Why kind of shoes are best to wear for Salsa dancing lessons?
Rubber soles are out (too much traction for you to turn) and some synthetic soles are too slippery (risking a fall). If it’s a good wood floor, sueded leather is the best sole surface, but not by any means a necessity. You’ll want a back or at least a strap so you don’t dance out of them.
‘NCIS’ lifts CBS while ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ fires Fox
CBS had the most viewers Tuesday night, Fox had the most young adults (thanks “Hell’s Kitchen), and “America’s Got Talent” on NBC posted the biggest audience.
CBS won prime time with an average 7.9 million viewers, according to preliminary ratings. Here are the averages for the other broadcast networks: NBC with 6.4 million, Fox with 6.2 million for two hours of “Hell’s Kitchen,” Disney-owned ABC with 5.2 million and The CW with 1.1 million for reruns.
At 8 p.m., “NCIS” on CBS pulled in 9.6 million fans. “Wipeout” on ABC wiped up 8.2 million viewrs.
At 9, “America’s Got Talent” drew 10.1 million to NBC. “NCIS: Los Angeles” on CBS was the choice of 8.1 million. ABC’s “Downfall” plunged to 4.1 million viewers.
At 10, CBS had the edge in viewers as a “Good Wife” rerun drew 5.8 million. NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” had 4.9 million laughing. ABC’s “Primetime: Mind Games” intrigued 3.4 million.
Elijah Wood to star in FX comedy pilot ‘Wilfred’
“Lord of the Rings” star Elijah Wood has decided to give television a try.
He will star in the pilot for an FX comedy called “Wilfred,” based on a popular Australian series.
Executive producer David Zuckerman described “Wilfred” as a comedy about a guy (played by Wood), the girl next door and a mixed-breed dog named Wilfred. Zuckerman said Wilfred is “part Labrador retriever and part Russell Crowe on a bender.”
Wilfed will be played by Jason Gann, who co-created the Australian series.
Production on the pilot begins this summer. Once it’s filmed, FX will decide whether to go forward with a series.
Readings Around the Web: Fun in the Sun Edition
• Heading for the beach and looking for the perfect book to toss in your tote bag? At Five Books, authors are interviewed and asked to recommend five books on a specific topic. Though the site covers far more than China, several of the features are China-focused and worth a look; check out Rod MacFarquhar on the Cultural Revolution, Isabel Hilton on China’s environmental crisis, and Richard McGregor on the Chinese Communist Party.
• Another source for China Beatniks looking to fill up their summer reading lists is this recent Sinica podcast, in which host Kaiser Kuo and guests Gady Epstein, Jeremiah Jenne, and Will Moss (as well as several other contributors) discuss their favorite books about China.
• Those who would prefer to spend their summer days sitting by the local fishing hole should read Adam Minter’s ongoing posts on the topic at Shanghai Scrap. Part I explores the intricacies of shopping for angling equipment in Shanghai; Part II details Minter’s inaugural carp-fishing experience and his reflections on the sport’s future in China:
A friend from Minnesota, a walleye fisherman of some repute, once told me: “The only thing that comes close to the thrill of catching a fish is not catching a fish. If you don’t understand that, then you don’t get to fish with me.” I know exactly what he meant and no, it has nothing to do with six packs in the cooler on the floor of your boat. Instead he was talking about anticipation, and the itchy possibility that the mundane routines of daily like might just run into something wilder – with a little luck and patience. It’s the kind of anticipation that leads experienced fishermen to sit on a boat in the heat of the mid-day sun, lines in the water, knowing that – under such conditions – they’re about as likely to catch a blue whale as a walleye or a bass. And it’s just that kind of anticipation which – along with growing wealth, leisure time, automobile ownership, and restlessness – drives the quickening growth of recreational fishing in China.
• Finally, readers whose idea of relaxation is to hit the links can learn about the growth of golf in China at the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report blog. Emily Veach reports at the WSJ site and in the video embedded below.
‘The Bachelor’: An explosive dismissal in Istanbul, then a Turkish bath
“The Bachelorette” traveled to Istanbul tonight. But the big news was …
SPOILER ALERT: “Bachelorette” Ali Fedotowsky learned that one of her romantic hopefuls still had a girlfriend.
And that cad is …
Wrestler Justin. (Are you surprised?) Ali talked to his girlfriend, Jessica, in Canada, and I was wondering: Why didn’t the show check this out before it got to this point?
Ali confronted Justin in front of the other men. He walked away, and she pursued him. He offered to talk off camera. “Talk like a man,” she taunted him.
He ran away from her. “You’re going to regret this,” Ali told him.
Finally, he sat down and described Jessica back in Canada as his best friend. Ali ripped into him, described his actions as “unspeakable” and told him to leave with a little integrity. And he walked out of the show — while the show played a recorded call he left Jessica, telling her, “I love you.”
