L.A. Candy: The Movie could be on the way to a theater near year.
Former MTV reality starlet Lauren Conrad has revealed that a film adaptation of her semi-autobiographical novel — a New York Times Best-Seller — has been discussed.
“We’re hoping for a movie deal,” LC revealed while hosting the Pool After Dark party at Harrah’s [...]
Officials in Sweden are investigating reports that Swedish weapons were found in camps of Colombia’s Farc rebels.
The Colombian government says it believes the rocket launchers had originally been bought by Venezuela.
Defence journal Jane’s Intelligence Weekly reported last week that weapons thought to have been sold by Sweden to Venezuela were found in a Farc camp.
Venezuelan officials said the latest reports were a "media show" aimed at harming their country.
A political adviser to the Swedish ministry of commerce told AFP news agency that Sweden was calling on Venezuela to explain how the weapons ended up in a Farc camp.
"We have asked the officials of the government of Venezuela to give us information on how they believe this material was found in Colombia," said Jens Eriksson.
Jan-Erik Lovgren, of the Swedish Inspectorate for Strategic Products, told Radio Sweden that the country had not exported weapons to Venezuela since 2006.
Anti-tank weapons
On Monday, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said the anti-tank rocket launchers seized from the Farc had been purchased by Venezuela in Europe.
"In several operations in which we have recovered weapons… we have found powerful ammunition (and) powerful equipment, including anti-tank weapons which a European country sold to Venezuela and which turned up in the hands of the Farc," he told Colombia’s Caracol radio.
In response, the Venezuelan interior minister, Tareck El Aissami, said the allegations that weapons bought by Venezuela had ended up in rebel hands were a "media show".
"It’s part of a campaign against our people, our government and our institutions," he said.
On Sunday, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe criticised nations which sold weapons that ended up in the hands of guerrillas, but he did not name any individual countries.
Colombia has fallen out with its neighbours in the past over suspected links to the Farc movement.
Colombia and Ecuador broke off diplomatic ties last year after Colombian troops raided a Farc base just over the Ecuadorean border.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Hollywood No is a key element of a code that, once deconstructed, at least allows the petitioner to take things less personally.
Words by: Dennis Cook | Images by: Susan J. Weiand
Son Volt/Cowboy Junkies :: 07.17.09 :: Villa Montalvo Garden Theatre :: Saratoga, CA
 Son Volt :: 07.17.09 :: Saratoga, CA |
There’s something so undeniably real about Son Volt. Dressed like workingmen and plying their trade with seriousness and purpose, speaking truth to power and calling out for love in songs that resonate on a foundational level with Woody Guthrie and Gram Parsons. With so many tunes situated somewhere on the intertwined highways of America, a Son Volt show takes one on a journey tinged with strong melancholy and a rugged refusal to be completely ground down by even the worst of circumstances. Surrounded by wine sippin’, well-heeled folks dressed in Men’s Warehouse casual and pretty, probably pricey summer dresses, I felt an outsider in denim and a red tee sporting an Old West gunslinger with the inscription, “If I were to shoot you, it would just be in the leg.” There’s a good deal of blood and suffering in Son Volt’s tales, and even more in co-headliners Cowboy Junkies, and I’d chosen the shirt with care, a small nod to the bands that some of us in the stalls have been paying attention as they’ve built up two of the sturdiest, more timeless catalogs in the past few decades.
With the sun still looming overhead but losing steam, Son Volt played first, setting us off on a trip towards a place that bandleader-songwriter-guitarist Jay Farrar said, “I know when we get there we’ll find mercy.” One of the joys of their music is how it never flinches at our scars or stupid decisions, offering rare blunt empathy for just being human. Farrar rode a thick organ wash, tossing in neck rack harmonica blasts as the band pumped out a sound perfect for rising, dancing and shaking off what cares we’d brought in with us. But, assess stayed planted or wandered the side areas full of sculpted vegetation and statuary. In many ways Montalvo Arts Center wasn’t really their venue, and the conscious foot on the brake that kept almost all overt “rockin’” for the very end of their set told one Son Volt was aware they were a touch out of their element. Unlike the Junkies they don’t have a string of FM radio hits behind them, little nostalgia to draw upon, and thus the material has to sink or swim on its own merits. It’s not hard to like but can blur together a bit, especially the mid-tempo stuff, if you’re unfamiliar with the album counterparts. Still, anyone with affinity for Woody or ’50s/’60s country or even the “Wild Horses” side of the Stones should find plenty to latch onto, even in their raw form.
