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Homage to Harold Pinter

Despite their wildly differing politics, John Malkovich and Harold Pinter were friends. Now the film star is directing Julian Sands in a tribute to the playwright. As the Edinburgh festival launches, Stephen Moss meets them I spot John Malkovich ‘s head as soon as I enter the courtyard of the hotel, even though he is in the lounge, with his back to me and partially obscured by a blind. That cranium has an aura. He has just arrived in Edinburgh, where he is directing his long-time friend Julian Sands , the British actor, in A Celebration of Harold Pinter . It is being touted as the starriest fringe event for a decade. Sands gives me a cheery wave when I enter the lounge, and starts rearranging the furniture so the three of us can talk; Malkovich sprawls languidly in a large leather armchair. Sands, in an elegant grey suit and with a physical tautness that belies the fact he is now past 50, is fluent and to the point; Malkovich speaks slowly, and when he tells a story is strong on detail. There’s a quirky mind in that majestic bonce. A fashion designer as well as an actor and director, Malkovich is wearing a big blue jacket and jeans with huge turn-ups. Both sport grey silk scarves he designed. The origins of this Pinter celebration lie in 2005. Pinter had been due to give a reading of his poems, but throat cancer had impaired his voice and he asked Sands to step in, instructing him on how to deliver them. “After he died,” says Sands, “I repeated the recital as a memorial tribute in Los Angeles, recorded it and made some CDs for those who couldn’t be there, one of whom was John.” Sands was later approached by producer Nick Brooke to do a Pinter show at Edinburgh, followed by a national tour. Enter Malkovich. “I thought if we’re to do this, it needs to be completely re-examined,” says Sands. “I wanted more of a celebration of Harold, a convincing audio portrait. John had said to me after I’d given him the CD that I should think about working this up into a theatre piece. I’d just seen John perform in The Infernal Comedy , and his power and presence was so compelling that I thought if I was going to work with anyone on this, it has to be him. His contribution as director is more like a conductor. Yes, I

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Second night of violence in London – and this time it was organised

Police deployed to deal with trouble in Enfield and Brixton, plus reports of disturbances in Dalston and Walthamstow There was mounting evidence on Sunday night that some of the second night of rioting in London was part of an orchestrated plan, as violent disturbances broke out sporadically across parts of the capital. Police in riot gear were deployed across the city to deal with trouble in Enfield, six miles north of the site of riots in Tottenham, while looters later pillaged shops in Brixton. The scenes in Enfield, while reminiscent of Saturday night’s clashes, were smaller in scale, and they took place from about 7pm. Teenagers gathered on St Andrews Road – said to have been a preplanned destination – broke down walls on terraced streets so they could collect bricks to throw at police. About a dozen shops were ransacked and a police car smashed on Church Street. Riot police moved in to secure the area and train station. Shortly after 8.30pm, a crowd of about 100 mainly teenage boys broke into a jewellery store. When police arrived less than a minute later, there were chaotic scenes, with a number of people struck with batons and attacked by dogs. Resident Mizu Rahman, 34, said a plainclothes police officer had told him at around 2pm that there was intelligence that disorder was imminent. “The officer came down the street warning us there would be trouble,” he said. “He showed me his ID. He said, ‘Do you live here?’ I said yes. He said, ‘St Andrews Road is going to be the frontline tonight’.” There was no obvious reason why the rioting should have spread to Enfield, which is in the outskirts of north London. Rahman, an engineer, said he had seen a message on Facebook that Enfield would be “next on the hitlist”. At 9.30pm, Met police and reinforcements from Kent began turning the whole of Enfield into a sterile area. Hundreds of riot police arrived with vans and police dogs, charging at groups of teenagers, who melted into sidestreets. They smashed cars and shop windows as they ran. Some teenagers knew exactly where they were heading, saying the plan was to go to Ponders End. A large crowd of youths then sprinted west, attacking a retail park and shops. Among them was a closed Tesco Extra store. Workers inside described hearing windows smashing as dozens of youths poured into the store. “They left carrying TVs, alcohol – they were stuffing trolleys,” said one supermarket worker. Unlike the previous night’s disturbances, riot police were on the scene in large numbers. Their stance was also more aggressive, with baton charges and dogs used to disperse crowds. At 11pm, on a nearby road called Elizabeth Ride, a young man was stabbed under the arm. He could walk to an ambulance but his friends refused to talk to police and disappeared, shouting: “Why would we talk to feds? You’re the reason this is happening.” Amid evidence that locals were turning against the rioters, one young woman, aged about 20, was in tears, shouting: “What are you doing? Is this how you pay your respects to Mark? Is this what he would have wanted?” The leader of Enfield council, Doug Taylor said he believed disturbances there were linked to events in Tottenham. He said: “There’s got to be a link to that extent that it’s the day after and the police are hugely well organised in Tottenham so maybe this was seen as the place to have a second night.” In Brixton, crowds attending a daytime festival were good-natured but gangs of youths ransacked shops in the area as darkness fell. Branches of Vodafone, Footlocker and H&M were all targeted by looters, who made off in scooters and cars. Police in riot gear were pushing people up Brixton High Street at around 1am. Elsewhere, there were reports of disturbances in areas including Dalston and Walthamstow. The latter area’s local Labour MP, Stella Creasy, said that branches of Argos, BHS and Barclays were all attacked, while angry locals said that looters asked them for directions to shops and banks. The Metropolitan police said on Twitter on Sunday night: “Police are responding to a significant amount of criminal activity across London and are deploying officers to tackle it.” London Crime Police Paul Lewis Matthew Taylor Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk

