Thursday, April 8, 2010

“Chicago Cultural Center - A.V. Club” plus 3 more

“Chicago Cultural Center - A.V. Club” plus 3 more

Chicago Cultural Center - A.V. Club

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 08:01 PM PDT

Shen Yun Cultural Effort Moves Japanese Community ... - The Epoch Times

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 07:40 PM PDT

WINNIPEG, Canada—Shen Yun Performing Arts brought the essence of traditional Chinese culture to Centennial Concert Hall Wednesday night, much to the delight of two of Winnipeg's Japanese community leaders.

Terumi Kuwada, president of the National Association of Japanese Canadians, and Lucy Yamashita, president of the Manitoba Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, took in Wednesday's show and attended a VIP reception afterwards, pausing to share their thoughts with The Epoch Times.

"It is beautiful, artistic, and I think it does give everybody an idea of the culture and the rich heritage, and I think the message was very good as well. A lot of people don't understand how the culture is so intertwined with the heritage and the nation and spirituality of peoples, and I think that was very clear in the show," said Ms. Yamashita, who also teaches Japanese dance at the centre.

"I was looking at the dance and the movement and the formations—it was beautiful. And the women were just so graceful. I'm sure they must spend years training, because a lot of the movement is very difficult ... It is performed so flawless and so easy, but the movement is difficult ... It was just beautifully done."

She said the male dancers do more of the flipping and tumbling moves but the turns and spins of the women are also very difficult.

"I thought it was wonderful. And the costuming was beautiful too, and it gives you an idea of the different types of costumes that were worn in the various eras."

"Oh, yes," agreed Ms. Kuwada. "I can't imagine who has to make them and create them. I mean they must be just the most artistic people around—very lovely."

"And just the blending of all the media and the backdrop and so on and how it blended into the dancing," interjected Ms. Yamashita.

"That was so perfect, the backdrops and then the idea that the dancers reflected the backdrop and vice versa and then they melded together when they did that movement into the backdrop. The technology and the effects were just very beautiful," finished Ms. Kuwada.

"Yes, wonderfully matched. I don't know who takes care of all the technical parts, but they must have a really good team that works really well with the choreographer and the dancers and so on," added Ms Yamashita.

Deeply interested with preserving and promoting their own culture, the two women had a unique appreciation also for New York-based Shen Yun's efforts to revive traditional Chinese culture.

"Sometimes you're not aware of the extent of culture and history of any country until you either search that information yourself or you come upon it sometimes quite accidentally, and so this is just a glimpse of some of that history and culture which I think is really important for all us to become more aware of," said Ms. Kuwada.

"Any time that any one of us can learn about each other and become more enlightened and more accepting and understanding of each other is always a good thing."

"I think it's really important that as Canadians we learn about the world, and especially here in Winnipeg and in Canada where human rights is such a very powerful part of our lives and something that we embrace just as part of our lives."

Shen Yun will stage a second and final show in Winnipeg Thursday night.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun. For more information, visit www.ShenYunPerformingArts.org .

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

A richer Thailand, and a cultural love of sugar, sparks a health ... - Minnpost.com

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 07:40 PM PDT

"It's almost impossible to add too much sugar," said Waiwong Wittayakun, Jay Muay's husband and co-owner of their forever-busy pad thai stall in Bangkok's On Nut market. "Thai people, we like it sweet. Just look at that queue!"

Thai cuisine is globally lauded as sophisticated, spiritual and even nutritious. What many Thai food fans don't realize, however, is that there's often gratuitous amounts of cheap, processed sugar hiding behind the spice.

The country's sweetness addiction, experts say, is partly responsible for one of it's fastest growing diseases: diabetes. Nearly one in 10 Thais now suffer from the disease, a rate even worse than America's one in 12.

"Traditionally, our food is supposed to have a balance of sugar," said Napaporn Sowattanangoon, a diabetes specialist with Thailand's Mahidol University. "You're supposed to taste sweetness balanced with spice, sourness and other flavors. Now, cooks just go overboard with sugar. It's like they don't even care about the dangers."

Like U.S. doctors, Thai physicians blame the diabetes epidemic on more-sedentary lifestyles and the rise of industrially produced junk food. The nation's most prevalent store is 7-11, which offers squid-flavored potato chips, starchy pork buns and sugar-loaded energy drinks around the clock.

Worse yet, Napaporn said, are Thai grade schools that serve processed meals. "The kids turn into adults who are addicted to sweet food. And they get fat because no one plays in the fields anymore."

Developing countries such as Thailand, India and China are seeing the most new diabetes cases globally, according to InterAsia, a research cooperative between U.S., Chinese and Thai universities. As newfound prosperity spares more Asians from physical labor, it's also driving them to more desk jobs and microwavable food.

Two-third of diabetics, according to InterAsia estimates, now live in the developing world. And in Thailand, according to estimates, half of all diabetics are oblivious to their disease.

