Month: December 2020

Bob Dylan’s entire catalog of songs, which reaches back 60 years is being acquired by Universal Music Publishing Group.  The catalog contains 600 song copyrights including “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” and “Tangled Up In Blue.”The influence of Dylan’s body of work may only be matched by that of the Beatles.  Financial terms were not disclosed Monday, but the catalog may be the most prized in the music industry. Four years ago, when Michael Jackson’s estate sold the remaining half-share that it owned in the artist’s catalog, it fetched $750 million.”Brilliant and moving, inspiring and beautiful, insightful and provocative, his songs are timeless—whether they were written more than half a century ago or yesterday,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music Group, in a prepared statement.  Dylan’s songs have been recorded more than 6,000 times, by various artists from dozens of countries, cultures and music genres, including the Jimi Hendrix version of “All Along The Watchtower.”The transaction’s announcement comes a few weeks after the singer-songwriter’s musings about anti-Semitism and unpublished song lyrics sold at auction for a total of $495,000.Dylan, first entered the public consciousness with New York City’s Greenwich Village folk scene during the early 1960s. When he brought an electric guitar on stage in 1965, he split the music community in what was considered a radical departure for an artist.  Dylan then produced three albums back to back in just over a year that changed the course of rock ‘n’ roll that decade, starting with “Bringing It All Back Home.”Dylan has sold more than 125 million records globally. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, the first songwriter to receive such a distinction. 
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A plea from Dr. Anthony Fauci for people to “wear a mask” to slow the spread of the coronavirus tops a Yale Law School librarian’s list of the most notable quotes of 2020.
The list assembled by Fred Shapiro, an associate director at the library, is an annual update to “The Yale Book of Quotations,” which was first published in 2006.
Also on the list is “I can’t breathe,” the plea George Floyd made repeatedly to police officers holding him down on a Minneapolis street corner. Several quotes from the presidential campaign appear including Joe Biden telling a student: “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.”
Shapiro said he picks quotes that are not necessarily admirable or eloquent, but rather because they are famous or particularly revealing of the spirit of the times.The List 
1. “Wear a mask.” — Dr. Anthony Fauci, CNN interview, May 21.
2. “I can’t breathe.” — George Floyd, plea to police officer, Minneapolis, May 25.
3. “One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” President Donald Trump, referring to the coronavirus in remarks at an African American History Month reception at the White House, Feb. 27.
4. “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” — Trump, in remarks at a White House Coronavirus Task Force news briefing, April 23.
5. “I will never lie to you. You have my word on that.” — White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, at her first press briefing, May 1.
6. “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, statement dictated to granddaughter Clara Spera, September.
7. “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.” — Joe Biden, in an interview with “The Breakfast Club” radio program, May 22.
8. “The science should not stand in the way of this.” — McEnany, referring to school reopenings in a news briefing, July 16.
9. “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.” — Biden, in a remark to student at campaign event, Hampton, N.H., Feb. 9.
10. “We are all Lakers today.” — Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers, in a remark to reporters after the death of Kobe Bryant, Orlando, Fla., Jan. 26.
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Against the backdrop of a pandemic’s blight and wounds from an acrimonious election, a group of acclaimed actors on Sunday will gather online for a reading of a religious text with remarkable relevance to the current moment: the Book of Job.Audience members may be drawn to the production by the casting of Bill Murray as Job, the righteous man tested by the loss of his health, home and children, but the real star is the format. Staged on Zoom, it’s aimed at Republican-leaning Knox County, Ohio, with participation from locals including people of faith, and designed to spark meaningful conversations across spiritual and political divides.After the performance, a half-dozen people from the area will be asked to share their perspective on the ancient story in a virtual discussion. It’s then thrown open to others, and ultimately to some of the tens of thousands of people signed in, no matter their location.  The structure of a dramatic reading followed by open-ended dialogue is a fixture of Theater of War Productions, the company behind the event. Artistic director Bryan Doerries is an alumnus of Kenyon College in Knox County and chose the area to focus on bridging rifts opened by the election and sharing the pain of a pandemic that’s tied to more than 281,000 U.S. deaths.By using Job’s story “as a vocabulary for a conversation, the hope is that we can actually engender connection, healing,” Doerries said. “People can hear each other’s truths even if they don’t agree with them.”The performance is headlined by Murray and features other noted actors such as Frankie Faison and David Strathairn. The cast includes Matthew Starr, mayor of the Knox County town of Mount Vernon, who will play Job’s accuser. He said the timing is perfect for the moment the country is going through, given the pandemic, the heated election and racial justice protests.  