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For the organizers of the show, all the negative attention put them in a defensive crouch. "No media are allowed in the show," said promoter George Corluka. "It's not my decision. It's up to the church." Perkovic, he added, was devastated by the terrible hubbub that preceded him in the United States and would not speak to any members of the print media in this country because no one would treat him fairly. This reporter purchased tickets on Craigslist.com on Saturday afternoon. "Okay, you're the only media in here," Corluka said, a few songs into the concert. "We'll see if you're fair. We'll see." The attempted journalist blockade might have raised the expectations bar a little high. No offense, Mr. Corluka, but musically Perkovic and his band are kind of mundane; they sound, at moments, like the Gipsy Kings doing "Dust in the Wind." The charm of songs like "Geni Kameni" is perhaps in the lyrics -- and they don't translate all that well: Genes, genes made of stone A fire burns within me Genes, genes made of stone That's the way we are born Take it or leave it.
YOUR MONEY: Anything is insurable if the price is right
With an increasingly precautionary and litigious society, insurance can be found for just about every activity people perform in their waking hours.Anyone with enough cash could probably insure even their sleep, as well.Insurance policies, even if not through traditional brokers, can be had for everything from vacations to rock concerts and even alien abductions. The London-based insurance brokerage firm Goodfellow Rebecca Ingrams Pearson manages some 20,000 such policies, reported Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, with some 4,500 "John Wayne Bobbitt" male mutilation policies and 4,000 immaculate conception policies also active.London and other overseas sites are where people will find the strangest policies. Lloyd's of London, famous for covering Jimmy Durante's nose, Bette Davis' waistline and Michael Flatley's legs, will insure most anything as long as the customer is willing to pay the premium (a Lloyd's representative did not return an e-mail inquiring how much it would cost a reporter to insure his typing hands).Companies will first max out life and disability insurance on stars, according to the Web magazine Slate.
Daniel Day-Lewis in tearful tribute to Heath Ledger
In Brokeback Mountain he was unique, he was perfect. That scene in the trailer at the end of the film is as moving as anything I've ever seen. I'd like to dedicate this to him." The auditorium echoed with applause. As the traditional clips of actors who had died during the past year flashed on the screen, there was a pause before Ledger, in a simple still photograph from Brokeback Mountain, was shown, triggering more loud applause. Glenn Close called him, along with Johnny Depp, one of the greatest actors of this generation. Earlier, Blanchett - who was up for two SAG awards but did not win - had Ledger on her mind when she accepted the Modern Master Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. "I'd like to pay special tribute to Heath Ledger, who I think was an extraordinary actor and was well on his way to being a master himself," she said.
Blowhards and Windbags
I read an item in ABC News' The Note yesterday that almost perfectly encapsulates the myopia that currently drives our national political coverage, making it, in many ways worse than useless. Take a look: As expected, Obama picked up the endorsement of the culinary union in Nevada, the biggest organized labor "get" in the state, ABC's Teddy Davis and Sunlen Miller report. Obama grabs some muscle, but Clinton heads to Nevada on Thursday with the campaign narrative gusting at her back. "Her victory left her resurgent heading into the Nevada caucus," J Patrick Coolican writes in the Las Vegas Sun. "Clinton is now the protagonist in a new national narrative. Although it's not clear why so many New Hampshire voters turned to Clinton, obliterating Obama's double-digit lead in the polls, what is known is that in the final 48 hours, she revealed new emotion and fire and openness to the press and public.
Jury Orders U. of Phoenix Parent to Pay $277 Million
A federal jury in Arizona ordered Apollo to pay an estimated $277.5 million to shareholders who sued the higher education company and two former executives in 2004 for securities fraud. The lawsuit alleged that company officials withheld a harshly critical U.S. Education Department report in February 2004 that accused Apollo of violating a federal prohibition against paying recruiters based on the number of students they enrolled. The company did not disclose the report in its Securities and Exchange Commission filings or in calls with analysts or reporters for months. When the company finally released the preliminary report, in September when it announced a $9.8 million settlement with the Education Department, its stock took a dive. That month, a group of shareholders, led by the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, sued the company under federal securities fraud laws, seeking to recoup the money they said they had lost.
The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Viral videos are a perfect fit for VH1, which knows how to repurpose content to make compelling TV on a budget. The channel reinvented itself in 1996 as a purveyor of tawdry nostalgia with Pop-Up Video and perfected the form six years later with I Love the 80s. “That show was a good model because it got great ratings, and we licensed the clips" – quick hits from such cultural touchstones as The A-Team and Fatal Attraction – “on the cheap," Hirschorn says. (Full disclosure: I once worked for Hirschorn at Inside.com.) But the C-list celebrity set soon caught on to VH1's searing brand of ridicule. “It started to get more difficult to license the clips," says Hirschorn, who has the manner of a laid-back English professor. “And we're spending more money now to get them, as our ratings have improved." But Hirschorn knew of a source for even more affordable clips.
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