'The Lion King' to set new milestone on Broadway

NEW YORK (AP) — "The Lion King" has more reason to roar — it's on pace to end the week as the first Broadway show to earn $1 billion.

According to The Broadway League, the show ended last week with a 16-year gross of $999,267,836, and it regularly pulls in between $1 million and $2 million a week over eight performances at the Minskoff Theatre.

The show, featuring the music of Elton John and Tim Rice, including the Academy Award-winning "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," brought the 1994 animated Disney movie to life onstage in 1997. Director and designer Julie Taymor created the memorable costumes, puppetry and scenic design.

"This humbling milestone is a testament to the vision and artistry of Julie Taymor," producer Thomas Schumacher, president of Disney Theatrical Productions, said in a statement.

"For nearly 17 years she has been (the) guiding creative force and an inspiration to the show's brilliant cast, musicians and crew. But above all, we thank our loving audiences who continue to be moved and delighted night after night at the Minskoff Theatre and all around the world."

"The Lion King" has been a model of consistency in its march through records. In April 2012, it swiped the title of Broadway's all-time highest-grossing show from "The Phantom of the Opera," despite "Phantom" having almost a full 10 years' head start. The Disney show opened in November 1997, while "Phantom" debuted in January 1988.

Overall, the show has made $5 billion across 21 global productions including shows in Japan, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and Brazil. This summer, Disney announced the show's total touring box-office gross in North America alone had reached $1 billion.

Part of its longevity is due to the movie tie-in, simple-to-understand story, family friendly themes and the fact that it's a spectacle not dependent on big-name stars — important for attracting tourists whose command of English might be weak. Some 11,215,000 have seen it on Broadway, according to data from The Broadway League.

The show is breathing down the neck of "Les Miserables" for the title of fourth longest-running Broadway show, behind only "Chicago," ''Cats" and "The Phantom of the Opera." ''Les Miserables" closed in 2003 after 6,680 shows and "The Lion King" will end this week with 6,621.

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Follow Mark Kennedy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

___

Online:

http://www.LionKing.com

• Performing Arts
• Arts & Entertainment
• The Broadway League
• The Lion King
• Broadway show
• Julie Taymor

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lion-king-set-milestone-broadway-143951635.html
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Tangled Web: Internet-based opera to open at Met

This Oct. 9, 2013 photo provided by the Metropolitan Opera shows Nico Muhly at the Met in New York. Muhly's “Two Boys,” which receives its North American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday night, is a fictionalized account of a British teenager who used the Internet in an attempt to arrange his own murder in 2003. (AP Photo/Metropolitan Opera, Jonathan Tichler)

This Oct. 9, 2013 photo provided by the Metropolitan Opera shows Nico Muhly at the Met in New York. Muhly's “Two Boys,” which receives its North American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday night, is a fictionalized account of a British teenager who used the Internet in an attempt to arrange his own murder in 2003. (AP Photo/Metropolitan Opera, Jonathan Tichler)

This Oct. 9, 2013 photo provided by the Metropolitan Opera shows Nico Muhly at the Met in New York. Muhly's “Two Boys,” which receives its North American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday night, is a fictionalized account of a British teenager who used the Internet in an attempt to arrange his own murder in 2003. (AP Photo/Metropolitan Opera, Jonathan Tichler)

NEW YORK (AP) — Little did Nico Muhly know when he composed "Two Boys" that the type of Internet deception he based the opera on would keep repeating over and over.

So when reports surfaced last winter that Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o was duped into an online relationship with a nonexistent woman, Muhly took notice.

"I was so happy," he said, "in a perverse way."

Then he explained how the Web had created such a tangled web.

"It wasn't just some sort of man and girl in the suburbs. So that to me was very satisfying," he added with a laugh, going on to cite the case of a physicist duped into smuggling cocaine while believing he was courting a bikini model.

"It happens to random people, to famous people, to really smart people, to educated people, to uneducated people. There's a real kind of egalitarian nature to deceit, you know what I mean?"

The work by the 32-year-old New Yorker receives its North American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday night, a fictionalized account of a British teenager who used the Internet in an attempt to arrange his own murder in 2003. The first composition to reach the Met stage from the company's 7-year-old commissioning program with Lincoln Center Theater, "Two Boys" has been revised since its world premiere two years ago at the English National Opera.

Starring mezzo-soprano Alice Coote as Detective Anne Strawson and tenor Paul Appleby as Brian, a 16-year-old accused in the stabbing of a 13-year-old named Jake, "Two Boys" is a starkly contemporary piece.

Met General Manager Peter Gelb said the adult themes ruled out the opera from inclusion in the company's high-definition theater simulcasts.

"It's full of such darkness, such personally really upsetting things that I have to witness that, yeah, I feel very tired," Coote said. "There's a lot of sexual and emotional abuse going on in this piece."

Gelb first became aware of Muhly when he was an executive at Sony. They started talking soon after Muhly was a pianist for a workshop of what became Rufus Wainwright's "Prima Donna."

Muhly wrote the opera with librettist Craig Lucas in a method Mozart, Verdi and Wagner would be unfamiliar with. When he had drafts of music ready, he would email them to Lucas as PDF files. Muhly composes at home and on the road — and on Amtrak trains.

"The cafe car is the best," he said. "I find out in advance where it's going to be and then wait by the staircase in Penn Station."

Reviews at the original run were lukewarm. Rupert Christiansen wrote in The Telegraph that it was "a bit of a bore — dreary and earnest rather than moving and gripping, and smartly derivative rather than distinctively individual. Yet I wish that I could have heard it again before passing judgment."

Since the London premiere, they've switched the beginnings of the two acts to make the work more linear, created more of a backstory to the detective, added about 1½ minutes of music, inserted dancing to the online chat room choruses and made minor changes to the orchestration,

"I think most operas after their first performance get revised, since the beginning of time," Muhly said. "And others go through a period of heavy, heavy revision, and then you realize the first instance was right."

Gelb has instituted a commitment to contemporary operas at the Met since he took over as general manager in 2006, presenting the company premieres of John Adams' "Nixon in China," Thomas Ades' "The Tempest" and Philip Glass' "Satyagraha." Trying to fill its 3,800 seats, the Met has put up posters in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, erected signs in New York City subways and advertised on MTV's "Catfish: The TV Show," a reality program about Manti Te'o-style trickery in online dating.

"In general a piece that is completely unfamiliar to the audience is harder to sell, obviously, than a piece that is familiar," Gelb said.

For all the modern technology, Appleby says the emotions of the story are familiar. He compares it to plays of Shakespeare and the French dramatist Cyrano de Bergerac.

"A very, old traditional story about people trying to reach out and looking, longing for a connection or longing for love and not feeling comfortable expressing themselves," he called it.

Everyone involved describes "Two Boys" as troubling.

"This is written in such a way that it almost expresses the disjointedness of daily life that we all live," Coote said. "What has become of us as humanity when we're so dominated now by the Internet, by technology, as our lives are quite a lot of the time being lived within those realms?"

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-18-Internet%20Opera/id-e5e66b37d1e344e08984800d7ee5b041
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Selling Pablo

A woman shows an album of the late drug lord Pablo Escobar, which is sold in stores in Medellín, on Aug. 8, 2012. The distribution company, World View Productions, is trying to capitalize on the success of a television series based on Escobar's life.