 Son Volt :: 07.17.09 :: Saratoga, CA |
One element that caught my ear throughout the show – and across their very strong new album, American Central Dust (released July 7 on Rounder), which formed the spine of their setlist – was keyboardist/pedal steel player Mark Spencer who excels at adding texture and emotional weight to these tunes. His steel work recalls the great Mike Nesmith sideman Red Rhodes, and there’s no greater compliment I can give someone brave enough to tackle this most challenging of instruments. The rest of this band – Dave Bryson (drums), Chris Masterson (guitar, lap steel) and Andrew Duplantis (bass) – is no slouch either, making for easily the strongest lineup Son Volt has seen in many years. There’s the palpable sense of shared heavy-lifting, each guy doing what he can to really make each number breath. While everything was played like pros they really caught some air on the Keith Richards inspired “Cocaine And Ashes,” undying fan fave “Windfall” and some of the rowdier numbers near the end, where they slashed and howled like Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds in best form.
“Thank you for coming out and braving the bugs. Have some beers,” quipped Farrar. As brainy and worldly wise as his songs can often be there’s an unshakeable bar band vibe to much of his work, and this lineup plays ‘em with the kinda of gusto that keeps folks from throwing glass mugs at the chicken wire around the stage. Closing my eyes several times I had no problem imagining folks mistaking some numbers for primo Waylon Jennings or Merle Haggard, and, as if to add confirmation of this outlaw country connection Son Volt finished the set with a galloping, too-fucking-right-for-words cover of Waylon’s “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way.” Torchbearers for rib-sticking, real people music, Son Volt delivered a lovely example of what they do best, whiskey sluggers amongst vineyard tasters but right gentlemen just the same.
 Michael & Margo Timmins – Cowboy Junkies :: 07.17.09 |
I tend to like the Cowboy Junkies best when they misbehave a bit, play against the grain of the pleasant boutique gig existence they’ve carved out in the States. As a fan since day one, I know what terrible things and dismembered terrors lie within their music. While many only regard them as that band that played “Misguided Angel” and covered “Sweet Jane” so good Lou Reed liked it better than his own version, there’s a cantankerous, Flannery O’Connor side to them that’s always appealed to me way more than their more polite offerings. Thankfully, I got my silent wish when they opened with a raw, noisy version of Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” followed by the run-for-your-life manic blues of “Hunted.” While it’s almost impossible not to stare at lead singer Margo Timmins, proving herself more and more like one of the few strong, self-possessed, classy ladies to front a band with every year, you miss a lot if you take your eye/ear off guitarist-primary songwriter Michael Timmins, who came out of the gate playing like a dirtier, more impolite Kimock – all the seated mastery with more rough edges and dark inking. Besides being responsible for the general thematic range of the band, Michael’s mood frequently dictates the tone of a given night, and he was intense, focused and seemed anxious to explore their catalog with real energy, and the others all followed suit.
A leaner configuration these days, the Junkies had only the core band – Margo, Michael, brother Peter Timmins (drums) and childhood friend Alan Anton (bass) – and longtime “fifth Cowboy” Jeff Bird on mandolin, percussion and whatnot. Together, the quintet generated a rising heat to meet the warm but cooling summer evening, weaving together murderous tales (“Lay It Down,” “Black Eyed Man”), emotional train wrecks (“Something More Besides You”) and a few clunkers (a cover of U2′s “One” just didn’t work on any level). Part of the fun of seeing them in such settings is how incongruous their subject matter is with the bucolic, privileged surroundings. It’s a community that’s strongly embraced them but doesn’t always seem particularly aware of what they’re bobbing their heads to. That’s no dig – music is meant to be enjoyed/consumed on many levels – but I sometimes wonder, as I did this night, what the Junkies themselves think of all the pastel button downs and Dockers looking back at them as they sharpen their dragging hooks and reload their revolvers.
 Cowboy Junkies :: 07.17.09 :: Saratoga, CA |
Regardless of venue or crowd mix, I’ve never seen the Cowboy Junkies put on a poor show, and they were especially pleasant at the Garden Theatre. They abandoned the rough play about midway and went into a few acoustic numbers, first with Margo, Michael and Bird, and then just Michael and Margo, where the highlight was a yet-untitled new one with the chorus that begins, “Hey little princess, hey little pea, come down from your tower and dance with me.” Between lines like that and Margo’s between-song chatter, there’s a growing feeling of domesticity to the band and their work, the presence of kids and settled homes creeping into the infrastructure that’s often been built of bone and blood and hard feelings. It’s where the hope that’s emerged slowly in their work over many recent albums may spring from, and like them, Son Volt, too, seems to have snapped up some reasons to believe in recent times. Taken together, one felt like they’d been given something real, something well worth stuffing in the tight confines of their bindle, as they headed towards the shuttle buses and back down the hill to the parking lot.
