enough never arises.
Listen to your doubts but be ready to make deliberate decisions once you’ve heard them. Sometimes your doubts are there to let you know what you need to prepare for, so you can use them to your benefit as you move forwards.
Think of a time when it felt like a whole bank of switches in your head flicked to the on position and you were firing on all cylinders. What were you doing and what’s the reason it felt so great?
You’ve got a whole bunch of out-dated rules that determine what you do, don’t do, should do and shouldn’t do. These rules limit your thinking and limit your behaviour. Tear up your rule book and notice how free you are to make great decisions.
Do you get annoyed with yourself because you didn’t make the most of something or stepped back form an opportunity? Don’t beat yourself up because that’s just going to make you feel worse. Instead, be brutally honest and ask yourself what you gained from the situation and what you lost out on. Based on this win/lose balance, what’s a different choice you can runescape money make next time?
If you’d already done everything in life you’d have no need to be scared. Don’t ever think that being scared means you’re not confident, it simply means you’re going somewhere new.
If there’s someone in your life who puts you down or makes you feel small, you owe it to yourself to let them know that you expect something different from now on. You deserve better.
Flirt. It’s a harmless way to play around with connecting with people and having fun.
Reveal a little bit of the real you in a relationship that might feel like it’s in a rut.
Acknowledge and welcome all of your experiences – the good stuff as well as the bad stuff. It’s all equally valid and hiding things away because you don’t like them is just creating conflict.
Always recognise that you’re more than a match for any situation you might find yourself in, no matter how tough the going gets.
Don’t get swept up in the drama of what’s happening right now, look for more useful ways of engaging with what happens in your life.
Don’t automatically give in to the instant pay-off – it often means you’re selling yourself short.
When you feel like stamping your foot and yelling “I deserve better than this!”, take a step back and say “I can BE better than this.”
Confidence sometimes means admitting you’re wrong – always be ready to hold your hands up and change your mind.
Trust your instincts. They know what they’re talking about.
Fear is a way of letting you know that you’re about to stretch yourself and grow your confidence. That’s a good thing, so use it to take yourself forwards rather than run away.
Imagine you’re visited by a successful, confident, attractive and vibrant version of you from the future, a version of you who’s everything you hope to be. What do they want to tell you?
Don’t feel like you have to do everything yourself – sometimes the most confident thing to do is ask for help.
Take a chance on something tomorrow. Anything, big or small, just take a chance.
You need to be around people who make you feel like YOU, so spend more time with the people who support and encourage you and less with those who undermine you.
Stop struggling against the things you don’t like in your life – create a congruent environment around you that flows and allows you to be you.
No man’s an island, and you need to be a part of the world you around to feel confident. What can you participate in that’s important to you?
Forget the pro’s and con’s – do something bold in the face of your challenges and fears.
Work on developing the skills you need to win at the things that matter to you. What can you practice that would radically improve your chances of winning?
The body is a mirror for the mind, so shifting your body into a confident state can have surprising results.
Don’t get disheartened or demotivated when you get to 90% with something you’re working on – push through and you’ll see that the last 10% is where the magic happens.
Keep comparing yourself to others? Stop it, don’t try to validate yourself through comparison – you’re just peachy as you are.
Put your head above the parapet at wow gold work and speak up if there’s something you think could be improved or if you have an idea you think has legs.
If there’s something you’ve been struggling to understand for a while, stop trying to understand it. Accept it just as it is, fully and wholly.
Shy with new people? Not a problem, there’s nothing wrong with being shy and it doesn’t mean you’re not confident. Just don’t overthink it, start beating yourself up or thinking you’re less than because you’re shy – the more you think like that the worse it gets.
Your environment directly impacts your self-perception, so if you’re surrounded by clutter, paperwork and rubbish put a morning aside to clean up your stuff and get organised.
Write yourself a list of the amazing things you’d love to do in your life, and make a start by simply looking into the first one or two things that leap out at you.
Don’t make your happiness or self-worth dependent on being in a relationship or being validated by someone else. Find your inherent value first, and your relationships and confidence will be immeasurably better.
Your strengths can be used to overcome any of your weaknesses. We all have weaknesses but they only undermine your confidence if you let them.
The longer you leave that big thing on your to-do list the more it’ll drain you and the bigger it’ll seem – get it done and free yourself up.
What golden threads, themes, patterns and passions have always been in your life? If those things aren’t present in your life right now, you need to shift your priorities.
Your body image does matter, because if you have a bad relationship with your body you won’t be feeling confident in yourself. Get trim if you need to, just make buy wow gold sure you get along with your body.
Being confident is an ongoing process. It isn’t a goal or an end-point that you reach and then stop. Keep playing to the best of your ability and your confidence will always be there to support you.
Try a new path. The well-trodden paths of your life can easily turn from familiarity to apathy and disconnection. A new path wakes you up.
Don’t say “Yes” to taking on a task simply because you don’t want to rock the boat – you can politely decline requests you can’t meet and don’t need to create an excuse for it.
Look at the people you respect who seem confident – don’t copy them, but identify what it is they do differently that conveys confidence and what you can learn from it.
Make a plan to do something, then make deliberate choices to follow through. Seeing progress gives you important self-reinforcement.
When you feel yourself focusing inwards and becoming paralysed with doubt or fear, switch to focusing outwards at what you can engage and interact with.
Still beating yourself up for failing or screwing up? It might not be a barrel of laughs but it’s not going to help you get through it. Much better to recognise that everything, whether it turns out or not, is how you practice cheap wow gold living a rich life.
2010年9月24日星期五
Asian art auctions in NY exceed estimates
Asian art auctions this week totaled runescape gold nearly $50 million, including $3.3 million for an ancient wine vessel that set a new record at Christie's for an item sold to an online buyer.
The vessel dating from the 12th or 11th century BC was the top seller at Christie's where the week-long sales fetched more than $20 million, far exceeding pre-sale estimates.
Sotheby's said their total was more than $27 million.
"This week's sale saw enthusiastic bidding and strong prices across a range of different categories from porcelain and jades, to furniture and paintings," said Dr. Caroline Schulten, Sotheby's head of Chinese works of art.
"Collectors from around the world often raised the bidding to multiples of the high estimate runescape accounts in order to secure the very best works," said added in a statement.
A Christie's spokesman said their online record for the wine vessel adorned with a dragon surpassed the previous record for an item sold in an online sale in 2008 when $1.27 million was paid for a Stradivari violin.
Theow H. Tow, the deputy chairman of Christie's America, said the small vessel still had "residual millet wine solidified in the bottom."
Christie's next highest selling wow gold piece, a ritual food vessel from the 10th century BC changed hands for nearly $3 million.
Tow said that bronze pieces are particularly valuable.
"Bronze work is an indispensable section in the development history of ancient China, symbolizing the advanced civilization and embodying the social hierarchy," he explained in an interview. "Bronzes were predominantly made for the wealthier class to begin with, the material being rare and expensive."
The auctions were part of New York Asia Week, which has been held since 1995. The event is buy wow gold also held in March.
In addition to Christie's and Sotheby's, more than a dozen other art galleries held exhibitions and auctions.
According to Tow, the quality of ancient Chinese art makes it unique, even among other notable pieces of ancient art.
"The bronze age in any culture gives one a very good marker for comparison with other early cultures. The fact that China stumbled upon casting bronze around 1900 BC places it behind development in the Euphrates Delta, Luristan and Egypt but in terms of bronze casting skills by 1200 BC it wassecond to none when judging by form and quality," he said.
Also included in the auctions were antique and contemporary art from Japan, Korea, India cheap wow gold and Southeast Asia.
The vessel dating from the 12th or 11th century BC was the top seller at Christie's where the week-long sales fetched more than $20 million, far exceeding pre-sale estimates.
Sotheby's said their total was more than $27 million.
"This week's sale saw enthusiastic bidding and strong prices across a range of different categories from porcelain and jades, to furniture and paintings," said Dr. Caroline Schulten, Sotheby's head of Chinese works of art.
"Collectors from around the world often raised the bidding to multiples of the high estimate runescape accounts in order to secure the very best works," said added in a statement.
A Christie's spokesman said their online record for the wine vessel adorned with a dragon surpassed the previous record for an item sold in an online sale in 2008 when $1.27 million was paid for a Stradivari violin.
Theow H. Tow, the deputy chairman of Christie's America, said the small vessel still had "residual millet wine solidified in the bottom."
Christie's next highest selling wow gold piece, a ritual food vessel from the 10th century BC changed hands for nearly $3 million.
Tow said that bronze pieces are particularly valuable.
"Bronze work is an indispensable section in the development history of ancient China, symbolizing the advanced civilization and embodying the social hierarchy," he explained in an interview. "Bronzes were predominantly made for the wealthier class to begin with, the material being rare and expensive."
The auctions were part of New York Asia Week, which has been held since 1995. The event is buy wow gold also held in March.
In addition to Christie's and Sotheby's, more than a dozen other art galleries held exhibitions and auctions.
According to Tow, the quality of ancient Chinese art makes it unique, even among other notable pieces of ancient art.
"The bronze age in any culture gives one a very good marker for comparison with other early cultures. The fact that China stumbled upon casting bronze around 1900 BC places it behind development in the Euphrates Delta, Luristan and Egypt but in terms of bronze casting skills by 1200 BC it wassecond to none when judging by form and quality," he said.
Also included in the auctions were antique and contemporary art from Japan, Korea, India cheap wow gold and Southeast Asia.
