Noted U.S. Psychologists Condemn Gay Activist Influence on APA
Accuse mental-health associations of allowing gay activists to distort research
By Gudrun Schultz
LOS ANGELES, United States, December 20, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Senior members of the psychological community delivered a scathing condemnation of the American Psychological Association (APA), at the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) conference last month.
Dr. Nicolas Cummings, Ph.D, a former president of the APA, said pro-homosexual social activist influence has undermined the scientific legitimacy of psychological research within the organization.
Dr. Cummings charged that research by the APA is now limited to projects where “they know what the outcome is going to be…only research with predictably favorable outcomes is permissible.” (reported by Linda Ames Nicolosi for the NARTH website).
Cummings expressed his concern over the APA’s backing for legalized gay marriage, which was recommended by the APA in 2004 because it would “promote mental health,” among members of the gay community. That decision, said Cummings, was based upon vague research which indicated “loving relationships are healthy’’ in a general sense.
“That was one of the worst resolutions, ” Cummings said. “ When we speak in the name of psychology we are to speak only from facts and clinical expertise.” Otherwise “very soon the public will see us as a discredited organization—just another opinionated voice shouting and shouting.”
Dr. Rogers Wright, Ph.D, co-author with Cummings of their newly released book Destructive Trends in Mental Health, criticized the APA for failing to live up to the organization’s long-held ideal of openness to diversity. The organization deliberately avoided issuing a response to the book and, at first, forbade its member-publications from reviewing it.
“So much for diversity and open-mindedness,” said Wright.
Psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover, M.D., spoke at length on the ethical misuse of scientific literature in recent legal cases that have laid the foundation for major changes in family-law policy.
Satinover accused mental-health associations of allowing gay activists to distort research in order to support their own social and political agendas, on a scale he finds “appalling beyond imagination.”
Among the methods used to falsely support the gay agenda, he identified researchers who used their own work as references, who used active members of pro-paedophilia groups as sources, and who ignored current conflicting research in favor of obsolete, discredited work.
Dr. Dean Byrd, Ph. D, Chairman of NARTH’s Scientific Advisory Committee, read from a letter he sent to the APA, criticizing the organization for exercising a double standard toward individuals who express a desire to return to heterosexuality:
”Though not all of the patients that NARTH members treat are religious, many are. Is it not a blatant disregard for their religious values and an affront to real diversity to marginalize these individuals by failing to acknowledge their right to choose how they will adapt sexually?
APA’s continuous message of respect for diversity rings hollow if it does not represent different worldviews…either you support client autonomy or you do not; either you support client self-determination or you do not; either your actions reflect diversity, or they do not.”
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, and is the world’s largest association of psychologists.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - While seven new wide releases will jostle for the attention of moviegoers on Christmas weekend, reigning champ "King Kong" and former chart-topper "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe" will for the No. 1 spot.
"Kong" grabbed the crown last weekend with a debut of $50.1 million to "Narnia's" sophomore-frame gross of $31.8 million. But with each passing day, more kids are out of school for vacation, and the midweek numbers for "Narnia" have been edging closer to those of "Kong," actually overtaking Peter Jackson's ape picture Wednesday.
The numbers were close: "Narnia" captured $4.94 million for the day, and "Kong" claimed $4.87 million.
"Brokeback Mountain" expands to 217 theaters, hoping to exploit award nominations in order to cross over to more mainstream audiences. The Western drama from directorAng Lee about an affair between two male ranch hands has picked up $3.5 million to date.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Gay and political films are dominating this year'sAcademy Awards race with some experts expecting that Oscar will wind up wearing pink, either for left-leaning politics or sexual preference.
As Hollywood starts its annual awards season leading to the March 5 Oscars, key front-runners in main categories are either gay-themed or political films, with Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," a drama of love between cowboys, leading the pack in the all-important best picture race.
"It could be the gay Oscars this year because gay-themed movies could win almost all the major awards," said Tom O'Neill, show business awards columnist for The Envelope.Com., referring to the sudden dominance "Brokeback Mountain" has gained so early in the race.
"'Brokeback' is going to be hard to beat. Rarely do we have this kind of award consensus for a movie, and its director (Taiwan's Ang Lee) is long overdue for an Oscar," O'Neill said.
"Brokeback," the first gay romance to make a bid for mainstream respectability, has already won the top awards handed out by critics in New York and Los Angeles and copped seven nominations for the January 16 Golden Globes, often a key indicator as to which way the Oscar wind might be blowing.
As for political films -- the field is crowded with potential winners: "Munich," "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Syriana," and "The Constant Gardener."
Many experts predict that "Brokeback's" toughest competition could come from either George Clooney's "Goodnight, and Good Luck," a steely-eyed examination of the McCarthy era, or "Munich," Steven Spielberg's study of the price Israel paid for its reprisals for the murder of its athletes at the 1972 Olympics.
Can great art withstand great commerce? Can genius triumph over cute? Rembrandt 400, an array of birthday celebrations scheduled in the dozens across his homeland of the Netherlands, should be an opportunity to showcase and explore the genius and the mystery of Holland's greatest Old Master painter. Instead, the 2006 event teeters precariously close to becoming comical, a farce of itself.
Gloriously inspired exhibitions in Amsterdam, such as "Rembrandt- Caravaggio" (at the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum) and "The Jewish Rembrandt" (at the Jewish Historical Museum), are seated, like wedding guests, uncomfortably close to events like the Rembrandt Ice Sculpture Festival, Make Your Own Rembrandt and Rembrandt: The Musical. Peter Greenaway has even created an installation at the Rijksmuseum entitled Nightwatching, based on the characters who appear in Rembrandt's most famous work, The Night Watch. It occurred to me that the only thing missing is Rembrandt: The Comic Book, until I realized there probably were trademark issues to be had with Rembrandt: The Ninja Turtle.
But for those willing and able to brave--or ignore--such events as a citywide waving of banner-sized reproductions of Rembrandt's paintings in Leiden, or life-sized bronzes replicating The Night Watch on the Rembrandtplein in Amsterdam, Rembrandt 400 promises treasures in the form of spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime exhibitions--as "Rembrandt-Caravaggio" is sure to be--that offer new insights and inquiries into almost the entire oeuvre of Holland's seventeenth-century "master of light."
While most of these exhibitions will not travel, others are planned worldwide, with surveys of Rembrandt's etchings in Germany, Denmark and the United States, along with exhibitions of other Dutch Master painters like Frans van Mieris, opening at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, on February 26. The Dutch spectacle, however, is by far the largest, expected to bring about 1.5 million tourists to the Netherlands--several hundred thousand more than usual--and some 90 million euros along with them.
Born in Leiden on July 15, 1606, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn settled in Amsterdam in 1631, setting off a rivalry between the two cities that is clearly being re-enacted during this anniversary year. He set up shop in Amsterdam's Jewish quarter, painting commissioned portraits and teaching. In 1634 he married Saskia Uylenburgh, the cousin of his neighbor and patron, the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. Saskia, believed to have been the model for his painting of the goddess Flora, bore Rembrandt four children, only one of whom, Titus, survived childhood. When Saskia died in 1642 at the age of 30, Rembrandt immediately took up with his newly hired nanny, Geertje Dircx--a move that alienated him from his patron and did not exactly resonate well with the community. When he later left Geertje for a younger woman, Hendrickje Stoffels, courts ordered him to pay alimony to Geertje; instead, he had her committed to an institution. Soon after, Hendrickje bore him a daughter, Cornelia.
Though these troubles wore on Rembrandt's artistic and commercial successes, he continued to spend flagrantly, and landed himself in bankruptcy in 1656. Seven years later, Hendrickje died in a plague epidemic, followed soon after by Titus. Rembrandt survived a year longer than his son--he died in October 1669 and was buried in an anonymous grave in Amsterdam's Westerkerk.
Rembrandt 400 recaptures that life in all its drama in what Rembrandt scholar Gary Schwartz calls the painter's "catch-up operation" to Vermeer--who, says Schwartz, has "overtaken" his Amsterdam contemporary in general popularity. "Rembrandt doesn't touch people the same way Vermeer does," he acknowledges.
