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Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/23/240163081/what-to-watch-for-in-the-world-series?ft=1&f=1055Category: Sleepy Hollow Ariel Castro backstreet boys What Did Riley Cooper Say Nexus 7
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
What To Watch For In The World Series
Category: Sleepy Hollow Ariel Castro backstreet boys What Did Riley Cooper Say Nexus 7
China Fights Choking Smog With New Regulations
China's central and local governments are releasing a slew of new regulations aimed at cutting severe air pollution and mitigating its deadly effect on citizens. The seriousness of the problem is obvious in China's northeast, where smog in one city this week cut visibility down to a few yards, and particulate matter soared to 60 times the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
Cool autumn temperatures are moving into Northeast China. And Sunday, many cities turned on their coal-fired heating systems for the first time this season. This contributed to severe air pollution, which has largely shut down Harbin, a city of 11 million people. China has recently announced new regulations aimed at cutting smog and mitigating its deadly effect on citizens.
But as NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing, any fundamental solution seems a long way off.
(SOUNDBITE OF A ROADWAY)
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Schools, highways and airports remain closed for a second day in the city of Harbin. State television showed images of cars with flashing hazard lights and pedestrians wearing face masks, appearing and disappearing in a thick grey miasma. A mix of soot, dust and other tiny particles, that get into people's lungs, was recorded at levels as high as 60 times the concentration of the World Health Organization considers safe.
Many officials are blaming this emergency in part on the weather. Fang Li, the vice director of Beijing's Environmental Protection Agency, spoke at a press conference in the capital.
FANG LI: (Through translator) The heavy pollution in Harbin is due to weather conditions. We have noticed that the entire northeastern region is shrouded in heavy fog. Under these conditions, it's not easy for these pollutants to dissipate.
KUHN: Indeed, there has been no strong winds and heavy rain to lower wash the manmade pollution away. Today, Fang outlined the Chinese capital's new plan for dealing with pollution emergencies. After three days of heavy pollution, schools will close; factories will scale back production; and private cars will only be allowed on the roads on alternating days, depending on their license plates.
LI: (Foreign language spoken)
KUHN: And when it really gets smoggy, Fang added, the capital will also ban fireworks and barbecues.
Before last year, China did not disclose detailed data about air pollution. The Chinese language did not even have a word for smog until very recently. Wang Jingjing is vice director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. She displays a map which shows that most of the pollution in China comes from industry.
WANG JINGJING: (Through translator) We can see that there are more than 4,100 major sources of air pollution. These sources emit more than 65 percent of all the sulfur dioxide, nitrides and particulate matter.
KUHN: Wang welcomes a series of recently announced government plans to tackle pollution. Last month, China announced a plan to cut its coal consumption to below 65 percent of primary energy use by 2017 - a reduction of less than 2 percent in five years. She says China's government is determined to avoid the mistakes the West made when it industrialized.
JINGJING: (Through translator) We've seen the historical experiences and lessons that have come before. We don't want to take that path. We must control the pollution beforehand, instead of cleaning up afterwards.
KUHN: Whatever is learned from the West's experienced, it seems clear that China already faces a lengthy process of cleaning up its air, land and water.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
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Is Obamacare in a Death Spiral?
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Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/22/is_obamacare_in_a_death_spiral_318353.htmlCategory: mrsa emmy winners Nokia danity kane lea michele
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Boy Meets World Reunites On Good Morning America! Watch The Video HERE!
Cory, Topanga, Shawn and the rest of the Boy Meets World gang haven't been on the air in over thirteen years but they're clearly having the most AH-Mazing week ever!
Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong BOTH got married last weekend, the show is celebrating their twenty year anniversary, and now the entire cast is coming together for a BMW reunion!
The stars from the classic Friday night sitcom reunited on Tuesday morning, two decades after they made their TGIF debut on ABC!
Good Morning America and Entertainment Weekly celebrated the show's seven seasons on TV with a special tribute video!
Ben Savage, who hasn't aged a bit, talked about how Boy Meets World seems to be more popular than ever these days! He explained:
"We've really had a strong afterlife with the show. I think the themes in the show are timeless."
His Girl Meets World co-star and long-time TV wife Danielle Fishel also weighed in on why their storyline is still relevant to so many fans! She admitted:
"I don't think any of us anticipated that after the show went off the air it was going to gain in popularity but people still seem to relate to it a lot, which is fantastic!"
So many good memories! And more memories to made with the new Disney Channel spinoff Girl Meets World!
Ch-ch-check out the gang, all grown up and back together again, above!
And CLICK HERE to view our gallery, "Boy Meets World Turns 20!"
Tags: ben savage, boy meets world, danielle fishel, disney, girl meets world, rider strong, tv news
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On 'Sesame Street,' The Sweet Sounds Of Another Thoroughfare
Sesame Street music director Bill Sherman with Elmo and Zoe on the set. Sherman won a Tony Award for In the Heights in 2008 and has recruited Broadway peers to compose for the children's show.
Howard Sherman for NPR
Sesame Street music director Bill Sherman with Elmo and Zoe on the set. Sherman won a Tony Award for In the Heights in 2008 and has recruited Broadway peers to compose for the children's show.
Howard Sherman for NPR
You know how to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. But do you know how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?
Turns out there's a shortcut from New York's theater district — and it's landed a number of Broadway's top songwriting talents on the venerable children's program.
