PopSugar

Vintage Geek: The Internet? Bah!

GeekSugar — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:45:18 -0800

I just stumbled upon this gem of a Newsweek article from 1995. I love browsing through vintage finds, from old magazine ads to television commercials of yore. And coming across something tech-related is even funnier, given the pace at which development and innovation comes to the industry. This article is particularly great. Not only is it written in a bit of a curmudgeonly voice, but it's blatantly off the mark when it comes to predicting the future of the Internet:

"Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works."

To read my favorite sentence (it's hilarious!), read more.

"Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure."

The article does, of course, make some valid points relative to 1995, but it's a glimpse into the past and a look at how far we've come! Just think, 15 years from now someone may be excerpting GeekSugar, snickering over our predictions and coverage. Like any trend, there are sure to be hits and misses - but I'm going to disagree with this article say the Internet was one big home run. If you're curious, check out the full article.

Clay Aiken VS. Newsweek

justingirl1989 — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 06:08:00 -0800

Round 1!

Newsweek got a little too inquisitive for American Idol alum Clay Aiken. Do you think the interviewer went a little too far? Here’s what went down during a recent sit-down:

How did you get into a fight with that lady on a plane? I’m not going to talk about it.

I was just curious because you’ve never talked about it. I did talk about it.

What about the Kelly Ripa thing? I’m not going to discuss it.

Did you think it was homophobic? I’m not going to discuss it.

What do you want to talk about? I think we’re done.

Can we talk about something fun? No, we’re done. I thought Newsweek would be more reputable. I’m surprised.

But I think people are curious about it. It was a year ago. This is Newsweek. It’s not the National Enquirer. I’d hate to have a job where I had to be rude to people.

I’ll change the subject. What do you do for fun? I watch the news. I read news magazines, but I’m reconsidering that now.

source: justjared.com

FOX Freakout Over Unretouched Palin Photo On Newsweek Cover (VIDEO)

dreamsugar — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 08:10:35 -0700

Besides the title, speaking to the photo it's self, is Newsweek being unfair?
See more Newsweek covers here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/10/the-ridiculous-emnewsweek_n_133...

Tim Gunn interview in Newsweek!

Iwillmarryunick — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:58:53 -0700

Tim Gunn has an interview in Newsweek that is on stands now (June 6, 2007). Here's a link to it at MSNBC.com

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19056358/site/newsweek/

Newsweek , and expanded presidential powers

Grandpa — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:03:19 -0800

Obama’s Cheney Dilemma
Cheney pushed for expanded presidential powers. Now that he's leaving, what will come of his efforts? The new president won't have to wait long to tip his hand.
By Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas | NEWSWEEK
Published Jan 10, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jan 19, 2009