Schwartz, currently at work on what he describes as "the Rembrandt book of first resort" (to be published by Harry N. Abrams in late 2006), takes a positive view of Rembrandt 400. Despite such productions as Rembrandt: The Musical, which performs more than a few contortions on the truths of Rembrandt's life for the sake of a good story, Schwartz takes heart in the fact that many museums are now beginning to study their Rembrandt holdings more closely and to "trot them out" for communities that rarely get a chance to see them.
The full array of exhibitions in Holland alone proves dizzying: From January 26 to February 19, the Rijksmuseum will feature "All the Rembrandts," an exhibition of the museum's entire collection of Rembrandts, many of which will then travel across town to be part of "The Jewish Rembrandt" or to be absorbed into "Rembrandt-Caravaggio." Those works included in the latter exhibition, however, will therefore not be part of "Really Rembrandt?" a comparison of real Rembrandt paintings with others, previously attributed to the master and since determined fakes, which runs from March 9 to May 24, also at the Rijksmuseum. Others will travel to the United States as part of "Rembrandt and the Golden Age: Masterpieces From the Rijksmuseum" at the Dayton Art Institute, Phoenix Art Museum and Oregon's Portland Art Museum.
The jewel of Rembrandt 400, however, will not travel. "Rembrandt-Caravaggio," which examines the Italian painter's influence on Rembrandt, spotlights such works as Caravaggio's The Supper at Emmaus (1600) and Amor Vincit Omnia (1601-02), as well as Rembrandt's The Blinding of Samson and Saskia as Flora. Juxtaposing the two "masters of chiaroscuro," the exhibition aims to define the distinctions between Northern and Italian Renaissance paintings and to highlight the respective glories of each. (A last-minute bonus addition to the exhibition, "Rembrandt and Van Gogh," also at the Van Gogh Museum, presents twenty-five paintings, drawings and letters by the two artists that reveal the younger Dutchman's indebtedness to his predecessor.) Other exhibitions, such as "The Jewish Rembrandt" and "Rembrandt's Mother: Myth and Reality," offer viewers a more personal look at the artist and the figures who comprised his world, and examine various legends surrounding Rembrandt's relationships with women and with the Jews who were among his most important patrons and friends.
But with so much taking place, will people even see the exhibitions? Or will they be overwhelmed--even turned off? Is what's good for Holland tourism, in the end, what's good for Rembrandt?
Schwartz believes it is. "Exhibitions of works by lesser-known masters will get attention because they'll also have the name 'Rembrandt' on them," he says. "So people who get sucked into a Rembrandt exhibition will hopefully be so taken in, they'll come back for something more specialized. It's like poker: You play your hands. When the cards aren't there, you toss it in; and when you have a good hand, you play it for all it's worth."
Bangani Ngeleza and Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 21 December 2005
A waterstation in front of an unrecognized village, 5 km from Bir Saba. Bedouin do not have access to this waterstation. (Photo: Ameer Makhoul)
Eighty thousand Palestinian Bedouin Israelis live in unrecognised villages in the Negev desert in the south of Israel. The villages are deprived of basic services like housing, water, electricity, education and health care. With the adoption of the Israeli Planning and Construction Law in 1965, 45 villages in the Negev were not declared as existing. Recently, Bangani Ngeleza and Adri Nieuwhof visited the region. They write about the serious consequences this has had for villagers in these "unrecognised villages".
The majority of the villages existed at the time of the creation of Israel in 1948 and some were established in the early 1960's when Israel evacuated Bedouins from northern Negev to the south of Beersheba. Comparisons between the experiences of Palestinian Bedouins in the unrecognised villages and black South Africans in the informal settlements in apartheid South Africa is striking. Apartheid policies in South Africa were adopted to ensure the priviliged position of white South Africans. Israeli government policies are targeted to secure the priviliged position of Jewish Israelis. A government that divides its people and deprives part of its citizens of basic human rights does not show a serious commitment to peace.
Unrecognised villages in the Negev
The 80,000 Palestinian Bedouins living in unrecognised villages in the south of Israel are citizens of Israel. They have the right to vote in national elections and when they have a job or operate a business it is their duty to pay taxes. The majority have lived for generations in villages on their land in the Negev. Following the adoption of the Planning and Construction Law of 1965, the villages did not appear on any Israeli map. They were not recognised by any official government and ignored by all government planning projects.
As there is no municipal authority that governs the villages, the Bedouin Palestinians cannot vote or be elected for municipal representation. Villagers are deprived of basic infrastructure and services like roads, sewage, running water, electricity, clinics, kindergartens and welfare services. The families in the villages mostly live in shacks under zinc roofs where the temperature can reach as high as 55 degrees Celcius. There is no authority that can decide upon permits for the construction of properties. The building of houses in the villages is therefore unlicensed and they are at all times under threat of demolition. A former captain of the Negev police remarked that "there is an imbalance since there is only a destroying authority and no authority issuing construction permits".1
Children
Half of the population of the Bedouins - about 40,000 - in the unrecognised villages is under the age of 18. In 2002, the infant mortality rate was 17.1 per 1000 births, as compared to the rate of 4.5 among Jewish infants. The absence of sewerage and garbage collection systems leads to unhygienic living conditions, a major cause of diseases among children.
Children of the unrecognised villages have to travel sometimes between 40 to 60 kilometres to school. They have to walk from the village to the main road to wait for transport. The majority of the children do not attend kindergarten, because there is no one in their village. This is against a law that rules that education is compulsory for four year old children. Specifically, the Compulsory Education Law requires the government to provide free and compulsory education for every child aged between 5 and15 years, regardless of whether a child has been registered in the Ministry of Interior's Population Registry or even if the child's parents are illegal residents. Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs proudly claims this as part of its commitment to social and welfare rights.2
Yet 40 per cent of the children drop out before finishing high school, and of the children who manage to go to high school only 27 per cent pass the matriculation exams.
Policy of removal
The policy of removal of Palestinians from Israel is as old as the creation of the state in 1948 and is illustrated by Prime Minister Ben Gurion, who said during a visit to Nazareth, "Why are there so many Arabs here? Why didn't you chase them away?"3
After lifting the military rule that was in force from 1948 to 1966 in the Negev and the Galilee, Israel's policy continued to target the removal of the Bedouin population. During this period, over 50,000 Bedouins were transferred to seven townships that were planned specifically for this group. The townships are densely populated and uprooted the Bedouin families from their traditional way of life. The "concentration towns" are the poorest and most neglected towns in Israel. In the process of removal the land belonging to the Bedouin families was confiscated.
In April 2003, a six-year plan was approved by Sharon's government with the stated aim to change the population's condition, settle land disputes and bolster law enforcement in relation to the Bedouin sector in the Negev. The plan was developed without consulting the Bedouin community in the Negev. In practice, the focus of activities within the plan for the coming years is "enforcement", which means massive house demolitions.
Large sums of the budget are allocated to the Israeli police force. The cabinet of Sharon approved a $250 million budget to force Bedouins from 45 unrecognised villages to leave their homes. At the same time, the government is planning the development of new Jewish settlements throughout the Negev. According to fieldworkers of the Regional Council of Unrecognised Villages in the Negev, every week a few shacks are demolished by Israel's giant Caterpillar bulldozers. The strategy is to demolish a few houses there, avoiding large scale demolition of villages. The message to the Bedouins is that they had better move soon or be removed forcefully.
Informal Settlements in South Africa
The existence of informal settlements in South Africa today reflects an apartheid legacy that stripped Africans of their right to live where they wished. It will take the present government years and significant amounts of capital investment to address the housing backlogs.
There are disturbing similarities in living conditions between unrecognised villages and informal settlements under apartheid. These include lack of access to adequate potable water, lack of proper sanitation facilities, absence of proper road infrastructure, the lack of educational facilities, houses built of corrugated iron sheets (in some cases of black plastics and cardboard) etc.