Photo by Fredy Amariles/Reuters

MEDELLÍN, Colombia—On Dec. 2, 1993, one day after his 44^th birthday, Pablo Escobar died during a police raid on the roof of a modest home in what is now an otherwise unremarkable middle-class suburb of Medellín, Colombia. Twenty years later the man who invented modern-day narcoterrorism and brought his country to the brink of ruin still inspires extreme emotions. Colombians either love him (if you’re from one of the many poor barrios where he built homes, schools, and soccer fields) or hate him (if you’re one of the tens of thousands who lost loved ones during Escobar’s years of violence).

Colombians can agree on one thing, however: Escobar sells, especially to the growing number of tourists visiting this South American country. As Colombia gropes its way out of the shadows of decades of drug violence, nationwide tourism is on the rise—up 300 percent since 2006. Tourism officials predict a record-setting 2 million people will visit Colombia in 2013. The following year they’re aiming for twice that.

The irony of this welcome increase in visitors, however, is that there is a corresponding rise in the kind of tourism that Medellín officials really wish you would avoid: Escobar tours. The visitors bureau refuses to promote them—a top administrator said she “feared” reinforcing the Colombia-cocaine stereotype—and even some tour companies, like Colombian Getaways, decline to offer them, calling the idea “hurtful.”

The memory has him caught, like the rest of the country, between Escobar excitement and Escobar shame.

And yet the drug lord’s legacy is unavoidable. At the height of his power in the 1980s and early 1990s, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria controlled 80 percent of the cocaine traffic to the United States. He had enough money to offer to pay Colombia’s national debt. He briefly held a seat in Colombia’s Congress. His crimes included assassinations, car bombings, extortion, and the bombing of an Avianca commercial flight. Escobar’s brother, who was the cartel’s accountant, claims that the group spent $2,500 on rubber bands each month for wrapping bundles of cash. In 1987 Escobar appeared on the inaugural Forbes magazine list of billionaires, and he remained on that list until the day he died.

Now there are at least 10 companies offering Escobar tours in Medellín—making stops at his grave, the site where he was killed, and other grisly landmarks. My guide on the $45 Escobar tour offered by Medellín City Tours, John Echeverry, says he had to think long and hard before agreeing to take the job. As we turn our backs on Escobar’s grave, Echeverry tells a story about the time that he and 44 of his classmates (including the son of Escobar’s cousin and Medellín Cartel business manager Gustavo Gaviria) were invited to Escobar’s private retreat, Hacienda Nápoles, for the weekend.

“There were mini motorcycles for all of us,” Echeverry remembers. “We sat at a long table and we could have whatever we wanted.” He shakes his head. The memory has him caught, like the rest of the country, between Escobar excitement and Escobar shame. “There were no limits. It was like Disneyland.”

It is perhaps fitting, then, that the Colombian government handed the 3,000-acre estate, located about four hours from Medellín, over to a management company that turned it into the largest theme park in South America. It is called Parque Tematico Hacienda Napoles (Hacienda Napoles Theme Park), and advertises itself as a destination “for family tourism, environmental protection and the protection of animal species in danger of extinction.” Since it opened in 2008, managers say it has attracted about 1 million visitors, overwhelmingly Colombian, who pay up to $30 to get a peek.

A group of refugee children play in the grounds of Escobar's abandoned country home in central Colombia in Puerto Triunfo, on Dec. 10, 2002.

Photo by Albeiro Lopera/Reuters

But the managers took care not to turn the drug lord’s ranch/zoo/airport/headquarters into a monument to the narco lifestyle. The drug-running plane that Escobar had perched atop the Hacienda Nápoles entrance was painted with friendly zebra stripes. Five new theme hotels were built (Africa, Casablanca, etc.). Escobar’s private bull ring was recently turned into the Africa Museum. A 30-foot fake octopus now douses shrieking swimmers in a water park that is as tacky as a Florida putt-putt course. Escobar’s original menagerie of wild animals has been expanded to include lions, tigers, rhinos, jaguars, and more than 40 hippos. A pair of elephants will arrive as soon as the paperwork is sorted out.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2013/10/pablo_escobar_tours_are_drawing_tourists_to_colombia_the_south_american.html
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Right Wing Protesters Bring Confederate Flags to the White House (Little green footballs)

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The Colonel’s Real Secret Blend

Yum! Brands is not exactly a household name, but its brands are: KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut. Together they form the world’s largest fast food company. In global terms, the flagship brand is good old KFC, which is an especially big hit in Asia—KFC plays an integral role in Japanese Christmas traditions and its restaurants are ubiquitous in urban China. The foundations of this empire go back to a southern cook whose real culinary innovations had little to do with that famous secret blend of 11 herbs and spices.

Before there was KFC, there was really no such thing as fast food chicken. Fast food meant thin, easily griddled burgers and thin-cut potato sticks you could dump in the deep fryer. But starting in 1930, a school dropout and army veteran named Harland Sanders—he was a teamster in Cuba during his U.S. Army stint, not a colonel—had a popular roadside motel, restaurant, and service station in Corbin, Ky., where he served down-home southern classics including fried chicken and country ham. (Food critic Duncan Hines’ 1940 book Adventures in Good Eating: Good Eating Places Along The Highways of America described the spot as “a very good place to stop en route to Cumberland Falls and the Great Smokies.”) For at least the next decade, Sanders and his restaurant prospered. He became a prominent member of the local community and, despite having been born and raised in Indiana, was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel by Gov. Lawrence Wetherby.

And then came the interstate. We can only speculate as to the quality of the food at Sanders’ old place, but Hines’ recommendation was spot-on in terms of location. Driving south from Lexington on U.S. 25, you’d pass right by the restaurant just a few miles before reaching the turn for the Cumberland Falls Highway that would take you away from commerce and toward natural beauty. Then I-75 was built, and between Corbin and Lexington, it runs parallel to—but distinctly west of—the old U.S. 25. The new grade-separated road provided a much faster route for through-travelers. Sanders’ business closed in 1955.

Fortunately for Sanders, he’d already founded a new business much more successful than the original service station. In 1952, he sold a franchise license for his “Kentucky Fried Chicken” to Peter Harman of Salt Lake City. After the original restaurant failed, this became his livelihood: traveling the country and licensing the KFC product. As recounted by Josh Ozersky in his book Colonel Sanders and the American Dream, restaurant owners “could serve a dish called Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken in exchange for a nickel for each chicken they sold, and they had to buy the equipment and special recipe (a pressure cooker and the seasoned flour) from Colonel Sanders himself.” The seasoning is what’s famous today, but the pressure cooker is what’s important.

Pressure frying is based on the same principle as the then-new technology of pressure cooking. By fitting a pot with a very tight lid, you can create a high-pressure environment in which the boiling point of water is raised above its normal 212 degrees Fahrenheit. With the water hotter than normal, tough cuts of meat that normally require long braising times can be done relatively quickly. After a brief surge in popularity in the 1940s, pressure cooking rapidly fell out of favor with American homemakers, largely because early models were fairly dangerous and explosion-prone.