What made this bill especially apropos was these are two groups operating only by their own internal logic. Nothing about either Son Volt or Cowboy Junkies plays to the fleeting whims of what’s hot and what’s not. Each band has built indestructible bodies of work and continued to refine what they do live. Sometimes this approach lacks flash and can be lost in all the bright lights and fireworks of newer, louder music, but this is how real deal artists do it. This is how one makes a life in music that’s not unlike the jobs many of us work except they give us the tunes we need to make it through our working days. This is how Hank done it and they should be proud.
Continue reading for more pics…
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Son Volt tour dates available here, Cowboy Junkies dates here.
JamBase | Bay Area
Go See Live Music!
Attention, America! We sit on the precipice of a total meltdown of one of the key economic backboners of this great nation. The professional pornography…
‘This is my way forward,’ Ben Ford told his mother as he signed up for army
It was their youth that shocked: boy soldiers, barely adults at just 18, yet now returning from the war in Afghanistan in flag-draped coffins. The recent toll – 16 in less than three weeks, almost one-third of them 18-year-olds – this week unleashed an unprecedented emotional response at the loss of such young lives in a conflict that began when they were still children.
But today one mother still stands by her decision to allow her “baby” to go to war, even though he would never come back. “Yes, they do look like boys,” said Jane Ford, fingering his cap, belt and the bullet casing saved from the gun salute at her own son’s funeral. “But ask any of the guys who are 18 and who are out there now. They class themselves as men. Certainly, Ben did.”
Such sentiment about age detracts from the true heroics of sons like hers, Private Ben Ford, the first of the six 18-year-olds this conflict has claimed.
He fought, and died, an equal. So she hates the way his life is now condensed into that bald statistic – “the first 18-year-old to die” and, as he was until this month, “the youngest”.
“It is as if his life is now defined by how and when he died, rather than the way he lived it,” she said.
“And Ben being so young, it has a sting, too. Others judge you. People have said to me, ‘Fancy letting him go’. Fingers point, like you’re a bad mum for letting him go. I didn’t let him go. I let him do what he really wanted to do.
“So, you do feel stigmatised. And the other mothers of 18-year-olds who have died, they may feel the same. But if theirs were anything like my lad, you couldn’t have stopped them”.
Trooper Joshua Hammond (died July 1), Private Robert Laws (died July 4), and Riflemen William Aldridge, James Backhouse and Joseph Murphy (died July 10), have all made that final journey along Wootton Bassett’s high street this month, drawing more teenagers than ever to the streets of this Wiltshire town to pay tribute to their schoolboy heroes during their repatriations.
Campaigner
But with the youthfulness of the mourners comes a jolting realisation. These young men were just 10 years old when the attack on New York’s Twin Towers precipitated the chain of events that has now torn apart so many homes in villages, towns and cities across the world. Jane Ford finds it chilling. “You can’t quite believe that what happened in New York, what happened in London with 7/7, would come here, right into our home in Chesterfield.”
Ben was just 12 and a pupil at Newbold Green comprehensive when 9/11 happened. “He was sat there,” she said, gesturing toward a leather chair in the sitting room of their semi in Chesterfield’s Newbold area. “He was fascinated with the plane flying into the building.”
His sister Emma, then 10, was screaming at him to switch channels but he refused. “He was asking me what terrorists do. I said ‘Blow things up, like you’ve just seen’. He went very quiet, and that night, unusually, he didn’t want to go out and play with his mates,” she said.
Ben was a “Woofer”. At 16 he joined the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters. But he died a Mercian, his beloved regiment, to his disgust, having been amalgamated two days before his death, caused when his Wimik Land Rover was blown up in Lashkar Gah, Helmand, on September 5 2007.
“Civvie Street wasn’t for Ben,” said Jane, a former credit controller at a paint company. She and his father, Trevor, a maintenance team leader with Sheffield city council, didn’t know which to fear most — if he joined up, or if he didn’t.
Pasted into his remembrance book is a photograph of him, aged 18 months, peeking out of a sandbag wall at a military museum in Norfolk. The caption reads: “The British Army’s youngest recruit”. He screamed when they left. “We visited three times. He loved that place,” said Jane.