2010年9月20日星期一
Americans still not tolerant of the mentally ill
While more and more Americans runescape gold regard mental illness as a disease rooted in the brain, that doesn't mean they are getting more tolerant of those who suffer from it.
That's according to a new report comparing national surveys from 1996 and 2006.
In recent decades, both the government and the medical community have tried to reduce the social stigma shrouding psychiatric conditions like schizophrenia and depression -- in large part by stressing their biological underpinnings.
But those efforts appear to have failed, according to the new findings in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
"Americans continue to get more sophisticated in their understandings of what causes mental illness," said Bernice A. Pescosolido, who led the new research.
"But that did not translate into greater tolerance," Pescosolido, a sociologist at Indiana University in Bloomington, said in an e-mail to Reuters Health. "In fact, in some cases, it runescape accounts looked like it backfires."
She and her colleagues tapped into data from nearly 2,000 Americans, who had been interviewed about their attitudes toward mental illness as part of the General Social Survey conducted every two years by University of Chicago researchers.
From 1996 to 2006, the wow gold number of people who thought depression was rooted in brain biology climbed from just over half to nearly two-thirds; for schizophrenia, the number rose from 76 to 86 percent.
Most people also thought these illnesses should be treated by a doctor and with prescription medicine. However, in the case of drinking, two-thirds of people chalked the problem up buy wow gold to "bad character" in 2006, up from half in 1996.There was little change in social stigma. For example, most people said they wouldn't want a person with schizophrenia or depression to marry into their family.
"People with mental illness often face rejection -- in friendships, in jobs, and in family situations," Pescosolido said.
While the reasons aren't clear, a scientific understanding didn't appear to help.
"If people think it is biological or genetic, they are seeing people in a different 'class' and with some permanence that could impact their 'family line,'" Pescosolido told Reuters Health.
"We need to think about new ways to think about 'difference' and tolerance," she added. "The focus should not be on 'disease like any other' but competencies and community integration, the fact that 'everybody has something' that they live cheap wow gold with and have successful lives."
2010年9月19日星期日
Nine Healthy Snacks for Road Trips
Does your beach routine involve a runescape gold trashy novel in one hand and trashy food in the other?
Can the candy, skip the chips. What is it about stopping for gas that demands a sugar fuel-up? Put down the pretzels! It’s just one of the snacks we think of as being healthy, when in fact it’s really a bag of empty calories.
Our healthy-cooking expert, Rebecca Katz, takes the guess work out of healthy snacking with a list of tasty and nutritional ideas sure to be favorites for the whole family. Since these runescape accounts snacks can be picked up or prepared before you hit the road, you’ll be saving not just your health, but time and money, too.
1. Lara Bars
These protein bars are tasty and packed with nutritional ingredients: dates, nuts, and three more items—all real food. They’re only 150–200 calories per bar depending on the flavor. Varieties include Ginger Snap, Peanut Butter Cookie, Apple Pie, and Cinnamon Roll. To learn more, visit their Web site.
2. Celery Sticks
Here’s a cute twist on a wow gold healthy staple: create a fun “Ants on a Log” treat by spreading a celery stick with peanut butter and placing several raisins on top. You can also substitute hummus for the peanut butter.
3. A Healthy Dip
Whole-grain crackers and hummus is waaayyy better than chips ’n‘ dip.
4. Yogurt
Plain yogurt, mixed with your own fruit, travels well in a mini GladWare container.
5. Easy Snacking even if You’re Driving
String cheese is easy enough to eat with one hand on the steering wheel.
6. Protein Boost
Hard-boiled eggs provide an instant protein hit. They are both buy wow gold satisfying and filling.
7. A Sweet and Crunchy Treat
Unsweetened applesauce gets livened up with some walnuts thrown in.
8. A More Substantial Snack
Half an almond-butter sandwich on whole grain bread always hits the spot.
9. Drinks
It’s important to stay well-hydrated on the road. Honest Tea or Tzao bottled teas are good choices, or fill a thermos with your own iced tea, water with lemon, sparkling water with lemon or lime, or juice diluted with water (to cut down on sugar).
And if you must stop at a fast-food restaurant, check out our Summer Travel Survival Kit for good, better, and best healthy cheap wow gold menu choices!
2010年9月17日星期五
What to eat: oysters, delicacy from the sea
In an interview with the runescape gold Global Times, Mr & Mrs Bund chef Paul Pairet described the most memorable oyster he'd eaten as a "horseshoe" sized specimen grilled on an outdoor barbeque in a woodland region of Camargue in France, enjoyed in the company of local cattle farmers.
This unforgettable experience prompted the French-born chef to include the freshest possible oysters on at his own Bund eatery. And since it opened in April 2009, oysters have become one of the restaurant's signature dishes.
How fresh is my oyster?
The most important indicator of a really fresh oyster is its smell. According to Pairet it should smell "crisp, like the ocean," while not-so-fresh ones will runescape accounts emit a "strong seafood odor."
The next step is to check the appearance. Feel the meat to check that it is firm and resilient. The juice inside the shell should also have a clear consistency. If the juice is grayish or cloudy, don't hesitate to return the dish.
Pairet told the Global Times that when checking the freshness of oysters before serving. For a buyer at a market, it is important that, when the shell is open, the oyster is alive; and after being shucked (the shell removed) the oyster should be heavy and filled with juice.
The sauce of it
You can bake, fry, roast, or eat oysters raw. This depends as much on the type of oyster you have, as your personal taste. If the wow gold oysters come from regions with a warm climate, make sure they are cooked as harmful bacteria can thrive in high temperatures.
A number of Shanghai restaurants serve oysters in traditional ways, such as with a mignonette sauce - a simple mix of cracked pepper, minced shallots, and red wine vinegar.
Oyster royalty at the Grill
Known throughout the restaurant industry as the "Oyster King," chef Bill Marinelli will be at the Grill at the Grand Hyatt from September 21 to 30. A world-renowned oyster expert, Marinelli buy wow gold is credited with bringing several new oyster types to the Asian market. Among them are the famous Kumamoto, Olympia, Hog Island, Hama Hama, Barron Point and Westcott Flat. During his 10-day stint at the hotel he will be serving up an array of American seafood dishes including Wild Alaskan Salmon, Black Cod, Littleneck Clams, Alaskan Scallops and, of course, the oysters that made him famous; everything from the Calm Cove oyster with cheap wow gold its mildy salty flavor and fruity aftertaste to the milky and buttery Kumamoto oyster.
2010年9月16日星期四
Choir girl blazes trail for female voices in UK
It's "girl power" in Britain all over runescape gold again, but this time via cassocks and choir music instead of sequins and pop songs.
Isabel Suckling, 12, has broken an almost exclusively male singing tradition to become the first choir girl to be signed by Decca the record label, whose parent company is also home to Lady Gaga, the Rolling Stones, and Amy Winehouse.
Choir music is taken seriously in Britain, where album sales boom at Christmas time, viewers were hooked on BBC reality show "The Choir" and choir soloists have been known to hit the pop charts. Decca Record Group talent hunters searched cathedral choirs across the country, seeking to find the most talented U.K. choir girl to blaze a trail for female voices.
"When I was a chorister, it was still boys only. Today marks the start of 'girl power' for choristers, so we are delighted to have Isabel record for Decca," Dickon Stainer, president of Decca, said — in an allusion to the Spice Girls, the 1990s-era British pop stars who popularized the "girl power" motto around the world.
The blonde, angelic-looking Isabel was discovered at the York Minster choir in runescape accounts northern England, where she had sung since 2006. She caught the attention of Aled Jones, who took the pop charts by storm as a choir boy in the 80's with the song "Walking on Air" and who sang for Pope John Paul II and the Queen.
"I've always been interested in soprano voices and I heard that there was a pretty special girl in York so I went and investigated it further," Jones said. "She has a lovely voice and a rare talent and it has been a pleasure seeing her develop and sing songs that I did myself at her age."
Suckling's recording debut spans a variety of genres. "The Choirgirl", due out on Nov. 22 in the U.K and at a later stage in the U.S., features 14 wow gold tracks including "Pie Jesu" — Gabriel Faure's soprano aria from his Requiem — "Lux Aeterna", written especially for her by Gareth Malone, star of "The Choir", and a brand new choral recording of John Lennon's "Imagine", to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death.
Suckling also duets with 14-year-old treble Liam McNally, a finalist of the TV talent show "Britain's Got Talent" and in another song, "All Through the Night," she joins a younger Jones on a previously unreleased original vocal track recorded in 1986 during his days as a choirboy.
A cover of Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone" will be the album's first single, with proceeds going to charity.
Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for the UK's leading music retailer HMV, said "The Choirgirl" has buy wow gold the potential to become a Christmas sensation.
"I would say undoubtedly she is poised to climb the charts this Christmas and we will hear a great deal about this young lady soon."
For Susan Hamilton, who in 1978 broke boundaries by becoming, at age 8, one of the first girl choristers to join a cathedral choir, Suckling's singing is the confirmation of an evolution that has been years in the making.
"Girls have not been deprived of opportunities, but it takes time to change tradition," she says.
Now celebrating the signing of her record contract, sipping orange juice from a champagne glass on top of the London Eye with Jones by her side, Isabel Suckling admits she can't quite believe how things have turned out.
"It's really exciting, it hasn't quite sunk in but it is an amazing opportunity," she says.
Jones, real champagne glass in hand, jokes that the only cheap wow gold advice he has for her is "have fun, and don't let your voice break."