Dick Cheney, who will step down as vice president on Jan. 20, has been widely portrayed as a creature of the dark side, a monstrous figure who trampled on the Constitution to wage war against all foes, real and imagined. Barack Obama was elected partly to cleanse the temple of the Bush-Cheney stain, and in his campaign speeches he promised to reverse Cheney's efforts to seize power for the White House in the war on terror.
It may not be so simple. At a retirement ceremony recently for a top-level intelligence official, the senior spooks in the room gave each other high-fives. They were celebrating the fact that terrorists have not attacked the United States since 9/11. In the view of many intelligence professionals, the get-tough measures encouraged or permitted by George W. Bush's administration-including "waterboarding" self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed-kept America safe. Cheney himself has been underscoring the point in a round of farewell interviews. "If I had advice to give it would be, before you start to implement your campaign rhetoric, you need to sit down and find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it, because it is going to be vital to keeping the nation safe and secure in the years ahead," he told CBS Radio.
In times of war and crisis, as presidents such as Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt discovered, the nation needs a strong chief executive. The flaw of the Bush-Cheney administration may have been less in what it did than in the way it did it-flaunting executive power, ignoring Congress, showing scorn for anyone who waved the banner of civil liberties. Arguably, there has been an overreaction to the alleged arrogance and heedlessness of Bush and Cheney-especially Cheney, who almost seemed to take a grim satisfaction in his Darth Vader-esque image. The courts, at first slow to respond to arrogations of executive power after September 11, have pushed back. Many federal officials have grown risk-averse, fearing that they will be prosecuted or dragged before a congressional committee for fighting too hard against terrorism. (A growing number of CIA officials buy insurance policies to cover legal fees.)
Obama, who has been receiving intelligence briefings for weeks, already knows what a scary world it is out there. It is unlikely he will wildly overcorrect for the Bush administration's abuses. A very senior incoming official, who refused to be quoted discussing internal policy debates, indicated that the new administration will try to find a middle road that will protect civil liberties without leaving the nation defenseless. But Obama's team has some strong critics of the old order, including his choice for director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, who has spoken out strongly against coercive interrogation methods.
In Obama's spirit of nonpartisanship, the new crowd would do well to listen to Jack Goldsmith, formerly a Bush Justice Department official, now a Harvard Law School professor. At Justice, Goldsmith was the head of an obscure but critically important unit called the Office of Legal Counsel. OLC acts as a kind of lawyer for the executive branch, offering opinions-close to binding-on what the executive branch can and cannot do. It was an OLC lawyer, John Yoo, who in 2001 and 2002 drafted many of the memos that first gave the Cheneyites permission to do pretty much whatever they wanted in the way of interrogating and detaining suspected terrorists (and eavesdropping on Americans to catch terrorists). Goldsmith, who became head of OLC in 2003, quietly began to revoke some of these permissions as illegal or unconstitutional. The revolt of Goldsmith and some other principled Justice lawyers was a heroic story, kept secret at the time. Now Goldsmith worries about the pendulum swinging too far, as it often does in American democracy. "The presidency has already been diminished in ways that would be hard to reverse" and may be losing its capability to fight terrorism, he says. He argues that Americans should now be "less worried about an out-of-control presidency than an enfeebled one."
Obama is going to face some difficult choices-and right away. By Feb. 20, a month after Inauguration Day, the incoming administration must decide whether to urge the Supreme Court to allow continued detention of one Ali al-Marri. Al-Marri is a Qatari graduate student who had legally entered the United States and settled in Peoria, Ill., with his wife and five children. He was seized in 2001 as a suspected terrorist-the long-feared Qaeda sleeper agent, sent to the United States to conduct a suicide attack when given the signal by his terrorist controllers. (Reportedly, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, under intense interrogation, corroborated al-Marri's identity.)
Al-Marri was charged with credit-card fraud and lying to the Feds, but the charges were dropped when he was put in military detention. (Held indefinitely in the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., he claims he's innocent.) His case has become a cause célèbre among civil libertarians, who argue that the government can't just lock you up indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism. Now Obama must decide: Will he enrage many of his supporters by adopting Bush's claim of sweeping power to grab legal residents-and perhaps even citizens-and jail them forever? Or will he let a possibly very dangerous man go, and thereby concede that any Qaeda terrorist who can get into the United States legally is free to roam the country unless (and until) he commits a crime or maybe an immigration violation?
Both options would be political nightmares. It might be better for Obama to moot the case by using forceful diplomacy, and even financial incentives, to get Qatar or some other country to take al-Marri, treat him gently and keep him locked up. The Bush administration may have already secretly tried this; Obama could try harder.
The issue of torture is more complicated than it seems. America brought untold shame on itself with the abuses at Abu Ghraib. It's likely that the take-the-gloves-off attitude of Cheney and his allies filtered down through the ranks, until untrained prison guards with sadistic tendencies were making sport with electric shock. But no direct link has been reported. Waterboarding-simulating drowning by pouring water over the suspect's mouth and nostrils-is a brutal interrogation method. But by some (disputed) accounts, it was CIA waterboarding that got Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to talk. It is a liberal shibboleth that torture doesn't work-that suspects will say anything, including lies, to stop the pain. But the reality is perhaps less clear.
