Anti-War Protests, Human Rights,
Swastikas, Old Glory, Excalibur,
Lurking Stars, Buffy Rumors Fly!
January 13, 2003 - A team of European astronomers has discovered a Brown Dwarf object (a 'failed' star) less than 12 light-years from the Sun. It is the nearest yet known.
Now designated Epsilon Indi B, it is a companion to a well-known bright star in the southern sky, Epsilon Indi (now "Epsilon Indi A"), previously thought to be single. The binary system is one of the twenty nearest stellar systems to the Sun.
The brown dwarf was discovered from the comparatively rapid motion across the sky which it shares with its brighter companion: the pair move a full lunar diameter in less than 400 years. It was first identified using digitized archival photographic plates from the SuperCOSMOS Sky Surveys (SSS) and confirmed using data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS).
Follow-up
observations with the near-infrared sensitive SOFI instrument on the ESO
3.5-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) at the La Silla Observatory confirmed
its nature and has allowed measurements of its physical properties.
Epsilon Indi B has a mass just 45 times that of Jupiter, the largest
planet in the Solar System, and a surface temperature of only 1000 °C. It
belongs to the so-called 'T dwarf' category of objects which straddle the
domain between stars and giant planets.
Epsilon Indi B is the nearest and brightest T dwarf known. Future studies
of the new object promise to provide astronomers with important new clues
as to the formation and evolution of these exotic celestial bodies, at the
same time yielding interesting insights into the border zone between
planets and stars.
European Southern Observatory - http://www.eso.org
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES January 11, 2003 (AP) - With the U.S. government moving closer to war with Iraq, thousands of demonstrators, some pushing strollers and walking dogs, took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles Saturday to voice their protest.
"Here, take a picture of my sons' first protest," Maria Negrete, 27, goaded relatives as waves of people streamed by in a festival-like atmosphere.
A mother of three small children, Negrete echoed the views of many accidental activists who said although a war with Iraq might be inevitable, they weren't going to sit back without a nonviolent fight.
"There are going to be children like mine who will die for oil, which I think is crazy, stupid and dumb," Negrete said. "So I brought my sons, who are just as beautiful as any in Iraq."
The demonstration came a day after the Bush administration issued a massive deployment order to send about 35,000 new troops to the Persian Gulf region. Famed Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, who uses a wheelchair, led the protesters.
Others lending their celebrity to the cause included Martin Sheen, star of NBC's "West Wing," and pop singer Jackson Browne.
Organizers put the turnout at 20,000. But police offered a much smaller estimate of 3,000. There were no reports of arrests or incidents, said Officer Grace Brady, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department.
Kovic, whose autobiography "Born on the Fourth of July," was made into a movie, predicted the protest would mark the start of "one of the greatest anti-war movements in the history of the United States."
Additional demonstrations, timed to coincide with the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, are scheduled to take place in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., next Saturday.
"I and others are entering a deployment order for citizens of this country to go to the streets and to protest in mass," Kovic said.
Standing nearby, retired school teacher Bill Payne, 65, said he had not participated in anti-war protests during the Vietnam era. But his feelings about activism changed over the years, prompting him to drive two hours from his home in Yucaipa.
"I don't want to see any kids killed. That's it. That's all there is to it," he said. "No kids in Iraq killed, no kids any place killed."
But he said the U.S. war machine might be unstoppable.
"I am sure that (President Bush) is going to start his war anyway," he said. "I hope that he is getting stronger and stronger messages all the time that there are more and more people who really don't want this thing to happen."
Many of the signs
at the protest appeared to be directed at the president.
"Mr. Bush, don't repeat your daddy's mistakes," read one.
"Bush is the real terrorist," said another.
"Bush, we are not your cattle," read a piece of white cloth
hanging from a green rake.
Oscar Sanchez, an art student from El Salvador, found a creative way to
express his dissent and belief that the conflict was being driven by
oil.
Trailing behind his bicycle was a large military tank made of
cardboard.
The names of two oil companies and the words "Just Married" were
emblazoned on the make-believe military craft.