Filling the pressure cooker with hot oil rather than water only ups the danger factor. Today’s fast-food chains use specially designed pressure fryers to ensure safety, but Sanders seems to have simply encouraged his clients to live dangerously. At high pressure, you can fry chicken pieces with much less time or oil than standard methods would allow. That turned on-the-bone fried chicken into a viable fast food product, years before the processed chicken revolution that gave us various chicken nuggets and patties.

Presumably, Sanders was not the only person to try putting oil in a pressure cooker sometime in the 1940s. But he did help popularize it—alongside original franchisee Pete Harman, who developed training manuals and product guides for franchisees that led to safer large-scale pressure frying. Sanders opened about 600 KFC franchises before selling his company to an investor group in 1964. Henny Penny developed a commercial pressure fryer in 1957, and Broaster came along soon after with a competing product. KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken went initials-only in 1991) suffered a number of ups and downs throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but its early success firmly established fried chicken in the fast food landscape and turned pressure fryers into standard quick-service restaurant equipment.

The often derided or overlooked food-service sector of the economy is every bit as much a locus of innovation and technological progress as manufacturing or electronics. At high-end restaurants where scientifically enhanced cooking goes by the name “molecular gastronomy,” this kind of food engineering is often celebrated. But chains—like the large factories of the industrial age—have the economies of scale necessary to tinker for the sake of real efficiency, not just novelty. Pressure frying in a single roadside diner was an interesting bit of trivia for a guidebook. Doing it in a national chain, though, transformed an industry.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/when_big_businesses_were_small/2013/10/kfc_origins_a_roadside_diner_became_a_global_phenomenon_thanks_to_a_little.html
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Review: Salt keeps server automation simple

October 17, 2013

Like Puppet, Chef, and Ansible, Salt is an open source server management and automation solution with commercial, officially supported options. Based on command-line-driven server and client services and utilities, Salt is primarily focused on Linux and Unix server management, though it offers significant Windows management capabilities as well. While Salt may look simple on its face, it's surprisingly powerful and extensible, and it has been designed to handle extremely large numbers of clients.

Salt uses a push method of communication with clients by default, though there's also a means to use SSH rather than locally installed clients. Using the default push method, the clients don't actively check in with a master server; rather, the master server reaches out to control or modify each client based on commands issued manually or through scheduling. But again, Salt can also operate in the other direction, with clients querying the master for updates. Salt functions asynchronously, and as such, it's very fast. It also incorporates an asynchronous file server for file deployments.

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Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-center/review-salt-keeps-server-automation-simple-228936?source=rss_infoworld_top_stories_
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Jennifer Lawrence: Katniss Cutie for Capitol Couture

She’s one of the hottest tough chicks of all time, and Jennifer Lawrence looks gorgeous in the Fall 2013 edition of Capitol Couture.

The “Hunger Games” off-shoot website features the “Winter’s Bone” babe in full Katniss Everdeen gear.

J Law’s article reads, “For most of us, a year passes without huge consequence. We grow a bit older, vow to appreciate more. But for Katniss Everdeen, life shifted seismically last fall.”

“A simple girl with a knitted braid and flair with a bow selflessly shouted, ‘I volunteer!’ and went on to ignite our city with a newfound spirit. And while she may be known as ‘the girl on fire,’ we all know that this Victor’s flame is internal, if not eternal. Everdeen smolders, yet there is little smoke.”

“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” is slated to hit theaters on November 22nd.

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/jennifer-lawrence/jennifer-lawrence-katniss-cutie-capitol-couture-944764
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State TV: Top Syrian Army General Killed In Battle

BEIRUT (AP) — One of Syria's most powerful military officers was killed in fighting with al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremists in an oil-rich eastern province largely controlled by the rebels, Syrian state-run television said Thursday.

The fighting came amid a new push to hold an elusive peace conference for Syria's civil war, with the government proposing the talks start late next month, though there was no sign the opposition would attend.

Maj. Gen. Jameh Jameh was killed in the provincial capital of Deir el-Zour, where he was the head of military intelligence, state-run TV said. He was the most senior military officer to be killed in more than a year.

The report did not say when or how Jameh was killed, only that he died "while he was carrying out his mission in defending Syria and its people."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Jameh was killed by a sniper bullet during clashes with rebels, including members of al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front.

Jameh's cousin, Haitham Jameh, told Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV that the general was killed when a bomb exploded as he led his troops in an operation in Deir el-Zour, site of more than a year of clashes between regime forces and rebel fighters, who control most of the province.

He was the most powerful Syrian officer to be killed since a July 2012 bomb attack on a Cabinet meeting in Damascus killed four top officials, including the defense minister and his deputy, who was President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law. That attack also wounded the interior minister.

Jameh played a major role in Lebanon when Damascus dominated its smaller neighbor. When Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2005, ending nearly a three-decade military presence, Jameh was in charge of Syrian intelligence in the capital, Beirut.

He was among several top Syrian officers suspected of having a role in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria denies any involvement in the slaying.

Four members of the Syrian-backed Hezbollah were charged in 2011 by a U.N.-backed tribunal with plotting the attack that killed Hariri, though none have been arrested. Their trial is scheduled to start in January. A fifth Hezbollah member was indicted earlier this month.

Mustafa Alloush, a senior member in Hariri's Future Movement, noted that Jameh was in charge of Beirut's security at the time of the assassination, and "it is difficult to believe that Hezbollah carried out such an operation without full coordination with Syrian intelligence."

In Moscow, meanwhile, the Syrian deputy prime minister, Qadri Jamil, floated Nov. 23-24 as possible dates for talks on a political solution to the Syrian conflict, though there was no agreement on the ground rules for negotiations and the main Western-backed opposition hasn't decided whether to attend.

The United States and Russia have been trying to bring the Damascus government and Syria's divided opposition to negotiations in Geneva for months, but the meeting has been repeatedly delayed. It remains unclear if either side is really willing to negotiate while Syria's civil war, now in its third year, remains deadlocked.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that efforts were intensifying to try to hold the Geneva meeting in mid-November. Ban did not provide specific dates, and it's not clear whether those provided by Jamil had been agreed to by any other parties.

The talks have been put off repeatedly, in part because of fundamental disagreements over the fate of Assad.

The Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, the main alliance of political opposition groups, has said it will only negotiate if it is agreed from the start that Assad will leave power at the end of a transition period. Many rebel fighters inside Syria flatly reject negotiating with Assad's regime.

The regime has rejected such a demand, saying Assad will stay at least until the end of his term in mid-2014, and he will decide then whether to seek re-election. The regime has said it refuses to negotiate with the armed opposition.

Also Thursday, the international agency overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile said that inspectors have so far found no "weaponized" chemical munitions, or shells ready to deliver poison gas or nerve agents, and that Syria's declarations up to now have matched what inspectors found.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations are working to verify Syria's initial declaration of its weapons program and render production and chemical mixing facilities inoperable by Nov. 1. Their work on the ground involves smashing control panels on machines and destroying empty munitions.

The team has visited 11 of more than 20 sites since Oct. 1 and carried out destruction work at six. "Cheap, quick and low-tech. Nothing fancy," OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan said of the work.

