Can Hollywood Afford to Make Films China Doesn't Like?

Can Hollywood Afford to Make Films China Doesn't Like? - In the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet, the character of Austrian mountaineer Peter Aufschnaiter escapes an Indian POW camp and declares that he is heading for China to find work. His compatriot-in-arms, Heinrich Harrer, played by a sun-kissed, blue-eyed Brad Pitt, says he's skipping China and going to mountains of Tibet. Harrer goes on to cross the line that separates India from Tibet, where he makes a silver-screen connection with the Dalai Lama among the Chinese territory's fabled peaks. The American who played him, however, may never get to make the same trip: Pitt has reportedly been banned from entering China because of his role in the film, which paints a sympathetic portrait of the Dalai Lama.

Were this tale about the spiritual icon pitched to studio executives today, it might never have been made. The global box office plays an ever larger role in Hollywood's yearly revenues, and China has become a crucial player in that mix. China is now the fifth largest international box office, with earnings that have surged nearly tenfold since 2003. Last year alone, China's box-office earnings grew by 65%, raking in over $1.5 billion. American studio executives are paying attention: China was the second highest earnings market for Avatar, just behind the U.S., according to Artisan Gateway, a Chinese entertainment-business consultant firm. At CinemaCon in March, Warner Bros. International president Millard Ochs said he believed the country's box office would overtake the U.S. market within a decade.

Interestingly, China's audience for international films has grown despite myriad restrictions. China currently only allows 20 foreign titles to be screened domestically each year. While studios can lobby for their films to be included in that quota, there is no magic formula that guarantees distribution. China does not have a film-rating system, and all movies must secure government approval from government censors before being shown commercially. Still, there are some sure bets for a film not to make it past the censors. Controversial films or ones that contain questionable thematic elements, like horror films, are much less likely to make their way to China's screens, while films containing sensitive sociopolitical subjects like Tibet or Tiananmen Square are strictly taboo.

A movie that doesn't make the cut automatically loses out on the billions of renminbi China's audiences have to offer. In the late 1990s, Kundun, a biographical film about the 14th Dalai Lama's childhood, rankled Beijing for its negative portrayal of the Chinese government. The government went so far as to threaten all future business with Disney, which distributed the biopic. The situation was not resolved until Michael Ovitz himself, Disney's president at the time, privately visited Beijing to confer with then President Jiang Zemin. The unusual move proved to be worth it: earlier this year, Disney (and China) green-lighted a Shanghai Disneyland project that that will cost the Los Angeles–based company $3.7 billion to build.

Though China's irritation with Hollywood over films like Seven Years in Tibet and Kundun has subsided as Hollywood has steered clear of pro-Tibetan subject matter, the Communist Party's policy toward films and high-profile figures perceived as anti-Chinese remains very much the same. When Kung Fu Panda, a DreamWorks production, opened in Chinese theaters in 2008, it faced heavy criticism and nationwide boycott calls - not for its portrayal of a beloved national symbol but for the actions of DreamWorks' co-founder Steven Spielberg. Months earlier, Spielberg had dropped out as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing after unsuccessfully lobbying Hu Jintao to help bring an end Sudan's attack on Darfur. Hu did little to pressure Sudan despite the strong relationship between the two countries, and Spielberg withdrew his involvement from the Games. That same year, actress Sharon Stone insensitively remarked that the Sichuan earthquake, which killed tens of thousands of people, was China's "karma" for handling the 2008 Tibetan riots poorly. The comment sparked national outrage: advertising spots featuring the actress were promptly pulled, and all Stone movies are still banned from major theater chains.

Given China's position in the market, studios are making an effort to be more careful. Recently, MGM chose to remake a 1984 Cold War film entitled Red Dawn, for release later this year. The original story, which revolves around several American kids fighting a Soviet invasion, no longer made sense with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Originally, the studio chose China as the new threat, but potential distributors expressed concerns about taking the project on with China cast as villain. Instead of shelving the finished film, MGM digitally altered references to China, changing the perpetrator to North Korea. Tripp Vinson, one of the film's producers, told the Los Angeles Times: "We were initially very reluctant to make any changes. But after careful consideration we constructed a way to make a ... more dangerous Red Dawn that we believe improves the movie." Rance Pow, president of Artisan Gateway, says a lot of factors contribute to why Hollywood makes the movies it does, but acknowledges that studios "will be a bit selective in its slate submitted for the China market."