"By making it out of cardboard, I am showing that it can be
discarded," Sanchez said.
Washington, D.C., January 14, 2003 - Global support for the war on terrorism is diminishing partly because the United States too often neglects human rights in its conduct of the war, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing its World Report 2003.
Terrorists violate basic human rights principles because they target civilians.
But the United
States undermines those principles when it overlooks human rights abuses
by anti-terror allies such as Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia and Afghan
warlords, Human Rights Watch said in its annual survey of human rights
around the world.
The 558-page Human Rights Watch World Report 2003 covers human rights in
58 countries in 2002. It identifies positive trends such as the formal end
to wars in Angola, Sudan, and Sierra Leone, as well as peace talks in Sri
Lanka. But
negative developments included the outbreak of serious communal violence
in Gujarat, India, and the continued killing of civilians in wars from
Colombia to Chechnya, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Meanwhile,
governments continued highly repressive policies in Burma, China, Cuba,
Iran, Iraq, Liberia and Vietnam.
"The United States is far from the world's worst human rights
abuser," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
"But Washington has so much power today that when it flouts human
rights standards, it damages the human rights cause worldwide."
Human Rights Watch said the Bush administration seemed to recognize the
connections between repression and terrorism in its National Security
Strategy, and had taken some steps to promote human rights in countries
directly involved in the struggle against terrorism, such as Egypt and
Uzbekistan. The United States has also tried to advance human rights in
places where the war was not implicated, including Burma, Belarus and
Zimbabwe. Yet the U.S. government's engagement on human rights has been
compromised by its unwillingness to confront a number of crucial partners,
and its refusal to be bound by standards it preaches to others.
"To fight terrorism, you need the support of people in countries
where the terrorists live," said Roth. "Cozying up to oppressive
governments is hardly a way to build those alliances."
For example, the
United States is generating popular resentment in Pakistan by uncritically
backing General Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup.
"He's still tight with us on the war against terror, and that's what
I appreciate," U.S. President George Bush said about Musharraf, who
last year pushed through constitutional amendments to extend his
presidential term by five years and recently strengthened a draconian
anti-terror decree.
In China, the Bush administration has downplayed the repression of Muslims
in the northwest Xinjiang province, which the Chinese government justifies
as an anti-terrorist measure. Saudi Arabia, with its highly repressive
government, is an important regional player and the U.S. government rarely
challenges it on human rights.
The Bush administration is seeking to reinvigorate ties to the Indonesian
military, despite the lack of accountability for its serious human rights
abuses and the military's support for militia groups that foster
instability. The United States has also been reluctant to expand the
international peacekeeping forces that could help bring stability to
Afghanistan, relying instead on abusive warlords who are inhibiting the
human rights progress made possible by the fall of the Taliban.
In addition, Washington has ignored human rights standards in its own
treatment of terrorist suspects. It has refused to apply the Geneva
Conventions to prisoners of war from Afghanistan, and has misused the
designation of "enemy combatant" to apply to criminal suspects
on U.S. soil. The Bush administration has also abused immigration laws to
deny criminal suspects their rights.
In 2002, the U.S. government actively tried to undermine important human
rights initiatives such as the International Criminal Court, a new
international inspection regime to prevent torture, and a United Nations
resolution that the war on terrorism should be fought in a manner
consistent with human rights.
The war against terror has provided an excuse for other Western countries
to slacken their support for human rights. European leaders virtually
abandoned efforts to pressure Russia, an anti-terror ally, to end its
abusive conduct of the war in Chechnya.
Human Rights Watch
does not take a position on the possible war in Iraq, and believes that
its most important contribution to reducing the civilian suffering that
war entails is to monitor and promote the compliance by all warring
parties with international humanitarian law.
Roth noted that the more U.S. government officials cite Saddam Hussein's
human rights record as one reason to topple him, the greater their
obligation to minimize the potentially serious human rights consequences
of any war in Iraq. The United States should take all feasible measures to
protect Iraqi civilians from acts of revenge by Saddam Hussein, including
the possible use of weapons of mass destruction. At minimum, it should
make clear that anyone who directs or commits atrocities will be
prosecuted, not just a handful of senior Iraqi officials.