Gee, I wished I could see more of Istanbul.
The other men were overjoyed that Justin was gone.
In other developments, Ali went on a date with Ty. She applauded him as a positive person. They went to a Turkish bath, and he gave her a massage. Then they jabbered on about how hot it all was, which made it less hot. But they seemed to hit it off over a meal, and she gave him a rose.
A group date turned into a fight with four oiled-up Turkish men. That meant the four hopefuls had to be oiled up — by Ali — then the wrestling began. The Turks conquered the men. In the next round, the four hopefuls had to wrestle each other. Craig R., who whined that he wanted time with Ali, won.
They went on a scenic date. Too bad the camera stayed on them instead of Istanbul. But Craig R. was incredibly earnest, and Ali proclaimed him a great guy. Yet he didn’t get a rose.
Ali went on another one-on-one date with Frank, and she said it was make-it-or-break-it time. He made it. He wore a sultan’s hat, she played a belly dancer, and they bought a rug. They shared a romantic meal, and she gave him a rose. He seems to have the inside track, and I would put money on him — until I saw the preview at the end.
Then it was time to eject a man. And she sent away Craig R., who really never had a chance.
Next week, “The Bachelorette” stages a highly anticipated reunion between Jake Pavelka and Sanford’s Vienna Girardi. He proposed to her at the end of “The Bachelor.” They recently broke up, and their romantic troubles have spilled out in several magazines.
The action on “The Bachelorette” shifts to Lisbon.
I realize a lot of people pooh-pooh “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette”: How do people fall in love on camera under TV production deadlines?
Maybe they don’t. They just luxuriate in their feelings on camera — it’s high school all over again, for adults.
No matter how you feel about the show, it is incredibly important to the bottom line of Disney-owned ABC. And “The Bachelorette” has been crucial to ABC’s fortunes this summer. I have a feeling Jake and Vienna will produce big ratings next week. What do you think?
FREE Salsa Dancing Lessons – PSU Lessons Feb 8th 2010
http://www.ilivesalsa.com
It’s time again for another quick fix lesson. This week we worked with an ON1 routine with less complicated moves and included a little cumbia step. Enjoy!
Duration : 0:3:57
[youtube cD_WGXbpQHc]
ABC scores with U.S.-Ghana World Cup match
The United States-Ghana match Saturday is the most-watched FIFA World Cup game ever in the States, ESPN says.
The match on Disney-owned ABC pulled in nearly 14.9 million viewers, and it was seen in almost 9.5 million households, ESPN said.
The United States lost Saturday’s game and was eliminated from the tournament.
Saturday’s match eclipsed the 13.1 million viewers for the U.S.-England match on June 12. That game ended in a tie.
ESPN noted that only the 1999 Women’s Final, between the United States and China, averaged more viewers (nearly 18 million) and households (11.3 million).
Daytime Emmys and Regis Philbin vs. BET Awards and Queen Latifah
You have your choice of awards shows tonight.
Queen Latifah hosts the BET Awards at 8 tonight on BET, of course.
The awards are marking their 10th anniversary with a little help from Prince and Kanye West. Prince receives a well-deserved life achievement award from BET. The nominees include Jay-Z, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber.
Regis Philbin hosts the Daytime Emmys at 9 tonight on CBS (WKMG-Ch. 6 locally).
Dick Clark and “American Bandstand” will be saluted by ”American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest, Donny Osmond, Chubby Checker and Tony Orlando.
The many presenters include Orlando’s Wayne Brady, Alex Trebek, Jeff Foxworthy, Susan Lucci, Rachael Ray, the cast of “The Doctors” and the Las Vegas acts Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil. The Las Vegas company of “The Lion King” will perform.
“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” is nominated for best talk show, but DeGeneres isn’t in the running for host. She explained on the show’s Web site: “I didn’t submit myself for the ‘Best Talk Show Host’ Emmy this year. I feel my steroid use gives me an unfair advantage.”
And the hosts of “The View” are nominated, but their show isn’t.
The nominees for best talk show (entertainment) are “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “Rachael Ray” and “Live With Regis and Kelly.”
The nominees for best talk show (informative) are “The Dr. Oz Show,” “Dr. Phil” and “The Doctors.”
The choices for best talk-show host mix the two categories. The hopefuls are the crew at “The View,” Rachael Ray, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa of “Live” and Bonnie Hunt of “The Bonnie Hunt Show.” I’m rooting for Regis and Kelly this year. Who’s your favorite?
Wayne Brady is nominated for game-show host for his work on the new “Let’s Make a Deal.” His fellow nominees are Pat Sajak, “Wheel Of Fortune”; Alex Trebek, “Jeopardy!”; Ben Bailey, “Cash Cab”; and
Carnie Wilson, “The Newlywed Game.”