At the same time, Hollywood has been trying to market itself to Chinese tastes. The Green Hornet, which was released earlier this year, features Canadian funnyman Seth Rogen as the bumbling Green Hornet and Taiwan-born pop star Jay Chou as Kato, his capable sidekick. Chou, a colossal figure in the Asian music industry for well over a decade, is one of Asia's most popular performers. Unsurprisingly, given Chou's regional appeal, The Green Hornet was selected as one of the foreign films to be shown within Chinese theaters.

China's influence over Hollywood may increase drastically within the next few years. A World Trade Organization ruling recently found that China's 20-film quota violates international trade laws. China has agreed to lift the limit, and when it does, it has the potential to become an even bigger force than it already is. "How quickly China becomes the number two global market, and eventually number one, is strictly up to the government," says Ochs. But even when the quota is gone, China's policy on censorship is not likely to change - a fact that will encourage Hollywood to continue catering to its policies. As China makes its own movie market more open, the space for making films critical of the Asian powerhouse may continue to shrink. ( time.com )

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Melanoma Facts and Figures

Melanoma Facts and Figures - A new drug to extend the lives of patients with melanoma was approved today by the FDA. The medication, Yervoy, was developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and is the first of its kind to treat metastatic melanoma. Here are some important facts to know about melanoma.

Statistics about melanoma

"Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the United States," according to the National Cancer Institute. Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer and is very aggressive.

Every year almost 70,000 Americans are newly diagnosed with melanoma, plus an additional 48,000 who develop an early form of melanoma, involving only the superficial skin layer. Melanoma is by far, much more common in whites than in African Americans, and is slightly more common in men compared with women, according to the American Cancer Society. Melanoma has a higher incidence in those over the age of 80, although in young adults under the age of 30, it is one of the most common forms of cancer. There are roughly eight to nine thousand deaths in the US each year from melanoma.

What is melanoma?

Melanoma is the most serious of the skin cancers, developing in the melanocytes, or skin cells which produce melanin, the pigment creating your skin color. The other skin cancers, basal cell and squamous cell, occur more often, with the risk of developing melanoma in an average lifetime being approximately one percent, according to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Although rare, melanoma can also develop in your eyes and internal organs such as the intestinal tract.

What are the causes and risk factors?

Doctors are not completely sure what causes melanoma, but generally there is consensus in believing that both genetic and environmental factors play a role. Overexposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun as well as from tanning lamps and beds is believed to be the primary cause of melanoma.

Other risk factors, according to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, which are associated with developing melanoma, include a strong family history of melanoma, a personal history of other types of skin cancer, and the existence of atypical moles known as dysplastic nevi.

Additionally, if you have a fair complexion or a weakened immune system, you have a higher risk for developing melanoma. Adults have a higher risk over children of acquiring the disease.

What is the treatment?

As with many cancers, early detection has a higher chance for successful treatment. Surgery to remove the melanoma and surrounding tissue is usually the treatment for early-stage melanomas, and this may be the only necessary treatment, according to the Mayo Clinic. If the disease is more advanced, and has spread past the skin, the treatment options may include chemotherapy, radiation or immunotherapy, using drugs such as interferon or interleukin-2. Experimental modalities are in ongoing clinical trials at larger health care institutions. ( news.yahoo.com )

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Where Has All the Nitrogen Gone?

Where Has All the Nitrogen Gone? - The federal government isn’t the only group with a problem balancing its budget these days. Oceanographers have a budget problem too. Nitrogen — an essential nutrient for all life on the planet — is at the heart of this budget crisis. Some estimates of the amount of nitrogen leaving the ocean exceed estimates of the amount of nitrogen coming in by several hundred teragrams (that’s one billion kilograms) per year.

Does this mean that the ocean is actually losing nitrogen? Probably not, but it does mean that we don’t have a good understanding of where in the ocean nitrogen is coming and going. Over the next five weeks, I will be joining a team of researchers from around the world on a research cruise to the eastern tropical South Pacific off the coast of Chile to see if this could be one area where the “missing” nitrogen could be entering the ocean.