Last summer, the U.S. Senate (with Obama absent) voted to require the CIA to use no interrogation methods other than those permitted in the Army Field Manual. These are extremely restrictive: strictly speaking, the interrogator cannot ever threaten bodily harm or even put a prisoner on cold rations until he talks. Bush vetoed this measure, not unwisely. As president, Obama may want to preserve some flexibility. (Suppose, for instance, that after a big attack the CIA captured the leader who planned it; there would be enormous pressure to make the terrorist divulge what attack is coming next.) Obama may want to urge Congress to outlaw "humiliating and degrading" treatment of prisoners. But he might also want to carve out an exception for extreme cases, outlining coercive methods, like sleep deprivation, that could be used on specified detainees. To provide political accountability, the president should be required to sign any such orders, share them with the congressional intelligence committees and publicly disclose their number.
To avoid squandering the international good will that greeted his election, Obama will have to honor his pledge to close the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. But it's not clear what he will do with the 250 or so detainees now living there. Some of them may be dangerous, but impossible to convict of any crime in any ordinary court of law. Moving them to a prison in the United States would anger the locals; simply freeing them would be irresponsible. Obama's best bet may be trying to persuade foreign countries to take the 60 or so who have been found to be safe (enough) risks, while urging Congress to create some kind of new "national-security court" for the rest. This court could decide which men may be prosecuted or legitimately detained as "enemy combatants," and for how long. (If staffed by federal judges, with congressionally prescribed, painstakingly fair fact-finding procedures, and the ability to hear classified evidence in secret, these courts could replace the now discredited military commissions Bush authorized in 2001, which can admit evidence obtained from coercion.)
Obama has already shown a prudent willingness to bend or abandon his more sweeping campaign rhetoric. Last summer, to the horror of civil-liberties groups, he reversed himself and voted for amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that he once suggested would "undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend." The amendments allowed Bush to continue-with more judicial oversight-his initially secret, widely decried warrantless-wiretapping program. It was a smart move by Obama, both as policy and as politics. FISA was obsolete well before 9/11; for one, its applicability depends on knowing in which country the surveillance "target" is located, and modern communication (cell phones, e-mail) often makes it difficult-or impossible-to know. The technology had changed, and so had the nature of terrorism, becoming more global and sophisticated. Bush should have worked with Congress from the beginning, and Obama was wise to back the compromise that finally passed. Obama will have to solve other thorny issues, such as what to do with enemy combatants held in military prisons overseas (not just at Gitmo, but locations like the prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan). Since the war on terror has no end in sight, are they consigned to languish indefinitely? The Supreme Court ruled last June, in a case involving some Gitmo prisoners, that U.S. courts should review the cases of detainees who deny being enemy combatants. Does that mean summoning military commanders away from the battlefield to testify? In a case in 1950, Justice Robert Jackson wrote that it would be "difficult to devise a more effective fettering" of a field commander than to allow the very enemy he is trying to defeat to cause him to be called home to defend his actions in court. Obama might do well to heed Justice Jackson's words as he referees the debates that pop up in his own administration.
There will certainly be some. Obama has chosen as head of the Office of Legal Counsel-Jack Goldsmith's old job-Dawn Johnsen, an Indiana Law School professor and onetime abortion-rights lawyer who has used some fiery language to describe some Bush OLC memos ("shockingly flawed," "bogus," "outlandish"). But what will Johnsen advise when Congress starts summoning Obama White House officials to testify, as some committee chairman inevitably will? Will she be a strong advocate for claims of "executive privilege"? When she worked in the Clinton Justice Department, some complained, she had an undue penchant for saying "no" to the president.
Obama will discover, if he hasn't already, that presidents live in a gray area. They have great powers, but they have to be careful about how and when they use them. There is an executive order banning the president from assassinating political leaders abroad. But because it's an executive order-not a congressionally passed law-the president can change it. Indeed, President Clinton approved plans and efforts to kill-some would say assassinate-Osama bin Laden at his terror training camp in Afghanistan before 9/11. Long before "rendition" became a dirty word, Clinton (and, in some cases, Vice President Al Gore) approved dozens of renditions-CIA snatches of terror suspects abroad, turned over for detention or interrogation to foreign governments, many of them known to be human-rights abusers. What Bush and Cheney did was different less in kind than in degree-creating a vast program of renditions and secret prisons, as well as aggressively pursuing "targeted killings" of "high-value targets." Congressional leaders were informed, but some said that the briefings were cryptic.
National security is an unavoidably murky world. But it doesn't have to be quite so dark as Cheney et al. made it, loosing the dogs of war from some "undisclosed location." So much of the anger against the Bush administration could have been avoided if Bush had gone to Congress in the first place. In the frightening weeks and months after 9/11, it would have shouted through almost any extension of executive power the president wanted. But Cheney, especially, was contemptuous of congressional hand-wringers, and he (understandably, under the circumstances) felt the urge to move fast. He and his followers also cut out federal bureaucrats who might balk, including everyone working at the State Department and the national-security staff's own lawyer, John Bellinger.
Cheney's obsessive love of secrecy came back to haunt him. By trying to strengthen the presidency, he weakened it. By keeping Congress, the press and the people in the dark, the vice president virtually guaranteed a backlash. Obviously, some secrets must be kept, but history has shown again and again that excessive government secrecy backfires by breeding conspiracy theories and overreaction by thwarted lawmakers. Obama would do well just to level with the American people about what he is doing to protect their liberties-while keeping them safe.