The United States should ensure that its local allies in any Iraq war do
not engage in revenge killings or reprisals against civilians. And the
Bush administration should also put pressure on Iraq's neighbors, such as
Turkey, Jordan and Iran, to keep their borders open to refugees.
Human Rights Watch is an international monitoring group based in New York,
with offices around the world. It does not accept funding from any
government.
Human Rights Watch World Report 2003 - http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3
Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON January 14, 2003 (CSM) - When he was 18 years old, Hyung Joon Kim was arrested for breaking into a toolshed. He spent two months in jail. Then, a year later, he was arrested for petty theft and went to prison for 18 months.
For most convicted criminals in the US, the harshest aspect of their punishment ends when they are released from jail or prison. But for Mr. Kim, a green-card holder who came to the US from Korea at age 6, his most costly punishment is yet to come: a one-way ticket back to Korea.
A 1996 immigration law requires that any non-US citizen who commits an aggravated felony must be deported. It further requires that so-called "criminal aliens" be held without bond pending their removal from the US.
Immigrant-rights advocates say that such mandatory detention requirements - which don't afford an opportunity for an individualized hearing before a judge - violate constitutional protections against arbitrary imprisonment by the government.
Government lawyers counter that Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact tough measures to protect America's borders. They say judges shouldn't interfere with efforts to enforce such laws, particularly as the nation is waging a war against foreign-based terrorists seeking to infiltrate the US.
Wednesday, the US Supreme Court takes up Kim's plight in a case that will help establish to what extent constitutional protections apply to noncitizens living in the US. The issue arises at a time when the government is seeking to exercise broad powers to question, investigate, and detain noncitizens, and even conduct secret hearings.
Cases challenging the full array of government efforts in the war on terror are working their way through the courts. The Kim case may offer important clues about how the nation's highest court is likely to approach the thorny issue of protecting civil liberties in times of national peril.
Specifically at issue in this case is whether Congress overstepped its authority in enacting a law that requires an entire class of potential deportees be held behind bars without an opportunity to be free on bond pending a final removal order. "What is so extreme about this statute is that it doesn't allow [the Immigration and Naturalization Service] to decide that this person doesn't need to be detained," says Kim's lawyer, Judy Rabinovitz of the American Civil Liberties Union.
In criminal cases, even accused mass murderers and terrorists have a right to a hearing to determine whether the defendant may be freed after posting a bond. The judge must decide whether the size of the bond will guarantee the defendant's presence at trial. In addition, a judge may refuse to grant bond if prosecutors can show that the defendant may pose a danger to the community if released.
Lawyers for Kim say he should enjoy the same rights. His crimes were relatively minor, they say, and so his release would pose no danger to the community. And a monetary bond would be more than enough to prevent him from fleeing to avoid being sent back to Korea, they say.
Statistics show otherwise, according to government lawyers. "When non-detained aliens were ordered to appear for deportation from the United States, nearly 90 percent absconded," writes Solicitor General Theodore Olson in his brief to the court. "Congress concluded that mandatory detention of a selected group of criminal aliens, during the pendency of their removal proceedings, is necessary to implement its immigration policies."
Federal appeals courts are split on the issue. The Third, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits in Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco, and Denver, respectively, have struck the law down, while the Seventh US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has upheld it.
"In light of the recent terrorist attacks in this country, [we] believe that the political branches of government must be afforded broad power to detain aliens who are convicted of aggravated felonies," says Richard Samp in a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Yet Ms. Rabinovitz says if Kim wins his case, it will in no way undermine the war on terror. "The essence of an individualized determination is that individuals who are a danger are not going to be released. So this does not put the country at risk whether from dangerous people or from terrorism," she says.
It also tops the table for lung and bowel cancer. And now the latest study shows Glaswegians are champions at avoiding healthy eating and exercise.