I just arrived in the port of Valparaíso, Chile, after a nearly 24-hour journey from Cape Cod, Mass. My home for the next five weeks is the 279-foot-long research vessel Melville, which is owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Our planned cruise track looks like a large rectangle with the long sides on the top and bottom. Along the way we’ll stop at six “stations,” or geographic way points, to collect water, deploy sampling devices, and hopefully retrieve some samplers we left out over a year ago. All our efforts will be centered around nitrogen.

Carolyn Buchwald Looking toward Valparaíso from the deck of the Melville.

Nitrogen can make it into the ocean in one of three ways: it can be deposited as particles from the atmosphere, it can come from the land via rivers or groundwater, or it can be taken directly from the atmosphere by specialized microscopic organisms that break the very strong chemical bond between two nitrogen atoms. It is this last pathway, called nitrogen fixation, that will be the focus of the cruise.

Nitrogen fixation, like every other major transformation in the nitrogen cycle, is carried out by microorganisms — bacteria and archaea. Though nitrogen fixation is the main topic of the cruise, many of the 20 researchers on board, including me, will be studying other parts of the nitrogen cycle to try to learn more about how the different reactions, and different microbes, work together.

Just as microbes work together, an essential part of oceanographic research is working with other scientists, and I’ll be doing lots of it on this cruise. One of the most important people for my work is Carly Buchwald, a graduate student in the Woods Hole-M.I.T. Joint Program. Carly and I began our work for this year’s cruise back in January, when we started planning details of our sampling plan and experiments with Karen Casciotti, an assistant professor at Stanford University and the principal investigator for the project. We’ll also be helping out with the larger goals of the cruise, collecting samples that will be used by scientists from the University of Southern California and the University of Miami to assemble a nitrogen budget for this region.

Our equipment and supplies left Los Angeles in a shipping container about two months ago. Before our ship leaves on Wednesday, our job is to unload the container and set up our laboratory space. We need to be ready to take and process samples by the time we arrive at the first station, 900 nautical miles and three days of steaming from the coast. The ship’s crew will also be busy, filling the hold with food and supplies, and fueling up for our 35 days at sea. I look forward to writing about the details of our scientific work, and of life at sea ( nytimes.com )

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Shadow puppet theater finds audience in Japan

Shadow puppet theater finds audience in Japan - In Javanese culture, the shadow puppet show depicts life in this world, where there is a dichotomy of black and white, good and evil, sorrow and happiness. It is this depiction of life that makes the shadow puppet show really appeal to those well versed in this traditional art.

Through some of the witty characters like Semar, Gareng, Petruk and Bagong, all known as punakawan, a shadow puppet show does not only convey the noble qualities of life but also conveys moral messages valuable for our daily lives. It is this aspect of the show that makes shadow puppet lovers glued to the show the whole night through.

One of the shadow puppet masters actively engaged in conserving this traditional Javanese art is Ki Mantep Sudharsono. Hailing from Surakarta in Central Java, he is well known as one of the pioneers of the art form.

Between Nov. 8 and Nov. 13, Ki Mantep Sudharsono, seven gamelan players and a traditional Javanese singer will perform shadow puppet shows in Japan for the opening and closing of the Japanese Arts Festival 2001, held in the city of Gunma. Ki Mantep will perform Dewa Ruci, a story taken from the Mahabarata epic.

The puppet master said the shows would last for only for two and half hours, a compact form of the normal show. ""For the closing of the festival, we are going to perform Sumantri Ngenger (Sumantri Takes a Master), a story from the Ramayana,"" he said.

Apart from performing at the festival, Ki Mantep will also perform his shadow puppet shows at a number of hotels in Tokyo, in a program arranged by the association of shadow leather puppet show lovers in Japan, Nihon Wayang Kyokai, headed by Matsumoto, a lecturer and researcher of leather puppets.

Ki Mantep said there are quite a lot of fans of Indonesian leather puppet shows in Japan. ""Leather puppet shows held in Japan - in Tokyo and some other cities - are always packed and the tickets are often sold out even before the shows are staged,"" he said, obviously very pleased with this situation.

His performances for the Japan Arts Festival are unique in that he got assistance from eight female members of Nihon Wayang Kyokai, who will perform as gamelan players and also from Hiromi, a Japanese student at the Surakarta-based Indonesia Arts Institute. Hiromi will be the singer of traditional Javanese songs.