His hope is that the event and the dialogue afterward lead to less shouting and more listening. And a good story like that of Job can do so more effectively than a new law or a new directive, by changing people’s hearts, said Starr, a Republican and supporter of President Donald Trump who founded an independent film company before going into politics.”God does not say that bad things aren’t going to happen, but He does tell us, when they do, we’re not alone,” Starr said. “That’s the hope, for me, is that we get a chance to lean into our faith, we get a chance to lean into our neighbors, we get a chance to lean into each other, our family, a little bit more.”Knox County, a largely rural community of about 62,000 residents including a medium-size Amish population, lies about an hour east of the state capital, Columbus. Despite its numerous farms, most people in the county work blue-collar manufacturing jobs at several local factories.The county, which is 97% white, is a conservative stronghold that voted for Trump by a nearly 3-1 margin in November and went overwhelmingly for him in 2016.An exception is Kenyon College, a small liberal arts school perched on a hill a few miles outside of Mount Vernon. Voters in the precincts comprising the college and the village of Gambier voted 8-1 for President-elect Joe Biden.To help prompt more locals to engage in the post-reading conversation, Doerries worked with leaders from multiple faith traditions. Among them is Marc Bragin, Jewish chaplain at Kenyon, who said he hopes the experience can help people who share bigger values look beyond their differences.Bragin, administrator of a project backed by the nonprofit Interfaith Youth Core that partners Kenyon students with counterparts at nearby Mount Vernon Nazarene University, said he’s hopeful they will attend the discussion and take away an important lesson: “Surround yourself with people who aren’t like you,” he said, “and you can have such a bigger impact on your community, your world.”Pastor LJ Harry, who has also been recruiting people for the virtual conversation, does not believe Knox County is as divided as other places in the country. The police chaplain and pastor at the Apostolic Christian Church in Mount Vernon said most in the area are united in their support for Trump and for law enforcement, with protests after the death of George Floyd spirited but peaceful.Harry said the community’s biggest point of contention is over mask-wearing, with many resisting Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s statewide mandate. He likened Knox County’s need for healing to that of a hospital patient who has left intensive care but remains in a step-down unit, and said he hopes the performance will drive home God’s central role in Job’s story.”That’s the message I’m hoping our church family, our community, hears,” Harry said. “God has this in control, even though it feels like it’s out of control.”In the biblical tale, God allows for Job’s massive losses as a means to share broader truths about suffering. The story ends with the restoration of what was taken from him, plus more.Theater of War held its first Job reading in Joplin, Missouri, a year after a tornado killed more than 160 people there in 2011. The company has performed more than 1,700 readings worldwide, harnessing Greek drama and other resonant texts to evoke deeper dialogues about an array of issues.Doerries acknowledged that his company’s readings always have the potential to fall flat if a genuine back-and-forth doesn’t develop. Still, he’s betting that Sunday’s event will create space for people from different backgrounds, in Ohio and beyond, to engage with each other.  “Our hope is not that there’s going to be a group hug at the end of the thing, or that we’re going to resolve all our political differences, but that we can remind people of our basic humanity…what it requires to live up to basic values such as treating our neighbor as ourselves,” Doerries said.
 
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Christmas tradition won out over the coronavirus in Prague on Saturday with a COVID-19-compliant, socially distanced St. Nicholas giving out presents to excited children.Under normal circumstances, St. Nicholas, a bearded man accompanied by the devil and an angel, would give children in the Czech Republic presents in exchange for a song or a poem.But with coronavirus measures around the world throwing up obstacles to festive celebrations, Prague-based circus company Cirk La Putyka opted for a drive-through solution.”Over the past nine months we have been looking for different ways to approach the audience,” company director Rosta Novak told AFP.”This is just another way to do that at a time when theaters can’t play and bands cannot perform,” he added.Members of circus company Cirk La Putyka dressed as devils entertain people during their drive-through performance, Dec. 5, 2020, in Prague.In line with tradition, cars first drove through “hell,” with devils performing acrobatic tricks and fire shows.Then they proceeded to “heaven” with angels and finally to St. Nicholas himself.The children received presents at the final stop, many of them sticking their heads out of windows to relish the experience.Driving a van full of children, Ondrej Prachar said they had all been thrilled.”It was absolutely perfect,” he said, adding that it had also been a tad less frightening than the traditional version, when children are sometimes scared by the idea of the devil carrying a bag in which he puts naughty kids.The St. Nicholas tradition dates to the Middle Ages, and St. Nicholas Day is celebrated in many countries.Born in Turkey around 280, St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors, tradesmen, pilgrims and children, handed out a sizable portion of his wealthy parents’ property to the poor after their death.