The similarities are striking between racially based policies that lay behind the creation of white settlements under the apartheid regime in South Africa then and the estabslishment of Jewish settlements by the Israeli government.
Policy Rationale in Apartheid South Africa
The policy of influx control was introduced in South Africa in the 1960's as a mechanism for limiting the number of black Africans within 87 per cent of the land area that was designated as "white South Africa" under the 1913 Land Act. This policy had three components: (a) the Group Areas Act, which prohibited Africans from being present in South Africa for more that seventy two hours without official permission; (b) labour bureaus, which matched African workers with specific jobs and then granted them the required official permission to work for a specific employer and live in a designated township; and (c) strict enforcement of the Group Areas Act.4 This policy was implemented with zeal by the apartheid regime, with an extraordinary number of 5.8 million prosecutions under laws restricting movement in the decade between 1966-75. Effectively, this policy restricted African citizenship to 13 per cent of the poorest land area that was declared as part of its so-called "homeland" policy.
Forced Removals
The influx control policy was pursued in South Africa through expulsions. These saw the forced removal of over 3.5 million black people (Africans, "Coloured" and Indians) during the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's. In the 1950's, over 600,000 people were forcefully removed from Johannesburg and dumped in a labour reserve/township, known as the Southwest Township (SOWETO) in overcrowded conditions. SOWETO was located 10 kilometres away from Johannesburg, initially with no amenities.
Forced removals also happened in Cato Manor (Mkhumbane) in Durban and District Six in Cape Town where 55,000 people were forcefully moved. The influx control policy meant that only those Africans that had permits to be in South Africa could remain within these reserves. Those who were found without such permits were regularly rounded up, detained and then trucked to the borders with homelands where they were dumped. This was effectively a measure to secure the demographic imperative of ensuring a white majority in the so called "white" South Africa. It was a policy similar to that of the Israeli government in securing a Jewish majority in Israel through mass expulsions.
The emergence of the informal settlement phenomenon
The repeal of influx control legislation during the last years of apartheid saw a movement of African people from the impoverished rural areas (homelands) to urban areas (which were erstwhile reserved for "whites") in search of a better life (employment, education etc). From 1976, the apartheid regime did not construct any new housing stock to accommodate black people in urban areas as part of its racial policies of limiting black movement. The result of this urbanisation phenomenon was the creation of shanty towns where people settled informally, in the backyards of township dwellings, in open spaces adjourning townships and closer to cities and in border towns next to homelands. In 1994, when the African National Congress government came to power in the country's first democratic elections, there was one housing unit for every 43 Africans as opposed to one for every 3.5 whites. The housing backlog was estimated at 1.3 million housing units, with between 7.5 and 10 million people in informal dwellings.5
The future of Israel lies in the end of apartheid
Apartheid policies in South Africa were adopted to ensure the privilaged position of white South Africans, as Israeli policies are targeted to secure the priviliged position of Jewish Israelis. A government that divides its people and deprives some of its citizens basic human rights does not show a serious commitment to peace. With the continuation of these divisive policies, it is difficult to take Sharon's rhetoric about working for peace seriously. The challenge for Israel is to arrive at a solution that will guarantee equality for all its citizens regardless of race, gender, religion and so on, within a democratic state. Pressure must be put on the state of Israel to abandon its apartheid policies, including its refusal to recognise the existence of villages composed of its own citizens living within its national borders.
The material conditions of Bedouins living in unrecognised villages brings into sharp focus the sense of outrage that moved Nelson Mandela who, on the occasion of the Rivonia trial in 1964 at which he and other ANC leaders faced the possibility of the death penalty said,
"I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunties. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and wish to achieve, but if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die".
Bangani Ngeleza and Adri Nieuwhof are independent consultants from respectively South Africa and the Netherlands. Ngeleza participated in the liberation struggle of the ANC to overcome apartheid in South Africa, and Nieuwhof supported the struggle as a member of Holland Committee on Southern Africa the ANC in achieving its goals.
[2] See Yoram Rabin, A Free People in Our Land: Welfare and Socio-Economic Rights in Israel, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1 April 2005); CRC factsheet: Israel, CRC/C/8/Add. 44 (27 February 2002)
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War.
Considering the tons of depleted uranium used by the U.S., the Iraq war can truly be called a nuclear war.
Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.”
Bernklau continued, “This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed.”
He added, “Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.
“The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” wrote Bernklau. “He, and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, (it) ... is far too big to hide or to cover up!”
“Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that ‘Gulf Era Veterans’ now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans,” said Berklau.
“The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’”
When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for “destroying things and killing people,” Fulk was more specific: “I would say it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people!”
Principi could not be reached for comment prior to deadline.
2. Veterans for Constitutional Law, 112 Jefferson Ave., Port Jefferson NY 11777, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director, (516) 474-4261, fax 516-474-1968.
3. Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter. Email Gary Kohls, gkohls@cpinternet.com, with “Subscribe” in the subject line.
Costco Fires Catholic Who Denied Knights of Columbus Hall for Lesbian "Marriage"
Man Stuggling to Support Three Small Children Faces Loss of Home
LifeSiteNews.com Exclusive
PORT COQUITLAM, BC, November 30, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A member of the Knights of Columbus who is in charge of renting the fraternity's hall for weddings and other events alleges he was fired from his day job at Costco for his involvement in denying two lesbians the facility for their same-sex "wedding." The human rights case in which the lesbian couple successfully sued the Knights of Columbus over the denial of the hall made international headlines. (see coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/nov/05113006.html )
LESBIAN WAS A CO-WORKER WITH KNIGHT OF COLUMBUS
David Hauser told LifeSiteNews.com in an exclusive interview that Tracey Smith, one of the lesbians involved in the human rights complaint against the Knights, was also a co-worker of his at Costco. Hauser related that Smith and many of the management at the Port Coquitlam warehouse were openly homosexual. He related that for months before Smith and her same-sex partner approached his wife for the hall rental, these same individuals had been asking him about his involvement with the hall, and knew that he was in charge of bookings.
"In retrospect, they picked a time when they knew I would be at work to call my wife Sandra, who shows the hall when I am unavailable," Hauser said. He is convinced the entire fiasco was orchestrated before the event. However, in the human rights complaint against the Knights the lesbian couple claimed they did not realize the hall was affiliated with the Catholic Church.
Chymyshyn claimed to the Vancouver Sun in November that, "If they would have let us know up front who they were, we probably would have never even gone there."
Terry Kidwell, State Deputy of the B.C. Knights of Columbus, told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview Dec.12 that Chymyshyn "said that 'she just happened to be driving around and saw the sign'" for the rental of the hall. "Well, that's a dead end street," Kidwell said. He indicated "you don't just happen to drive around" and find that hall and that one would have to deliberately drive to that location and stop to see the small 8 1/2 X 11 sign on the door.
"You can't see it from the street," Kidwell stated, adding "You would have had to get out of your car and go right up to the hall to see the sign. There is not a great big sign saying, 'hall for rent.'"
A big question therefore is how the two women would actually have known that the hall was for rent. All of this appears to support Hauser's contention that the two women knew about the hall and its connection to the Knights and their Catholic co-worker's involvement prior to their visit to the location.
Kidwell says these questions were probably not brought up in the human rights trial against the Knights because the focus of the defence was that, "because of our core religious beliefs we were entitled to not rent the hall to them."
Hauser said he and his wife were not initially aware of the couple's intention to wed each other, because the two had vaguely referred to a "wedding" without saying it was their own that they were planning. Hauser did not suspect anything when he read the names on the rental agreement, because he only knew Tracey at work by her first name.
Hauser alleges, "They [Smith and Chymyshyn] knew exactly what they were doing." The three-acre parcel where the Knight's hall is situated is also the location of Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church and Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic School. "There's a huge cross on that Church," Hauser said. "There's a huge picture of the Pope in the hall . . . there's no way they didn't know we were connected to the Church." (see coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/dec/05120901.html )
FIRED BY HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST MANAGER
Hauser was fired from Costco November 3, 2004 - one year and two days after Smith and her same-sex partner Deborah Chymyshyn rented the hall.
