‘Dexter’ welcomes Jonny Lee Miller
Here’s good news for all the “Eli Stone” fans out there.
Jonny Lee Miller will join “Dexter” next season for six episodes.
Showtime said Miller will plays “a mysterious man who is intricately involved in the storyline with Julia Stiles’ character.”
After his wife’s death, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) will form what Showtime calls “a unique relationship” with “a mysterious young woman” played by Stiles. That’s a lot of mystery, isn’t it?
Stiles will act in 10 of the dozen episodes for the fifth season. Production starts this month, and the show will be back on Showtime in the fall.
Miller’s other credits include the miniseries “Emma” and the movies “Hackers,” “Trainspotting” and “Melinda and Melinda.”
‘Geraldo at Large’ offers Gen. David Petraeus interview
Gen. David Petraeus talks to Geraldo Rivera on this weekend’s edition of “Geraldo at Large.”
The interview airs at 10 p.m. Sunday on Fox News Channel.
Petraeus discusses replacing Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who resigned; the progress of the war in Afghanistan and McChrystal’s headline-making and career-altering interview in Rolling Stone.
Does anyone know of a good dance studio for beginner salsa lessons in eastern Queens or Long Island?
Donno bout Queens or Long Island but there is one not far from the NYC metropolitan area….Edgewater NJ…
Good Luck with it….
‘Bachelor’ Jake, Vienna to reunite on July 5 ‘Bachelorette’
What’s the true story about the breakup of “Bachelor” Jake Pavelka and Vienna Girardi?
They may supply answers when they are reunited on the July 5 episode of “The Bachelorette” on ABC (WFTV-Channel 9 locally).
“There was a serious lack of respect in the relationship,” Pavelka tells Mario Lopez on “Extra.” “I would like to think that she didn’t cheat. That’s my side right there.”
The interview will air on the Thursday edition of “Extra,” which airs at 4 p.m. weekdays on WKMG-Channel 6.
Pavelka also explains why the “Bachelorette” reunion is important to him. He proposed to Girardi, who comes from Sanford, on the finale of “The Bachelor.”
“America was there and stood with me at the birth of our relationship, and I think I owe it to them and to myself and Vienna to let everybody be there at the end of it,” he tells Lopez. “That everybody understands that it was real. And I don’t regret it. I regret what is happening right now. But I don’t regret the decision that I made. I made the best decision on ‘The Bachelor.’ ”
Pavelka says that Girardi didn’t like his taking part in “Dancing With the Stars.”
“She started to get insanely jealous over these wonderful things that were happening in life, and they directly affected her,” Pavelka tells “Extra.” “I saw her frustrations, so I tried to include her in everything I did.”
Didn’t work. What do you think?
Michael Jackson: Mom tells ‘Dateline’ that singer said people wanted him dead
Katherine Jackson points to a conspiracy theory as television marks the first anniversary of son Michael’s death.
“He told me several times that he felt that people wanted him gone, wanted him dead,” she tells “Dateline NBC.” “He would always say that. And for him to say that he must have known something. … It’s just some of the mean, evil, vicious people didn’t want him around for some reason. They’re greedy.”
The interview, conducted by Sonia Lowe, airs at 9 p.m. Friday on WESH-Channel 2. Brother Jermaine Jackson also points to a conspiracy against Michael in a CNN interview to air at 8 p.m. Friday.
Katherine says she saw Michael a week and a half before he died, and their last meeting was happy.
“I never looked at him after he passed,” she says. “I wanted to remember him smiling and laughing and having a good time the last time I saw him.”
Katherine Jackson dismissed as “completely false” reports that Debbie Rowe, biological mother of Michael’s two older children, wanted custody of them.
And what would Katherine like to know if she could talk to Michael?
“The main thing I’d want to know is: What really happened?” she says.