Newsweek: The Oscar Roundtable

pinkberry — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 06:34:24 -0800

There Will Be Oscars
At least we think there will be, which is why we collected these likely acting nominees for our 11th Oscar roundtable. They're a lot of fun, and they've got lots to say. Best of all: they didn't need writers.

Daniel Day-Lewis arrived a little late, but he did it in style. He was wearing a jaunty porkpie hat and a black-and-white Western shirt that looked like something swiped from Bob Dylan's closet. The result was so un-Hollywood that George Clooney, this roundtable's class clown, couldn't stop ribbing his fellow best-actor hopeful. Question: "Daniel, do you remember your first professional job?" Clooney: "It was a Western, wasn't it?" One of the delights of these annual gatherings is watching beautiful, talented, rich celebrities become just folks. James McAvoy, who stars in "Atonement," spent the time waiting to go onstage at L.A.'s Hammer Museum talking about trying to steal some wineglasses from a recent Oscar event, only to be caught by the waiter. Just before they were announced onstage, Clooney turned to Angelina Jolie and said, "Let's not go out!" She then pointed to two nonactors nearby and said, "Let's send them instead." Before long, everyone-newbies and supercelebs-bonded. Jolie and Marion Cotillard, the French star of "La Vie en Rose," chatted about Provence. "Juno" star Ellen Page confessed that she just got her first apartment. It's a converted brothel, and it's haunted. "My stuff keeps vanishing," she said. "Weird things, like makeup." Advice to Ellen: if you do win an Oscar, hide it.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9 (sorry, cant find the video but only the link)
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1381640007/bclid1382896267...

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Video & Transcript: http://www.newsweek.com/id/96123

Gay Man for Navy Secretary?

bellaressa — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:16:14 -0800

Thursday, December 18, 2008 8:02 PM
By Newsweek

By Jessica Bennett and Daniel Stone

As gay activists protest the selection of evangelical megapastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, they could have reason to cheer a future Obama announcement. Sources tell NEWSWEEK that the president-elect is considering the appointment of the first openly gay chief of a military branch.

Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York, is being backed by congressional and former military leaders to be the next secretary of the Navy. Among White's vocal supporters are retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat whose district includes the newly renovated Intrepid museum which sits on an aircraft carrier in the Hudson River. Nadler says members of Obama's transition team have reached out to him about White. "They're clearly vetting him," he tells NEWSWEEK.
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Another favorite caught in the Beltway chatter for the job is Juan Garcia, a former naval aviator who attended Harvard Law School with Obama and was chairman of his campaign in Texas.

Because the Navy secretary is a civilian job, White's appointment wouldn't directly conflict with the military ban on gays. But it would certainly bring new attention to the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy as Obama gets ready to take office. Getting rid of that law--under which more than 12,000 members of the military have been discharged--was an Obama campaign promise, though the president-elect has since acknowledged its repeal might take some time. If nominated, White, 42, will likely face questions about his take on that policy, implemented by President Clinton in 1993.

Though he's never served in the military, backers say White has extensive contacts in the armed forces through his role with the Intrepid Museum and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, a $100 million nonprofit set up to help military families and wounded vets. White also serves as a trustee of the Fisher House Foundation, which provides free housing at military and veterans hospitals for families who want to be near the recovery process. Reached by telephone, a spokeswoman for White said he would not be commenting, but has considered his work with the armed forces "truly the highest privilege."

"I certainly recommend him," Nadler says. "For the many years that I've known him, he's been an advocate for military personnel and their families, and for veterans." A source close to the talks says that incoming secretary of state Hillary Clinton has expressed support for White's nomination, although a spokesperson for Clinton (who remains a senator until she is confirmed next month) did not return calls for comment.