Hauser's boss, Mike Checko, also a homosexual rights advocate and a friend of Smith's, fired Hauser. Hauser contends that his firing was completely without cause. He said his letter of release cited "violence in the workplace," allegedly committed in early August 2004. Hauser related that he and his wife were on vacation for two weeks during the early to mid-weeks of August. Another homosexual co-worker alleged in writing that Hauser had said he wanted to meet a fellow worker outside after work for a brawl.
"The workplace was absolute trouble for me - the warehouse manager constantly badgered me about it [the hall issue]." Hauser said the homosexuals in management at the store "constantly tried to lure him into arguments."
Hauser's claims to unfair treatment are supported by other former supervisors at Costco. One letter, from co-worker Jared Gilles who was also Hauser's former supervisor, dated August 4, 2004, said, "In my view, Dave was sunk before all this ever happened. Our management isn't open and objective towards him," Gilles explained. "They get hourly [employees] to write hearsay letters of certain instances - whether it's true or not and whether they are witnesses or not. Dave's guilty because he's blacklisted. People can just write letters about people they don't like and if management doesn't like you, you're in trouble. No one will support Dave's views, whether he's done something or not."
"He told me to watch out because this guy was after you from the day you walked in," Hauser added.
Events at Costco following Hauser's firing suggest that there was some problem with the supervisor who fired Hauser. Checko was demoted two weeks after Hauser's firing, "from a $120,000 per year position, to a checkout clerk," Hauser said.
On November 23, 2004, Human Resources Canada, after initially refusing Hauser's claim for employment insurance payments, responded to Hauser's appeal of the refusal. After HRC asked for clarification from Costco, a letter was returned that stated a different reason for Hauser dismissal that the one given on his dismissal letter.
"[Costco's] statement contradicts the letter of dismissal," stated L. Bell, an insurance benefit officer with HRC, in a letter in Hauser's possession. "In the letter of November 3, 2004, the employer states that the employee was dismissed because of an incident that occurred in August. The incident involved allegations of threats made by the claimant to a co-worker. The employer has not provided detail of the alleged incident."
"Given the lack of clarification from the employer, we'll conclude that the claimant was dismissed due to a series of minor incidents. Some of the incidents may have been genuine violations of company policy, but there is also a sense that there was some friction between the claimant and the employer. Fault is sometimes difficult to define, but it is often mutual. Clearly the employer was not happy with the claimant, and although the violations of company policy may or may not have been genuine, there is an indication that they were looking for reasons to terminate his employment. It is not even clear what the final incident was that ultimately led to the claimant's dismissal and therefore we cannot conclusively prove there was misconduct involved in the final incident. Under the circumstances, we have no choice but to allow the claim."
Hauser further explained that he "was fighting a 90-day demotion for allegedly driving a fork-lift at a guy's head," in June-August of 2004. "I should have been arrested for something like that," Hauser said. "I got three fellows to write statements who had seen the whole thing. I then went to the regional manager, Patrick Noon - Mike Checko's boss."
The suspension was over-ruled by Costco's regional office.
"The day I walked in [Checko] wanted me out," Hauser emphasized. "It went on and on - he treated me terribly. In the end, he blackmailed me into this gay thing and fired me for kicking them out [of the K of C hall]."
CAN'T FIND OTHER WORK WITH DISMISSAL ON RECORD - MAY LOSE HOME
Hauser said he had hoped his 14 years at Costco would lead to life-long employment. "The company is doing very well," he said. Because of the circumstances of his firing, Hauser has been unable to find other work. "It's hard to get a job when your reference letter says you were fired for violence in the workplace," he said. He has focused on home painting, something he did part-time to support his stay-at-home wife and three young children before. His business is called "Passion for Painting."
Hauser, who initially re-financed his mortgage after the job loss, faces the prospect of losing his home if nothing changes in the next few months. "It's pretty degrading and humiliating for Sandra and I . . . and all for that cause."
Michael A. Wagner, the lawyer representing Mike Checko, had his office call to say Checko was unable for comment.
Several calls put into Costco for comment were not returned. Calls placed to Costco's lawyers were also not returned.
When Chita Rivera invites you to come on, babe, and help her paint the town, no one with a pulse is going to feel like refusing. Ms. Rivera was the first Velma Kelly, the homicidal hedonist from the Kander-Ebb musical "Chicago" in its first Broadway incarnation in 1975. And when she delivers that show's exultantly jaded theme song, "All That Jazz," at the end of her autobiographical show, "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life," Ms. Rivera makes it quite clear, thank you, that she still owns the part.
Edgard Gallardo and Chita Rivera in "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life."
Oh, sure, other actresses have done very well by nasty old Velma since Ms. Rivera first embodied her. Bebe Neuwirth won a Tony for the 1996 revival and Catherine Zeta-Jones, an Oscar for the 2002 film version. But all Ms. Rivera has to do is cock a hip, arch an eyebrow and unleash her sinewy alto to prove that her "All That Jazz" is the "All That Jazz." As she finishes the song, she might as well be blowing the smoke off a hot pistol, while imaginary would-be Velmas lie dead at her feet.
If nothing else in this singing scrapbook, which opened last night at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, produces the same ecstatic shivers, the fault does not lie with the enduringly seductive Ms. Rivera. At 72, she still has the voice, the attitude and - oh yes - the legs to magnetize all eyes in an audience. Directed and choreographed by Graciela Daniele, with a book by Terrence McNally, this evening of song, dance and reminiscence features a backup ensemble of 10 eager young performers (including Liana Ortiz, who plays Ms. Rivera as a child).
But these supporting players feel like smudges on a camera lens, obscuring the view of what you really want to see. So, much of the time, do Loy Arcenas's Vegas-revue-style scenery, Mr. McNally's standard-issue sentimental script and the tapioca-bland original songs by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty.
Intended as a setting for a glittering ruby of a star, the production elements often dim rather than enhance Ms. Rivera's natural incandescence. Never entirely, though. Which means that "The Dancer's Life" remains a must-have ticket for aficionados of the American musical. This is Chita Rivera, after all, the woman who in more than half a century onstage has created roles ranging from Anita in "West Side Story" to the title character of "Kiss of the Spider Woman." When she beckons, Broadway cultists heed the call.
They should not, however, expect confessional stand-up of the stripe delivered so memorably by Elaine Stritch in her one-woman show of three years ago. Ms. Rivera is not an emotional striptease artist. While she has always given her all professionally, she has never been one for baring her vulnerable soul, à la, say, Liza Minnelli, her sometime co-star.
Ms. Rivera's charisma lies instead in her expert technique and in the infectious pleasure she derives from it. She is a pro's pro in a world of exacting judgments and mythic standards. It feels right that "The Dancer's Life" should present her as the ultimate gypsy made good, the talented trouper who got the right breaks.
But in turning Ms. Rivera's career into a sort of showbiz every-story, you often lose sight of the individuality that propelled her into the spotlight. The biographical songs - which stretch from her childhood in Washington, D.C., in the 1930's and 40's to her receiving a Kennedy Center Honor in the same city in 2002 - could really be performed by any singer-actress of a certain age, except for the Latino flavoring added in reference to Ms. Rivera's Puerto Rican roots.
In a hazy tango sequence about the men in her life, Ms. Rivera does exhale a knowing sexiness that brings to mind the worldly older women of Colette's novels. But the show is most gratifying when it sticks to the highlights of its star's career. How exciting, after all, to hear her re-create her audition for "West Side Story," singing "A Boy Like That" in a voice that sounds remarkably like that of the original cast recording.
Still, even that number is delivered only as a fragment, a dot on the graph of Ms. Rivera's ascent. She does beautifully by songs from the Kander-Ebb shows "The Rink" and "Spider Woman," but their impact is diluted by a framing custom-made narrative about her relationship with her roles.