The next phase gets more complex and dangerous, however, when actual chemical weapons have to be destroyed — in the midst of full-blown war. Negotiations are still underway as to how and where that will happen.

Syria's revolt began in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests against the Assad regime before turning into a civil war. The conflict has killed more than 100,000 people, forced more than 2 million to flee the country and left some 4.5 million others displaced within the country.

It has also proven difficult and dangerous for journalists to cover, and press freedom advocate groups rank Syria as the most dangerous country in the world for reporters. Dozens of journalists have been kidnapped and more than 25 have been killed while reporting in Syria since the conflict began.

On Thursday, Sky News Arabia said that a team of its reporters had gone missing in the contested city of Aleppo. The Abu Dhabi-based channel said it lost contact on Tuesday with its reporter, cameraman and their Syrian driver.

___

Associated Press writers Laura Mills in Moscow and Edith Lederer in New York contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=236004927&ft=1&f=
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Swartz's Whistleblower Protection Scheme to Carry On

By John P. Mello Jr.
TechNewsWorld
10/16/13 10:59 AM PT

Whistleblowers will have a new way of anonymously communicating with the press, thanks to the work of the late Aaron Swartz. The Freedom of the Press Foundation has picked up where Swartz et al left off, making some improvements to the technology and announcing its launch as SecureDrop. "At this point, we think it's a pretty good system," said security expert Bruce Schneier.

A press freedom advocacy group announced Tuesday it would be taking charge of a project started by Aaron Swartz to protect whistleblowers leaking confidential documents to journalists.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation will provide in-site installation of the DeadDrop technology, renamed "SecureDrop," as well as support for news organizations that want to securely receive confidential documents.

Swartz, an Internet activist and information transparency advocate, committed suicide while being prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department for liberating documents from JSTOR, an online academic article service.

With SecureDrop, news organizations around the world can securely accept documents from whistleblowers while protecting their anonymity, the FPF maintained.

"We've reached a time in America when the only way the press can assure the anonymity and safety of their sources is not to know who they are," said FPF cofounder and board member John Perry Barlow. "SecureDrop is where real news can be slipped quietly under the door."

Ensures Anonomity

SecureDrop is the strongest system ever made available to news outlets, according to the FPF.

The installation of SecureDrop on a news organization's servers allows a source with confidential documents to visit the site and communicate anonymously with it.

On a deployment page, the source is given four random codewords that can be used to decrypt communication from the news organization.

Documents and messages sent to SecureDrop are automatically encrypted and can be decrypted only by a journalist receiving them.

The system includes techniques that prevent a journalist from learning a source's identity and safeguard a source's messages and files from prying parties -- even if those parties physically remove the servers from the news organization.

Vulnerable to Powerful Attackers

Concerns have been raised that faults in Swartz's DeadDrop technology could make it vulnerable to powerful adversaries, based on an audit performed this summer by members of the computer science and engineering department faculty at the University of Washington, together with security experts Jacob Appelbaum and Bruce Schneier.

"Based on our evaluation of the DeadDrop design and implementation, we believe that the DeadDrop's core application is a technically decent system for supporting anonymous communication between sources and journalists," the audit says.

"However, we are concerned about the level of technical sophistication that journalists are expected to have and that they might, for usability reasons, make mistakes that leak the confidential information about the source," it continues.

"Furthermore, we caution that the system will likely be unable to protect the source against the most powerful type of adversaries which can monitor network flows, confiscate physical machines at will, or watermark documents that the source might try to submit to the journalists," warns the audit.

However, improvements have been made in the technology since the release of the DeadDrop audit.

"At this point, we think it's a pretty good system," Schneier told TechNewsWorld. "I'm pretty confident in DeadDrop."

Dangerous Sources

Solutions like SecureDrop can keep a source's identity unknown to a journalist, but a potential downside is that total anonymity might interfere with the proper assessment of documents leaked to a news organization.

"What makes this work is you don't know who your source is -- but it's also what makes it dangerous," Dan Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University, told TechNewsWorld.

"You have to figure out if these are legitimate documents that you're getting without knowing who gave them to you," he said.

"Just as important as figuring out if these are legitimate documents is what documents are this anonymous person not giving you that might cast the documents he or she is giving you in a different light," added Kennedy.

While using a source's identity in weighing the worth of documents is an important consideration, it doesn't negate the value of SecureDrop or that of StrongBox, a similar service offered by The New Yorker.

"It's a legitimate concern, and we think about it every time something comes into StrongBox," NewYorker.com Editor Nicholas Thompson told TechNewsWorld.

"This doesn't replace vetting sources or talking to them. This is just one way to get documents that you would otherwise have no access to," he said.

"This isn't replacing the journalistic work our reporters do," added Thompson. "It's just creating another avenue for material to come to us. And when it comes to us, we weigh the fact that we don't know the person who sent it to us, so we have to try doubly hard to verify it and to make sure we put it in its proper context."

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/79203.html
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Search Engine Giant Yandex Launches Cocaine, A Cloud Service To Compete With Google App Engine

Russian search giant Yandex has launched an open-source platform as a service (PaaS) called Cocaine that the company says allows developers to build out their own app engines. Yandex, in its documentation, describes Cocaine as an open-source PaaS system for creating custom cloud-hosting apps that are similar to Google App Engine or Heroku. It supports C++, Python and JavaScript. It is now developing support for Java and Racket.

Yandex uses Docker as the technology for infrastructure virtualization and app isolation on the Cocaine platform. Docker is a lightweight container that can run in almost any environment and is becoming one of the most important open-source technologies for a new class of cloud services, including CoreOS. Red Hat has adopted Docker for OpenShift, its own PaaS.

In the documentation, Yandex points out that Xen and KVM are full virtualization environments that are difficult at best to move. In contrast, containers share a common kernel and cannot provide device emulation, but their use doesn’t incur additional overhead and they start almost instantly. Ben Golub, CEO at dotCloud, the company behind Docker, said in an email that virtual machines (VMs) are the basis for most of today’s cloud services. For example, most IaaS vendors sell their services by the VM. Amazon Machine Images from Amazon Web Services are basically VMs. But he said VMs are heavyweight, impose a performance penalty, and are difficult to migrate.

While I certainly wouldn’t call this cloud washing, I would say that traditional virtualization was such a great hammer, and that everything started to look like a nail. But VMs aren’t a good fit for certain cloud purposes. Containers, by contrast, provide lightweight isolation. A container has the app plus its dependencies, and runs on the physical host’s operating system. They abstract at a much higher level than VMs. They avoid a lot of the penalties of VMs. However, until recently, they were difficult to use and non-standardized, and containers were not compatible across environments.

A Yandex spokesperson could not be reached for comment about why they use the term “Cocaine” to describe the service. But the company is not shying away from the innuendo as illustrated in its tagline: “Grab some cocaine in containers.”

Here’s the intro to the service they have on GitHub:

Regardless of the name, these cocaine clouds represent a new force in the cloud services market and show the trending acceptance for Linux containers.

Image via 

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/n6d9roCNj3U/
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Pusha T On A Tribe Called Quest, His Frustrations And Pharrell (Part 2)

Courtesy of Def Jam Records

Pusha T.