Treat Human Beings as Humans
By Zhang Lijia
The suicides among workers at Foxconn and the ongoing strikes at Honda and other foreign-owned factories are cries for help. Within its Shenzhen plant, Foxconn seems to provide everything its 400,000 workers can hope for: canteens, clinics, a library, entertainment and sports facilities.
It reminds me of the state-owned rocket factory I worked for in the 1980s which provided plenty of socialist welfare but also controlled our lives: no lipstick, no permed hair, and no dating within three years of entering the factory.
Have the work conditions improved over the years? Yes, probably, within the state-owned enterprises that still hold China’s key industries. The labor intensity in those, though much increased, isn’t nearly as bad as in some of the private sectors. Over the years, foreign and private investment have turned China’s coastal regions into the factories — and often the sweatshops — of the world.
Foxconn workers are allowed only a few minutes for toilet breaks and are barely permitted to talk to their colleagues. To keep the production line running, they have to work 12-hour shifts. All workers have to sign a statement, saying they “voluntarily” work over-time. The truth is: without the over-time payment, they can hardly survive on their basic salary of 900 yuan. No one at Foxconn has any time to use amenities at the plant.
The local government often tolerates certain violations of labor laws because of the revenue the factories bring in to the region — they “keep one eye open and one eye shut,” as the Chinese would say.
Compared with their predecessors, the new generation of workers are better educated, less financially desperate; they are more worldly, savvy with the Internet, and have higher expectations from life. Li Hai, a 19-year-old from central China’s Hunan province was the 11th worker who leapt to his death from a Foxconn building this year. In a suicide note to his family, he said the gap between reality and his expectations was too big and he had lost hope in life.
These workers, more aware of their rights, are no longer willing to be treated like machines. It was not entirely accidental that the Honda strikes took place when the spate of suicides at Foxconn sent shock waves across the factory floors in China. As discussed in chat rooms on the internet, some argued that it would be better to put up a fight than to take one’s life.
As someone who had endured the demoralizing existence at a factory, I know how these protesting workers feel. Their motivation may be economic, but in a broad sense, they are also demanding to be respected as human beings.
Zhang Lijia is author of Socialism is Great! A Worker’s Memoir of the New China. This post is an expanded version of an essay that appeared at the New York Times “Room for Debate” blog.
Piano Lessons – Salsa Ch. 2 (updated)
From http://www.PlayPianoTODAY.com , this is the upadated version of the online jazz piano, blues piano and salsa piano lessons series. Check it out!
Duration : 0:9:23
[youtube SHDpoXWyLHg]
‘The Bachelor’: Something rings false with this love story
Inquiring readers want to know: What happens to Vienna Girardi’s ring after the split with Jake Pavelka of “The Bachelor”?
You remember the ring, don’t you? It was a $42,000 bauble that Sanford’s Girardi sported after Pavelka proposed to her on national television.
USMagazine.com reports that Girardi was wearing the ring Monday in Los Angeles. So what happens to the ring?
“The ring will go to production,” an ABC spokeswoman said.
So the ring was just a prop? So much for this “love story.”
ABC didn’t have more to say. Could Girardi’s castoff become someone else’s ring?
Recent and Upcoming Conversations in China
This post follows up on previous ones, such as those found here and here, that have focused on the way that public conversations about China can complement other kinds of methods for communicating ideas and information about the country, from lectures given by one person to written works ranging from essays to books. One thing that has inspired me to revisit this subject is that I’ve become addicted (and this certainly qualifies as a “positive addiction”) to the Sinica podcasts hosted by Kaiser Kuo.