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After interviewing Dan Quayle in Arizona for his documentary on the vice presidency, filmmaker Jeffrey Roth was rushing to the airport to catch a flight to Wyoming, where he had an appointment with Dick Cheney the next morning.He had little time to spare. Suddenly, traffic halted for a motorcade to pass. It was Vice President Mike Pence and his entourage.Roth appreciates the irony. At least, he can now. He made his flight, “President in Waiting” is finished and set to debut on CNN Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern.He interviewed all six living vice presidents and four presidents about a job that for much of American history was considered a joke, an appendage to government with few real duties other than being available to become the world’s most powerful figure at a moment’s notice.”Ben Franklin, when the Constitution was written, said, ‘we should refer to the vice president as ‘his superfluous excellency,'” President-elect Joe Biden, who served eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president, says in the film.Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (2008 photo)Roth’s doc includes several similar quotes, including the classic by John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s first vice president, who said the job was “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” Cheney said Gerald Ford described it as the worst nine months of his life and urged him not to become George W. Bush’s running mate.So why would Roth want to devote three years of his life to making it?”For whatever reason, I was always fascinated by the office of the vice presidency and I thought there was an intriguing story behind it,” he said.Achieving access was his most important task. Two or three veeps wouldn’t do. He needed them all, and each wanted to know the others were participating. Walter Mondale was his first interview; Al Gore and Pence took a year and a half to set up, he said.Ultimately, his only scheduling failure was Donald Trump.Roth also didn’t want to make the type of film that would unspool in a high school social studies class, putting all the students to sleep.”It’s a tough bunch of people to squeeze comedy out of,” said Courtney Sexton, senior vice president of CNN Films.But it has moments, like when Obama and Biden both struggle to edit the language of some of their conversations for public consumption. Both Cheney and his boss, George W. Bush, tell a funny story about their dogs clashing at Camp David.Cheney is a revelation in the film, considering he knows he was considered the Darth Vader of the Bush administration. He’s engaging and entertaining, with a keen awareness of his own role and the job’s spot in history.His insider look at what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, as well as Biden’s description of the deliberations before the killing of Osama bin Laden, are particularly illuminating.Walter Mondale told Jimmy Carter he’d only become his running mate if given a meaningful role in the administration and an office in the White House.The film also describes the role of Mondale and his president, Jimmy Carter, in essentially creating the modern vice presidency. It’s a turning point many viewers are likely unaware of; Roth said it was news to him.Mondale, a Minnesota senator, knew how Hubert Humphrey felt about his treatment at the hands of President Lyndon Johnson, and “President in Waiting” contains audio of Johnson essentially treating Humphrey as a lapdog. He told Carter he’d only become his running mate if given a meaningful role in the administration and an office in the White House. He composed a memo outlining his ideas that’s still referenced today.Vice presidents lost their invisibility. Biden talks about being in the room when key decisions are made and being copied in on internal correspondence. It’s difficult to imagine a repeat of 1945, when Harry Truman succeeded Roosevelt and didn’t know that the United States had developed an atomic bomb.Still, the limitations are visible when you listen to Bush. His vice president, Cheney, is widely considered the most powerful vice president, or close to it.”I don’t know what the definition of a powerful vice president is,” Bush says in the film. “I think people have got to recognize that the vice president is empowered by the president.”That’s also stated explicitly by Pence, whose role in the Trump administration gets little examination in the film. Whatever the modern precedent, a president can easily render the vice president’s role meaningless again.In another month, the first woman, Kamala Harris, will join the vice president’s club.Considering its title, the film spends surprisingly little time talking about the most important part of the job. No American under age 60 has any memory of a vice president suddenly elevated because of a president’s death. Ford took over upon the resignation of President Richard Nixon 46 years ago.How did that knowledge change each man’s life? How did they keep prepared for the possibility?Roth said none of the politicians had much illuminating to say on the topic.”There was not much of a story to be told there,” he said.  
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In a sign of just how much coronavirus lockdowns have affected the movie industry, Warner Bros. announced Thursday that it would make its entire roster of 2021 movies available for streaming on HBO Max in the U.S. the same day they are released in theaters.After a month on HBO Max, the movies will be shown only in theaters.Some of the upcoming titles include The Matrix 4, Godzilla vs. Kong and In the Heights.The move may have been sparked by the disappointing performance of the action-thriller Tenet, which was released in theaters in September.Many of the nation’s movie theaters reopened in late summer, but not in the key markets of New York and Los Angeles. The Associated Press reported that since their reopening, 60% of theaters have closed again.“No one wants films back on the big screen more than we do,” Ann Sarnoff, chief executive of WarnerMedia Studios, said in a statement. “We know new content is the lifeblood of theatrical exhibition, but we have to balance this with the reality that most theaters in the U.S. will likely operate at reduced capacity throughout 2021.”Warner Bros., the second-biggest studio in terms of market share, called the move a “unique one-year plan.”