""The gamelan players from Nihon Wayang Kyokai rehearsed at my house in August. They are already skillful at playing the Javanese gamelan,"" Ki Mantep said, adding that he was sure the collaboration between Indonesian and Japanese gamelan players would prove a great success.

The gamelan being used for these shows was also special as it was a set of Slendro gamelan provided by Nihon Wayang Kyokai. He said that a set of leather puppets had also been made available by this association and added that only a few puppets for certain characters were brought from Indonesia.

Unsurprisingly, Ki Mantep and his troupe were very enthusiastic about their shows in Japan. He said that it was an honor for him to be invited to Japan for the third time. He had performed in Japan in 1997 and 2000.

""The Japanese are known to be very busy and have a high standard of living. However, they also accept and appreciate the culture of other nations, particularly the leather puppet show from Java. ( thejakartapost.com )

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Urine for Sale?

Urine for Sale? - Get paid to pee. That’s the deal on offer in the South African city of Durban, where the city is looking to buy liquid waste to encourage residents to use dry toilets.

Aiming to improve hygiene and save money, the port city has installed in home gardens about 90,000 toilets that don’t use a single drop of water. Now Durban wants to install 20-litre (quart) containers on 500 of the toilets to capture urine — rich in nitrates, phosphorus and potassium, which can be turned into fertiliser.

A municipal worker would collect the jerry cans once a week and could pay around 30 rands (four dollars, three euros) to the family — not a small sum in a country where 43 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

Currently the tanks are emptied by each household, and the waste often ends up getting dumped into the environment. Swiss lab Eawag and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are backing a study to draw up the modalities for the scheme, which is already winning fans.

“If we can turn the toilets into a source of revenues, then they will want to use the toilets,” said Neil MacLeod, Durban’s head of water and sanitation. Most people are reluctant to use the dry toilets.

Reuters.A municipal policeman hands out his own urine to a doctor during an anti-doping test at a police headquarter in Monterrey October 8, 2010. Some 460 policemen will take part in this test to continue the right to carry weapons, according to local media.

In the sprawling township of Inanda, residents have ripped doors and roofs off the outhouses, annexed them to the main house, or completely stripped them away. Discussing bodily fluids is so taboo that people are reluctant to explain their discomfort. One young mother accused thieves of stealing “the door and the toilet” from her outhouse, which she now uses as a garage.

“When the (city) council brings the toilets to them, they look at it as an inferior system,” said Lucky Sibiya, an outreach officer with the water department.

“People don’t understand how important it is,” he said. “There is a belief saying that touching the faeces brings misfortune.”

As soon as they can afford it, people invest in a septic tank and abandon the dry toilets, which require spreading a layer of sand after each use and using separate sections for the urine and the solid waste. The tanks then must be emptied regularly. Dry toilets were invented in Yemen centuries ago.

“They work well in rural areas because the fertiliser produced from the urine and the faeces is used locally,” said Pierre-Yves Oger, a water and sanitation consultant based in South Africa.

“But in urban areas, there’s a dissociation between the producer (of the waste) and the user of the recycled products, and it’s very hard to overcome the psychological block,” he said.

That’s why few cities have launched large-scale dry toilet projects. Durban began its programme in 2002 when a cholera outbreak revealed the lack of hygiene in a city where more than a quarter of the four million residents have no sanitation.

To avoid having to install an entire sanitation system, and to save water, Durban opted for dry toilets. The city remains convinced that was the right choice.

“South Africa is a water-stressed country,” said Teddy Gounden, who heads the project. “With the increase in demand for drinking water, we cannot afford to flush this valuable resource down the sewer. ( AFP )

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The Hidden Cost of Savings Accounts

The Hidden Cost of Savings Accounts - They offer security for your funds as well as greater liquidity, but traditional savings accounts come with significant costs, too. In exchange for the freedom to pull funds out on a whim, savings accounts can burden consumers with low return rates, hidden fees and surprise penalties.


Here are four reasons to consider stashing your cash someplace other than a savings account.

Opportunity Cost

The major loss that savings account holders face is simply not getting higher returns on their money. With the largest banks currently offering around a half-percent in interest, consumers will gain greater returns in almost any other savings instrument.

"With the current interest rate environment, it's basically the same thing as storing your money under a mattress," says Hollis Colquhoun, co-author of "Women Empowering Themselves: A Financial Survival Guide."