The man to see is Bill Sherman, a 2008 Tony Award winner for his work on orchestrations for In the Heights. Sherman is in his fifth season as music director for Sesame Street. Back when he started the job, Broadway's songwriters were an obvious go-to.
"I knew them," he shrugs. "It was easy access. I was trusting songwriters I knew and loved."
He's since discovered that no matter whom he calls, Sesame Street meets with universal enthusiasm. "Everybody will stop some really important thing they should be doing and really focus on this."
From A College Buddy To Strangers In The Biz
Sherman's first call, five seasons back, was to Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer and lyricist of In the Heights. "Lin has been my best friend for 10 years," Sherman says. "We went to college together, so asking him to write a song was very easy."
Miranda was followed by other Heights alumni, Alex Lacamoire and Chris Jackson, and by composers Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Last Five Years), Justin Paul (A Christmas Story) and Tom Kitt (Next To Normal). And while some of these artists typically write both music and lyrics, Sesame Street primarily taps into their composing skills.
"So much of what we do is curriculum-based that it has to go through many levels of approval," Sherman explains. "So most of the lyrics come from the [Sesame Street] scriptwriters."
Miranda, an adept lyricist, says being forced to focus solely on the music was "enormous fun."
YouTube
"What Rhymes with Mando?" was composed by Tony-winner Lin-Manuel Miranda for the show's 44th season.
"It's easier than usual, since lyrics take longer," he says — though he's quick to note that he confers with the show's wordsmiths.
"The writer will say, 'It's very Harry Belafonte; it's Ravel's Bolero; it will build and build.' You get a sense of what they were thinking, of the rhythm that's in their heads."
With "Elmo the Musical," More Shots At The Spotlight
Sesame Street's musical universe expanded further when the show introduced its "Elmo the Musical" segments — stand-alone bits, eight to 10 minutes long, that take place entirely in the imagination of the childlike red fuzzball.
The Elmo the Musical segments are through-composed — musicalized from start to finish — "so each composer had their chance to really sink their teeth into the music," Sherman says. "It became their episode, their thing. We tried to figure out a way to use the composers' strengths for whatever particular episode it was."
An installment called "Detective," for instance, "asked for this complex, jazzy [sound], and Jason Robert Brown is known for that."
Like all the composers, Brown — who's never met Sherman — jumped at the opportunity.
"I had a 2-year-old who stared at Elmo all day long," Brown says. "So there was nothing better than that."
Then came the kicker: That episode's script was to be written by John Weidman, a Sesame Street veteran and co-creator, with Stephen Sondheim, of iconic musicals like Assassins and Pacific Overtures.
Tom Kitt, who wrote "If Me Had a Magic Wand" for Sesame Street, won a Tony Award for the Broadway musical Next to Normal.
Howard Sherman For NPR
Tom Kitt, who wrote "If Me Had a Magic Wand" for Sesame Street, won a Tony Award for the Broadway musical Next to Normal.
Howard Sherman For NPR
"I called him and said, 'So we're finally writing a show together, only it's for a furry red puppet,' " Brown says. "When I got the recording of Elmo, I could not have been more excited if it had been Frank Sinatra, if it had been Joni Mitchell."
This fall, as puppeteer David Rudman laid down Cookie Monster's vocal track on Tom Kitt's "If Me Had a Magic Wand," Kitt described the song using an old-school musical-theater term. It's "a soaring, emotional 'I want' moment," he said, a readily identifiable, recognizably Broadway kind of sound.
But as Sherman is quick to point out, the "Broadway sound" is very much in flux.
"I've been part of musical-theater situations that pushed boundaries, that brought new sounds to Broadway. Taking this job, like [working on] In the Heights, was an opportunity to put new sounds in kids' ears. People assume musical theater is vaudevillian, epic ballads and tap-dance numbers. So to turn that on its head and bring in audiences that don't go to Broadway shows is important to me."
Is it a challenge for these sophisticated writers to gear their work for toddlers? "Sometimes," says Sherman, "composers think that because it's Sesame Street, they have to dumb it down. ... [But] these days children have unbelievably sophisticated ears. I think dumbing it down is disrespectful to kids."
"That's Not What Cookie Monster Sounds Like"
When composers have kids of their own, they've got an in-house test panel. Brown did demos, complete with character voices, for his daughter.
"Her response was, 'That's not what Cookie Monster sounds like,' " he reports.
Sherman has met with greater success at home.
"If my 3-year-old hears something, and 15 to 20 minutes later she's still singing it, then I know I did the right thing," he says. "If the 1-year-old dances to it, then I know that it sounds right."
There might well be more musical theater in Sesame Street's future; Sherman admits he'd like to work with Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin) and Marc Shaiman (Hairspray).
And there's one more big fish he'd like to land — the whale of the business, really.
"We toyed a bit with going after Sondheim," he said. "We haven't gone that route yet, but to call up Stephen and see if he was down [for it], that'd be funny. Why not?"
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Lauren Holly’s Blog: Am I Raising a Liar?
In her blog, Holly recounts the mystery of the disappearing soda and fears she is raising a liar when none of her boys confess.
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/PJ7gBMBf_Ns/
Related Topics: Case Keenum Best Song Ever
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/PJ7gBMBf_Ns/Related Topics: Case Keenum Best Song Ever
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