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This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Rep. Jason Chaffetz Dismisses Jobs Solutions With GOP Bumperstickers

Click here to view this media (h/t Heather at VideoCafe ) With all the consequences of Republican destructive economic policies coming down on us this week, I knew that both the corporate media and the multitudes of GOP politicians would be spinning mightily. Not one would have the self-awareness or intellectual honesty to look at their own behaviors — focusing the debt/deficit instead of jobs, playing the false equivalency game, acting as if the economy only got bad on January 20, 2009, etc. — and acknowledge that everyone involved owns the S&P downgrade and the rotten economy that we have. On This Week , the roundtable went down predictable routes. George Will spouted his oft-repeated and still incorrect whinging that nothing the Obama adminstration has done, especially the stimulus , has worked. But relative Sunday pundit newcomer Mellody Hobson injected the fresh air of outside-the-Beltway thinking and told all these Villagers that their focus was wrong. It’s not about cutting budgets right now to improve the economy; it’s all about bringing the jobs back. And here’s where Hobson showed up these Villagers: she had some possible solutions : Yeah, so we have to put more — you know, one of the things that people don’t want to talk about is corporate incentives. Right now, no one wants to give the corporations any extra help, but there are corporate incentives out there that could move the job story. So, one, giving the corporations the ability to repatriate all this money that they have all over the world without a huge amount of taxation. If you tied it to job creation and investment spending, that would help this country. I heard a great idea from Alan Khazei, who’s running for Senate in Massachusetts, who talked about the 99ers, the people who are getting 99 weeks of unemployment insurance. Give the corporations a sponsorship for those 99ers. Tell them, we will give you a voucher for 99 weeks of compensation with the hope that you will bring these people on full time, not to mention how it affects people’s psychology that they can get up and go to work every day. Talk about affecting sentiment in this country. Wait, wait…tying tax incentives to bringing back onshore jobs? Giving 99ers a chance to get back into the workforce? That’s crazy talk. No, really. According to Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, that’s just ridiculous: Well, we’re not just one good tax increase away from prosperity. That’s not the way that we’re going to actually grow the economy and grow jobs in this country. We in the reality-based community who value logic and sense recognize that Chaffetz entire argument is better known as Ignoratio elenchi . Did Hobson–who gave lucid and cogent suggestions of things Congress could do right now to improve the economy–actually suggest that taking steps towards getting people employed would result in instant prosperity? Of course not. But listen to Chaffetz’s suggestion: We need stability in our government. We need predictability. If you look at all the new regulations that have been — health care, the EPA, in my state of Utah, energy is a huge — in fact, that’s where the best jobs are. We don’t have an energy policy in this country. So there are lots of things we can do to grow jobs, but stability is part of it. Bumper stickers, signifying nothing. If a lack of regulation stimulates growth, where the hell was all of it during the Bush administration? As Cokie Roberts rebukes Chaffetz, if stability is needed, that ship sailed with the GOP shenanigans during the debt ceiling debate, as the S&P specifically mentioned. But this is exactly why we can’t have nice things in this country. We get bumper stickers instead of solutions and not one of the Villagers shaping dialog for the country can be honest about it.