"If your money is just going to sit there, consider placing it in a variety of mutual funds and securities. If you need the liquidity, look at online banks with higher interest rates," she says.

While some banking institutions have rates well below 1 percent, many online institutions offer savings accounts with more than double the interest rate. Colquhoun says that account holders also need to be aware of how their interest is compounded. Most banks compound interest daily and pay out monthly. However, a few compound much later monthly or even quarterly -- significantly reducing your returns.

Teaser Rates

The savings account with the highest interest rate may not pay off the most in the end. For example, an institution may offer a high introductory rate of 2.25 percent on their online money market accounts. However, after the first three months, the rate drops to 0.75 percent. Before signing onto a savings account, consumers should do their homework, says June Walbert, a Certified Financial Planner with USAA Financial Planning Services in San Antonio.

"You need to ask about what the bank will pay on your account and how long that rate is good for," Walbert says. "Ask them to run some numbers for you. If they can't give you a mathematical example about how much interest you will accrue over a certain period of time, move to another bank."

To combat low return rates, Walbert advises consumers to check out banks that offer a cash bonus for opening a savings account. With current interest rates so low, a modest $50 bonus is the equivalent of 10 years' worth of returns on a $1,000 savings account with a 0.5 percent interest rate.

Annual and Minimum Balance Fees

Some banks charge simply for the privilege of opening a savings account. For savers with low balances, a $25 annual fee and a monthly minimum-balance charge ranging from $4 to $10 can suck up your savings at an alarming rate. For consumers with low savings of $500 or less, an annual fee combined with repeated minimum balance charges can cut their savings in half in less than one year.

"Consumers need to be clear about the rules and penalties of their accounts, but it also can't hurt to ask if a bank will waive a fee," says Walbert. "Ask for things like a rate match on a savings account or a pass on a minimum-balance fee. The worst they can do is say no."

Withdrawal Penalties

Savings accounts are designed to provide liquidity with a few restrictions. According to the Federal Reserve, consumers can legally make six withdrawals or transfers from a savings account or money market account per month.

However, it's up to the banks to set their own rules, and many only allow two to four withdrawals without penalty. Exceed that number and you'll be hit with a withdrawal fee of $3 to $10 for each time you go over. Consumers with low account balances could also be in danger of dropping below the minimum balance and incurring extra fees.

"There are so many bells, whistles, freckles and colors of bank accounts these days, it's important for the consumer to read the fine print and know what (he or she is) getting into," says Colquhoun. "Ask questions, read the fine print and choose a (savings) account that works for you." ( bankrate.com )

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How short should your hot showers last?

How short should your hot showers last?. Bathing Hot, Hot, HotHow bad should I feel about taking hot showers?. I know that taking long, hot showers is an environmental no-no. But now that the weather's getting colder, I just can't face the day without one. Exactly how much damage am I doing to the planet?

Guilt is a tricky thing to quantify. In the grand scheme of things, a hot shower represents just a fraction of your overall water and energy usage. And the Lantern will admit that she, too, needs the promise of a few steamy, soapy minutes to rouse herself out of bed on a frigid morning. But that doesn't mean that she condones epic showers.

How short should your hot showers last?

Let's take a closer look at the numbers. In a 1999 study of nearly 1,200 single-family homes, showers used an estimated 11.6 gallons per person per day, or roughly 17 percent of all indoor water consumption. (Toilets were no. 1, at 27 percent, and then washing machines, at 22 percent.)

How much water your personal ablutions require depends on what kind of showerhead you have and how long you luxuriate beneath it. The nonprofit Alliance for Water Efficiency has a nifty chart that can help you estimate exactly how much your daily shower sends down the drain. According to the Alliance, 25 gallons or less constitutes water-efficient bathing: That's five minutes with a 5-gallon-per-minute showerhead, or 12 minutes with a 2-gallon-per-minute showerhead. (Since 1992, federal regulations limit all new showerheads to a maximum flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute.)

Hot showers require more water than cold showers, because of the extra time spent waiting for the flow to heat up. According to a preliminary analysis from a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, an average of 5.21 gallons per household, per day spirals down the drain before anyone even starts bathing.