Isabel Suckling, 12, has broken an almost exclusively male singing tradition to become the first choir girl to be signed by Decca the record label, whose parent company is also home to Lady Gaga, the Rolling Stones, and Amy Winehouse.
Choir music is taken seriously in Britain, where album sales boom at Christmas time, viewers were hooked on BBC reality show "The Choir" and choir soloists have been known to hit the pop charts. Decca Record Group talent hunters searched cathedral choirs across the country, seeking to find the most talented U.K. choir girl to blaze a trail for female voices.
"When I was a chorister, it was still boys only. Today marks the start of 'girl power' for choristers, so we are delighted to have Isabel record for Decca," Dickon Stainer, president of Decca, said — in an allusion to the Spice Girls, the 1990s-era British pop stars who popularized the "girl power" motto around the world.
The blonde, angelic-looking Isabel was discovered at the York Minster choir in runescape accounts northern England, where she had sung since 2006. She caught the attention of Aled Jones, who took the pop charts by storm as a choir boy in the 80's with the song "Walking on Air" and who sang for Pope John Paul II and the Queen.
"I've always been interested in soprano voices and I heard that there was a pretty special girl in York so I went and investigated it further," Jones said. "She has a lovely voice and a rare talent and it has been a pleasure seeing her develop and sing songs that I did myself at her age."
Suckling's recording debut spans a variety of genres. "The Choirgirl", due out on Nov. 22 in the U.K and at a later stage in the U.S., features 14 wow gold tracks including "Pie Jesu" — Gabriel Faure's soprano aria from his Requiem — "Lux Aeterna", written especially for her by Gareth Malone, star of "The Choir", and a brand new choral recording of John Lennon's "Imagine", to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death.
Suckling also duets with 14-year-old treble Liam McNally, a finalist of the TV talent show "Britain's Got Talent" and in another song, "All Through the Night," she joins a younger Jones on a previously unreleased original vocal track recorded in 1986 during his days as a choirboy.
A cover of Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone" will be the album's first single, with proceeds going to charity.
Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for the UK's leading music retailer HMV, said "The Choirgirl" has buy wow gold the potential to become a Christmas sensation.
"I would say undoubtedly she is poised to climb the charts this Christmas and we will hear a great deal about this young lady soon."
For Susan Hamilton, who in 1978 broke boundaries by becoming, at age 8, one of the first girl choristers to join a cathedral choir, Suckling's singing is the confirmation of an evolution that has been years in the making.
"Girls have not been deprived of opportunities, but it takes time to change tradition," she says.
Now celebrating the signing of her record contract, sipping orange juice from a champagne glass on top of the London Eye with Jones by her side, Isabel Suckling admits she can't quite believe how things have turned out.
"It's really exciting, it hasn't quite sunk in but it is an amazing opportunity," she says.
Jones, real champagne glass in hand, jokes that the only cheap wow gold advice he has for her is "have fun, and don't let your voice break."
2010年9月15日星期三
'Road to Nowhere' doesn't really go anywhere
Yet the fact that it marks Monte Hellman's runescape gold return to feature filmmaking after a 21-year absence assures this patchwork puzzle -- of fatal attraction meets fiction-truth conundrum in a briar patch of noir -- a built-in (small) audience of the director's fans and curious festival goers. Everyone else will likely give it a lukewarm reception, though it could do well on DVD.
"Road to Nowhere" is a visually sturdy (with its many slow pans and static shots) film-within-a-film that throws winks and nudges at the illusory nature of both art and reality as it shrouds them in mystery. Hellman and long-time collaborator writer Steven Gaydos don't really catch the noir drift, nor do they take on narrative deconstruction with the intensity of David Lynch, and their underlying thesis on the malleability of art and truth only scratches the surface of the concept.
Yet they've created a hybrid of their own -- arthouse pulp. Audiences can either fight it, trying runescape accounts to make sense of the shaky plot, or flow along with the film's languid, doomed romance accompanied by the southern poetics of singer-songwriter Tom Russell.
The opening credits list "Nowhere's" director as Mitch Haven, a self-absorbed auteur (Tygh Runyan) taken to saying things like "I'll always do another take for deeper truth." When he decides to make a movie about real-life couple Velma Duran and politician Rafe Tachen, who committed fraud and perhaps faked their own deaths in their small North Carolina town, Mitch immediately rejects Scarlett Johansson and Leonardo DiCaprio because he doesn't want name actors who will just make his movie lots of money.
Instead he chooses unknown actress Laurel Graham (Shannyn Sossamon), who resembles the real Velma and is actually involved with Tachen and wow gold Velma's father in something that is never explained in this confusing plot. To muddy the waters further, the same person (Cliff De Young) plays both Tachen and the actor Cary Stewart in Mitch's film. As the former, he literally phones in his role most of the time from locales such as Cuba, Rome and London, which serve no purpose other than to show he's got money to globe-trot the world.
Mitch isn't interested in finding out what really happened to Velma and Tachen; he wants to create his cinematic version of the events, which comes as no surprise from any director. Yet even his film takes a back seat to his growing obsession with Laurel that neither his closest friends nor the film's consultant -- Waylon Payne, playing a North Carolina insurance agent on the Duran-Tachen case who pretended to be a house painter in L.A. to get close to Mitch's buy wow gold project at the onset! -- can talk him out of.
Runyan is a little stiff but shows he can play both earnestly affected and ironic with a straight face, and Sossamon has great presence, much more so as Laurel being her ambiguous self than as Laurel acting. Payne has the appropriate southern swagger and a provocative sparkle in his eye that serves his character well. Ever-reliable supporting actor De Young comes across as fundamentally dodgy even when saying the most innocuous lines.
"Road to Nowhere" also features one of cinema's top plane cheap wow gold crashes, which is beautifully shot and comes as a total surprise.
"Road to Nowhere" is a visually sturdy (with its many slow pans and static shots) film-within-a-film that throws winks and nudges at the illusory nature of both art and reality as it shrouds them in mystery. Hellman and long-time collaborator writer Steven Gaydos don't really catch the noir drift, nor do they take on narrative deconstruction with the intensity of David Lynch, and their underlying thesis on the malleability of art and truth only scratches the surface of the concept.
Yet they've created a hybrid of their own -- arthouse pulp. Audiences can either fight it, trying runescape accounts to make sense of the shaky plot, or flow along with the film's languid, doomed romance accompanied by the southern poetics of singer-songwriter Tom Russell.
The opening credits list "Nowhere's" director as Mitch Haven, a self-absorbed auteur (Tygh Runyan) taken to saying things like "I'll always do another take for deeper truth." When he decides to make a movie about real-life couple Velma Duran and politician Rafe Tachen, who committed fraud and perhaps faked their own deaths in their small North Carolina town, Mitch immediately rejects Scarlett Johansson and Leonardo DiCaprio because he doesn't want name actors who will just make his movie lots of money.
Instead he chooses unknown actress Laurel Graham (Shannyn Sossamon), who resembles the real Velma and is actually involved with Tachen and wow gold Velma's father in something that is never explained in this confusing plot. To muddy the waters further, the same person (Cliff De Young) plays both Tachen and the actor Cary Stewart in Mitch's film. As the former, he literally phones in his role most of the time from locales such as Cuba, Rome and London, which serve no purpose other than to show he's got money to globe-trot the world.
Mitch isn't interested in finding out what really happened to Velma and Tachen; he wants to create his cinematic version of the events, which comes as no surprise from any director. Yet even his film takes a back seat to his growing obsession with Laurel that neither his closest friends nor the film's consultant -- Waylon Payne, playing a North Carolina insurance agent on the Duran-Tachen case who pretended to be a house painter in L.A. to get close to Mitch's buy wow gold project at the onset! -- can talk him out of.
Runyan is a little stiff but shows he can play both earnestly affected and ironic with a straight face, and Sossamon has great presence, much more so as Laurel being her ambiguous self than as Laurel acting. Payne has the appropriate southern swagger and a provocative sparkle in his eye that serves his character well. Ever-reliable supporting actor De Young comes across as fundamentally dodgy even when saying the most innocuous lines.
"Road to Nowhere" also features one of cinema's top plane cheap wow gold crashes, which is beautifully shot and comes as a total surprise.
2010年9月14日星期二
Charlotte Ronson's Grown Up Grunge
If '90s-inspired dressing was already runescape gold the uniform of in-the-know city kids this past summer, then expect a widespread revival of the look in the suburbs next spring, once Charlotte Ronson's collection spring 2011 hits stores.
Ronson, the influential designer for the under 21 set (or those who just want to look young), offered her off-the-moment take on the early '90s, the era best remembered for Seattle grunge, in her runway show at Lincoln Center on Saturday, Sept. 11.
It was a family affair in the audience, with Mark Ronson sitting front row, Ronson's twin Samantha calling the music shots from the D.J. booth, and their half-sister Annabelle Dexter-Jones walked the runway, to great applause. Solange Knowles, Mad Men's Alison Brie, Nicky Hilton runescape accounts and Shenae Grimes also lent a little star power to the front row.
There were floral prairie dresses paired with denim jackets, a staple on shows like "Beverly Hills 90210" and "My So-Called Life," and references to Courtney Love's grunge years of wispy, slip dresses and camisoles paired with tough combat booties, army jackets or a plaid flannel shirt wrapped around the waist.
Ronson emphasized cozy, comfortable fabrics as well. Gray French terry hoodies, to help keep you warm in those barely-there wow gold slips, weightless, slinky cargo pants, softly washed chambray vests and striped knit column dresses.