ABC’s “General Hospital” received 18 nominations. It’s up for best daytime drama with ABC’s “All My Children” and two from CBS, “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”
Other notable categories:
*** Game show: ”Wheel Of Fortune,” “Jeopardy!,” “Cash Cab,” “The Price Is Right” and “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?”
***Legal/court program: ”The People’s Court,” “Judge Judy,” “Cristina’s Court,” “Judge Pirro” and “Caso Cerrado.”
***Morning program: “Good Morning America,” “Today” and “CNN American Morning.”
Casey Anthony: How often is Caylee mentioned in latest documents?
Thanks for the insights into the documents released Friday in the Casey Anthony case.
From your comments, I gather there have been a lot of strange letters sent to Anthony from “admirers” — is that a good way to describe her letter writers? – and from her family.
But help me out: How often is Caylee mentioned in those 5,000 pages of documents? And does anyone say anything meaningful about Caylee?
We wouldn’t care about the Anthonys if not for Caylee, would we?
An Interview with Richard McGregor, Author of The Party
By Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
Richard McGregor is the former Beijing bureau chief for the Financial Times and author of the newly released The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers. I recently conducted the interview below with McGregor via e-mail; you can read excerpts from the book here and here and also find a “Why I Write” profile of McGregor at the Urbanatomy site.
What is The Party about? What new knowledge do you hope readers will come away with after they’re finished?
My purpose was simply to describe the political system as it really is. I think few people, even foreigners living in China, appreciate just how vast and resilient the party apparatus that underpins the government in China is, and how deeply its tentacles extend into all manners of institutions, like universities and the media. And often people who do know a lot about the party will attempt to explain it away, as a product of Chinese culture or some such. I wanted to describe in an unflinchingly fashion a system that is the product of resolutely political arrangements.
The other major theme of my book is secrecy. Once you begin to describe bodies like the Central Organisation Department, which is really the world’s most powerful human resources outfit, you can convey just how absurdly secretive the CCP is. This body controls the lives and careers of a vast elite in China, and it has no sign outside of its office and no listed phone number! To me, simple facts like this don’t need dressing up. Just tell it as it is and hopefully readers will get a sense of what a strange pre-modern body the CCP is.
I think a lot of western journalists do have a sense of how pervasive the party is but it is quite a hard thing to explain in day-to-day news stories. Frankly, it is also hard to explain to editors back in head office at all. It is kind of like – “The Central Organisation what?!”
How did you penetrate “the secret world” of the CCP leadership? What kinds of sources did you draw on to write The Party?
I am not sure I did really penetrate it. A friend of mine once compared reporting on China as like knitting a sweater. You get one strand of wool here and one there. Eventually you have enough for a sleeve. A few years later, you have a full sweater. Once I settled on the topic, I discovered there was all sorts of strands of information out there but you rarely get to sit down with a government official who will give you box-and-dice about how the system works from the inside. There is lots of stuff, much of it new, in my book. But in truth, I think I have barely scratched the surface.
In a recent Huffington Post piece, you wrote that “the remarkable and largely overlooked truth about China is that it is still governed on Soviet hardware.” What challenges do you imagine that might create in the years to come?
The system is both rigid and flexible. Rigid because of the party’s insistence on a monopoly on political power. And flexible, because it is an administrative system, not subject to the law. The system has proved much more adaptable than many people thought it would, but I think the path has been made easier by the success of the economy. Once the economy slows and there is less money to pass around, it is not clear how the system will manage except by ramping up the repression. Expectations have been raised in China along with living standards. If the party has to fight to hang onto power, I think large sections of the population will push back.
In your opinion, what has held the CCP together in the face of massive social changes over the past two decades?
On top of economic growth, nationalism is the stickiest glue binding the people and powerholders together. The Chinese are quite rightly proud of what they have achieved in the last three decades. They have a chip on their shoulder about the developed world, but equally, the way the imperialist west, and Japan, trampled over China in the 19th and 20th century gives the nationalist lobby lots of ammunition. The party has been very cynical and canny in the way they have used this to scrub up their own image. China gives free rein to anyone who wants to publicise Japanese wartime atrocities but heaven help anyone who turns the mirror of history onto the CCP’s own record!
What is your sense about the relationship between the Chinese people and the CCP today? Do you think your book says anything that would surprise a Chinese reader?
I wouldn’t pretend to know what the Chinese reader might think, except that a number of Chinese have been quite thrilled to read about their system in a way they are constrained from saying or writing themselves.
As to the relationship between the CCP and the people, it is a highly sensitive topic. In some ways, they have little to do with each other directly. People deal with the system through the government rather than the party. The party in turn has a rather patronizing daddy-knows-best attitude to the people. By and large, they leave each other alone in day-to-day life. But once anyone crosses that red line into organized politics, the party can turn into a very brutal beast indeed.