Courtesy of Def Jam Records

In the second part of an interview with Pusha T, Microphone Check co-host Ali Shaheed Muhammad is dragged into a public battle over which A Tribe Called Quest album is better — Low End Theory or Midnight Marauders. Pusha details his frustrations with the music industry in general, and one fashion company in particular, and says his dream for hip-hop is for legacy acts to tour like The Eagles. "I don't think I will ever put any other music before it, so I need to see it all the way through. I need to see it in all of its splendor," he says. When co-host Frannie Kelley tries to end their conversation on a high note, Pusha recalls the making of the last song on his new album, a song that comes from a hard truth: "I don't necessarily want to hear rap anymore that doesn't give me — if we're talking about the streets — we can't just glorify it. We have to tell the whole story."

ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD: When you say, "All praise to the most high on both sides / I pray to God, I pray for hard," what does that means?

PUSHA T: Man. Wow. It's a very terrible statement. But it's all praise to the most high, meaning God. And meaning that I've prayed for, you know, drugs. Hoping it comes through and me — you know what I'm saying, selling them and so on and so forth.

MUHAMMAD: That's real.

PUSHA: Totally. And that's a prime example of just feeling the beat. I don't even know why. When I can't explain it, I'm like, "That has to stay." When I can't explain why — "All praise to the most high!" — comes out, then that's it. After that, then I just start writing.

MUHAMMAD: Bob Dylan says the most important thing to a song is the first line. The first line is the most important.

PUSHA: I believe it.

MUHAMMAD: A lot of people don't really, they just write to write or just don't really capture that feeling.

PUSHA: Right.

MUHAMMAD: Like, you know it. "I don't know why and it just has to stay."

PUSHA: That feeling is everything, man. I'm telling you! And some people can dial in a whole verse. I feel like my true greatness will be when I can dial in my whole verse off of a feeling. I think Tupac probably was like, that great at that. It sounds like he was. I mean, I don't know. But it feels like that. Jimmy Iovine told me one time, "Tupac couldn't write a verse; he could only write a hook."

MUHAMMAD: That's crazy. I didn't know that.

PUSHA: That's what Jimmy Iovine called all of his verses, actually. He was like, "Man, all of his verses were truly just hooks. He could not write a verse."

MUHAMMAD: Yo, that's flipping amazing.

FRANNIE KELLEY: No, that makes sense because it's so long.

PUSHA: But then when you hear them, and then when you just mimic and you don't know the words and you just hear the melodies and all of Pac's bars, it's like, "Wow, wait a minute! That might be right."

MUHAMMAD: I'm just thinking about it, I'm kinda like messed up. I'm like, "Holy..."

PUSHA: But he was dialed into the feeling. That's what I mean. He's dialed into the feeling.

KELLEY: First of all, I noted the Tribe shout-out on "Pain."

PUSHA: Oh, did you?

KELLEY: Ali did not.

PUSHA: Aw man, what? Ahh, come on!

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, sorry. She had to point it out.

PUSHA: That is incredible!

MUHAMMAD: I'm so sorry. Yo, it's a lot of distractions this week.

PUSHA: Oh my ... man!

MUHAMMAD: Damn, Frannie.

KELLEY: I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

PUSHA: Come on! Ahh!

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, it was a lot of distractions.

PUSHA: Aw man.

MUHAMMAD: So, so many. I'm so sorry. It's a lot of distractions this week.

KELLEY: Oh man, I feel guilty. I feel real guilty right now. What is Tribe; what is Tribe for you?

PUSHA: It opened up the colors of hip-hop to me. I was very one-track minded, with hip-hop. Very. I'm G Rap, I'm Rakim, you know. I could only see it one way. Tribe just opened up the colors and let me know like, "Wait a minute, man. This is fresh." You know what I'm saying? It let me know that, like, I didn't have to listen to it in just that capacity, just a street capacity. It was still fly. It was the first, like — man, I remember the Polo Hi Tech jackets. Like, come on, man. It was so many things to me. Tribe was so many things to me. And it really opened up, like, the horizons of hip-hop to me.

KELLEY: There's something about the cleanliness of the sound that I hear on this album that I can also hear in Low End Theory, in particular, and Midnight Marauders. But then also, there's the visuals around Low End Theory, the simplicity. The decisions, and they stick to the decision. That's there, too.

PUSHA: Are you familiar with the big Twitter argument that we had?

MUHAMMAD: No.

PUSHA: Oh my gosh. It was the Low End Theory — I have to ask you!

MUHAMMAD: Uh-oh.

PUSHA: Low End Theory versus Midnight Marauders.

KELLEY: Oh, there it is. The eternal question.

MUHAMMAD: Daggone.

PUSHA: Hold on: It started at a Complex photo shoot. Me, Common, Tip, everybody. I mean, everybody. It spilled over to a phone call — Pharrell, Busta. It spilled into Twitter.

MUHAMMAD: No, I didn't hear about this.

PUSHA: Oh, man!

MUHAMMAD: So, what was the verdict?

PUSHA: I mean, I rolled with Marauders. I rolled with Marauders, Common rolled with Low End Theory, then came back and said, "I think you might have been right with Marauders." Listen. He ain't admit that, though. Not in a open forum. I said, "Well, you gotta do it on Twitter! You gotta talk it." I think Busta rolled with Low End Theory, man.

MUHAMMAD: I could see that.

PUSHA: But then he started naming — wait a minute: He tried to put "Scenario (Remix)" on. You can't do that!

MUHAMMAD: You can't do that.

PUSHA: My point to you is, you can't add a record that wasn't on the album to your discography.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. That was way later, sorry.

PUSHA: Like, chill! But alright, I'm sorry.

KELLEY: I feel like I go Low End when I was younger, but now I would go Midnight.

MUHAMMAD: I'm happy to be in the room. What can I say?

PUSHA: Oh really? You're not gonna answer?

KELLEY: You're not gonna choose between your children?

PUSHA: Wow!

MUHAMMAD: Come on! I'm like, why are you asking me that?

KELLEY: Because he asked Tip!

PUSHA: I asked everybody! And Tip went Low End on me, too.

KELLEY: Whoa.

PUSHA: He went Low End Theory, I was like ...

MUHAMMAD: He did? He answered that question?

PUSHA: Yes, he did! I mean, we pulled up tracks. I'm like, "so you're saying that ..."

MUHAMMAD: I know why. I'll just say because Low End was like — man, we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about My Name Is My Name.

KELLEY: We're here to talk about hip-hop.

“ I feel like a manicured, timely, grass-roots campaign can work for me just like the $2 million that they may spend on your project, marketing it.

PUSHA: This is true.

MUHAMMAD: I'll just say I understand why he said that because that was like the open, that was — how do I explain this? I don't know if I can put words to the feeling of finally —

PUSHA: Do you agree with him?

MUHAMMAD: He's like, "Yo, cut to the chase."

PUSHA: I just want to know, do you agree with him?

MUHAMMAD: I cannot answer that question. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. It really is, because there were so many different things happening on that.

KELLEY: This leads into a question for me, actually. You talk about you make music for hip-hop culture, for this hip-hop s—-. What is that? What is that now?