Beyond floral, she also invented a few nice prints, from watercolor paint splashes to a graphic basketweave.
Every model wore a knit skull cap on their heads, very reminiscent of a certain designer's infamous grunge moment on the runway in the '90s: Marc Jacobs.
As literal as it was in its homage, for those too young to have experienced buy wow gold this particular '90s moment the first time, they will no doubt have fun with this alternative to current "Gossip Girl" dressing, when teenage Riot Grrrl-wannabes started 'zines and bands after school instead of cruising the mall.
And those nostalgic for the years when Claire Danes played angsty red-headed teen Angela Chase, which many in the audience seemed to be as they sang along to Samantha's '90s soundtrack for the show, might find something to love in some of the more grown up grunge pieces like soft twill paper bag waist skirts, pleated silk shorts and a rather cheap wow gold sophisticated open backed narrow khaki dress.
Ronson, the influential designer for the under 21 set (or those who just want to look young), offered her off-the-moment take on the early '90s, the era best remembered for Seattle grunge, in her runway show at Lincoln Center on Saturday, Sept. 11.
It was a family affair in the audience, with Mark Ronson sitting front row, Ronson's twin Samantha calling the music shots from the D.J. booth, and their half-sister Annabelle Dexter-Jones walked the runway, to great applause. Solange Knowles, Mad Men's Alison Brie, Nicky Hilton runescape accounts and Shenae Grimes also lent a little star power to the front row.
There were floral prairie dresses paired with denim jackets, a staple on shows like "Beverly Hills 90210" and "My So-Called Life," and references to Courtney Love's grunge years of wispy, slip dresses and camisoles paired with tough combat booties, army jackets or a plaid flannel shirt wrapped around the waist.
Ronson emphasized cozy, comfortable fabrics as well. Gray French terry hoodies, to help keep you warm in those barely-there wow gold slips, weightless, slinky cargo pants, softly washed chambray vests and striped knit column dresses.
Beyond floral, she also invented a few nice prints, from watercolor paint splashes to a graphic basketweave.
Every model wore a knit skull cap on their heads, very reminiscent of a certain designer's infamous grunge moment on the runway in the '90s: Marc Jacobs.
As literal as it was in its homage, for those too young to have experienced buy wow gold this particular '90s moment the first time, they will no doubt have fun with this alternative to current "Gossip Girl" dressing, when teenage Riot Grrrl-wannabes started 'zines and bands after school instead of cruising the mall.
And those nostalgic for the years when Claire Danes played angsty red-headed teen Angela Chase, which many in the audience seemed to be as they sang along to Samantha's '90s soundtrack for the show, might find something to love in some of the more grown up grunge pieces like soft twill paper bag waist skirts, pleated silk shorts and a rather cheap wow gold sophisticated open backed narrow khaki dress.
2010年9月13日星期一
A feast for the eyes and the stomach
Dinner at Da Dong's oldest runescape gold branch at Tuanjiehu is usually a highly anticipated affair. Chef and General Manager Dong Zhenxiang has not only established the restaurant as a popular place for gourmands but has also been making constant efforts to create new dishes.
Some of these new creations appeared at an autumn food-tasting recently. They include goose liver frozen and cut into finger-sized rolls with osmanthus-flavored cuts of lotus root. The freezing doubles the pleasant smoothness of the goose liver, which tastes very much like ice cream and melts in the mouth.
Passion fruit salad is creatively served in a glass tube, lined with a line of Chinese runescape accounts poetry, making it the perfect food for thought as well as the taste buds. Guava salad comes with fresh guava fruit sitting atop guava jelly.
Two classic dishes retain their quality. Sliced Canadian geoduck clam with green Sichuan pepper had even better texture and flavor than at a previous tasting and came served beautifully on a piece of green leaf in an ice ball.
Chef Dong's braised sea cucumber never fails to satisfy, with its wow gold wholesome flavor that sets it apart from the seafood found elsewhere. Paired with lemon sherbet, it makes for a refreshing combination.
But upgrades inevitably come with shortcomings. Take the rice with abalone, black truffle and morel. While the rice buy wow gold absorbs the flavor of the mushrooms and seafood, the black truffle tastes woody, and the abalone, too, is not so great.
The osmanthus cake tastes chewy, and while the stewed halibut with potherb mustard tasted good, its presentation falls short of the eatery's usual standards.
The fresh, meaty seasonal hairy crab, though, is a winner. The crab is matched with a ginger and black sugar soup, whose warming effect counterbalances the coldness of the seafood.
The dinner ended with a beautiful, and bountiful, plate of desserts, which included grapes and a few typical Chinese sweets, such as "sugar ear", ginger crisp and cheese cheap wow gold rolls with mashed red bean.
2010年9月12日星期日
Obesity May Up Death Risk in Older Women With Colon Cancer
Here's yet another reason to avoid runescape gold obesity throughout your life: Doing so may improve your chances of survival if you're diagnosed with colon cancer.
Women past menopause who are obese and diagnosed with colon cancer appear to face a greater risk of dying from all causes than those who are at a healthy weight or merely overweight, a new study shows.
And trying to lose weight after the diagnosis may be too late, researchers cautioned. Abdominal obesity even prior to the diagnosis of colon cancer was associated with an increased risk of dying after contracting the disease, according to study author Anna Prizment, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center, in Minneapolis.
Body shape may play a role as well.
Women with the disease who have an unhealthy waist-to-hip ratio and a large waist are at increased risk of death, Prizment added.
The study is published in the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death among women and men combined. It is expected to kill more than 51,000 people -- including nearly 25,000 women -- in the runescape accounts United States in 2010, according to the American Cancer Society.
Many studies have found a link between excess body weight and a higher risk of colon cancer. "But not so many studies have examined how obesity affects survival of the colon cancer patient," Prizment said.
So, with her colleagues, she evaluated women who had participated in the Iowa Women's Health Study, focusing on 1,096 women participants who were diagnosed with colon cancer between 1986 and 2005. Body and weight measurements were obtained before the colon cancer diagnosis.
The study was retrospective, meaning that the data used had been recorded for reasons other than research.
During the follow-up period of up to 20 years, 493 women died. Among this group, colon cancer was the underlying cause in 289 deaths.
Obese women -- those with a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher -- had a 45 percent increase in all causes of death compared to women with a healthy weight, according to Prizment. Their risk of dying from colon cancer also climbed by 32 percent compared to healthy weight women, but that finding was not significant from a statistical point of view. However, the 45 percent increase in all causes of death was clinically significant.
The researcher also found that the risk of dying was higher among underweight women, those with a BMI below 18.5. "But we don't want to talk much about them because we had too few of them," Prizment said.
Prizment expanded on the unhealthy waist-to-hip ratio and large waist associations that she found were associated with a higher risk wow gold of dying from colon cancer.
A waist-to-hip ratio of 0.80 or below for women is considered low-risk. For instance, a woman with a waist of 27 inches and hips of 36 inches has a waist-to-hip ratio of .75.
Women with waists of 37.5 inches or higher had a higher death risk than those with a healthier waist size, she found.
Exactly why the obese women with unhealthy waist-to-hip ratios and big waists are at increased risk of death from colon cancer compared to slimmer women isn't known. "They may be diagnosed at an advanced stage," Prizment said. "They may have less access to health care. There could be a direct biological mechanism."
Her advice for women? "Maintain a healthy body weight is the only recommendation we can give for all postmenopausal women," she said.
Until the new study, findings about excess body size in colon cancer patients and buy wow gold risk of death have been mixed and conflicting, said Dr. Peter Campbell, director of the tumor repository for the American Cancer Society.
One strength of the new study, he said, is that "body size was measured before they had the diagnosis." Measuring after diagnosis may not give a true picture, he said, as weight loss can occur after the diagnosis.
"It's lifelong body size that's important [to know in gauging risk]," he said. "This study adds important new information to our understanding of body size and health."
He agreed with Prizment that the finding cheap wow gold underscores the importance of maintaining a healthy body weight with age.
2010年9月11日星期六
Midi set to wow Zhenjiang once again
Zhang Fan can never forget the runescape gold first Midi Music Festival of 2000. It saw around 20 bands all outfitted in skinny jeans and leather jackets, cheered on by some 2,000 people just as young as the band members.
"Most performers were students of the Midi Music School and the two-day music festival felt more like a graduation ceremony.
"But we recognized the passion and that drove us to hold the music festival the next year," recalls Zhang, head of the Midi Music School, which has incubated such famous mainland rock bands as Miserable Faith and The Face.
The festival later moved out of the campus to public spaces, such as Beijing's Fragrant Hills in 2002, and Haidian Park and Chaoyang Park from 2003.
Zhang says he never imagined that what started as a school event would grow into an influential music festival attracting 20,000 to 30,000 fans annually.
This year, the oldest music festival label in the country will move to runescape accounts Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, for the second time, during the October holiday.
But before that, it will go to Changsha, Hunan province, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, to give a warm-up performance at the 2010 Orange Isle Music Festival from Sept 22 to 24, at Orange Island Sand Sculpture Park, located in the middle of the Xiangjiang River.
As usual, the music festival will see 30 indie rock bands, such as Brain Failure, Super Mario, folk singers like Ma Tiao and Hong Qi, and established rock stars Wang Feng and Tang Dynasty.
The festival will also see Mavis Fan and her band on the first day. The 32-year-old singer-songwriter has shaken off her innocent-girl image since becoming a singer at 14. With her rock appearance, complete with heavy-metal accessories, body-piercings and tattoos, the alternative rocker will show off both her wild looks as well as her rock music.