The effect is often of flipping briskly through a book of press clippings and photographs, when what you really want is to be allowed to focus on one page at a time. And do we need to see other dancers arduously trying to replicate choregraphic techniques that Ms. Rivera can convey with a strategic angling of her body or a sweep of her hand?
That eloquent body language is at its most expressive in a sequence devoted to the choreographers Ms. Rivera says have defined her: Jack Cole, Jerome Robbins, Peter Gennaro and Bob Fosse, among others. While the backup dancers perform a soft-focus version of what she's describing, Ms. Rivera sustains a blissful, jazzy riff in speech and movement on her choreographic mentors. It's a privilege, as if Jasper Johns were taking you on a personal tour of the Museum of Modern Art.
Let it be said that even when Ms. Rivera reprises numbers she first performed some 50 years ago, like a leering piece sung by French prostitutes from "Seventh Heaven," you don't wince at the ravages of time. Ms. Rivera's tart, angular appeal was never about being young and wide-eyed. On the other hand, as she has gotten older, she still pulses with the ambition and ardor of an eternal Broadway baby - of the same starlight-addicted girl who, as she says, "would have crawled through broken glass" to get a featured role.
Ms. Rivera may keep the blinds drawn on her innermost self. But she continues to wear her heart in her performing style. "The Dancer's Life" is not, sad to say, an electric show. But it cannot disguise the electricity of the woman at its center.
Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life
By Terrence McNally; original songs by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty; directed and choreographed by Graciela Daniele; orchestrations by Danny Troob; musical concepts, arrangements and music direction by Mark Hummel; sets by Loy Arcenas; costumes by Toni-Leslie James; lighting by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; sound by Scott Lehrer; hair design by David Brian Brown; Jerome Robbins choreography reproduced by Alan Johnson; Bob Fosse choreography reproduced by Tony Stevens; biographical research by Patrick Pacheco; production stage manager, Arturo E. Porazzi; associate choreographer, Madeleine Kelly; production manager, Aurora Productions; music coordinator, Michael Keller; executive producers, Marty Bell/Aldo Scrofani; associate producers, Dan Gallagher/Michael Milton; general management, Alan Wasser Associates. Presented by Mr. Bell, Mr. Scrofani, Martin Richards, Chase Mishkin, Bernard Abrams/Michael Speyer, Tracy Aron, Joe McGinnis, in association with Stefany Bergson, Scott Prisand/Jennifer Maloney, G. Marlyne Sexton, Judith Ann Abrams/Jamie deRoy and Addiss/Rittereiser/Carragher. At the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, 236 West 45th Street; (212) 239-6200. Running time: 2 hours.
WITH: Chita Rivera, Liana Ortiz (Little Chita Rivera/Lisa), Richard Amaro, Lloyd Culbreath, Malinda Farrington, Edgard Gallardo, Deidre Goodwin, Richard Montoya, Lainie Sakakura, Alex Sanchez and Allyson Tucker.
Pope to Bishops: Make Everyone Understand the "Evil of the Crime of Abortion"
Emphasizes abortion "is also an act of aggression against society itself"
By John-Henry Westen
VATICAN, December 5, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a meeting Saturday, with the presidents of the Latin American Episcopal Commissions for the Family and Life, Pope Benedict XVI told the gathered bishops "it is necessary to help everyone to realize the intrinsic evil of the crime of abortion which, in attacking human life at its beginnings, is also an act of aggression against society itself."
Pope Benedict explained how, "also in the field of life, new attitudes are putting this fundamental right into question. ... The elimination of the embryo is being facilitated, as is its use in the name of scientific progress which, in not recognizing its own limits and not accepting all the moral principles that enable the dignity of the person to be protected, becomes a threat to human beings themselves."
The Pope observed how "in Latin America, as elsewhere, children have the right to be born and to grow up in the bosom of a family founded on marriage," and he emphasized how children are an _expression of the wealth of a family. "Consequently," he said, "politicians and lawmakers, as servants of the social good, have the duty to defend the fundamental right to life, the fruit of God's love."
The Pope also repeated his call to pro-life action in a meeting with Denmark's new Ambassador to the Vatican, Sten Erik Malmborg Lilholt. "It is necessary to examine carefully any new social developments that emerge, even if they enjoy widespread support or appear to promise significant rewards," said the Pope. "The defense of life from conception to natural death, for example, and the stability of marriage and family life are goods that must be safeguarded in every society, however vocal the forces that may seek to undermine them. They form part of the objective moral order, and can never be discarded without gravely endangering the common good."
Addressing concerns such as artificial procreation and embryonic stem cell research, Benedict XVI continued, "Likewise, scientific and technological advances should always be evaluated according to sound ethical criteria, and nothing that threatens the inherent dignity of the human person should ever be tolerated. Only by faithful adherence to these unchanging truths can society create the conditions in which human beings may flourish and prosper."
Latin American soap operas have circled the globe and made a splash in places as far flung as Poland, Russia, and Indonesia. Their secret? Plotlines that keep the poor and underprivileged glued to their sets. Now these surprising Latin exports are part of the global cultural establishment—and taking on Hollywood heavyweights.
It was too late for Marimar. By the time she found out that her long-lost father wanted to leave her his vast fortune, she had fallen hopelessly in love with Sergio. The object of her affection was handsome, young, and rich—and the same man who had saved her from the lecherous Nicandro. But, sadly for Marimar, her lover’s intentions were not pure; Sergio was using her to get back at his own family.
Marimar’s saga, captured in the eponymous Latin American soap opera, kept millions of people around the world glued to their television sets for 148 emotionally charged episodes. Produced and originally screened in Mexico in 1994, Marimar became a global phenomenon. It helped propel Mexican pop artist Thalia Sodi, who played the lead role, to global stardom. In the Ivory Coast, it was reported that mosques issued the call to prayer early so that an enthralled population wouldn’t miss an episode. When Thalia visited the Philippines, she was received by the president and attracted crowds that rivaled those for the pope.
The success of Marimar is far from unique. Accounts of the global impact of Latin American soap operas, or telenovelas, are now legion. In post-communist Russia, the Mexican hit Los Ricos Tambien Lloran (The Rich Also Cry) became the country’s top-rated show; roughly 70 percent of the Russian population, more than 100 million people, tuned in regularly. Latin American telenovela stars often find themselves mobbed at airports in places as distant as Poland, Indonesia, and Lebanon. In postwar Bosnia, U.S. diplomats intervened to ensure that the Venezuelan show Kassandra could stay on the air in the midst of a tug of war between Bosnian Serb factions for control of the media. In Israel, the Mexican novela Mirada de Mujer (The Gaze of a Woman) was broadcast with both Hebrew and Russian subtitles to ensure that recent Russian immigrants wouldn’t miss an episode. And in the United States, the Latin American shows have become top sellers on Spanish-language networks, which have themselves outpaced English-language networks in some major markets, such as Miami and Los Angeles.
In all, about 2 billion people around the world watch telenovelas. For better or worse, these programs have attained a prominent place in the global marketplace of culture, and their success illuminates one of the back channels of globalization. For those who despair that Hollywood or the American television industry dominates and defines globalization, the telenovela phenomenon suggests that there is still room for the unexpected. Indeed, the success of telenovelas is often celebrated as an example of reverse cultural imperialism or, as one academic memorably called it, “Montezuma’s Revenge.”
But the story does not end there. Telenovelas have ridden the currents of cultural globalization to astonishing success. Now, they are experiencing the complications that come with being part of the cultural establishment. They have spawned local imitators, eager to put a familiar face on tried and true story lines. And their success is luring some of the world’s largest entertainment companies.
Tobacco and Toothpaste
It is ironic that telenovelas, one of Latin America’s most successful exports, originated in what is now its most closed society: Cuba. But, in fact, the small island-nation played a vital role in launching the genre. At the end of the 19th century, Cuba was still a Spanish colony and cigars were a lucrative export. The budding cigar makers’ guilds achieved a major improvement in working conditions by creating a new job, the lector de tabaco. A worker with a flair for the dramatic would, from a platform in the factory, read novels in installments during the tedious hours of filling, rolling, and shaping tobacco leaves. Nearly all the books were Spanish translations of European social realist novels: Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, Honoré de Balzac’s Le Père Goriot, and Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities.