PUSHA: Man. I think the culture is everything that us as the youth that came up on "The Message" and so on and so forth. Everything we're into. It's the music, it's the breakin', it's the fashion. It's everything. It's the slang, it's the lingo. I make music to keep that going.

As an artist right now, my biggest thing is a) I want to see hip-hop become one of the genres that tour like The Eagles. That's my biggest thing. Like, me being in hip-hop for 11 years? I want to see who's gonna be the first touring act and the first act that I'm going to see on the back of USA Today and say, "This year's biggest earners for touring." I want to see that. That's my biggest thing. And I feel like by being in the know and being a part of the culture and being a part of growing with hip-hop — this is going to be one of the first years that I feel like — and I sort of feel like Jay Z is sort of starting that — where you can see the older hip-hop veterans don't look down upon what's coming up, what's new. You know what I'm saying?

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, yeah.

PUSHA: And I feel like that's why all my favorites from back in the day left the game, why they got out the game. Because they were like, "Oh, I don't like where this is going. That's it. I'm off it." I feel like we're seeing that it doesn't have to be that. We can grow with it.

MUHAMMAD: It's like having a vasectomy.

PUSHA: Yo, come on!

MUHAMMAD: I'm just saying, in terms of the way that the older generation — they treat what comes after is like, "Well, have a vasectomy." Because it's like you're killing the lifeline of what preceded before you, which is so important. And that's just so damaging. It's so damaging because then the next generation has to pretty much figure things out for themselves. And that's what it becomes, and then you become even more upset because there was no one before —

PUSHA: There was no guidance.

MUHAMMAD: Exactly — to help me figure it out. I think it's the worst thing you can do in any position as a human being. You gotta be able to look beyond yourself.

PUSHA: Yes. I'm just gonna add to that by saying I feel like lyricism and lyric-driven hip-hop — that does not go out of style. So I feel like I'm gonna do my part because I'm gonna keep those fundamentals in play, with every year that hip-hop grows. I don't care what the new trend is. As long as I can incorporate that, man, I feel like I'm doing my job.

MUHAMMAD: In terms of the fashion aspect of hip-hop, you have a store. Is that true?

PUSHA: Yeah. I got two stores, and a clothing line, for the past five years.

MUHAMMAD: What inspired that?

PUSHA: Well, the clothing line is called Play Cloths. And it honestly was inspired by the We Got It 4 Cheap mixtape era, with the Re-Up Gang. We were going through a terrible time with the record label. We had just been moved over to Jive, we were arguing back and forth. We weren't putting out any music — this is before Hell Hath No Fury — and we put out those mixtapes.

And luckily, early on, the Clipse were embraced by Nigo, from A Bathing Ape and that streetwear line. So, I would go do these shows. It would be 500 kids, man. We Got It 4 Cheap is just Internet frenzy, college frenzy. 500 kids in there and I walk in and they'd be like, "Wait a minute, you got on the General jacket — 101 Varsity!" Or whatever. Now mind you, I'm just getting this stuff free. I wasn't into it like that, you know what I'm saying? I liked the clothes, but I wasn't into the Hypebeast-ness of it.

KELLEY: It was just what you were wearing.

PUSHA: Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And we had been embraced early on by him, so it was all good. That birthed BBC. Mind you, all of these people are just this close to us. So it's not real, I'm supporting my homeboy.

Once I saw the kids taking notice like that, I was like, "Man, I should really start a line." And what happened was there's a warehouse in Virginia. These kids, they were responsible for a couple of lines: Azurem, and Shmack, which was a streetwear/skate line. And the owners would let me come to their warehouse after work and keep all the staff. And with that, I would bring all my clothes. We'd make a whole mood board of just clothes, pictures. I remember playing, I think it was either "Heaven & Hell" or "Can It All Be So Simple," showing them the Snow Beach era of Polo, you know, just things like that.

“ I said, "No, that's a terrible song." [Pharrell] was like, "No. It may be a terrible song, but it's a true song and you know what happens when you write those type of records.

These kids are young, graphic kids. Just brought all that together and we decided to do a line. It was great because these guys were used to doing commercial chain stores, and we built it out on a boutique level, my line out on a boutique level. And it was good for them to just see that aspect, and the owners to see that aspect of the culture and see where it was going. And now, they're like, "Wait a minute. This is what it's about."

The stores were built two years after that. One is called Cream, it's in Norfolk, Va., and one is in the mall. And that is more just streetwear, the origins of streetwear: Stussy, The Hundreds, Ice Cream, things like that. The other one's called Creme as well, spelled C-R-E-M-E, and that is high-end: Versace, Marcelo Burlon, MCM, the Tier Zero Nike account. Things like that.

MUHAMMAD: Is that as challenging of a business as the music industry? Or do you find it easier to direct?

PUSHA: It's easier to direct. It is. The only problem is acquiring accounts sometimes. And that's when you're dealing with the higher end stuff, because some accounts don't want to be next to other accounts. And I found myself taking it very personal. Like, I was denied for a Givenchy account.

MUHAMMAD: Really?

PUSHA: Like, now.

KELLEY: That seems strange.

PUSHA: Those who know, know — the type of support that they've gotten from me.

KELLEY: The number of times you've mentioned them on track.

MUHAMMAD: Does that make you go, "Alright, F you." And now we're going to do our —

PUSHA: I just sold all of it. I did. I did.

MUHAMMAD: Was there an attempt to have a conversation to kind of like, fix their way of thinking? Or was it just kind of like, "Oh word? Alright, cool."

PUSHA: No. They sent me this really nice email that said, "No." And I was like, "This can't be. No." I couldn't take that. I couldn't accept that. I wasn't asking for anything. I have other brands that are top-tier, too. You know?

KELLEY: Didn't seem crazy.

PUSHA: Yeah, I wasn't asking to like, take your brand and put it — my brand isn't in the store that I was asking them to be a part of. My brand isn't even in there, at all. So yeah, I took it personal. Maybe I shouldn't have. But I definitely did.

KELLEY: What kind of frustrations do you have? I mean, I think a lot of people probably look at your life and be like, "You get to travel all the time."

PUSHA: I don't like traveling.

KELLEY: OK, so that's a frustration.

PUSHA: I don't. I actually don't.

KELLEY: Or say, "You get to meet famous people and get free drinks backstage and stuff."

PUSHA: I'm trying to stop drinking, actually.

KELLEY: OK.

PUSHA: I don't have — my frustrations, they all come from just being an artist. And they come from dealing with the politics of the record business. I've been in this game for so long now that I feel like it's not even about spending all the money on my marketing and so on and so forth. I think we all just have to come to an understanding about how to roll out a project. I feel like people are afraid to speak open and honestly. And with that, things get lost in this game. And I'm not that type of person. Like, with how things work today, virally and the lack of video shows, all of that. I feel like a manicured, timely, grass-roots campaign can work for me just like the $2 million that they may spend on your project, marketing it.

KELLEY: I can tell you from the journalists' side of things, all the different things that people try out and the different iterations of the various premiere plans or packaging or whatever, it makes my life harder. And it means I don't get to pay as much attention to a smaller, worthy project. I'm not sure really what people are trying to say all the time, either.