Foreign acts, including The Cave Singers, an indie folk band from Seattle, and American thrash metal band, Exodus, will also wow gold share the stage.
It was Midi that kicked off the nation's large-scale outdoor music festival trend of the past 10 years.
"It's great to see more than 40 outdoor music festivals being held across the nation this year. Going to one is becoming a lifestyle choice for many people. Such festivals are key to the future of the local music industry," Zhang says.
"People are willing to drive thousands of miles just for a three-day music buy wow gold festival because they love the experience.
"We have stepped out of Beijing to cater to more rock souls looking for rock music and the outdoor music festival culture," says Zhang, who was impressed by the reception they received in Zhenjiang last year.
The support from local government is crucial to the success of the outdoor music scene, he adds.
"Many music festivals still cannot make ends meet." he says.
"We are 40 years behind Woodstock, so it cheap wow gold will take time to make things better."
2010年9月10日星期五
Montmartre artists worry about their future
Globalization has not spared the painters of runescape gold Montmartre, who are as much a part of Paris as the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. They are increasingly finding themselves in competition with reproductions from China being sold in nearby galleries and souvenir shops at dumping prices.
It is not just the cheap made-in-China imitations that are threatening their existence. They also face competition from artists working illegally at Place du Tertre, the legendary area of Paris on the hill around Sacre Coeur.
There is still a hint of the erstwhile artists' quarter present at the plaza that once attracted artists such as Renoir, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso and Braquem, but the artists there today are concerned about the reputation of their art.
"The legend of the Montmartre artists soon won't exist any longer," one embittered artist runescape accounts says. The 58-year-old who identified himself only as Alain would know because he first set up his easel on the plaza 35 years ago.
There are about 300 artists holding one of the coveted licenses to work on the Place du Tertre. They are not, however, under threat of extinction. The waiting list to get a license is long. Nevertheless, they worry about the end of a tradition.
"On one hand the fight for survival gets harder all the time, on the other our image is getting worse," says Montmartre artist Marie-Noelle Romvos.
Many tourists who visit Sacre Coeur are intercepted by illegal artists before they go into the basilica. Portraits costing between $19 and $25 are not the only things ruining prices.
"Often the portraits are so wow gold bad that people are disappointed, which also hurts our image," Romvos says.
In defense of her craft the 55-year-old founded an association of portrait artists. Portraits and caricatures are among the most popular genres requested. The logic of pure profit-making has also penetrated Montmartre and the artists adapt to the tastes of the customers.
"Unfortunately, because of this a uniform style of painting is permeating the art," Romvos says.
The Montmartre portrait artists have been at Place du Tertre since 1976. At that time it was still possible to offer to draw there without a permit based on the principle that the first artist there could draw or paint first. That had its advantages.
"I often came here at 6 in the morning to get a place," Romvos says.
Then the rules were put in place that are still in effect today: Only artists who meet the strict buy wow gold criteria and are registered with the Maison des Artistes, the French state artists' association, are allowed to work and sell their art on the plaza.
Today two artists share a space that is about 1 square meter in size by working in shifts.
"That has worked well and is sufficient to earn a living, but today our prices have slipped into the cellar," Romvos says.
The organization she founded for the preservation of the Montmartre artists is one of five. At least they are able to take action against cheap wow gold rent increases.
It is not just the cheap made-in-China imitations that are threatening their existence. They also face competition from artists working illegally at Place du Tertre, the legendary area of Paris on the hill around Sacre Coeur.
There is still a hint of the erstwhile artists' quarter present at the plaza that once attracted artists such as Renoir, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso and Braquem, but the artists there today are concerned about the reputation of their art.
"The legend of the Montmartre artists soon won't exist any longer," one embittered artist runescape accounts says. The 58-year-old who identified himself only as Alain would know because he first set up his easel on the plaza 35 years ago.
There are about 300 artists holding one of the coveted licenses to work on the Place du Tertre. They are not, however, under threat of extinction. The waiting list to get a license is long. Nevertheless, they worry about the end of a tradition.
"On one hand the fight for survival gets harder all the time, on the other our image is getting worse," says Montmartre artist Marie-Noelle Romvos.
Many tourists who visit Sacre Coeur are intercepted by illegal artists before they go into the basilica. Portraits costing between $19 and $25 are not the only things ruining prices.
"Often the portraits are so wow gold bad that people are disappointed, which also hurts our image," Romvos says.
In defense of her craft the 55-year-old founded an association of portrait artists. Portraits and caricatures are among the most popular genres requested. The logic of pure profit-making has also penetrated Montmartre and the artists adapt to the tastes of the customers.
"Unfortunately, because of this a uniform style of painting is permeating the art," Romvos says.
The Montmartre portrait artists have been at Place du Tertre since 1976. At that time it was still possible to offer to draw there without a permit based on the principle that the first artist there could draw or paint first. That had its advantages.
"I often came here at 6 in the morning to get a place," Romvos says.
Then the rules were put in place that are still in effect today: Only artists who meet the strict buy wow gold criteria and are registered with the Maison des Artistes, the French state artists' association, are allowed to work and sell their art on the plaza.
Today two artists share a space that is about 1 square meter in size by working in shifts.
"That has worked well and is sufficient to earn a living, but today our prices have slipped into the cellar," Romvos says.
The organization she founded for the preservation of the Montmartre artists is one of five. At least they are able to take action against cheap wow gold rent increases.
2010年9月9日星期四
'Meek's Cutoff' shows women's view of West
Lost wandering in the Oregon runescape gold desert for five weeks when the journey should have taken two, low on water, food and patience, a young emigrant played by Michelle Williams says of the group's ego-driven guide: "Is he ignorant, or just plain evil? That's my quandary."
Williams' character, Emily Tetherow, was talking about Stephen Meek, a real-life mountain man who led 200 wagons into the Oregon desert in 1845 claiming to know a shortcut through the Cascade Mountains, and ended up instead in an area without water. He is a central figure in the new movie "Meek's Cutoff," which premiered Sunday at the Venice Film Festival in competition for the Golden Lion.
Though the story is historical in nature, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt said she and the scriptwriter saw more modern references when they started the project right around the time that photos were emerging of soldiers posing with Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
"Just following a leader who doesn't know what he's doing, who's maybe runescape accounts either ignorant or stupid. You are not really sure what his motives are," Reichardt told reporters. "And needing information from someone who's completely culturally different, and whose culture you don't trust."
Though that central question expresses the tension in the movie — and may ring true to many viewers in spheres other than political — the movie itself is a spare tale of a journey gone awry and not a political treatise. Low on action, but rich in drama, it is by no means a typical Western.
In the film, three wow gold couples have broken away from the main wagon train to try their luck with Meek. Tension arises as the families try to decide whether to continue to take Meek's advice or if they should trust a Native American wanderer who crosses their path.
The movie is told from the women's point of view, drawn from diaries kept by Western-bound pioneers, and its beauty is in the details: A frontier littered with heirlooms, a broken mirror tossed from a wagon and abandoned, all suggesting hardship as emigrants unsentimentally lighten the load.
"I figure the historical truths may reveal themselves in the minutiae, in the every day labor. That is what the women's diaries reveal. It was really monotonous and it was really lonely," Reichardt said. "The journals start out very romantic about the journey, and in the end it's: 'built two fires, washed clothes, cooked beans.'"
"Meek's Cutoff" is the second of Reichardt's films in which Williams appears, following "Wendy and Lucy" in 2009. The actress was in Venice for the red carpet premiere later Sunday but didn't attend the press conference
"I love working with Michelle. She is very game for the kind of films we are making. They are really hard and there are no comforts at all," the director said.
The actors did a week of pioneer camp before shooting, in the area near Bend, Oregon where Meek's wagon train was lost and which Reichardt said had changed little from pioneer days. They learned how to make fires without matches, discussed what families would have buy wow gold taken with them out West based on their status and worked with the animals, including teams of oxen that drew the wagons.
"I am a big fan of Westerns, of Nicholas Ray and Monte Hellman and Anthony Mann, and I love the way those films are sort of styled and shot, and the use of landscape. But a lot of the themes are completely unrelatable to me," Reichardt said.
Shifting the story to the women's point of view changed the themes.
"It's really about labor and space and stillness. So my challenge was to find how the stillness could act in a dramatic way." Reichardt said.
The film tries to avoid cliches about Native Americans while examining the settlers' mistrust in the stranger. The part is played by Rod Rondeaux, an actor and stuntman who learned the Nez Perce language for the role, although none of his dialogue is translated, leaving the audience, along with the emigrants, to try to interpret what he is saying.
"The thing of avoiding cliches is really hard," Reichardt said. "I mean as soon as you are putting a Native American in front of a blue sky with a bare chest and beads on, you start to have a heart attack. 'Oh, my. What am I doing? At the same time, you don't want to avoid it. The story is told from the point of view of cheap wow gold white immigrants."
2010年9月8日星期三
Can home cooking be hazardous to your health?
New research suggests that at least runescape gold one in seven home kitchens would flunk the kind of health inspection commonly administered to restaurants.
The small study from California's Los Angeles County found that only 61 percent of home kitchens would get an A or B if put through the rigors of a restaurant inspection. At least 14 percent would fail — not even getting a C.
"I would say if they got below a C, I'm not sure I would like them to invite me to dinner," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
In comparison, nearly all Los Angeles County restaurants — 98 percent — get A or B scores each year.