With the dawn of the radio age, serialized melodrama soon took to the airwaves and became known as culebrones (serpents), an allusion to their habit of extending themselves indefinitely if they captured a big enough audience. It was only a matter of time before the “radio novel” expanded into the visual realms, and exiles from the Cuban Revolution helped transform the burgeoning taste for serialized novels into the modern telenovela. When Fidel Castro stormed to power in 1959, many Cuban producers, directors, actors, and writers scattered to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and other parts of Latin America. It was a period of cultural ferment throughout the region. “People and scripts moved around Latin America in the 50s and 60s,” says Joseph Straubhaar, a communications professor at the University of Texas. “It’s been an export genre for a long time.”
After a period of jostling, Televisa in Mexico, Venevisión in Venezuela, and Globo TV in Brazil emerged as the leading producers of telenovelas. During the 1960s, the novelas began to claim the top spots on national television stations. They replaced imported U.S. television shows and movies, turning huge swaths of the population into dedicated viewers. But it was only a partial declaration of cultural independence. U.S. companies sponsored many of the shows and sometimes even had a hand in drafting story lines and themes. Colgate tied a fabulously successful promotion to one of the first Brazilian novelas, Em Busca da Felicidade (In Search of Happiness), and the early Mexican show Senda Prohibida (Forbidden Path) was branded as “your Colgate novela.” The persistent corporate influence led many Latin American academics to deride the shows as “agents for the creation of a capitalist and consumerist international global village ... engineered by the U.S. and U.S-allied interests,” according to Marina Vujnovic, a researcher at the University of Iowa.
Still, telenovelas were always distinct from U.S. soap operas, and most observers now see them as cultural hybrids. Unlike their North American counterparts, telenovelas have a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Most air daily for a period of between four and six months and culminate in a climactic episode that rights all wrongs. (In comparison, the U.S. soap opera Guiding Light first aired in 1952 and is now the longest story ever told on television.) A successful show might spawn a spinoff or sequel, but in most cases, audiences must regularly acquaint themselves with new characters and plotlines. And while U.S. soap operas air during daytime hours with women as their target audience, Latin telenovelas are often prime time shows, aimed at the whole family.
Telenovelas share key ingredients with their North American cousins. Romance and intrigue are, of course, never in short supply. “There is always a Cinderella in a novela,” says Helena Bernardi, director of marketing and sales for Brazil’s Globo TV. Colombian telenovela producer Patricio Wills describes the genre as “a couple that wants to have a kiss and a writer who doesn’t allow them to for 200 episodes.” The physical allure of telenovela casts and the balmy locations where they film haven’t hurt either.
But the context in which the romance, intrigue, and beauty play out is distinct from the soap operas of the United States. “It’s the journey, it’s the struggles, it’s the obstacles,” says Ramón Escobar, an executive at the Spanish-language network Telemundo. And often, those obstacles are poverty, class conflict, and institutional instability, something U.S. soaps ignore. “[U.S. soaps] do not have a historical, political, or social framework, like unemployment or inflation,” says Globo’s Bernardi. Indeed, one of the leading theories for the global success of novelas is their comfort with characters who are not affluent and are sometimes even poor. The place of struggling women, in particular, is a well-worn telenovela plotline. Simplemente María (Simply Maria), a classic telenovela that has been remade in several Latin American countries, features a poor girl from the countryside who arrives in the city and struggles to make a living as a seamstress. “Simplemente María is the founding myth,” says Venezuelan telenovela writer Alberto Barrera Tyszka. “For many years most telenovelas were nothing but variations on its plot and themes.”
That focus is not surprising given the poverty that is endemic among Latin American women. Almost half of the 90 million people in the region’s female-headed households live in poverty. Women are more likely than men to fall on hard times, and they are more likely to make up the poorest of the poor. In urban areas, 48 percent of women lack their own income (only 22 percent of men do). And so characters such as Maria are often condemned by the scriptwriters to live in the most extreme poverty until a sudden twist of fate restores them to their rightful place. In many cases, the twist comes in the form of an unexpected inheritance, which is still seen as the way to get rich in most Latin American countries.
Plots that rely on such reversals of fortune resonate in cultures accustomed to economic uncertainty. Latin America is one of the more economically volatile regions in the world. Argentina’s recent history provides ample evidence that losing everything is a persistent worry, even in relatively well-off societies. During that country’s 2001 economic crisis, half the population went to bed as middle-class bank depositors and woke up all but destitute. In this environment, people rarely find succor from the government or the justice system. This institutional weakness in many parts of Latin America may explain why law and order themes—so popular among U.S. viewers—have limited appeal abroad and never took hold in telenovelas.
If novelas often draw on the harsh realities of life in parts of Latin America, their plotlines still generally devolve into sentimental fairy tales. Happy endings are all but certain. The emotion and melodrama of the genre beg the question of whether they are anything more than distractions for the disaffected. Telenovelas endure withering criticism from Latin American elites, who are often embarrassed to see them as one of the region’s most successful cultural exports. Arturo Uslar Pietri, a prominent Venezuelan novelist and essayist, expressed what many Latin American elites still feel when he described telenovelas as “the opium of the poor.”
Condemning the genre as a whole, however, glosses over what a tailored commodity it has become. As scripts and templates were swapped and sold within Latin America, local tastes and tolerances came into play. Over time, national producers developed their own distinctive styles that departed from or modified the traditional story lines. Mexican novelas became known for their melodrama. Brazilian novelas leaned toward hard-hitting social realism and even tackled contentious social issues, including biotechnology, sex, drug use, and ethnic relations. It was a style that didn’t always go over well in other parts of the region. The edgy Globo TV novela Angel Malo (Bad Angel) underwent a thorough cleansing before appearing on screens in far more conservative Chile.
As the Latin networks hit their stride in the 1960s and 1970s, they began exporting content to the growing and relatively affluent Latino population in the United States—the richest Hispanics in the world. The U.S.-based network Univision, for example, has imported hundreds of telenovelas from Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. In 2004 alone, it paid $105 million in licensing fees to the Mexican network Televisa. For its part, Brazil’s Globo TV has exported dozens of novelas to networks in Portugal. Culturally, the success of Latin telenovelas with Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking communities was not surprising. But what happened next was a twist worthy of a novela script. Somehow, the often sneered-at melodramas leapt out of their cultural zones and raced around the globe.
Conquering the East
When communism fell, television executives in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union faced a crisis. For decades, turning the television dial brought viewers nothing but state-approved programming. In other words, they had no shows that people actually liked to watch. Nor did these former communist-controlled networks have the budgets to purchase U.S. or European programming wholesale.
The makers of telenovelas saw an opportunity. “Telenovela producers were visionary enough to offer [eastern European] stations very good deals,” says Patrick Jucaud, general manager of DISCOP, an organization that promotes telenovelas in the region. “These stations didn’t have any money … and Latin American companies were the first ones to help them get started.” The quality was relatively high given the price. Telenovelas, after all, attract the top acting talent in Latin America. Rather than being a résumé builder, as is the case with American soaps, a telenovela spot is often the apex of a Latin American actor’s career. And recurring themes—rising from poverty, coping with economic hardship—seemed to resonate in countries struggling to emerge from state socialism. “When you’re looking at countries that are rapidly industrializing, rapidly urbanizing, with all the attendant stresses and strains on the family and personal relationships, something produced in Brazil or Mexico may be a lot more relevant to Russians in the 90s than an American sitcom, which is frothy and all about L.A.,” says Straubhaar, the University of Texas professor.
