| World / Nation Briefs
FEMA'S KATRINA CONTRACTS MAY HAVE BEEN ILLEGAL. FEMA exposed taxpayers to significant waste - and possibly violated federal law - by awarding Hurricane Katrina-related contracts worth $3.6 billion to companies with poor credit histories and bad paperwork, investigators say. The new report by the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general, set to be released later this week, examines the propriety of 36 trailer contracts. It found a haphazard bidding process in which the winning contract prices were both unreasonably low and high.
CLINTON HITS BUSH FOREIGN POLICY. Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized President George W. Bush's foreign policy yesterday, and said if she were president she would do things differently, including beginning diplomatic talks with supposed enemies and sending envoys throughout the world.
MyGolfBuddy.com to Use CREDITZ(R) Digital Currency for Online ...
LAS VEGAS, April 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CEO America, Inc. (Pink Sheets: CEOA), exclusive US licensee of CREDITZ(R) Digital Currency, today announced the signing of a licensing and marketing agreement with mygolfbuddy.com, a unique social networking community for the amateur golf enthusiast. The agreement is designed to increase revenues for mygolfbuddy.com while it provides a unique promotional currency for its members. MyGolfBuddy.com will be paying its members for golfing activities, merchandise spending and other marketing behavior, such as viewing rich-media advertising or referring members. The agreement will enable MyGolfBuddy.com to use CREDITZ Digital Currency as promotional currency for members in conjunction with MyGolfBuddy.com innovative marketing programs. MyGolfBuddy.com will also represent CREDITZ to its sponsorship clients, to facilitate co-op advertising programs.
Magic moments
THE TRADITIONAL healer, a dark-skinned woman with intense brown eyes, wasted little time introducing herself when we walked into her thatched hut in Kawaza, a village of 48 people from the Kunda tribe in eastern Zambia. "Right now, my name is Fanny," she said, "but when I am possessed I am no longer Fanny. My name becomes Hetina." Fanny was wearing a long white dress decorated with bright red crosses, signifying her status as the village shaman. She was gripping a well-thumbed Bible from which she soon would be reading to us while describing how she tackles her village's health-care issues, from the common cold to HIV/AIDS. But first Fanny had a question for her three foreign visitors. "Is there anything you'd like to ask me?" she said, speaking in her native language, Senga, through our English-speaking guide.
Just a reminder
PLACEBO: Not the grandiose British outfit, but a scrappy, all-gal band of teenage punks from Calgary who once had the honour of opening for the Ramones in 1991. Loud enough that it eventually contributed to the temporary loss of the young Feist's voice, a condition that required medical attention. NOAH'S ARKWELD: Although she'd never actually played bass before, Feist was welcomed to Toronto during the mid-1990s with a gig holding down the low end for ex-hHead frontman Noah Mintz's solo outings. BODEGA: Feist only very briefly served as second guitarist in Andrew Rodriguez's dreamy indie-pop outfit, but was notably present onstage during the ass-whuppin' 1997 show at Ottawa basement haunt the Cave that scored the band an international deal with London Records. BY DIVINE RIGHT: A couple of years slinging guitar alongside Jose Contreras in what was probably the rockingest incarnation of By Divine Right climaxed with the band being invited along on a stadium tour with the Tragically Hip in 1999.
How a filmmaker turned his movie flop into a groundbreaking book
In 1964 Melville Shavelson set out to make a Hollywood epic about an American military man who helped establish the state of Israel. Though Cast a Giant Shadow had a generous budget, the full cooperation of the Israeli government, and a star-studded cast including Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Yul Brynner, Angie Dickinson, and Senta Berger, it flopped. But something great came out of it: Shavelson's hilarious, groundbreaking 1971 book about the experience, How to Make a Jewish Movie. That his friends suggested a better title would have been "How Not to Make a Jewish Movie" gives a hint of what to expect.
By the 1960s Shavelson was well-known in Hollywood as a maker of comedies. He'd received Oscar nominations for co-writing two films he also directed: the Cary Grant-Sophia Loren romance Houseboat and the Bob Hope vehicle The Seven Little Foys.
Record Breakers … ISHOF Speaks With Alan Ford
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida, April 4. WITH 15 world records broken at the FINA World Championships, ISHOF CEO Bruce Wigo had a chance to talk with one of the greatest record breakers in swimming history - Alan Ford. The man who broke Johnny Weissmuller's record in the 100 yard freestyle, a record that stood for 16 years. In February of 2007, Ford became the latest swimming great to donate his scrapbook to the Henning Library. ISHOF's CEO, Bruce Wigo, recently visited with Alan and reminisced with him about his career as one of the great sprint swimmers of all time. If Johnny Weissmuller was the Cadillac of Swimmers, then Alan Ford was at least his own namesake, quick on the pick-up, tight on his turns, and able to get off the blocks from start to high in record time. Ford was his own man but his legacy is that he'll always be known as the swimmer who finally broke Johnny Weissmuller's record in the 100 yard freestyle.
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