The study, released Thursday, is believed to be one of the first to offer a sizable assessment of food safety in private homes. But the researchers admit the way it was done is hardly perfect.
The results are based not on actual inspections, but on an Internet quiz taken runescape accounts by about 13,000 adults.
So it's hard to use it to compare the conditions in home kitchens to those in restaurants, which involve trained inspectors giving objective assessments of dirt, pests, and food storage and handling practices.
What's more, experts don't believe the study is representative of all households, because people who are more interested and conscientious about food safety are more likely to take the quiz.
"You'll miss a big population who don't have home computers or just really don't care" about the cleanliness of their kitchens, said Martin Bucknavage, a food safety specialist with Penn State University's Department of Food Science.
A more comprehensive look would probably find that an even smaller percentage of home kitchens would do well in a restaurant inspection, he suggested.
In 2006, the county health wow gold department began a home kitchen self-inspection program, designed to help consumers learn how to store and prepare food safely. The department also began offering an online quiz with 45 yes or no questions that simulates a restaurant inspection checklist.
People are asked, for example, if their refrigerator temperature is 41 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, whether raw meat is stored below other foods on refrigerator shelves, and whether fruits and vegetables are always thoroughly rinsed before they are eaten.
The study is based on quizzes taken through 2008.
Overall, 34 percent got an A, meaning they correctly answered at least 90 percent of the questions. Another 27 percent got a B, 25 percent a C, and 14 percent failed to buy wow gold score at least a 70.
An estimated 87 million cases of food-borne illness occur in the United States each year, including 371,000 hospitalizations and 5,700 deaths, according to an Associated Press calculation that uses a CDC formula and recent population estimates.
Many outbreaks that receive publicity are centered on people who got sick after eating at a restaurant, catered celebration or large social gathering. In this summer's outbreak linked to salmonella in eggs, several illnesses were first identified in clusters among restaurant patrons.
But experts believe the bulk of food poisonings are unreported illnesses from food prepared at home.
The study is being published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of cheap wow gold the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
2010年9月7日星期二
Store ushers in "up-cycling" for shoppers
In a city where brands rule, a new runescape gold name is battling to make its mark: waste. The aisles at ECOLS, in Hong Kong's trendy Central district, are stocked with designer goods - stylish necklaces from France, a teakwood bookshelf from Thailand, a glitzy home-made vase, fashionable bags.
What sets them apart are the discarded materials they are made from: Tire inner tubes, sweet wrappers, pull tabs from drink cans and 16 mm camera film, to name just a few.
Some of the prices are eye-catching too. A chair molded from plastic water bottles by British artist Richard Liddle costs a cool HK$16,500 ($2,100).
"We've imported six of these (chairs) in different colors," said Stella Ho, the store's senior marketing executive. "We only have the purple one left."
ECOLS is among a wave of businesses trying to take advantage of the global resurgence in "up-cycling", a term coined in the mid-1990s for the art of making new items directly from waste products, rather than the traditional recycling approach of breaking them down into raw materials.
However, despite the success being enjoyed by stores in other parts of the world, thanks largely to a growing interest in environmentally sound products, industry insiders say the concept is yet to make an impact in Hong Kong.
With more than 200 products from more than 20 countries, ECOLS, which was opened by Ronald Lo and his wife, Phoebe Yuen, early last year, is arguably already the city's most established up-cycling store (at least 10 businesses have been opened in recent years).
"Some of our bags are as expensive as brand designs but every piece of ours has a story to tell," explained Ho. "Each ring-pull bag made in Brazil carries the signature of the woman who made it and buyers runescape accounts can send e-mails to thank her. People feel a more human connection with our goods."
Consumer choice
Although some consumers are willing to foot the bill for pricey sustainable products (a woman recently spent HK$3,000 on an Italian handbag made out of old newspapers), the market remains limited and business is slow.
"Most Hong Kongers are not that keen on 'green' things, so the concept is hard for them to accept," said Ho. "There are still many inventive works we haven't brought here as we're afraid they might be too avant-garde."
The choice between a HK$500 brand product and one made by up-cycling for the same price "still depends on a shopper's sense of social responsibility and ability to pay", according to Siu King-chung, assistant professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University's school of design.
"In both of these cases, attitudes toward up-cycling is far from mature in Hong Kong," he said.
However, those supporting the movement say a paradox is evident:if people were less sensitive about the retail price of green products and sales improved, more traders would enter the market, which would naturally increase competition and lead to price reductions.
In the meantime, ECOLS is running market research with temporary stalls in the Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay districts (another is planned for Sha Tin). The Central outlet also hosts regular exhibitions to promote new works by up-cycling designers.
Lo and Yuen, who also run a LED lighting business, recently purchased equipment to up-cycle wine bottles, while their online ECOLS store is expected to go live this autumn.
The art of using discarded items to make new products is nothing new to Hong Kong. Poor craftsmen were known for collecting old wood and tires to recycle well before the 1970s.
"People make use of everything when times are hard," said Lo Wah-kei, who organized an up-cycling workshop in June this year to coincide with the city's wow gold recent Carpet, Banner and Leather trade fair. "As the city has thrived, shoppers have turned to luxury goods and confined the tradition to the waste can."
Although the concept is again growing in popularity, stores are struggling to find steady supply streams in Hong Kong and are instead forced to rely on imports.
"Hong Kong has eco-friendly designers but they're mostly still at the early stages (of development)," said ECOLS executive Ho. "Creations from abroad are pretty diverse. New York, Copenhagen and Tokyo offer some intriguing designs. Even less developed countries, like Kenya or the Philippines, produce good work."
The extremely populous city generates a large amount of waste that could potentially be up-cycled, yet designers often do not know where to find it.
Although some of them have worked out that getting the support of the companies creating the waste can help (organizers of the trade fair workshop toured industrial zones to convince companies to donate raw materials), Lo said the biggest headache is storage.
"Things are usually dumped in huge amounts but most up-cyclers don't have warehouses. We've been keeping our materials in a school and I don't know if we'll have to dump them when the new term begins," he said. "It would be better if there was a center to store all the materials collected and sort them fairly. That way everyone would be able to find what they want in one place."
Ultimately, to run a sustainable business, though, budding entrepreneurs need to have a sound business plan, he added.
"Not only do you need to build a material-collection network and make fine designs, you need the right producers and useful marketing strategies," he said. "After all, green products still need to make sense."
Due to the difficulties in finding raw materials, most up-cycling businesses in Hong Kong use just one type of material and have limited production volumes. High rental costs across the city also mean the vast majority of traders sell their goods online.
Covers prove popular
Wandering along the aisles of the Carpet, Banner and Leather show, one of the displays that stood out was the one by Billy Potts and Joseph Ng, two friends who make a range of products from taxi seat covers.
The duo launched Handsome Bag Company online after discovering Hong Kong taxi drivers change the covers in their cabs up to four times a year. They use the fabric to make bags, glass covers and iPhone cases.
"Billy came up with the idea to make bags with the material," said Ng, 25, who works buy wow gold full-time as an architect. "I thought it was crazy - it's such a humble fabric, just gray and black - but I like crazy ideas.
"Both of us were born and raised in Hong Kong and we're proud of it," he said. "So we wanted to challenge ourselves by keeping everything local: Designed here, sourced here and made here."
Although the company has been running just for a few months, preparations actually began in early 2009. It took almost a year to find all the suppliers and producers they needed.
"I approached lots of crafts people," said Potts, a 24-year-old lawyer, as he helped Ng set up a stall at the Mini Design Mart, a bustling weekend flea market at a creative arts center in Kowloon district. "They gave me a dozen reasons but basically the answer was the same: No. They thought it was crazy."
Their luck only changed when they found a working women's association, which agreed to sew the seat covers.
"We pay (the women) a fair price. They proposed the price and we accepted it. We are not trying to exploit people to maximize profit," said Potts, who explained he and Ng spend much of their spare time collecting, cleaning, cutting and sorting the fabric. The designers try to reuse as many old materials in their products as possible, such as making the straps on their bags out of taxi seat belts.
"Ironically, it's actually more expensive to use old (seat belts)," said Potts. "They can cost up to HK$20, whereas new ones can be bought for just HK$5 downtown. Also, old seat belts are hard to collect because no one keeps them. They're hard to unscrew so people just dump them with the car."
Despite the trials of setting up the company, the duo were rewarded after just three weeks of launching their online business with 20 orders.
During the last Mini Design Mart in Kowloon, about half of their stock was sold, with one shopper even buying the taxi roof light they were using as a display. So far, the most popular item is a black, "dull-looking" tote that retails at HK$1,000.
"Our products are not perfect yet by any means," said Potts. "We've had a lot of advice from friends and customers, such as adding a separate layer inside or using brighter cheap wow gold colors for the lining. We take them all seriously."
What sets them apart are the discarded materials they are made from: Tire inner tubes, sweet wrappers, pull tabs from drink cans and 16 mm camera film, to name just a few.
Some of the prices are eye-catching too. A chair molded from plastic water bottles by British artist Richard Liddle costs a cool HK$16,500 ($2,100).
"We've imported six of these (chairs) in different colors," said Stella Ho, the store's senior marketing executive. "We only have the purple one left."
ECOLS is among a wave of businesses trying to take advantage of the global resurgence in "up-cycling", a term coined in the mid-1990s for the art of making new items directly from waste products, rather than the traditional recycling approach of breaking them down into raw materials.
However, despite the success being enjoyed by stores in other parts of the world, thanks largely to a growing interest in environmentally sound products, industry insiders say the concept is yet to make an impact in Hong Kong.