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Even in Africa’s most vibrant cinematic market,Ife stands out. The tale of love between two Nigerian women is so controversial the filmmakers scrapped plans to release it locally.  VOA‘s Anita Powell has more from Johannesburg.Videographer: Zaheer Cassim, Producer:  Zeheer Cassim, Marcus Harton
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Rafer Johnson, who won the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics and helped subdue Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin in 1968, died Wednesday. He was 86.He died at his home in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, according to family friend Michael Roth. No cause of death was announced.Johnson was among the world’s greatest athletes from 1955 through his Olympic triumph in 1960, winning a national decathlon championship in 1956 and a silver medal at the Melbourne Olympics that same year.His Olympic career included carrying the U.S. flag at the 1960 Games and lighting the torch at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to open the 1984 Games. Johnson set world records in the decathlon three different times amid a fierce rivalry with his UCLA teammate C.K. Yang of Taiwan and Vasily Kuznetsov of the former Soviet Union.Johnson won a gold medal at the Pan American Games in 1955 while competing in just his fourth decathlon. At a welcome home meet afterward in Kingsburg, California, he set his first world record, breaking the mark of his childhood hero, two-time Olympic champion Bob Mathias.Devoted to KennedyOn June 5, 1968, Johnson was working on Kennedy’s presidential campaign when the Democratic candidate was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Johnson joined former NFL star Rosey Grier and journalist George Plimpton in apprehending Sirhan Sirhan moments after he shot Kennedy, who died the next day.”I knew he did everything he could to take care of Uncle Bobby at his most vulnerable moment,” Kennedy’s niece, Maria Shriver, said by phone. “His devotion to Uncle Bobby was pure and real. He had protected his friend. Even after Uncle Bobby’s death he stayed close.”Johnson later called the assassination “one of the most devastating moments in my life.”Born Rafer Lewis Johnson on August 18, 1934, in Hillsboro, Texas, he moved to California in 1945 with his family, including his brother Jim, a future NFL Hall of Fame inductee. Although some sources cite Johnson’s birth year as 1935, the family has said that is incorrect.They eventually settled in Kingsburg, near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley. It was less than 25 miles from Tulare, the hometown of Mathias, who would win the decathlon at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics and prove an early inspiration to Johnson.Johnson was a standout student and played football, basketball, baseball and track and field at Kingsburg Joint Union High. At 6-foot-3 and 200-plus pounds, he looked more like a linebacker than a track and field athlete.FILE – This Sept. 6, 1960, photo shows the top three finishers in the decathlon of the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics at Olympic Stadium in Rome: Rafer Johnson, Yang Chuan and Vasili Kuznetsov.During his junior year of high school, Johnson’s coach took him to Tulare to watch Mathias compete in a decathlon, an experience Johnson later said spurred him to take up the grueling 10-event sport.As a freshman at UCLA, where he received academic and athletic scholarships, Johnson won gold at the 1955 Pan Am Games and set a world record of 7,985 points.After winning the national decathlon championship in 1956, Johnson was the favorite for the Olympics in Melbourne but pulled a stomach muscle and strained a knee while training. He was forced to withdraw from the long jump, for which he had also qualified, but tried to gut out the decathlon.Johnson’s teammate Milt Campbell, a virtual unknown, gave the performance of his life, finishing with 7,937 points to win gold, 350 ahead of Johnson.It was the last time Johnson would ever come in second.Johnson, Yang and Kuznetzov dominated the record books between the 1956 and 1960 Olympics.Kuznetzov, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist whom the Soviets called their “man of steel,” broke Johnson’s world record in May 1958 with 8,016 points.Later that year at a U.S.-Soviet dual meet in Moscow, Johnson beat Kuznetzov by 405 points and reclaimed the world record with 8,302 points. Johnson won over the Soviet audience with his gutsy performance in front of what had been a hostile crowd.A car accident and subsequent back injury kept Johnson out of competition during 1959, but he was healthy again for the Olympics in 1960.Final event dramaYang was his primary competition in Rome. Yang won six of the first nine events, but Johnson led by 66 points going into the 1,500 meters, the decathlon’s final event.Johnson had to finish within 10 seconds of Yang, which was no small feat as Yang was much stronger running at distance than Johnson.Johnson finished just 1.2 seconds and six yards behind Yang to win the gold. Yang earned silver and Kuznetsov took bronze.At UCLA, Johnson played basketball for coach John Wooden, becoming a starter on the 1958-59 team. In 1958, he was elected student body president, the third Black to hold the office in school history.”He stood for what he believed in and he did it in a very classy way with grace and dignity,” Olympic champion swimmer Janet Evans