Supporters of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" have said that nominating White would send the wrong signal. "It's a matter of judgment, and I think that would be very poor judgment on the part of the commander in chief," Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, told The Washington Times, which first reported the White rumors. Meanwhile, in a statement released by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy group, President Joe Solmonese said White's nomination would be a "concrete demostration" that the Obama administration sees "no place" for employment discrimination in government. "President-elect Obama has said both during his time in the Senate and on the campaign trail that overturning 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was a priority for him, but he's also been straightforward and realistic that this is a measure that's going to require a great deal of strategy," Solmonese tells NEWSWEEK. "The consideration of this appointment certainly bodes well for keeping with Obama's commitment to address this issue."

The Obama transition team declined to comment.

One Family's Fight Against Grisly Web Photos

starangel82 — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:43:28 -0700

This is a really long Newsweek article, but if you have time read it. Sometimes I am really boggled by the things that are on the Internet. I really feel for this family.

This is a story about a photo-an image so horrific we can't print it in NEWSWEEK. The picture shows the lifeless body of an 18-year-old Orange County girl named Nikki Catsouras, who was killed in a devastating car crash on Halloween day in 2006. The accident was so gruesome the coroner wouldn't allow her parents, Christos and Lesli Catsouras, to identify their daughter's body. But because of two California Highway Patrol officers, a digital camera and e-mail users' easy access to the "Forward" button, there are now nine photos of the accident scene, taken just moments after Nikki's death, circulating virally on the Web. In one, her nearly decapitated head is drooping out the shattered window of her father's Porsche.

Story is continued here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/195073?GT1=43002

Angelina's Unquenchable Spirit.

LuciLu — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:19:15 -0700

This is a long one folks, bear with me. But it is a GREAT read, this is what Angelina is all about, not the red carpets, and the Hollywood Glamour.

------------------------------------------

The Making of 'A Mighty Heart'

'A Mighty Heart' is the story of Mariane Pearl's unquenchable spirit. It's not a bad description of the actress who plays her, either.

By Sean Smith
Newsweek

June 25, 2007 issue - Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to dress actors in Pakistani police uniforms, hand them AK-47s and stand them in the dirt courtyard of a Muslim school in India while children were in class. Still, that gaffe would have been fast forgotten if the film being shot on campus, "A Mighty Heart," weren't about the murder of Jewish American journalist Daniel Pearl by Muslim extremists-and weren't starring Angelina Jolie. When parents showed up that Nov. 16 afternoon to pick up their kids, the gates were closed to keep out the paparazzi who had surrounded the school, their telephoto lenses aimed like rifle scopes. The parents became anxious, so the school opened the gates, and the paparazzi flooded in with them. The film's security guards tried to hold back the crowd. A scuffle ensued. No one was injured. But the following morning, two of Jolie's bodyguards were arrested for intimidation. Unnamed sources in local newspapers claimed that the white British guards had shoved parents and kids and called them "bloody Indians" and "bloody Muslims." "People advised me that this movie was politically dangerous," Jolie says. "I thought maybe I shouldn't touch this. Maybe it would do more harm than good." Just like that-in a perfect storm of post-9/11 tensions and celebrity-obsessed media culture-a minor event had escalated into an international incident, and Jolie had gone from being the most famous star in India to its most famous racist.

The next morning, her bodyguards in jail, Jolie is in a 21st-floor hotel suite on the western edge of Mumbai, where she's set to shoot her final scene of "Heart" as Pearl's widow, Mariane. It will not happen. Jolie, wearing a wig of dark curls and brown contact lenses, sits cross-legged on the floor with four of her fellow actors. Her body is still, but there's anger in her voice. "We've become so eager to accuse people of being racist, but I would rather they make up almost any other story-about me sleeping with someone, anything-but that," she says. "It's not only a crazy accusation, but it's the most insulting thing you could say about me, that I would employ someone who would be disrespectful to someone's race or would harm a child. They take care of my kids." On the other side of the city, Brad Pitt, one of the film's producers, has gone to the police station to try to get the men released. Plans are in the works for him to be interviewed that evening by Barkha Dutt, a.k.a. "the Indian Oprah," to de-escalate the situation (Hollywood's version of fighting fire with fire). Jolie sighs. "People can just hate back and forth, and I understand my own country's irresponsibility with our foreign policy sometimes, but can't we please try to be open-minded, and see that there are some of us who are trying?" Within an hour, the hotel management will shut the film down. Protesters have threatened to surround the building. Jolie's square-shouldered security guard appears by her side and tells her, under his breath, "We need to move you now." Calmly she gathers her belongings, and then turns to a NEWSWEEK reporter. "OK," she says with a smile. "Let's run!"