With more than 200 products from more than 20 countries, ECOLS, which was opened by Ronald Lo and his wife, Phoebe Yuen, early last year, is arguably already the city's most established up-cycling store (at least 10 businesses have been opened in recent years).
"Some of our bags are as expensive as brand designs but every piece of ours has a story to tell," explained Ho. "Each ring-pull bag made in Brazil carries the signature of the woman who made it and buyers runescape accounts can send e-mails to thank her. People feel a more human connection with our goods."
Consumer choice
Although some consumers are willing to foot the bill for pricey sustainable products (a woman recently spent HK$3,000 on an Italian handbag made out of old newspapers), the market remains limited and business is slow.
"Most Hong Kongers are not that keen on 'green' things, so the concept is hard for them to accept," said Ho. "There are still many inventive works we haven't brought here as we're afraid they might be too avant-garde."
The choice between a HK$500 brand product and one made by up-cycling for the same price "still depends on a shopper's sense of social responsibility and ability to pay", according to Siu King-chung, assistant professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University's school of design.
"In both of these cases, attitudes toward up-cycling is far from mature in Hong Kong," he said.
However, those supporting the movement say a paradox is evident:if people were less sensitive about the retail price of green products and sales improved, more traders would enter the market, which would naturally increase competition and lead to price reductions.
In the meantime, ECOLS is running market research with temporary stalls in the Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay districts (another is planned for Sha Tin). The Central outlet also hosts regular exhibitions to promote new works by up-cycling designers.
Lo and Yuen, who also run a LED lighting business, recently purchased equipment to up-cycle wine bottles, while their online ECOLS store is expected to go live this autumn.
The art of using discarded items to make new products is nothing new to Hong Kong. Poor craftsmen were known for collecting old wood and tires to recycle well before the 1970s.
"People make use of everything when times are hard," said Lo Wah-kei, who organized an up-cycling workshop in June this year to coincide with the city's wow gold recent Carpet, Banner and Leather trade fair. "As the city has thrived, shoppers have turned to luxury goods and confined the tradition to the waste can."
Although the concept is again growing in popularity, stores are struggling to find steady supply streams in Hong Kong and are instead forced to rely on imports.
"Hong Kong has eco-friendly designers but they're mostly still at the early stages (of development)," said ECOLS executive Ho. "Creations from abroad are pretty diverse. New York, Copenhagen and Tokyo offer some intriguing designs. Even less developed countries, like Kenya or the Philippines, produce good work."
The extremely populous city generates a large amount of waste that could potentially be up-cycled, yet designers often do not know where to find it.
Although some of them have worked out that getting the support of the companies creating the waste can help (organizers of the trade fair workshop toured industrial zones to convince companies to donate raw materials), Lo said the biggest headache is storage.
"Things are usually dumped in huge amounts but most up-cyclers don't have warehouses. We've been keeping our materials in a school and I don't know if we'll have to dump them when the new term begins," he said. "It would be better if there was a center to store all the materials collected and sort them fairly. That way everyone would be able to find what they want in one place."
Ultimately, to run a sustainable business, though, budding entrepreneurs need to have a sound business plan, he added.
"Not only do you need to build a material-collection network and make fine designs, you need the right producers and useful marketing strategies," he said. "After all, green products still need to make sense."
Due to the difficulties in finding raw materials, most up-cycling businesses in Hong Kong use just one type of material and have limited production volumes. High rental costs across the city also mean the vast majority of traders sell their goods online.
Covers prove popular
Wandering along the aisles of the Carpet, Banner and Leather show, one of the displays that stood out was the one by Billy Potts and Joseph Ng, two friends who make a range of products from taxi seat covers.
The duo launched Handsome Bag Company online after discovering Hong Kong taxi drivers change the covers in their cabs up to four times a year. They use the fabric to make bags, glass covers and iPhone cases.
"Billy came up with the idea to make bags with the material," said Ng, 25, who works buy wow gold full-time as an architect. "I thought it was crazy - it's such a humble fabric, just gray and black - but I like crazy ideas.
"Both of us were born and raised in Hong Kong and we're proud of it," he said. "So we wanted to challenge ourselves by keeping everything local: Designed here, sourced here and made here."
Although the company has been running just for a few months, preparations actually began in early 2009. It took almost a year to find all the suppliers and producers they needed.
"I approached lots of crafts people," said Potts, a 24-year-old lawyer, as he helped Ng set up a stall at the Mini Design Mart, a bustling weekend flea market at a creative arts center in Kowloon district. "They gave me a dozen reasons but basically the answer was the same: No. They thought it was crazy."
Their luck only changed when they found a working women's association, which agreed to sew the seat covers.
"We pay (the women) a fair price. They proposed the price and we accepted it. We are not trying to exploit people to maximize profit," said Potts, who explained he and Ng spend much of their spare time collecting, cleaning, cutting and sorting the fabric. The designers try to reuse as many old materials in their products as possible, such as making the straps on their bags out of taxi seat belts.
"Ironically, it's actually more expensive to use old (seat belts)," said Potts. "They can cost up to HK$20, whereas new ones can be bought for just HK$5 downtown. Also, old seat belts are hard to collect because no one keeps them. They're hard to unscrew so people just dump them with the car."
Despite the trials of setting up the company, the duo were rewarded after just three weeks of launching their online business with 20 orders.
During the last Mini Design Mart in Kowloon, about half of their stock was sold, with one shopper even buying the taxi roof light they were using as a display. So far, the most popular item is a black, "dull-looking" tote that retails at HK$1,000.
"Our products are not perfect yet by any means," said Potts. "We've had a lot of advice from friends and customers, such as adding a separate layer inside or using brighter cheap wow gold colors for the lining. We take them all seriously."
2010年9月6日星期一
Natalie Portman takes a dark turn in Venice film
The Venice film festival opened runescape gold on Wednesday with "Black Swan," a dark psychological drama starring Natalie Portman as a ballerina who finally lands the lead role but loses her grip on reality as the pressure builds.
The arrival of a rival dancer, played by Mila Kunis, triggers both obsessive jealousy and sexual liberation in a plot echoing that of the ballet around which it revolves.
A steamy love scene between the actresses and elements of violence and horror make it a departure from clean-cut on-screen roles often associated with Portman.
"(Director) Darren (Aronofsky) talked to me about this (sex) scene in our first meeting eight years ago," Portman told reporters in Venice after a press screening.
"He described it as: 'You're going to have a sex scene with yourself,' and I thought that was very interesting because this movie is in so many ways an exploration of an artist's ego and that narcissistic sort of attraction to yourself and also repulsion with yourself."
Portman, her co-stars and the Venice jury led by director Quentin Tarantino walked the red carpet at the official world premiere, signing autographs and mingling with runescape accounts hundreds of fans.
"I just want to say 'amore cinema'," Tarantino told the opening ceremony.
Aronofsky won the top prize in Venice -- the Golden Lion for best picture -- two years ago with "The Wrestler," and he said he saw similarities between it and Black Swan.
"The more I looked into the world of ballet, I actually started to see all these similarities to the world of wrestling -- they both have these performers that use their bodies in extremely intense physical ways."
French actor Vincent Cassel, who plays the ballet director, wondered why anyone would want to go into the world of dance.
"I think if you want to be a dancer it has to be a vocation. It's like being a priest, really, because you work so hard, you work wow gold every day, it hurts like crazy and you make no money. So I guess it's just not something one should do."
YOUTH OVER CELEBRITY
Black Swan kicks off the annual Venice film festival on the Lido waterfront where stars, fans and reporters rub shoulders for the next 11 days.
Festival director Marco Mueller has opted for youth in his choice of directors of the 23 competition films, and he will also hope that the presence of Hollywood mavericks can make up for the expected shortage of A-list celebrities this year.
The average age of filmmakers in the main line-up this year is an unusually low 47, and includes Oscar winner Sofia Coppola, 39, with comic drama "Somewhere."
At the other end of the age range are 78-year-old Monte Hellman, competing buy wow gold with low-budget crime drama "Road to Nowhere," and Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski, 72, on the Lido with the Afghan-themed "Essential Killing."
Actor Casey Affleck presents documentary "I'm Still Here," about his brother-in-law actor Joaquin Phoenix's decision to retire in 2008 and reinvent himself as a hip-hop musician.
And Julian Schnabel directs "Miral," about an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war, who finds herself drawn into the conflict.
One filmmaker who will not be in Venice despite having a film at the festival is Jafar Panahi, the Iranian jailed and later released earlier this year. He said in a statement he had not been given permission to travel cheap wow gold abroad by Tehran.
2010年9月2日星期四
Blair memoir excites booksellers, riles critics
It's a political memoir with celebrity mesos trappings — secrecy, security, a multimillion-dollar deal and, crucially, controversy.
Tony Blair's "A Journey" was stirring political passions even before it hits bookstores Wednesday, with excerpts revealing that the former British prime minister has cried for soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq, but still thinks it was right to invade and topple Saddam Hussein.
The decision to go to war remains Blair's most divisive legacy. In excerpts from the book released by the publisher late Tuesday, Blair says "I ... regret with every fiber of my being the loss of those who died."
"Tears, though there have been many, do not encompass it," he says.
But, he says, "on the basis of what we do know now, I still believe that leaving Saddam in power was a bigger risk to our security than removing him and that, terrible though the aftermath was, the reality of Saddam and his sons in charge of Iraq would at least arguably be much worse."