So what does that mean in the big picture? As we discussed a few months ago vis-à-vis toilets, what flows out of your faucets and showerheads is only part of your overall water footprint. The average household uses far more water outdoors than indoors—and your home's total consumption is going to be dwarfed by the production of all the goods you consume, which raises each American's daily footprint to about 1,800 gallons. (Mother Jones recently noted that it takes 33 gallons of water to produce a 16-ounce Diet Coke—about as much as a reasonable 13-minute shower under a 2.5 gpm showerhead.)

If you don't live in an area where droughts are a pressing concern, there's still the energy issue. No matter how hot or cold you like it, your shower is going to have an energy footprint. After all, it takes energy to treat and deliver potable water to your house, and once your shower water goes down the drain, it has to be treated all over again before it's released back into the environment.

Cranking up the temperature, however, will significantly increase your energy costs. Overall, water heating can account for up to 25 percent of your home's energy use, and showers use 37 percent of the hot water in the average home. (Add in baths, and it rises to roughly half.)

How much energy will a single hot shower set you back? It depends on a bunch of variables, but let's assume you're taking one of those 25-gallon showers and that the water is 55 degrees when it enters your heater (a reasonable average of seasonal temperatures around the nation). It takes 8.3 British thermal units to raise the temperature of one gallon of water 1 degree Fahrenheit, and a hot shower is usually 105 degrees. Et voila, getting your shower nice and steamy under these conditions will require 10,375 Btus of energy.

Next, you have to consider your water heater's energy factor. This is an overall rating—expressed as a number from zero to one—that indicates how efficiently the machine converts the energy it receives into hot water available for your use. (The higher the number, the more efficient the machine.) The typical gas heater has an energy factor of around 0.6, so you'd need about 17,000 Btus of gas input to warm your shower. If you used a typical electric water heater, with an energy factor of around 0.9, the same shower would consume 12,000 Btus of electricity. There's a big caveat here: Every Btu of electricity delivered to your home requires roughly three Btus' worth of primary fuel at the power plant, raising the total energy cost of your electrically heated shower to about 36,000 Btus. (There's some loss of energy when gas is delivered to your home, but it's much less significant.)

In 2005, the average American consumed about 200,000 Btus of residential energy every day (PDF). When you factor in all of our various energy costs, including transportation and the production of goods, per capita consumption rises to a little more than 900,000 Btus.

So what are you supposed to do with all those numbers? In the end, the Lantern suggests a commonsense approach to your morning ritual. Take the hot shower if you need it, but keep your time to a minimum. Avoid shaving or brushing your teeth in the shower, unless you're willing to shut the water off while you're doing it. (Look into installing a lathering valve, a showerhead attachment that allows you to shut off the flow while keeping water temperature constant—though note that they're not recommended for all households.) If you don't have one already, check to see if your municipality offers rebates for installing low-flow showerheads or those that automatically slow water flow to a trickle once the water has reached a comfortably hot temperature. The Department of Energy also has tips on how to make sure your water heater is operating as efficiently as possible.

Finally, fix your drips: The 1999 water-usage study found that leaks wasted 9.5 gallons a day, per person—almost as much as showers. ( slate.com )

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Picturing sex

Picturing sex: Kinsey explores what turns us on. Choices for institute's juried art show raise question of art, porn — or both. Art historian and museum curator Jennifer Cahn wasn’t sure what to expect when she was asked by the Kinsey Institute to select the works for the organization’s fourth annual juried art show.

Kinsey Institute

The ultrachrome fine art print titled "La Source, after Ingres" (show here in detail) by Gary Laird of Houston, Texas, will be on exhibit as part of the Kinsey Institute's fourth annual juried art show.

The show, opening Friday, is about sexuality, naturally, this being the Kinsey Institute, the famous Bloomington, Ind., research center founded by Alfred Kinsey, the man who raised the curtain on 1950s American sex.

But Cahn certainly never expected to receive over 700 submissions, the most ever for the show. Though she was given carte blanche to select the final group, something any judge likes to have, she found making her selections difficult because she was faced with distinguishing between porn, art, erotica and aesthetic value. That’s tough for anybody.

“We try to avoid making the distinction here,” explained Catherine Johnson-Roehr, who runs Kinsey’s art operation. “Anybody who comes here, or sees the online galleries, sees that it is a wide range of art and some of it might fit a particular person’s definition of porn.”

Take, for example, the institute’s recently acquired engraving from 1526 depicting a scene from Genesis, Potiphar’s wife trying to seduce Joseph. Joseph is depicted nude with quite an erection. Porn? Art? Both? “It’s fuzzy,” Johnson-Roehr said.