PUSHA: It's a bit much. I mean, that's the frustrating side to me. Like, we're in an age where information and everything is so obtainable. It's so accessible, man. And I think it's just moreso about just locking in and sticking with a plan and sticking with your core and your base. It's not too many of us that are really trying to do that.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, it's interesting to hear at this stage — what is this, like your seventh record?

PUSHA: No. Three records as the Clipse. I mean, we got numerous mixtapes; a crew album on Koch; another street album that was done through Decon for myself, solo-wise. So yeah, I've been around.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, and you've been successful. And to hear that, still — that this is the conversation that you're having — it's disheartening. And I say that because Tribe used to go through the same thing. You would hear it in our records, our frustration. After proving yourself, you go around the world and you help people make millions of dollars and you still continue to establish yourself. And acknowledging your ground, your base, all the time, and making sure that you service the people who are going to be there every time. And you pay so much attention to that, which continues to show what the campaign is about, when you focus on it wholly, and you still don't get that faith from the backers.

PUSHA: Yeah, 100 percent.

MUHAMMAD: It's frustrating hearing that that's what you're dealing with at this stage.

PUSHA: Very, very frustrating. And it still happens, man. You still go through these things.

“ I do dream to make it in this industry to the point where I can help others and begin to really carve out where I feel like hip-hop should be.

MUHAMMAD: So what drives you, then? And motivates you to keep making music?

PUSHA: My music helps so many people. I mean, just in my circle, family, the fans themselves. Man. I love writing. I love performing. I love seeing people, you know what I'm saying? As much as I hate getting on planes every day, when I get there, when I get on stage and get to be in front of my fans, it all goes away. And I'm talking about my frustrations for the whole day go away.

So I don't complain about it because this business serves its purpose for me. You gotta find other outlets to keep things moving so you don't go crazy. That's why I love my stores, I love Play Cloths. And it's just other ventures. I'm about to take tennis lessons, yo.

MUHAMMAD: That's pretty dope. Let me know if you want to play, I keep my racket in the trunk of my car.

PUSHA: Really?

MUHAMMAD: I'm not that good. It's just a good exercise.

KELLEY: No, stop. Where is this gonna happen? Because I am gonna send a videographer.

MUHAMMAD: We can go to Fort Greene Park, that's where I play in the summertime.

KELLEY: OK, perfect.

PUSHA: As an artist, don't let the business make you bitter or anything like that. Then you have to leave, because you don't want to sit with that right here. You don't want to sit with that on your heart, man. You gotta leave it alone.

MUHAMMAD: Did you dream of becoming an MC as a kid?

PUSHA: Not at all.

MUHAMMAD: Word.

PUSHA: Not at all. Like, I had no desire.

KELLEY: Did you want to be Teddy Riley?

PUSHA: I just wanted to be his friend. His friends had MPVs, I wanted a MPV! Purple ones, with TVs! I tell everybody, I wasn't rapping at all. I wasn't rapping at all. My brother was a rapper. He was known for rapping, around the area. His DJ and producer was Timbaland, at the time. And this is middle school, 8th, 9th grade. So, I'm in 4th grade. As he gets older and Tim starts branching out — I think he went to work with Jodeci, that whole camp — me and my homegirl, my childhood friend, she introduces me to Pharrell. Pharrell likes her. I'm not rapping at all. Me and Pharrell just start hanging out. He likes her and starts hanging out with her best friend.

KELLEY: That makes sense.

PUSHA: You know what I'm saying? Then weeks later, he says, "Yo, wait a minute.Your brother's Gene? Rapping Gene from the Beach?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he's like, "Yo, you gotta get him to come to the studio!" And I'm like, "Nah, man. My brother, he works with dude." And he's like, "No, but I know, you just gotta get him to come!" And this is all over a course of years, but I still wasn't rapping. Always around it, though. So then when I did hook them up and they got in the studio, that was just the everyday occurrence. I was like, "Man, I'mma write me a verse. Watch." And it happened just like that.

KELLEY: Classic little brother moves.

PUSHA: Yeah, totally. Totally. I never took the initiative to write. He took the initiative to just recently write a book. I would never take the initiative to do things like that. Like, "Write raps? Why?" It's being around him and being the little brother — that's where the rules came from. "Okay, that's wack, that's not wack." I learned all of that. Then you get in the studio with my brother and these other guys who produce, and they're showing you structure.

MUHAMMAD: So you didn't have a dream to become an MC?

PUSHA: No.

MUHAMMAD: Do you have a dream now?

PUSHA: Wow. That's a very tough question. I do dream to make it in this industry to the point where I can help others and begin to really carve out where I feel like hip-hop should be. I truly want to see hip-hop be — I feel like it's the youngest genre. Is that correct?

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA: Yeah. I mean, with it being the youngest genre, I want to see it be as big as all these other genres that are praised. I will never — my generation — I don't think I will ever put any other music before it, so I need to see it all the way through. I need to see it in all of its splendor. I see rock bands — I just saw Foreigner on Queen Latifah today. And I'm just like, "Man."

MUHAMMAD: A lot of people, actually, they're not around. The crazy thing — some of these pioneers, they're no longer here. Which, I don't know what that says about the challenges; this is our culture, it's our lifestyle. And it came from not having opportunity and oppression and city government legislatures. All these things that just made it impossible for us to take the next step from what our parents and our grandparents were trying to build. We took a dive. So we created an artform where we're talking about it, but at the same time, we become victims of the very thing that gave us the spirit. So there's a lot of pioneers, they not here because the lifestyle, the culture, just sucked 'em up.

PUSHA: Took 'em under.


MUHAMMAD: Yeah, so I think that may be one of the reasons. And there wasn't any organization like it is now. Like, you can really see what can happen. Look at what Jay's doing, what Kanye's doing. I guess it's evolving to becoming stablized and empowered.

PUSHA: It is, but it bothers me that I think — hip-hop has been here for 40 years. I feel like we're only at the second level of moguls. I feel like I'm Russell, Lyor, Rick Rubin. And then after that? It's like, Jay Z and Puff.

MUHAMMAD: Right. And that's it.

PUSHA: That's it. It stops. That can't be. You know what I'm saying? And I want to be a part of the growth of that. So then there's another set. Not to discredit the indie CEOs and so on and so forth that sold numerous records and the Master P eras, and even Cash Money with Baby and Slim. But I feel like that's still not the level that I'm talking.

MUHAMMAD: I feel you.

PUSHA: I feel like I want to see more Rubin, Lyor, Russell, Puffy, Jay Z era. We need to keep those, but I don't want just those two just to be the only ones. We need more.

MUHAMMAD: I like your dream. I like your dream. I like it.

KELLEY: Grow the industry.

PUSHA: I'm really good friends with Tony Draper from Suave House Records. He's a very, very insightful individual. And with all that he's been around, that he's seen, the ups and the downs of the industry, it's always been built and the foundation of it was always a grass-roots thing, for even his success. I feel like that. I feel like it should be that way. And then it just grows and builds, and as longs as those steps are being made, it will ultimately explode at the top, or whatever. But it's like, we gotta keep pushing that. We have to keep pushing that.

KELLEY: It is hard. It just is. But there's enough people that love it, and there's enough people that respond to high-quality, undeniable-level quality. And that's what builds it, I think, these days.