The irony is that "A Mighty Heart" is, in essence, a plea for international understanding. Four months after 9/11, Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, was in Karachi, Pakistan, with Mariane, who was five months pregnant with their first child. He was working on a story about a possible Karachi connection to "shoe-bomber" Richard C. Reid when, on Jan. 23, 2002, he was kidnapped by Qaeda members. After releasing a series of increasingly disturbing photos of Pearl in captivity, they beheaded him on a videotape that would be leaked to the media and broadcast to the world. The film is based on the best-selling book of these events, written by Mariane and former NEWSWEEK editor Sarah Crichton. Jolie plays Mariane as she and a team of Wall Street Journal editors, Pakistani counterterrorism experts, FBI agents and others struggle to unravel the tangled terrorist network and find Danny. It is also a film about Mariane's decision, in the wake of Danny's murder, to not seek retaliation or blame Muslims for his death. "To me, it's a story about Danny being held by extremely intolerant people," Pearl says from her home in Paris. "And yet we, in that house in Pakistan-Christian, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim-came together to find him. It's as if two visions of the world were fighting each other."

There's little question that America changed after September 11, 2001. The world, with all its inequities and anger, was suddenly much closer, and we no longer had the luxury of ignoring it. News became more serious and more global, and it seemed for a time that shift would become permanent. Yet paradoxically, the past six years have also seen an explosion in superficial celebrity coverage, as if Lindsay Lohan were a morning-after pill for Iraq. What distinguishes Jolie from every other star of her generation, indeed from every other public figure, is that her journey mirrors both this shift in national consciousness and the schism in media sensibilities. Since 2001, she has evolved from a carnal libertine into a 32-year-old mother of four and good-will ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, visiting populations in crisis in Sierra Leone, Darfur, Thailand, Ecuador, Pakistan and elsewhere. She attends the World Economic Forum. She donates one third of her salary to charity. Oh, and one more thing: she fell in love with Pitt. This combination makes her perhaps the only person alive who is manna to both The New York Times and Us Weekly. She is an unprecedented 21st-century entity, a tabloid star with international credibility, a "soft news" icon commanding respect in a hard-news world.

She also draws a lot of fire for crossing that line. Even after six years, Jolie is suspected of being a dilettante, a "celebrity tourist" to global crises. It's a charge that irritates those closest to her. "What would she have to do to prove that she's sincere?" says Pitt's producing partner, Dede Gardner. "Should she give more money? More time? It's a black-hole debate. When people judge anyone's sincerity, I just think, 'Oh, yeah? What are you doing?' " Still, does Jolie really understand complex global issues, or does she just show up for a photo op wherever the UNHCR sends her? "She's absolutely serious, absolutely informed," says former secretary of State Colin Powell. "Her work with refugees is not something to decorate herself. She studies the issues." Powell has spoken with Jolie several times over the years, and they've been honored together at benefits for refugee causes. There is, he says, no sanctimony about her. "For her, it's not about saving the world, it's about saving kids," he says. "She doesn't need this. This needed her."

It's difficult to spend time with Jolie and remain dubious. "When I first started doing this, I thought I could save everybody," she says. "I was sure that there had to be a simple solution. Now I'm still in the field as much as possible, but spending more time in Washington. You can fight forever to open a tiny shop or vocational training center-and that's fantastic-but if the trade laws stay as they are, it's not really going to help." In April, Jolie and Pitt funded Global Action for Children, a Washington lobby that advocates funding for AIDS orphan programs and education for children in refugee camps. Earlier this month Jolie was invited to join the Council on Foreign Relations, the elite club for the American foreign-policy establishment. It's no room for lightweights. Her fellow members include Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Jimmy Carter, Diane Sawyer and Bill Clinton. "She has evolved in her understanding of where she can make the biggest impact," says her philanthropic adviser, Trevor Neilson. "Her strategies have become extremely sophisticated, and it's clear that she is now a serious player on international issues."