said by phone.Evans last saw Johnson, who attended her 2004 wedding, at a luncheon in his honor in May 2019.”We were all there to fete him and he just didn’t want to be in the spotlight,” she said. “That was one of the things I loved about him. He didn’t want credit.”Johnson retired from competition after the Rome Olympics. He began acting in movies, including appearances in “Wild in the Country” with Elvis Presley, “None But the Brave” with Frank Sinatra and the 1989 James Bond film “License to Kill.” He worked briefly as a TV sportscaster before becoming a vice president at Continental Telephone in 1971.FILE – Rafer Johnson joins thousands at Piedmont Park to support the fight against HIV/AIDS at the 28th annual Atlanta AIDS Walk & 5K Run, Oct. 21, 2018, in Atlanta.In 1984, Johnson lit the Olympic flame for the Los Angeles Games. He took the torch from Gina Hemphill, granddaughter of Olympic great Jesse Owens, who ran it into the Coliseum.”Standing there and looking out, I remember thinking, ‘I wish I had a camera,’ ” Johnson said. “My hair was standing straight up on my arm. Words really seem inadequate.”Throughout his life, Johnson was widely known for his humanitarian efforts.He served on the organizing committee of the first Special Olympics in Chicago in 1968, working with founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Johnson founded California Special Olympics the following year at a time when positive role models for the intellectually and physically disabled were rare.”Rafer really paved the path for many of us to understand the responsibilities that come with being a successful athlete and the number of lives you can impact and change,” Evans said.’An extraordinary man’Maria Shriver recalled meeting Johnson for the first time at age 10 or 11 through her mother, Eunice.”He and I joked that I’ve been in love with him ever since,” she said. “He really was an extraordinary man, such a loving, gracious, elegant, humble man who handled his success in such a beautiful way and stayed so true to himself throughout his life.”Peter Ueberroth, who chose Johnson to light the Olympic torch in 1984, called him “just one great person, a marvelous human being.”Johnson worked for the Peace Corps, March of Dimes, Muscular Dystrophy Association and American Red Cross. In 2016, he received the UCLA Medal, the university’s highest award for extraordinary accomplishments. The school’s track is named for Johnson and his wife, Betsy.His children, Jenny Johnson Jordan and Josh Johnson, were athletes themselves. Jenny was a beach volleyball player who competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and is on the coaching staff of UCLA’s beach volleyball team. Josh competed in javelin at UCLA, where he was an All-American.Besides his wife of 49 years and children, he is survived by son-in-law Kevin Jordan and four grandchildren.
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Poverty, drugs, alcohol, frequent disappearances of young women and the absence of law enforcement are all issues plaguing the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation in South Dakota. But women there are trying to make the future better and brighter as they work to create “a girl society” that is aimed at helping girls aged 10 to 18.
Camera: Vladimir Badikov; Video Editor: Matvey Kulakov; Produced by: Joy Wagner 
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People magazine has named George Clooney, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Selena Gomez and Regina King as the “2020 People of the Year.”
The magazine revealed its list Wednesday morning as part of a year-end double issue with four covers. The four will be celebrated for their positive impact in the world during a challenging 2020.US actor and activist George Clooney speaks at a press conference about South Sudan in London, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019. The largest multinational oil consortium in South Sudan is “proactively participating in the destruction” of the country, the…Clooney, Fauci, Gomez and King will be separately featured on the magazine covers of the issue, which is out Friday.
Clooney has received some Oscar buzz for his upcoming film “The Midnight Sky,” but the actor was also in spotlight for his advocacy work. He donated $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative in wake of George Floyd’s death and $1 million for COVID-19 relief efforts in Italy, London and Los Angeles.
As the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Fauci provided steady guidance during the turbulent pandemic. As the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he has been one of the nation’s leading sources of information about the fight against COVID-19.FILE – Selena Gomez .Gomez released her chart-topping album “Rare” and hosted the cooking show “Selena + Chef” on HBO Max. But the pop superstar also spread her message of inclusion through her makeup brand Rare Beauty, which set the goal of raising $100 million in 10 years to help give people access to mental health initiatives.Regina King arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.King, who won an Emmy in September, used her voice to encourage people to vote. The actor also called for support of marginalized communities during the pandemic and end police brutality of unarmed Black people. Her directorial debut, “One Night in Miami,” has also been talked about as a possible Oscar contender.
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