We’ve mentioned these before at “China Beat,” but they deserve another shout out–and not just because my China in the 21st Century came in for some positive (and humorous) attention from Kaiser and guest Jeremiah Jenne of the Jottings from the Granite Studio blog in the “Review of China Books” episode that just aired (see the summary and list of books provided here). Recent shows (and all of the ones I’ve listened to so far have been lively and engaging) have tackled a variety of topics, such as the role self-censorship plays in Western discussions of Chinese politics, that are likely to be of interest to “China Beat” readers. And I know for a fact that many topics tackled in the Sinica conversations are of interest to “China Beat” contributors. After all, without any prior coordination (though people involved in both projects are in touch with each other from time to time) they aired an episode on Chinese science fiction right around the time that this blog was running a post on the same subject; and they also ran a show on the Honda strikes and related issues not long after I’d published something on the same topic at the Huffington Post (during China Beat’s vacation period) and while I was just starting to write a longer commentary on the subject that’s just appeared on Foreign Policy’s website.
Most Sinica episodes are made up of discussions between people who join the multi-talented Kaiser (he’s known to some primarily as a shrewd analyst of contemporary Chinese culture, but to others primarily as a member of Beijing rock bands) for face-to-face conversation. Two of my favorite parts of the China books episode, though, were short pre-recorded commentaries by Danwei’s Jeremy Goldkorn (in which he made an excellent case for the value of Sang Ye’s China Candid as a work that everyone interested in the PRC of today should read, while also stressing the importance to publications dealing with earlier periods in Chinese history) and the Guardian’s Jonathan Watts (who wove together neatly discussion of several different books that are all framed as travel tales, but use journeys as jumping off points to explore many different kinds of issues).
A second reason for revisiting the theme of dialogs is that, following closely on the heels of the conclusion of a series of events of this sort sponsored by “China Beat” and other local entities held here in Irvine, I’ll be taking part in five Shanghai ones. Four of these will be held on successive July Sundays and jointly sponsored by the M Restaurant Group and CET Academic Programs, at a locale we’ve mentioned here before (the same Glamour Bar at M on the Bund where the Shanghai International Literary Festival is held each March). Full details about this series of “Cosmopolitan Conversations” can be found here, and regular readers of this blog will see that nearly everyone who will be joining me on stage (Paul French, Graham Earnshaw, Lijia Zhang, Evan Osnos and Howard French) has written for this site in the past, while the one person who doesn’t fall into that category (Tess Johnston) is someone whose participation in last year’s literary festival was discussed by one of our contributors.
I’m delighted that the fascinating writers just listed have all agreed to join me in discussing topics ranging from Americans in Old Shanghai to blogging about 21st century China. And I’m very grateful to Tina M. Kanagaratnam and Jeremy Friedlein (director of CET’s Shanghai program) for all they did to make this line-up of events possible.
The fifth Shanghai event I’ll be taking part in, which will be held at a different locale one week before the M on the Bund/CET series starts, also has “China Beat” connections. It will be a discussion of the 2010 Shanghai Expo (and World’s Fairs and Expos of the past) that will be part of an ongoing series of urban studies workshops organized by “China Beat” contributor Anna Greenspan and the person with whom I’ll be exchanging ideas will be Nick Land of Urbanatomy, whose new book on the topic was excerpted on this site not long ago. (This event will take place at Mesa Manifesto 748 Julu Road on Sunday June 27, from 4-6 p.m., with 35 RMB charged at the door–but that will get you your first drink as well as, we all hope, a lot of food for thought.)
And a final note about “China Beat” connections: I’m not the first person involved with this blog to have a tie to CET. For as I recently learned, both CB’s founding editor Kate Merkel-Hess, and its current editor, Maura Cunningham, are alums of this excellent study abroad program.
To keep up with the latest happenings at CET Shanghai (and their many other study abroad locations), check out the CET Facebook page.
David Letterman presents Jay-Z, Eminem up on the roof
Jay-Z and Eminem taped three songs on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater tonight.
You can see the performances on Friday’s “Late Show With David Letterman.” The CBS show airs at 11:35 p.m. on WKMG-Channel 6.
Jay-Z will be the main guest that night. Eminem offers “Top Ten Eminem Pieces of Advice for the Kids.” And what could they be?