In the opening sequence of Puzzle, director Natalia Smirnoff quietly introduces both her intimate style and her protagonist's plight. Reduced to bustling hands and a worried face by a series of a close-ups, a woman single-handedly makes and serves a birthday dinner. It's only when Maria (Maria Onetto) brings out the cake that we realize she's been slaving on her own birthday.
Can't an Alaskan woman announce an East Coast bus tour that will take her to New Hampshire; buy a house in the lower 48, and be the subject of a new, authorized documentary without triggering all kinds of speculation that she'll soon be running for president?
Not if she's Sarah Palin.
News of all these events is generating coverage of the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee this week and causing some to ask whether she's gearing up for a presidential run. Or not.
Any new recording from the spectacular saxophonist James Carter is pretty much guaranteed to produce fireworks. But his new album, Caribbean Rhapsody, is his grandest work yet: It's a collaboration with the Puerto Rican classical composer Roberto Sierra. About 10 years ago, Sierra started writing Carter a concerto for saxophones and orchestra; more recently, he's topped it off with the title track, a piece for saxophones, jazz violin and string quartet.
It's been 10 years since Wikipedia came into existence. It launched with a wide ranging and ambitious idea that it would be a place where humanity could "share in the sum of all knowledge."
Now, a German branch of Wikimedia, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia, is saying the online encyclopedia has evolved into "nothing less than the greatest collection of human knowledge."
President Obama is in France for the G8 summit in Deauville. The annual summit of the world's major industrial nations will include discussions about shoring up democracy in the Arab world, and dealing with the financial crisis in Europe. (source)
Mexico's drug cartels are carving out new territory in Central America, in some of the poorest and most fragile countries in the hemisphere.
Mexican gangs are cutting clandestine airstrips in the Guatemalan jungle, laundering money in El Salvador and unloading boatloads of cocaine on the coast of Honduras.
The World Bank recently warned that narcotics trafficking poses one of the greatest threats to development in the region.
Not that there was much doubt left, but Tuesday's uphill victory by Democrat Kathy Hochul in a special election in a New York congressional district long dominated by the GOP has made it pretty clear that the budget blueprint approved by House Republicans last month, which would effectively privatize Medicare, isn't so popular with lots of actual voters.
Another broadcaster has gotten in trouble for offensive behavior.
But it doesn't look like there will be any lingering contoversy.
Liberal talker Ed Schultz of MSNBC has apologized at length for the very vile word he used in reference to conservative talker Laura Ingraham. And Schultz has been suspended for a week by the network.
Debt-heavy European countries are again raising anxiety in international financial markets. Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal are trying to cut deficits drastically despite their deep recessions.
The austerity measures have fed a growing sense of hopelessness and anger among young people. And in Spain, many young citizens are making their anger heard.
Madrid's central square, Puerta del Sol, is the epicenter of a new and unexpected movement of those who call themselves the indignados — the angry ones.