The disease translates from Thai as "sweet urine disease" and, in rural provinces, it's traditionally self-diagnosed when villagers notice ants gathering around their outdoor toilet.

"I suspected I was diabetic, as many black ants swarmed around my urine," said one Thai patient evaluated for a 2009 Mahidol University study of cultural influences on diabetes treatment. "One time, I slightly dipped my finger in my own urine and tasted it. It would be sweet if I had drank it."

Treatment in Thailand is further complicated by spiritual beliefs. Some diabetic Thais, Napaporn says, blame the illness on misdeeds from past lives, such as undernourishing livestock. Other patients she's evaluated recite their Buddhist acceptance of illness and death, expressing little desire to change their love of sweet foods.

"Thai people, especially the elderly, have trouble accepting a disease that won't let them eat all the foods they want," Napaporn said. "By the time the doctor tries to help, it's too late. They have wounds on their bodies that won't even heal."

Thai doctors often ask diabetics to forgo starchy white rice, essential as oxygen in the minds of many Thais. In lieu of unpleasant diet change, TV infomercials offer herbal quick cure-alls. A recent commercial for Dr. Chula's "Thai-Chinese-Lao Herbs" features the testimonial of Sod Suchuen, an elderly Thai diabetic woman, who professes that "after drinking two or three pots, my weight shot up from 44 to 49 kilos!"

Thailand's Ministry of Health, as part of its "Paunchless Thais" weight-loss campaign, has warned the public that Type-2 diabetes can bring on blindness, infirmity and death. Government doctors should use more Buddhist logic to help steer Thais away from poor diets, Napaporn said.

She's currently studying how Buddhist principles of resisting gluttony play to diabetic Thais, especially the elderly who say their religion has taught them to "accept illness" and eat as they please. Physicians, she said, should inspire patients to imitate monks, who lower blood pressure by meditating and avoid eating large meals.

Diabetics might also consider staying far away from Bangkok's On Nut market around sundown. That's when Jay Muay's wok is at its busiest and the smell of simmering scallions and caramelizing sugar attracts queues that choke the sidewalk.

"The sugar? We use a lot to make it come out really sweet, really sour," Waiwong said. "It might look like a lot, but that's how much you have to add to keep them coming back."

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Cameron's Komsomol: a youth movement to spread the Big ... - Daily Telegraph Blogs

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 06:50 PM PDT

It had to come: every Five Year Plan, every social engineering blueprint for a Big Society, needs its corps of Young Pioneers. That need will now be met by Dave's Komsomol, the National Citizens Service for 16-year-olds, unveiled today by the new Leader of All Progressive Humanity and, incongruously, Sir Michael Caine.

Dave's original ambition was to make the scheme compulsory – an instructive insight into how Conservative his instincts are – but saner counsels prevailed. Carping critics might ask what is wrong with the Scouts, Guides, Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme and a plethora of other voluntary forums in which youngsters can realise their potential. Well, it is obvious what is wrong with them: Dave didn't dream them up. They are not part of his personality cult (are the other members of the Shadow Cabinet on holiday – they all seem to have done a Letwin?) as he stumps the country, alternating his impersonations between Tony Blair and Barack Obama.

We are told the project will be funded out of £50m allocated to Labour's discredited Prevent programme, designed to dissuade Muslim youngsters from joining al-Qaeda. What, of course, would never be considered is scrapping the failed scheme, refraining from launching another and putting the money saved back into the threadbare public purse. The main objection, however, to this egomaniacal plan to create a Cameron Jugend is not the expense, but the statist, collectivist, nannying mentality behind it.

Every time Dave insists he wants to cut the state down to size, the means he proposes amount to a significant extension of it. Last week it was a proposal, inspired by revolutionary Saul Alinsky, to create 5,000 new commissars, largely drawn from the jobsworth ranks of the civil service, to invade our communities, initiate activities, snuff out "extreme causes" (eg demands for an EU referendum?) and impose metropolitan orthodoxies. This time it is a youth movement designed to incorporate the vast majority of 16-year-olds.

And what will its "values" be? Pro-climate hysteria, is a fair bet. "Anti-xenophobic" – only a barbarian would dream of cheeking President Rumpole of the EU. Diversity-friendly – in fact, any of the sanctimonious Daveguff to which we have been subjected in recent years. That would be while the Cameron Komsomol was in its teething stages. Later the members could graduate to more high-minded civic initiatives such as reporting their parents for smoking, wearing a crucifix or turning guests away from their B & B.

In some respects Cameron is a mystery. Does he really, truly imagine people will be taken in by his anti-state rhetoric, on the one hand, and the hopelessly statist mindset of his few policy initiatives, on the other? Is he just plain thick? Solving that conundrum might be intriguing for a psychologist; for the rest of us, what is important is that, day and daily, we are being furnished with compelling evidence of how far removed from Conservatism this charlatan is, and how vital it is to ensure he never becomes Prime Minister. That is the only Prevent programme that matters.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
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