Amid all that, it's easy to forget she's an actress with an Oscar ("Girl, Interrupted"). While Jolie's priorities have shifted in recent years, that evolution hasn't been reflected on screen. With the exception of the little-seen drama "Beyond Borders," Jolie has continued to act in fantasy roles that rely on her sexual allure, such as "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," "Original Sin," "Alexander" and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." These films have helped fund her advocacy work, but they haven't moved the needle on her career. "A Mighty Heart," which opens June 22, does. Shot for less than $20 million by British director Michael Winterbottom ("The Road to Guantánamo") in a raw, documentary style that has become his trademark, "Heart" is a soul-rending depiction of Mariane's struggle to find her husband, and her refusal to let his killers define his life. It is a movie without melodrama or movie-star lighting, and it allowed Jolie to deliver the most delicate, powerful and human-scale performance of her career. This is no fantasy role; this is a real woman. "It's probably the most difficult character I've ever played," Jolie says. "The emotion is so raw and so constant. Mariane was calm, focused, organized, but I would have been hysterical, driving the streets of Karachi like a crazy person."

Driving the streets of Mumbai isn't easy, either, but for different reasons. Jolie is tucked into the back seat of a silver SUV, traveling home to the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, across town from the hotel where she and the "Heart" crew were shooting. There's still no word on her bodyguards, and the incident weighs on her. "It just feels like we're drowning in a lot of confusion about each other," she says. "There's so much anger, and then you look around the streets here and there's so much imbalance and sadness. The focus is off." In this city of 18 million-almost double the population of Los Angeles-a reported 43 percent live in shantytowns and slums. Women plead for rupees on every block near the hotels. At stoplights, boys bang on taxi windows, selling trinkets or begging for rice. "I've never been around such extreme wealth next to such extreme poverty, and so much of it," she says. "It's hard to understand how it has gotten so bad." As we wait in traffic, a boy knocks on the window. He's selling books. She hands him a few protein bars. "Did you see what book he was selling?" she asks, as the SUV crawls forward. "Thomas Friedman's 'The World Is Flat'." She waits for the irony to register. "The first chapter is about outsourcing in India."

Jolie has a gift for intimacy. She smiles frequently, and her body language is relaxed and open. Fame tends to erect a scrim between actors and the rest of the world. When everyone wants something from you-an autograph, a photo, a movie, a million dollars, a quote-it's an understandable defense. But there's nothing guarded about Jolie. She does not evade questions or speak cautiously. She seems like a woman who feels safe in the world, and safe in herself. "She expresses how she feels, honestly," Gardner says. "And she expects the same of everyone around her."

That candor caused quite a stir when Jolie exploded into the national consciousness nine years ago playing a self-destructive bisexual model in "Gia." The daughter of actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died in January, and actor Jon Voight, Jolie had a penchant for knives and tattoos and treated every interview as a therapy session. Then there was the marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, the matching vials of blood, the very public sex life. You get the picture. "Yeah, I did have my wild times," she says with a laugh. It can be difficult to reconcile the Jolie of today with the hellion of yesterday. "We all go through enormous changes," Gardner says. "The truth is, who doesn't look back at who they were at 20 and say, 'Who the f--- is that?' " Fair enough. But it's Jolie's duality-the serious advocate and the sexual icon-that is at the crux of the cynicism about her. Good girls-smart girls-aren't supposed to look like bad girls. She's not playing by the rules. Then again, when Paris Hilton's arrest is top news all day on cable, it's clear that serious journalism isn't playing by the rules anymore either. Jolie understands that. She lives it. And years ago she decided that if the media were going to follow her no matter what she did, she might as well do something worthwhile. "When I was famous for being just an actress, my life felt very shallow," she says. "You've done nothing of any social relevance, and yet you have all these people interviewing you. You don't even know what you're talking about. You're just trying to find yourself." She pauses. "Traveling really did save me. I was just ... happier. It was feeling that I was doing the right things with my life."

It's easy to see why Mariane Pearl and Jolie became friends when they met two years ago. "We have very passionate conversations," Pearl says. "I never walk out of a conversation with Angie without learning something." After Danny's murder, Pearl made a quietly revolutionary decision about how she was going to live, and the life she was going to give to their son, Adam. "Terrorism is a psychological weapon," Pearl says. "It stops you from claiming the world as your own. It stops you from relating to other people. It creates fear and hatred. The only way to fight terrorists, as a citizen, is to deny them those emotions. Deny them fear, and they lose." Suggest that this is a noble position, and she laughs. "I'm not saying this because I'm a nice person," she says. "It's not forgiveness that motivates me. Terrorists expect retaliation. The one thing they're not expecting is my happiness. That's true revenge. And when I see Adam, and I see how happy he is, I think, 'I'm winning'."