PUSHA: I'm watching it and I think the cycle's coming back around.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. When you said that, I was like, "Man. We just took a major hit for a decade, at least."

PUSHA: Yeah. But look at it, it's coming back around.

MUHAMMAD: Even you said, "There's no music to roll your windows down and bump it to." So yeah, it's an interesting cycle.

KELLEY: I want to go out on a slightly higher note. So maybe you could tell us the story of one of the songs on My Name Is My Name. What's your favorite?

MUHAMMAD: Take that, talking about favorites.

PUSHA: Wow, you said a higher note. I think I would have to say that my favorite record on the album is called "S.N.I.T.C.H."

KELLEY: The Pharrell joint.

PUSHA: The acronym "S.N.I.T.C.H." Which stands for, "Sorry, N-word, I'm Tryna Come Home." It's the truest story on the album. Essentially, I got a phone call from a friend of mine in jail telling me that it would be our last time speaking because he made the decision to cooperate with the police. And he couldn't take being in jail and doing time anymore, you know? "I'm just telling you we not gon' speak because I know how you feel and I can't do it no more." So, there goes your higher note.

KELLEY: But that's how you end the album, right?

PUSHA: Right.

KELLEY: That was your move. It's a big move.

PUSHA: Yeah. I got the call and I actually called Pharrell and I was like, "Listen. Tell me am I analyzing this right." And I told him the conversation, and he was like, "Yeah, that's his gift. That's his gift to you, but it's a song." And I said, "No, that's a terrible song." He was like, "No. It may be a terrible song, but it's a true song and you know what happens when you write those type of records. It's gon' be that pain, it's gon' be amazing."

So, he was like, "Well, listen. Just think about it." And at the time I was asking him, I said, "Listen. The only thing I'm missing on my album is a 'Long Kiss Goodnight' or a 'You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)' type of beat.

KELLEY: Damn.

PUSHA: So he was like, "I'mma just work on the beat and you just think about it, because you need one of those stories anyway, from what you told me." I said, "OK."

He calls me two weeks later and I'm at SXSW on the street. He was like, "Sorry, N-word, I'm Tryna Come Home." I was like, "What you mean?" He was like, "No, that's the title of it." I was like, "OK, OK. I like it, I like it." He was like, "Nah, you don't feel me." He said, "It's the acronym for 'snitch', man." I was like, "Oh, yeah. You the G.O.A.T. You are the G.O.A.T." He was like, "Am I the G.O.A.T.?" "You are the G.O.A.T.! You the G.O.A.T.!"

It's my favorite record. My favorite record. The story records aren't usually my favorite records, but this was one of them. It really hit home. I've been saying to people, I don't necessarily want to hear rap anymore that doesn't give me — if we're talking about the streets — we can't just glorify it. We have to tell the whole story.

And I'm saying I can't listen to raps that don't acknowledge that cooperating and informants are — like your crew that you've told me so many jewels and diamonds and Ferraris and so on and so forth about, nobody went to jail and nobody cooperated? I can't listen to that anymore. It hits home too much.

So, the third verse of it, I was talking to everybody. All rappers, all boys who be out here, you know, everybody glorifies the lifestyle. And it's like, everybody glorifies it, but nobody has ever put themselves that close to their man, or admitting, my man who can call me, and to tell me he's never gonna call me again, and I gotta do what I gotta do and that's just it.

MUHAMMAD: Raise the bar on honesty.

PUSHA: Yeah. We got to. You have to know that story. You have to.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/MicrophoneCheck/2013/10/16/235395978/pusha-t-on-a-tribe-called-quest-his-frustrations-and-pharrell-part-2?ft=1&f=1039
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Snorkeler Shocked To See 18-Foot Oarfish

A snorkeler off the coast of California found more than she bargained for on the ocean floor Sunday, when she saw the large eyes of an 18-foot fish staring back at her. It turned out to be a dead oarfish, a mysterious creature known to live in waters thousands of feet deep.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. Believers in sea monsters have some fresh evidence. A rarely seen fish has been pulled from the ocean off California's Catalina Island. A marine science instructor was snorkeling when she spotted it lying dead beneath the water, 18 feet long, a wide pug faced oarfish that can grow much, much bigger. It looks a lot like a mythical sea serpent and it took 15 people to pull the fish from the sea. It's MORNING EDITION.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/16/235269925/snorkeler-shocked-to-see-18-foot-oarfish?ft=1&f=3
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HBO Sets 'Girls,' 'True Detective' Premiere Dates

HBO has set premiere dates for a slew of scripted series.

Girls will return for season three on Sunday, Jan. 12, 2014, at 10 p.m. with a special hourlong return, the premium cable network announced Wednesday.

The return of the Lena Dunham vehicle follows the debut of True Detective, a scripted detective series starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, at 9 p.m.

Looking, the gay-themed San Francisco-set dramedy, will launch Sunday, Jan. 19, at 10:30 p.m. following an original episode of Girls.

Jonathan Groff, Frankie J. Alvarez and Murray Barlett star in the series created by Michael Lannan and executive produced by Andrew Haigh and Sarah Condon. Russell Tovey and Scott Bakula also star.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/live_feed/~3/Ib4HpyBR2fk/story01.htm
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4 dead after boat capsizes off Florida coast

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Four women died and 11 people were taken into custody after a boat with more than a dozen people aboard — including Haitians and Jamaicans — capsized early Wednesday in the waters off South Florida.

The U.S. Coast Guard responded around 1 a.m. after one of the survivors called 911 to report that the small vessel had capsized seven miles east of Miami.

"Sadly, and tragically, we did find four females, adults, underneath the boat that had perished," said Cmdr. Darren Caprara.

Most of the survivors were found clinging to the hull, and another was found in an air pocket beneath the boat, officials said.

One survivor was taken by boat to Miami Beach, where he was treated at a hospital and released to federal law enforcement, Barney said.

The rest of the survivors were in good condition and were taken into custody aboard a Coast Guard vessel while authorities investigated whether they were part of a human smuggling operation. It was not immediately clear whether they would be brought to the U.S. or repatriated to their home countries.

"Well, obviously, 15 people on a boat, transiting in the middle of the night with no life jackets is a very, very unsafe condition," Caprara said.

Caprara said that authorities were working to confirm that the people on the boat were Haitian and Jamaican.

"That's still a lengthy process that involves contacting other countries and doing some investigatory research," Caprara said.

Images of the vessel show a small white recreational boat with its center console missing. It was overloaded and lacked lifejackets, Caprara said.

Migrants from Haiti, Cuba and other Caribbean countries routinely attempt to illegally enter the U.S. by reaching Florida's coast in overloaded or unseaworthy vessels.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Coast Guard picked up 508 Haitians and 1,357 Cubans at sea. Since the new fiscal year began Oct. 1, the Coast Guard has reported picking up 93 Haitians and 117 Cubans.

The number of migrants who die in the crossing or disappear into the community after successfully reaching shore is unknown.

Cubans who arrive in the U.S. are generally allowed to stay under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, while those stopped at sea are usually returned home. Other immigrants who make it to land don't receive the same treatment.

___

Kay reported from Miami.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/4-dead-boat-capsizes-off-florida-coast-120411119.html
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