Exactly. So Cahn created her own criteria.

“The distinguishing factor to me was that I was looking for work with the strongest aesthetic qualities,” she explained. “And I was aware that there are lots of topical issues out there and I wanted to make sure as many voices got a say as possible. Some [works] have to do with ageism; how old can you be and still be sexually attractive? I picked things dealing with the forbidden — S and M and voyeurism and public sex.”

Drawing lines this way may seem arbitrary and sometimes it is, Cahn said. “It’s about personal background, what society and culture did you grow up in, the mores and values of your world. I tried to be as objective as possible but I knew there would be times when my life story would enter into how I look at things and what kind of art I like.”

Kinsey Institute This slip cast and assembled stonewear piece titled "Tit Tats: Juicy Orange" by Cara Jung of Erie, Pa., will be displayed at the Kinsey Institute's juried art show.

The draw of homemade erotica

Cahn said said she was intrigued by submissions that seemed homemade. Works that seemed slick sometimes struck her as prurient.

“Homemade work done in a bedroom by a lover was erotica. When it was a professional photographer in a studio, for me, that was making porn. It sounds corny but those aren’t about love. It is about sex devoid of emotion. Even a homemade image that has other emotions like anger, resentment, repression, those to me were beautiful and fascinating. The commercial ones were not.”

That’s an interesting observation given two recent news items. A German archeologist announced he had found a new “Venus,” a small carved figure of a woman equipped with enormous breasts and exaggerated genitals dating from about 35,000 years ago, so long ago that whoever made it was sharing Europe with Neanderthals. This may make it the oldest known piece of figurative art ever found, about as close to eternal as you can get on the human scale.

Kinsey Institute A digital photograph titled "Will You Malign Me? (Part 2)" by Sarah Taavola of Hartland, Wis., will be included in the Kinsey Institute's juried art show.

Fast forward a few dozen thousand years to Playboy, that 20th-century paeon to pulchritude, which is now struggling for relevance. The company, once revolutionary, recently announced that it has been losing money on its flagship magazine which has been getting skinny faster than a Biggest Loser contestant. According to spokesperson Theresa Hennessy, the July and August issues will combine to save money. The company still isn’t sure what schedule it will follow after that.

I am sentimental about Playboy, not only because I saw my first naked woman in its pages but also because it published some of the best journalism of the last century. But judging from its June issue, its editors are hoping a less-sophisticated magazine will bring the ads and the readers back. Maybe that will work. I hope so. But it could be that the success of the revolution Hugh Hefner helped create, giving people permission to enjoy and show off sex, is responsible for the magazine’s straits.

“One thing that struck me, and it brings sense to why Playboy is cutting back, is that people are producing high-quality work at home,” Cahn said. “And I think homemade erotica can be much more powerful than something you buy on the newsstand.” You could say we might be returning to the stone age.

Nobody knows just why someone made the newly-discovered Venus figure all those years ago. Maybe it was a wish for fertility, or a homage to a goddess, or cave man porn. But it was definitely a “homemade” exploration of sex just like the artists who submitted their work to the Kinsey show and most impressed Cahn.

For all the challenge in her task of judging, she said, “in the end, I thought, ‘This is a beautiful show.’ I felt proud of America, that people with such varied interests and abilities were free to submit their work. That’s democracy.” ( msnbc.com )

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Dubai ruler's ambition sowed seeds of crisis

Dubai ruler's ambition sowed seeds of crisis. Extravagant sheik commanded desert state's meteoric rise, aided its bust - Dubai's ruler writes poetry, rides horses across the desert in long-distance endurance races and hobnobs with royals like the Queen of England. Mixing extravagance with boundless ambition, he commanded the desert city-state's meteoric rise — and helped sow the seeds, some observers say, of its debt crisis.

Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's business-over-politics approach turned Dubai into a city-state with the surface trappings of Western liberalism — a thin veneer over the conservatism and strict political boundaries familiar throughout the Arab world.

Drink at the bars, wear bikinis at the beach, hit the discos and make money, was the overt message. But there was a red line in the sand: Don't question his grandiose plans or the foundations they were built on. Those foundations, it turns out, were not oil, but other people's money. Lots of it.