Telenovelas conquered Russia in a matter of weeks. Discussing the early success of The Rich Also Cry, the Moscow Times wrote “when the film started, streets became desolate, crowds gathered in stores selling TV sets, tractors stopped in the fields, and guns fell silent on the Azerbaijani-Armenian front.” Without breaking a sweat, Los Ricos outperformed the imported U.S. soap Santa Barbara, which ran at the same time in much of Russia. Central and eastern Europe also fell to the novela charm. A Escrava Isaura (Isaura, the Slave), a historical Brazilian telenovela about the slave trade, received top honors in Poland. In some cases, telenovelas even sparked civic activism. Townspeople in the Serbian town of Kucevo—so overwrought that they hurdled the boundary between reality and fantasy—drafted a letter to the Venezuelan government pleading the case of the title character in the hit show Kassandra. In the Czech Republic, restaurants that did not have televisions reportedly emptied out when the Venezuelan show Esmeralda aired.
This large-scale expansion into central and eastern Europe represented a new leap forward for the industry. And as international revenue poured in, production at the leading studios became more lavish. In 1995, Brazil’s Globo TV—which claims to have sold telenovelas to more than 120 countries—opened a brand new facility with Hollywood-quality technology. High-end Globo episodes can now cost as much as $100,000. The quality of the programs produced by the telenovela powerhouses has become a principal selling point.
The realization that telenovelas could succeed beyond their cultural spheres ramped up competition in the industry. Production companies that once focused on their national markets found themselves in competition for foreign-market share. Lesser-known telenovela producers dove into the export market in search of fast money, leading to occasional charges of unfair pricing and “dumping” of content. Brazilian and Mexican leaders Globo TV and Televisa, for example, were startled when Argentine and Colombian novelas met with international success.
Some themes covered in telenovelas, to be sure, have fallen flat outside of Latin America. The show Clase 406, for example, touched on issues including drugs and rape. “We could never put it on the air in [eastern Europe]—never. We really tried and we couldn’t,” said Claudia Sahab, Televisa’s director of sales for Europe, at a recent industry seminar. The steamy sex scenes in some novelas have roused the censors in more conservative countries, forcing studios to produce edited versions. Program executives in Indonesia pulled the popular show Esmeralda off the air because a particularly devious character bore the name of the prophet Muhammad’s daughter.
Some observers of the industry worry that shows deemed “too local” have been sanitized so as not to risk international revenue streams. But for the major telenovela producers, the domestic market is still the main course, and export revenue is gravy. “[Telenovela producers] get their investment back quickly on the domestic market which allows them to make money on the international markets,” says Thomas Tufte, a European academic who studies the industry. The most serious challenge to the dominance of Latin telenovelas is not watered-down content but the hungry new players entering the market.
The Price of Success
“Local always wins,” is a mantra of the entertainment industry, and producers in eastern Europe, Russia, and Asia are eager to prove it. Whereas five years ago overseas networks gobbled up ready-made telenovelas, many are now dropping that business model in favor of developing their own local productions for export. The Philippine network ABS-CBN, for example, exported its own telenovela-style dramas to Cambodia, Cameroon, Kenya, and Malaysia in 2004. Taiwanese novelas—often called “chinovelas”—have had success throughout Asia and have been particularly popular in the Philippines, where Spanish-language novelas had long ruled. “Now we have something to compare the Spanish novelas to,” a Philippine professor told the local press. “These new shows deal with conflicts that Filipinos can relate to, like going out with friends and getting into trouble.”
Some small networks in eastern Europe have opted to simply hire away scriptwriters from Latin America. Alicia Carvajal, who worked as a telenovela writer and director for almost 20 years, was stunned when the Croatian network HTV offered her a job. “Why me?” she asked. “I don’t even speak Croatian!” But her success with the hit show La Duda (Doubt) convinced Croatian executives that she did speak the international language of melodrama. And so Carvajal, still based in Mexico City, went to work on Villa Maria, a show touching on the fall of communism in the former Yugoslavia. It aired simultaneously in Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia and has already netted several honors.
In some cases, established Latin American producers enter into coproductions with local studios in an effort to foster local influences without forfeiting profits entirely. Brazil’s Globo, for example, has reportedly considered forging ties with Indian producers, creating the possibility of an alliance between the developing world’s two largest entertainment industries. In other cases, outside production companies pay licensing fees for the rights to a script, which can be adapted to the tastes of the local audience. The Colombian megahit Betty la Fea (Betty the Ugly), for example, caught the eye of Michael Grindon, president of Sony Pictures Television International. He persuaded Sony’s Hindi channel to license the program and air a local version. According to Nyay Bhushan, an Indian correspondent for the Hollywood Reporter, the remake “has spawned a merchandising and marketing bonanza.” Sony also teamed up with a Russian studio to produce Poor Anastasia, based loosely on Betty la Fea.
Sony’s emergence as a player in the telenovela world heralds the arrival of the entertainment industry’s big guns—and a potentially important shift of cultural flows. “The biggest and most important producers in the world have become interested in the telenovela,” says Carlos Bardasano, vice president of the Cisneros Group and president of Venevisión Continental. No longer willing to see Latin American production studios reap all the profits, major conglomerates have begun to produce their own telenovelas. In 2003, European giant FremantleMedia teamed up with NBC-owned Telemundo to film La Ley de Silencio (The Law of Silence) in Houston. Telemundo, the second largest Spanish-language network in the United States, has decided against importing shows from Latin America (as its competitor Univision does). “Now [telenovelas] move north to south,” says Ramón Escobar, the Telemundo executive. “That’s creating a tremendous amount of competition in the international market.” The network is banking on the multinational flavor of its shows—it uses actors from all over Latin America—and the glimpses of Latino life in the United States that it can offer. Another hint that the cultural currents may be shifting is the success of ABC’s Desperate Housewives in parts of Latin America. Argentine and Chilean networks are vying to make local versions of its provocative premise, and a half dozen other regional networks may soon follow.
For the moment, U.S. and European media conglomerates are still minor characters. Telemundo’s novelas, for example, have not yet seriously challenged the Mexican novelas shown on Univision. Globo TV’s reputation as the world leader in high-quality telenovelas is undiminished. But the industry is changing fast, and the entrance of the world’s media giants into the fray may soon test the theory that the global appeal of telenovelas derives from the economic and cultural environment in which they were born. Is there really something unique about the Latin American experience—or can their success be duplicated by Hollywood studios? Will the Latin American networks maintain their hard-won empire, or will the rich relatives from abroad snatch away their success? Will the torrid affair between novelas and Czechs, Filipinos, and Russians continue? Or will the long-distance relationship fall apart? The story, as always, is to be continued.
Ibsen Martínez is a Venezuelan columnist and playwright.
Tommy Brown, right, is shown with his sister, left, Elizabeth, and his father, Tom Brown, center.
he shoebox of memories was meant for his wedding day.
Ann Brown is leafing through the relics from her stepson's life now instead: Gator football tickets. Pictures of a boy in a baseball uniform with his lucky number, 13, on the back. Crayola pictures of race cars. Construction-paper Valentine's Day cards with "I love you, Dad" scrawled in a child's handwriting.
"I figured these little things, someday, would mean something," she said.
Tommy Brown, a student at the University of Florida's School of Building Construction, was beaten to death after the Florida-Georgia football game in Jacksonville Oct. 29. He was 23.
Brown had been watching the football game at the Jacksonville Landing with friends, but became separated from them after the game. Footage from a surveillance video camera at the nearby CSX building shows two men beating him, and three preventing him from escaping.
Five Jacksonville-area men were arrested in connection with the attack, and three have been formally charged with second-degree murder.
In his hometown of Merritt Island and in Gainesville, Tommy Brown's friends, parents, teachers and fraternity brothers are sifting through their memories of him, hoping the pieces of his life will help them come to grips with his death.
No place like home
Merritt Island is a close-knit community on a narrow swath of land between the Indian and Banana rivers, and between Cocoa and Cocoa Beach in Brevard County.
It's steeped in memories of Tommy and his ancestors, who helped settle the area as covered-wagon pioneers, said his mom, Kay Brown.
His father, Tom Brown, teaches Advanced Placement and honors biology at Merritt Island High School, where Tommy graduated with honors. His mother owns a popular barbecue restaurant.