It was Pitt who introduced Jolie and Pearl. "Being in the room with those two women is great fun," he says. "It's like sitting down with Roosevelt and Churchill." Pause. "Only much better-looking." In 2003, Pitt bought the rights to "Heart" through Plan B, the production company he shared with his wife, Jennifer Aniston. Aniston, in fact, told a Vogue writer that she was considering playing Mariane. But by the time the film was ready to be made in 2006, Pitt had divorced Aniston and fallen in love with Jolie. Pitt thought Jolie would be perfect casting for Pearl, but didn't bring it up. "I knew the part had to be played by someone with Mariane's strength and understanding of the world, but I didn't know how to broach the subject," he says. "It feels a little like Wolfowitz trying to get his girlfriend a job." When the news broke that Jolie would play Pearl, though, the entertainment press-in a textbook example of post-9/11 media bifurcation-took less than 12 hours to turn a film about the terrorist killing of Daniel Pearl into a celebrity soap opera. The story became that Jolie had "stolen" the part from Aniston, just as Jolie had "stolen" Aniston's husband. (For the record, Pitt's publicist said at the time that Aniston was never in line for the part. Aniston's publicist had no comment.)

The second, and more prophetic, controversy had to do with race. Some black actors, including British actress Thandie Newton ("Crash"), were shocked that Jolie would play Pearl, a woman of Afro-Cuban and Dutch descent. Some blogs went so far as to call it "the new blackface." The studio releasing "Heart," Paramount Vantage, insists that Jolie's makeup was not darkened for the role, and that any complexion variation is caused by the film's lighting. If they are lying-which is probable-it's only by a little. In costume and under natural light, Jolie looks, at most, a shade or two duskier than her natural complexion. Regardless, both Jolie and Pearl say they were blindsided by the charges. "I know that people are frustrated at the lack of great roles [for people of color], but I think they've picked the wrong example here," Jolie says. Pearl is more pointed: "This is not about skin color. I wanted her to play me because I trust her." She sighs. "Aren't we past this?"

After a long drive through the streets of Mumbai, Jolie arrives home at her hotel. As she enters the suite, a spectacular view of the Arabian Sea sweeps out before her, as does a much closer view of the debris of childhood-toys, clothes, sofa cushions-strewn across the floor. Jolie says "hello" to the empty room, and Maddox, 5, bolts from the hallway, leaps into her arms, wraps his legs around her waist, and starts talking at record-breaking speed about what a day he's had and how he did a handstand in the bottom of the pool. Jolie's eyes never leave his face.

After adopting Maddox from Cambodia five years ago, Jolie, and now Pitt, adopted a daughter, Zahara, from Ethiopia in 2005; gave birth to their biological daughter, Shiloh, last May in Namibia, and this spring adopted a son, Pax, from Vietnam. They plan to adopt more. "We want to have as big a family as we can," Jolie says. "Our only restriction is making sure we have time for everybody, and we're finding that we have the ability to do that." Pitt laughs when the topic comes up. "Yeaaahhh, we do things in extremes," he says. "But I've always embraced big changes, and this feels very natural. It's just the most fun I've ever had."

It's a bitter irony that a woman with this family, and this life, is accused of being racially insensitive, but there it is: the gift of a 21st-century global media and the gulf of fear and hatred between East and West that continues to widen. But she and Pitt have become quite skilled at using their wattage to their advantage. That night, Pitt will be interviewed by "the Indian Oprah," giving him the platform to tell the country that the charges are false, and-voilà!-the following day, Jolie's men will be released from jail.

It's difficult to imagine that all the noise around Jolie-the paparazzi, the tabloids, the crowds-doesn't take a toll on her, but she insists it doesn't. "People can question your choices, accuse you of things, but your real work and your integrity will [win] out," she says. "All that matters is if I build a strong family, if I'm able to do my advocacy work and if my children are happy." The sentiment is a little traditional, perhaps, for a lightning rod like Jolie. It's no rebel yell. But watching her with Maddox, the two of them standing there, foreheads together, framed by the afternoon light, it seems, somehow, like the most radical thing she's ever said.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19263097/site/newsweek/

Obama's Glow Fading?

blondie01 — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:18:55 -0700

The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by only 3 points. What a difference a few weeks can make.

"A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama's glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month's NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent."

So, do you guys think Obama's Glow is Fading?