"I can't regret the decision to go to war," he says.
Blair also reopens domestic political wounds, saying he found his rival and successor Gordon Brown difficult and maddening.
British booksellers are reporting heavy interest in the book, for which Blair was paid an wow gold estimated 4.6 million pounds ($7.5 million). He's donating the proceeds to a charity for injured troops.
Billed by publisher Random House as a "frank, open" account of life at the top, "A Journey" is being published in a dozen countries, alongside an e-book and an audio version read by Blair himself. It's in the top 10 on Amazon's British best-seller list — though it's only 4,000 on the retailer's U.S. site.
"Initial sales will be huge," said Jonathan Ruppin of Foyles book store chain. "But whether those sales are sustained will depend on how frank and open it is."
Blair — who is scheduled to be in Washington on publication day, attending Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in his role as an international Mideast envoy — has said he "set out to write a book which describes the human as much as the political dimensions of life as prime minister."
"A Journey" promises to give readers behind-the-curtain insights into major world events from the death of Princess Diana to the Sept. 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq.
It is unlikely to resolve the conflicting views and emotions Blair evokes.
For many Americans, he remains a well-regarded ally who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. in the fight against international terrorism. He's scheduled to receive the 2010 Liberty Medal from former President Bill Clinton in Philadelphia on Sept. 13.
At home, he is a more polarizing figure. Swept to power in 1997 on a wave of popular enthusiasm, Blair left office a decade later reviled by many for taking Britain into the U.S.-led Iraq war, and viewed as a liability by much of his own Labour Party.
"He began as a leader who was a friend of everyone, and he finished as a friend of almost no one in Britain," said Blair biographer Anthony Seldon.
Anti-war groups say they will picket Blair's book signings in Dublin on Saturday and in London on Sept. 8. Both are high-security affairs at which book buyers will have to surrender their bags, cameras and mobile phones — and are barred from asking for personal dedications.
Blair, 57, stepped buy wow gold down in June 2007 after a decade that included a historic peace accord in Northern Ireland, the deeply unpopular war in Iraq and the continuing conflict in Afghanistan.
He was Labour's most successful leader for decades, moved the left-leaning party toward the center and brought it back to power after 18 years in opposition.
But when he left, after years of increasingly open hostility with Brown, his party was divided.
In the book, Blair calls Brown "difficult, at times maddening," but says "he was also strong, capable and brilliant."
Brown, and Labour, lost power in an election in May, and Blair does not exactly heap praise on his time in office.
"It is easy to say now, in the light of his tenure as prime minister, that I should have stopped it; at the time that would have been well nigh impossible," Blair writes.
Blair has been at the center of numerous books, notably "The Blair Years," by former press secretary Alastair Campbell, and the recently published memoir "The Third Man," by Labour insider Peter Mandelson.
He was also the inspiration for the former prime minister dogged by allegations of war crimes in Robert Harris' thriller "The Ghost," which was turned into a film by Roman Polanski.
Seldon said most political memoirs are self-serving, "historically pretty useless" and don't live up to the hype.
Blair insists his will be different, and Seldon says the former politician is part of a small group whose words may have wide appeal.
"Britain doesn't have many prime ministers who are international cheap wow gold figures," said Seldon. "We have had Churchill, we have had Thatcher, we have had Blair."
Tony Blair's "A Journey" was stirring political passions even before it hits bookstores Wednesday, with excerpts revealing that the former British prime minister has cried for soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq, but still thinks it was right to invade and topple Saddam Hussein.
The decision to go to war remains Blair's most divisive legacy. In excerpts from the book released by the publisher late Tuesday, Blair says "I ... regret with every fiber of my being the loss of those who died."
"Tears, though there have been many, do not encompass it," he says.
But, he says, "on the basis of what we do know now, I still believe that leaving Saddam in power was a bigger risk to our security than removing him and that, terrible though the aftermath was, the reality of Saddam and his sons in charge of Iraq would at least arguably be much worse."
"I can't regret the decision to go to war," he says.
Blair also reopens domestic political wounds, saying he found his rival and successor Gordon Brown difficult and maddening.
British booksellers are reporting heavy interest in the book, for which Blair was paid an wow gold estimated 4.6 million pounds ($7.5 million). He's donating the proceeds to a charity for injured troops.
Billed by publisher Random House as a "frank, open" account of life at the top, "A Journey" is being published in a dozen countries, alongside an e-book and an audio version read by Blair himself. It's in the top 10 on Amazon's British best-seller list — though it's only 4,000 on the retailer's U.S. site.
"Initial sales will be huge," said Jonathan Ruppin of Foyles book store chain. "But whether those sales are sustained will depend on how frank and open it is."
Blair — who is scheduled to be in Washington on publication day, attending Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in his role as an international Mideast envoy — has said he "set out to write a book which describes the human as much as the political dimensions of life as prime minister."
"A Journey" promises to give readers behind-the-curtain insights into major world events from the death of Princess Diana to the Sept. 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq.
It is unlikely to resolve the conflicting views and emotions Blair evokes.
For many Americans, he remains a well-regarded ally who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. in the fight against international terrorism. He's scheduled to receive the 2010 Liberty Medal from former President Bill Clinton in Philadelphia on Sept. 13.
At home, he is a more polarizing figure. Swept to power in 1997 on a wave of popular enthusiasm, Blair left office a decade later reviled by many for taking Britain into the U.S.-led Iraq war, and viewed as a liability by much of his own Labour Party.
"He began as a leader who was a friend of everyone, and he finished as a friend of almost no one in Britain," said Blair biographer Anthony Seldon.
Anti-war groups say they will picket Blair's book signings in Dublin on Saturday and in London on Sept. 8. Both are high-security affairs at which book buyers will have to surrender their bags, cameras and mobile phones — and are barred from asking for personal dedications.
Blair, 57, stepped buy wow gold down in June 2007 after a decade that included a historic peace accord in Northern Ireland, the deeply unpopular war in Iraq and the continuing conflict in Afghanistan.
He was Labour's most successful leader for decades, moved the left-leaning party toward the center and brought it back to power after 18 years in opposition.
But when he left, after years of increasingly open hostility with Brown, his party was divided.
In the book, Blair calls Brown "difficult, at times maddening," but says "he was also strong, capable and brilliant."
Brown, and Labour, lost power in an election in May, and Blair does not exactly heap praise on his time in office.
"It is easy to say now, in the light of his tenure as prime minister, that I should have stopped it; at the time that would have been well nigh impossible," Blair writes.
Blair has been at the center of numerous books, notably "The Blair Years," by former press secretary Alastair Campbell, and the recently published memoir "The Third Man," by Labour insider Peter Mandelson.
He was also the inspiration for the former prime minister dogged by allegations of war crimes in Robert Harris' thriller "The Ghost," which was turned into a film by Roman Polanski.
Seldon said most political memoirs are self-serving, "historically pretty useless" and don't live up to the hype.
Blair insists his will be different, and Seldon says the former politician is part of a small group whose words may have wide appeal.
"Britain doesn't have many prime ministers who are international cheap wow gold figures," said Seldon. "We have had Churchill, we have had Thatcher, we have had Blair."
2010年9月1日星期三
Ratings critical to Emmys' future
There are reasons to be optimistic mesos that Sunday's Emmy ratings will continue the rebound begun last year after nearly a quarter-century of declining numbers -- and the stakes couldn't be higher.
With negotiations yet to begin on a new long-term licensing agreement to air the Primetime Emmys, another boost in audience size from the 13.5 million viewers in 2009 could push the major networks to ante up and sign on. It would provide the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with added leverage in what inevitably will be difficult discussions with ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
The expiring eight-year contract signed in 2002 contains a clause that gives the Big Four an exclusive 60-day negotiating period leading to Sunday's telecast. After that, the academy is free to invite basic cable, pay TV or even Internet platforms to share the air or even take on the entire show.
So far, that leverage hasn't meant much. Although a committee of academy governors and their chief negotiator, attorney Kenneth Ziffren, reached out to start the process as early as June, there have been no negotiations, and none are scheduled.
Multiple sources said the networks, which rotate the show among them, have indicated a willingness to talk and re-up for another round but have made it clear they don't plan to pay much more than in the past and might even seek a reduction in the license fee. This is life or death for the TV Academy, which gets the bulk of its funding from the license fee and related Emmy promotions.
In 2002, with premium cable network HBO offering to carry the show, the Big Four agreed to raise the $3 million-a-show fee to $5.5 million for the first four years and $7.5 million for the next four. (Unlike the Oscars, that doesn't include production costs, which each network wow gold picks up.)
This time, HBO isn't likely to bid on its own, and there has been no discernible interest from basic cable, at least not yet.
If the Emmys are taken off the Big Four, broadcasters likely wouldn't enter the races or allow their talent to participate; they wouldn't buy tickets, tables and ads; and they would counterprogram the show even more aggressively.
The academy won't buy wow gold discuss it, Ziffren declined comment, and the networks say there is nothing to discuss. But one thing is clear: Better ratings would spur the process.
Helping matters this year: Broad-appeal series such as "Glee" and "Modern Family" are up for multiple awards, the Emmycast will air live nationwide for the first time, and the show has no NFL competition (this will be the second time under this contract that NBC will air the Emmys before Labor Day to avoid the network's powerhouse "Sunday Night Football" franchise).
So while the good news is there's no football, the bad news is that it's the weekend before Labor Day, when there are fewer viewers available or interested than cheap wow gold in mid-September.
订阅：
博文 (Atom)