The path that led Ben to the army is all too familiar. The pits had gone, and industries moved away from this Derbyshire market town. Chesterfield’s terraced rows and estates have proved fertile recruiting ground.
The wages, the glamour, the girls – “he has piercing blue eyes which the girls love,” said his mother, lapsing momentarily into the present tense – all created a buzz to being a Woofer. He made inquiries with four mates, though only two actually enlisted.
College was not an option. Ben’s disdain for education was evident even at nursery. When confronted with the nursery vocabulary of “piggy-wiggy” and “woof-woof”, Ben pronounced his teacher “stupid”.
Though at Newbold Church of England junior he was consistently near the top of his class, it was all to fall apart after he started at his comprehensive. By 15, he was playing truant regularly. “They can’t teach me anything, Mum”, he moaned.
“I have no idea how he spent his days. I know he wasn’t out thieving, or hanging out with druggies. I think he probably came home and watched TV.”
He quit school as soon as he could. Two and half days working for a landscaping firm, (“it’s for the brain dead”), followed by two hours as a packer with a local toiletries firm (he walked out over a dispute), was the sum total of his paid employment. Only at his funeral, when his family and girlfriend, Natasha Petts, were joined by more than 200 mourners, did his parents learn of another Ben. An elderly neighbour recounted how he picked up her paper each day, fetched in her milk and put the kettle on for her. A lonely old man told how he dropped by for chats and to make him a sandwich.
Then, in April 2005, he announced to his mother, “I’ve done something”, before leading her to the army recruitment office. “They greeted him, so he’d obviously been in once or twice before,” she said. Waiting for her were his papers, ready for her signature. He must have noticed the flicker of doubt that crossed her face. “Don’t argue with me, Mum,” he pleaded. “This is my way forward. I can’t do anything else. This will be my life now.” She signed. He was 16.
“I had one or two people say to me, ‘You’re never going to let him join up, are you? It’s not a good idea’. But when they are so headstrong, you’ve got no choice,” she explained.
His certificate of enlistment jostles for wall space with photographs, including two of him in action, taken 36 hours before his death. How can she bear them, knowing he had just 36 hours to live? “It’s pride at seeing him in action. You can’t dwell on how he died,” said Jane, now a campaigner trying to shame the government into promising more money to better equip troops like Ben.
“If all you are going to do is wallow in how and when he died, then you’re in danger of forgetting who you’ve lost.”
Ben was not a letter writer. A weekly phone call was the most Jane could expect when he was posted to Afghanistan. He wanted to protect her, so chat was about his great tan, and could she send him some “top shelfer” magazines in the next parcel? But he always promised her he would come home.
“On TV, when they break the news, they are always in full uniform, aren’t they? And they take their caps off,” said Jane. Her two men were in suits. But she knew, instinctively.
Headstrong
When he was repatriated, his coffin was the last of four to be unloaded. It goes in order of rank, then age. “And, mentally, you’re repatriating your baby. But, in reality, you don’t bring anything home with you that day, because he’s taken to a hospital in Oxford, for a postmortem. I couldn’t watch it this week. I knew exactly what those mothers were going through.”
She brings down a suitcase. Inside are Ben’s cap, belt, the bullet casing from his funeral, his Afghan medal, his Nato medal, and two union flags, one of which covered his coffin during repatriation, the other his coffin at his funeral.
“We bought the case specially. I didn’t want to store them in a box. You know, from a box to a box,” she said. “It’s the first time I’ve looked at them since he died,” and her eyes filled up.
“People say they’re too young at 18. But you really can’t compare them to an ordinary 18-year-old. They’ve been through so much already. They’re men. And they’re 110% brave,” she said. And think not just of those who have died, she said, “but the many, many more who have suffered appalling injuries”.
Then she sighs. Ben’s sister, Emma, 17, enrolled at Army Training College on what would have been his 19th birthday, two weeks after his death. As a clerk with the Adjutant Corps, she can in future be posted as a “female searcher”.
On the list of preferences she has ticked the boxes “Infantry” and “Out of England”.
• Disability campaigner said to be unhappy with chief
• Quango’s budget and work criticised by politicians
The troubled Equality and Human Rights Commission faced further internal disarray today with the resignation of Lady Campbell, the fourth senior figure to quit the organisation this year.
The peer, a respected disability rights campaigner who hit the headlines this month for her opposition in the Lords to a bill to legalise assisted dying, is understood to have quit in response to the reappointment, on Wednesday, of Trevor Phillips as the commission’s chairman.