"In the past, the ruler was trusted on finances because everyone thought they were backed by oil," said Simon Henderson, a Gulf and energy specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It will be different from now on."

Dubai is one of seven highly autonomous statelets that make up the United Arab Emirates. Though UAE capital Abu Dhabi has huge oil riches, neighboring Dubai has very little.

The 60-year-old Mohammed's confidence and ambition gave way to aspirations to place Dubai in the same league as London or New York.

Forging ahead with eye-popping development, he vigorously wooed investors, leading to excesses that created a speculative bubble. One of the biggest borrowers was the government's own development vehicle, the conglomerate Dubai World, which shook markets with its announcement last week that it needed to delay payments on part of its $60 billion debt.

Mohammed and his government, however, have refused to stand by the company's debts, and when the signs mounted that Dubai was falling victim to the world economic turmoil, he denied it and never came up with a recovery plan.

City's stunning makeover

Dubai's ruler supervised the Gulf city's stunning makeover in the past decade, turning it into a model for development in an Arab world plagued with poverty, corruption and nepotism.

Along with extravagant projects like artificial islands and glitzy skyscrapers, international schools, multinational companies and luxury hotels mushroomed around the city. They offered young Arab professionals jobs and a lifestyle they couldn't find or afford in Cairo or Beirut.

Like his Muslim city-state with a Western outlook, Mohammed, whose net worth is listed at $12 billion by Forbes, has held onto deeply rooted Arabian traditions while pursuing his ambitions for modernity.

He breeds camels and is a passionate lover of horses. He rides endurance races in the desert and drives a customized Mercedes four-wheel drive SUV along Dubai's sprawling highways. He listens to residents' complaints the old-fashioned way, in his diwan, or reception room, but also regularly updates his Facebook profile and exchanges tweets with Dubai's youth.

That mix has suited his personality and ruling style in a region where personality cults around leaders are considered part of good governance.

Taken in by Mohammed's marketing skills, deposed politicians, oil tycoons and powerful executives willingly participated in Dubai's real estate bonanza — no questions asked — as did professionals from Europe and Asia who flocked to the emirate, paying for condos and villas before building even started.

Some multinational companies even made the emirate their regional headquarters, and company executives rubbed shoulders with Hollywood stars like Charlize Theron and athletes like Tiger Woods.

Charmed by Mohammed's personality and his assurances, investors poured in billions.

Bubble bursts, ruler retreats

Taking advantage of cheap credit, developers — some run by the government and other's closely linked to it — built soaring skyscrapers and luxury residential compounds on man-made islands at a pace that outstripped real demand. Despite oversupply, real estate prices soared, in a mirror image of what happened in the United States before the subprime mortgage crisis sent the world into its worst recession in over six decades.

When the global financial crisis hit Dubai, prices collapsed by 50 percent in a year while the cheap funding dried up, meaning other projects either sat unfinished or were scrapped.

Now, as the emirate's largest government-owned conglomerate, Dubai World, reels under the weight of its $60 billion in debts, Mohammed has retreated from the limelight.

Given how intertwined Dubai is with its ruler and members of the Maktoum dynasty, the fallout could create trouble for Mohammed, who must now either hope that the neighboring emirate of Abu Dhabi will step in with some sort of bailout or that creditors will see they have little choice but to agree to restructuring debt.

"It will be very difficult for Sheik Mohammed to survive this one," said Christopher Davidson, an expert in Gulf affairs at Britain's Durham University and author of two books on the Emirates. He said Mohammed misled investors by giving them the impression he had money to back his plans.

The Associated Press e-mailed requests for an interview with Mohammed but they were not answered.

Dubai World's debt not addressed

Dubai officials said the city's government will not be responsible for the company's debts and Mohammed has shown little inclination over the past week to address Dubai World's debt problems directly.

When he recently came forward, he accused the media of exaggerating the situation and arguing that the market reaction showed a "lack of understanding of what is going on in Dubai."

The lack of clarity from Dubai's ruling and corporate elite has been evident over the past year, when Dubai became the Gulf region's biggest credit crunch victim.

At a rare meeting with reporters two months ago, Mohammed's answer to a question about Dubai's debt-load was: "I assure you we are all right. ... We are not worried."

By November, he had grown more testy. In a meeting with international investors in November, he switched from Arabic to English to tell naysayers in the media to "shut up." ( msn.com )

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