Tommy Brown embraced the closeness. He was easygoing, thoughtful, bright and warm as a sixth-grader, said Lavonne Cussen, who taught him at Tropical Elementary School.
"When I would see him at church with his mother, he would always come over with a big hug," Cussen said. "And he wouldn't just small-talk. Sometimes, you meet students outside of school, and they freeze. With Tommy, it was more like meeting a friend."
Thomas Vaughan, who taught Tommy's honors chemistry class in high school, said he was "one of the better students I had the pleasure of teaching."
"He was a good joker, but he knew when to settle down and get his work done," Vaughan said. "As soon as class started, he was ready to go. I never remember him coming in unprepared."
That solid work ethic tempered by a streak of mischief defined Tommy's life, said Shepp Lawrence, a longtime family friend who served as a pastor at their church, Merritt Island Presbyterian, for several years.
"His parents divorced maybe 15 years ago," Lawrence said. "When his mom needed help, Tommy was there. She could count on him. He had this work ethic about him. I remember seeing him up there at different parties in the community or at the church when she'd be catering, just pitching in and helping out, and that's how I remember him. You can't separate him from his mother."
A special bond
Kay Brown's Island Barbeque is a dark, comfortable place that stays busy most of the hours it's open.
Tommy worked there through high school and during breaks from college. Until the weekend her son died, Kay usually pulled 60-hour weeks.
Kay returned to work last week. She said the memories are everywhere: How she'd cook him Porterhouse steaks, manicotti and collard greens when he'd come home from school. How he was confident enough as a pre-teen to hold her hand while walking through the mall, and confident enough as an older teen to drive a pink Volkswagen Beetle to school. How, as a curly-haired baby, he "just seemed to understand" all the things she'd try to teach him about how to live a good life.
He loved to build things with Legos as a little boy, and when he first took the engine out of his pink VW later on, "I thought, 'This is just a big Lego to him,' " Kay said.
He loved their family trips, too. They'd planned to go to Jackson Hole, Wyo., after Christmas.
On a trip they took to Costa Rica, Kay remembers walking into town with Tommy, and pausing at a house where a big German shepherd barked through a fence.
"I edged back and got a stick, and kind of got back behind Tommy," Kay said. "Tommy says, 'Mom, what are you doing?' I said, 'I'm standing in between you and that big dog, so if it gets through that fence, it gets me first. He said, 'Oh, Mom, get up here.' I said, 'That's what mothers do. We protect our children.'
"I just couldn't protect him from this evil."
She said she prays for strength and peace. She also returns to the memories, including one of a misty, magical day that almost didn't happen.
Earlier this fall, Kay realized she hadn't seen her son for a while. She planned to visit on a Thursday, but she was busy and it was rainy when the day arrived.
She almost didn't go.
She got in the car anyway, and drove to Gainesville, where she and Tommy drove to Lake Wauburg for the afternoon.
"The rain had let up, and we just talked about how his life was going, and how he was feeling about things, his dreams for the future. He told me how happy he was in his studies. We just had the most warm, sharing time together. And we happened upon this flock of 12 wild turkeys. A deer ran by. It was almost magical. Then we went out to dinner, and then I left. And that was the last time I saw him."
Family memories
The memories at Tom and Ann Brown's house on the Indian River aren't contained to the shoebox.
Tommy helped his dad build just about everything around the house, from the intricately designed birdhouse to a wooden bench on the dock designed with slopes and curves to make it more comfortable.
They remember how Tommy always wanted to help, actually getting angry as a child when Ann didn't wait for him to mash the potatoes.
"He was this big, macho guy, but he always liked helping in the kitchen," Ann Brown said.
They remember his smile the most, the cat-who-ate-the-canary grin that came when he was building something, driving his moped or riding his wakeboard - or terrorizing his little sister, Elizabeth.
"It was always 'He's touching me,' or 'She's looking at me,' or just chasing each other around and around and around the table," Tom Brown said. "They never really buried the hatchet. Eventually, they just sort of put it in the closet."
But even when they fought, they were always buddies, Tom said. At 18 months apart, they were more like twins than like brother and sister.
Ann and Tom have a little girl together, Alexandria, 3. She reminds them of Tommy a little bit, with her curly hair, quick mind and agreeable nature.
Tommy was her favorite, they said, and she's starting to realize he's gone.
Feeling the loss
Tommy Brown applied to only one school, his father said, and he's always loved Gainesville.
His favorite place in town might have been in the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house.
Beta Theta Pi voted him brother of the year last year for being the kind of guy who would smile while others complained about busy schedules, then quietly work five nights a week as the closing manager at Pizza Hut, and fix the fraternity's ice machine when he got home.
"He was a hard worker, but he never seemed stressed," said Steve Brotman, one of the fraternity's vice presidents. "Whether he was working or doing homework or going out to the bars with his friends, he never seemed unhappy. He was a rock for us."
When he did take a break, his friends remember him working on his Nissan sports car in the fraternity's basketball court, or staying up late to have heart-to-hearts with friends.
Aaron Simon remembers Tom, as his college friends called him, dropping everything to talk when he was having a rough time one night.
"We had this two-hour conversation about life, and it took my mind off of everything," Simon said. "He helped pick me up and get me excited about life again."
Brotman said those late-night conversations were a sort of trademark for Tom.
"He would stay up all night, talking," Brotman said. "It didn't even seem like he wanted to sleep."
Right after it happened, everyone in the house walked around like zombies, Simon said.
It's getting better now, he said. But still, the memories can overwhelm.
"At dinner, when we tell the new guys stories, you'll see someone stop the story and just get a blank look on their face, and you know his name popped into their head," Simon said.
Slowly, they've started to relish the memories.
An emergency meeting called right after Tom's death started formally, with fraternity president Steve Greene standing before the group to share information.
Then, people started sharing memories, and the meeting moved to the basketball court, where Tom used to work on his car. They stood in a circle, talking and crying and praying.
"It was such a genuine, great experience," said John Webermeier, Tom's little brother in the house. "We'd call it a real brotherhood moment."
And at his funeral, they found a way to bring him back to life.
They tended to his family, hugging his mom and sister and patting his dad on the back, ignoring their own pain to help someone else.
Just like he would've done.
Ann Brown said she, too, likes to think that the memories keep Tommy alive.
In addition to the memory box, she's saving every newspaper story about Tommy to give to Alexandria when she's older.
"This way, she'll understand," Ann said. "What I like to remember now is that there were so many happy times before this. That's how he will live."
Kay Brown, the mother of slain University of Florida student, Thomas Oliver Brown, 23, attends an arraignment Friday at the Duval County Courthouse for three of the five men arrested in her son's murder.
Prosecutors Release Video Of Student's Fatal Beating
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Hours after the annual Florida-Georgia football game ended and less than two blocks from the Jacksonville Landing, where thousands were partying, 23-year-old Thomas Brown was brutally beaten. Brown had no pulse when rescue personnel arrived and was pronounced dead a short time later.
In addition to witness information that allowed police to catch five suspects in the beating as they headed to Jacksonville Beach, investigators said the attack was caught by a CSX security camera.
Channel 4's Jennifer Waugh obtained that video from the state attorney's office Tuesday, screening it, frame by frame.
Brown was separated from his fraternity brothers and found himself alone just after 10 p.m. Oct. 29 at the end of Water Street. Perhaps knowing he was in danger, the video shows Brown trying to get into the locked CSX building, then he cornered. He was beaten until he was unconscious.
As recorded by the surveillance camera inside the CSX lobby, the attack lasted all of 20 seconds. The video showed at least two men separately attacking Brown, his head jerking back. It ends with Brown on the ground, one of the suspects reaching down to either touch him or take something off his body.
Brown was rushed to Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center, but could not be saved.
Last week, three suspects -- Alex Canzano, 21, Mark Foss, 18, and Jeremy Lane, 21 -- were formally charged with second-degree murder. Two other men also remain in jail on open counts of murder. All five are being held without bond.
he shoebox of memories was meant for his wedding day.
Surveillance Video Shows Last Minutes Of UF Student's Life
Still Images From Security Camera