Phillips’s leadership has been marked by internal tensions in recent months and politicians have questioned whether the organisation has produced enough work of sufficient quality to justify its £70m annual budget. Until this week, there was speculation he would not be given a second three-year term.
Harriet Harman, minister for women and equality said that the creation, in 2007, of the EHRC (which brought together the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission) “was always going to be challenging”.
She said the commission needed to achieve more. “I think the commission recognises, and we would take the view, that the commission needs to do more in terms of delivery and engagement with stakeholders,” she said.
Amid concerns about the size of the organisation’s payroll, the Government Equalities Office said this week that it would be streamlined, and the number of commissioners reduced from 16 to 11. Harman said a smaller commission with a “sharper focus” would “help the commission refocus its work”.
Campbell’s resignation follows the departure of a former chief executive, Nicola Brewer, a fellow commissioner, Kay Hampton, and the director of strategy, Patrick Diamond, all in March. Another EHRC commissioner, Bert Massie, said in March that there was serious concern among several commissioners over its direction and performance.
Campbell, a former commissioner of the Disability Rights Commission before it was merged into the EHRC, said she would not be making any public comment on her decision to stand down.
Maria Eagle, the minister responsible for EHRC in the Government Equalities Office, said: “I have great deal of respect for Jane Campbell and the work she has done for the commission. She’s a great person; losing someone of Jane’s calibre is a loss for the commission.”
In a statement, Phillips said: “It was with great sadness that I was told about her resignation. I am sure that we will be working closely with her in the future on our shared agenda.”
Senior figures who have left the EHRC have criticised Phillips’ management style, his closeness to government, and his decision to shift the commission’s approach: moving the emphasis away from tackling inequality and discrimination and focusing instead on “fairness”, a concept which has no basis in law.
Phillips was widely criticised by race organisations in January when he called for an end to the use of the term “institutional racism”.
Lobby groups campaigning for women’s rights have also expressed disappointment with its achievements. Katherine Rake, the outgoing chair of the Fawcett Society, said: “In challenging economic times, women in the UK need the EHRC to be a powerful and vocal champion of their rights. While there have been some useful interventions, they have remained silent on a number of issues of critical importance to women and, on others, appear to have set the debate back.”
The work of the EHRC will be exposed to further scrutiny on Monday, when the National Audit Office publishes a report explaining why it was unable to approve the body’s accounts.
• Disability campaigner said to be unhappy with chief
• Quango’s budget and work criticised by politicians
The troubled Equality and Human Rights Commission faced further internal disarray today with the resignation of Lady Campbell, the fourth senior figure to quit the organisation this year.
The peer, a respected disability rights campaigner who hit the headlines this month for her opposition in the Lords to a bill to legalise assisted dying, is understood to have quit in response to the reappointment, on Wednesday, of Trevor Phillips as the commission’s chairman.
Phillips’s leadership has been marked by internal tensions in recent months and politicians have questioned whether the organisation has produced enough work of sufficient quality to justify its £70m annual budget. Until this week, there was speculation he would not be given a second three-year term.
Harriet Harman, minister for women and equality said that the creation, in 2007, of the EHRC (which brought together the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission) “was always going to be challenging”.
She said the commission needed to achieve more. “I think the commission recognises, and we would take the view, that the commission needs to do more in terms of delivery and engagement with stakeholders,” she said.
Amid concerns about the size of the organisation’s payroll, the Government Equalities Office said this week that it would be streamlined, and the number of commissioners reduced from 16 to 11. Harman said a smaller commission with a “sharper focus” would “help the commission refocus its work”.
Campbell’s resignation follows the departure of a former chief executive, Nicola Brewer, a fellow commissioner, Kay Hampton, and the director of strategy, Patrick Diamond, all in March. Another EHRC commissioner, Bert Massie, said in March that there was serious concern among several commissioners over its direction and performance.
Campbell, a former commissioner of the Disability Rights Commission before it was merged into the EHRC, said she would not be making any public comment on her decision to stand down.
Maria Eagle, the minister responsible for EHRC in the Government Equalities Office, said: “I have great deal of respect for Jane Campbell and the work she has done for the commission. She’s a great person; losing someone of Jane’s calibre is a loss for the commission.”
In a statement, Phillips said: “It was with great sadness that I was told about her resignation. I am sure that we will be working closely with her in the future on our shared agenda.”