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Eurozone leaders are meeting later today, scrambling to counter deepening crises in Italy and Spain before they boil over . The video conference will focus on whether to buy huge quantities of bonds in both countries in order to prop them up, notes the Wall Street Journal , and European Central Bank…

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Eminem Lollapalooza 2011

I Need A Doctor Feat Skylar Grey Eminem Lollapalooza 2011 First Row! Like Toy Soldiers – Eminem @ Lollapalooza 2011 My Name Is Eminem Lollapalooza 2011 First Row! golesusan says: Eminem Lollapalooza 2011 : Eminem Lollapalooza 2011 , Eminem put on a show to remember the night before (August 6)… http://bit.ly/nAj4TI

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London Riots

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London Riots

BREAKING NEWS – COVERAGE OF LONDON RIOTS AGAINST POLICE AFTER FATAL SHOOTING OF YOUNG FATHER Tottenham Riots, London 2011 – best clips with music! LONDON RIOTS – Dead Mans Family Condemn Riot marcwebber says: If north London riots reach Camden, will the petrol bombs be made from biofuels? Maybe they’ll throw Mojitos instead of Molotov cocktails!

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NFL Video: Deion Sanders, Sharpe, Faulk Inducted into Hall of Fame

One of professional football’s most polarizing stars both on and off the field, Deion Sanders, was inducted into the 2011 Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. Widely regarded as the best cornerback in the history of the league, Sanders put that cherry atop his legendary 17-year career on Saturday as he and running back Marshall Faulk were inducted into the Hall of Fame on their first year of the… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Opposing Views Discovery Date : 07/08/2011 16:51 Number of articles : 3

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Geithner Says He Will Stay at Treasury

Timothy Geithner has told President Obama that he will stay on the job as Treasury secretary, ending speculation he would leave the administration. (Aug. 7)

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Tiger Woods: ‘Encouraged’ by Play in Bridgestone

Tiger Woods carded an even-par 70 Sunday in his first tournament in four months and tied for 37th in the Bridgestone Invitational, 18 shots behind. Still, Woods said he was encouraged by his play. (August 7)

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Jim Jordan: Politicians Should be Careful About Shooting Their Mouths Off After He Blew Off Dangers of Defaulting on our Debt

Click here to view this media Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan apparently has his irony alert button broken after this statement he made this Thursday for the Young America’s Foundation . Responding to a question by one of the student participants, he warned that politicians had better study up on policy before they come on the air and say something stupid. This video was from Thursday, before S&P decided to downgrade our credit rating after the debacle of watching our politicians run right up to the deadline before finally agreeing to raise the cap on our debt ceiling. If Jordan thinks politicians should be studying up on policy matters before they go on the air and say something ridiculous, maybe he should be rethinking his irresponsible remarks he made on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers last month , where he acted like a partial default and running past the deadline in August would have been acceptable and would not have caused even worse problems than what we’ve seen from Standard and Poor’s over the weekend. After being asked “how you decide what the difference between risk and being naive”, Rep. Jim Jordan responded this way. JORDAN: You want to educate yourself, now what the policy is, instead of just rushing in there and being goofy and saying all kinds of crazy things, you want to take the time to make sure that you’re prepared. That’s why I try to in my comments talk about, you know, being disciplined, doing the hard work and all those things. You’ve got to do that before you, particularly in politics, before you shoot your mouth off or something like that, along those lines. So, that’s important, just to do your homework and be prepared. That’s I think a prerequisite for just about anything you’re going to try to accomplish. Later in the segment, he also said that the United States should make cuts to domestic spending before they ever dare to cut a penny out of defense, because god knows, we’ve got to have our priorities straight, don’t we? Can’t dare to put an end to that war machine we’ve got going, but poor and elderly Americans, they’re expendable. Click here to view this media I’m not sure how much worse things have to get before the voters in these wingnuts’ districts start holding them responsible. Must they destroy what’s left of our middle class in America? All I can say is they’re probably really lucky that most of their constituents don’t pay nearly the amount of attention as I do with listening to what comes out of their mouths and how they’re governing. We all know that our corporate media isn’t pointing it out for them.

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