Senior figures who have left the EHRC have criticised Phillips’ management style, his closeness to government, and his decision to shift the commission’s approach: moving the emphasis away from tackling inequality and discrimination and focusing instead on “fairness”, a concept which has no basis in law.
Phillips was widely criticised by race organisations in January when he called for an end to the use of the term “institutional racism”.
Lobby groups campaigning for women’s rights have also expressed disappointment with its achievements. Katherine Rake, the outgoing chair of the Fawcett Society, said: “In challenging economic times, women in the UK need the EHRC to be a powerful and vocal champion of their rights. While there have been some useful interventions, they have remained silent on a number of issues of critical importance to women and, on others, appear to have set the debate back.”
The work of the EHRC will be exposed to further scrutiny on Monday, when the National Audit Office publishes a report explaining why it was unable to approve the body’s accounts.
• Disability campaigner said to be unhappy with chief
• Quango’s budget and work criticised by politicians
The troubled Equality and Human Rights Commission faced further internal disarray today with the resignation of Lady Campbell, the fourth senior figure to quit the organisation this year.
The peer, a respected disability rights campaigner who hit the headlines this month for her opposition in the Lords to a bill to legalise assisted dying, is understood to have quit in response to the reappointment, on Wednesday, of Trevor Phillips as the commission’s chairman.
Phillips’s leadership has been marked by internal tensions in recent months and politicians have questioned whether the organisation has produced enough work of sufficient quality to justify its £70m annual budget. Until this week, there was speculation he would not be given a second three-year term.
Harriet Harman, minister for women and equality said that the creation, in 2007, of the EHRC (which brought together the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission) “was always going to be challenging”.
She said the commission needed to achieve more. “I think the commission recognises, and we would take the view, that the commission needs to do more in terms of delivery and engagement with stakeholders,” she said.
Amid concerns about the size of the organisation’s payroll, the Government Equalities Office said this week that it would be streamlined, and the number of commissioners reduced from 16 to 11. Harman said a smaller commission with a “sharper focus” would “help the commission refocus its work”.
Campbell’s resignation follows the departure of a former chief executive, Nicola Brewer, a fellow commissioner, Kay Hampton, and the director of strategy, Patrick Diamond, all in March. Another EHRC commissioner, Bert Massie, said in March that there was serious concern among several commissioners over its direction and performance.
Campbell, a former commissioner of the Disability Rights Commission before it was merged into the EHRC, said she would not be making any public comment on her decision to stand down.
Maria Eagle, the minister responsible for EHRC in the Government Equalities Office, said: “I have great deal of respect for Jane Campbell and the work she has done for the commission. She’s a great person; losing someone of Jane’s calibre is a loss for the commission.”
In a statement, Phillips said: “It was with great sadness that I was told about her resignation. I am sure that we will be working closely with her in the future on our shared agenda.”
Senior figures who have left the EHRC have criticised Phillips’ management style, his closeness to government, and his decision to shift the commission’s approach: moving the emphasis away from tackling inequality and discrimination and focusing instead on “fairness”, a concept which has no basis in law.
Phillips was widely criticised by race organisations in January when he called for an end to the use of the term “institutional racism”.
Lobby groups campaigning for women’s rights have also expressed disappointment with its achievements. Katherine Rake, the outgoing chair of the Fawcett Society, said: “In challenging economic times, women in the UK need the EHRC to be a powerful and vocal champion of their rights. While there have been some useful interventions, they have remained silent on a number of issues of critical importance to women and, on others, appear to have set the debate back.”
The work of the EHRC will be exposed to further scrutiny on Monday, when the National Audit Office publishes a report explaining why it was unable to approve the body’s accounts.
Actress Jane Fonda is reportedly dating music producer Richard Perry.
According to a source, the two are now “inseparable” and are probably living together.
The actress has reportedly been visiting the musician during his rehearsals for the musical “Baby, It’’s You” in Los Angeles.
“Jane has been attending almost every rehearsal with him,” the New York Post quoted [...]
Entering 2009, the future of media is undoubtedly a quandary, with no end of head-scratching across the industry. As with everything these days, it seems that it all comes down to radically changing economics. There are way too many conversations about the future of media, news, journalism, etc. going on out there that don’t reference [...]
Masterson & Farrar – Son Volt 
Andrew Duplantis – Son Volt 
Chris Masterson – Son Volt 
Mark Spencer – Son Volt 
Margo Timmins – Cowboy Junkies 
Margo Timmins – Cowboy Junkies 
Michael Timmins – Cowboy Junkies 
Margot Timmins – Cowboy Junkies