Last year, First Minister Jack McConnell unveiled plans to spend tens of millions of pounds to rid Scotland of its notorious Sick Man of Europe tag. And in 2001 food tsar Gillian Kynoch was appointed in a bid to get Scots to ditch fatty foods and eat more fresh fruit and vegetables.
The fat survey, for Muscle And Fitness magazine, looked at eating habits, alcohol, smoking and exercise. It found Glaswegians consumed the most junk food, alcohol and cigarettes and watched more TV than anyone else in the country. The city also scored poorly in areas such as air quality and climate, as well as the standard of health care.
Dr Catherine Hankey, an obesity expert at Glasgow University, said: "Although there are a lot of initiatives in place to try to combat the problem, they are only reaching a small proportion of people.
"Much more needs to be done."
Edinburgh fared better in the study, coming 15th in the fat league of 27 cities. Bristol showed up as the healthiest city.
Neville Rigby, of the International Obesity Task Force, said: "The numbers of obese children have gone up between 50 and 100 per cent in the past eight years.
"It is perceived not to be safe to walk outside, so parents encourage children to sit in the house rather than run around and play."
The National Audit Office says obesity costs the economy £2billion a year, and kills up to 30,000 people prematurely.
Ada Oklahoma January 13, 2003 (Ada Evening News) - When the Oklahoma National Guard was expanded to create the 45th Infantry Division in 1923, state military leaders selected the swastika as its symbol. That move may seem strange today but the swastika was considered a good luck sign.
Unfortunately, Adolph Hitler and his ruthless Nazi regime took the swastika and turned it into the most hated symbol in world history.
For thousands of years, the swastika - derived from the Sanskrit word Svastikah - depicted peace or good luck. Once the most popular and mystical symbol in the world, it is now the most hated.
James Roberts, who joined the Oklahoma National Guard at Altus in 1923, was proud of the swastika patch on his uniform.
"It seemed perfectly natural to have the swastika as our symbol," Roberts said before his death in 1986. "It was like having a rabbit's foot in your pocket. It was a good luck symbol. But Hitler changed all that."
The swastika - a
form of a cross with ends of the arms bent at right angles - has been
discovered by archaeologists on ancient Byzantine structures, Buddhist
inscriptions, Celtic manuscripts and Greek coins. The symbol was even left
behind on the walls of the Great Pyramids. And if you look close enough,
the symbol can be identified in several friezes at the Capitol Building in
Washington.
Ironically, the swastika was even an early Hebrew religious sign. Examples
have been unearthed in the ruins of ancient synagogues.
The swastika became very popular in the United States during the early
1900s.
"I have a swastika on my saddle and I remember my mother sewed them
on our blankets and quilts," Roberts recalled.
The swastika was a sacred symbol to many Oklahoma Indian tribes during the
early part of the 20th century. Postcards of the period promoted the
swastika as a good luck or peace charm.
In 1925 the Coca-Cola Co. offered a lucky swastika watch fob in a
promotional venture. Other companies also promoted the symbol on their
products.
Towns like Swastika, N.Y. and Swastika, N.M. were named after the symbol.
And many American pilots wore the design during World War I.
But Hitler and the Nazis turned the symbol of peace into an icon of hatred
during the late 1930s and early 1940s. As such, it came to be one of the
most hated symbols in history.
After the Allies
defeated Germany and its Axis partners in 1945, they banned the display of
the swastika emblem.
When the Oklahoma National Guard gave up the swastika as it symbol in
1938, Sooners were encouraged to suggest a substitute. Eventually, the
Thunderbird was selected by a board of officers. The Thunderbird
maintained the identical colors of the swastika symbol - a yellow design
over a square red back. The document that approved the design, which would
become famous as the 45th battled in World War II and Korea, described the
Thunderbird "as an American Indian symbol," which signified the
"sacred bearer of happiness unlimited."
"It's really a shame that Hitler took a symbol of good luck and peace
and turned it into a symbol of murder," Roberts said.
"They tell me
that the swastika had been used for thousands of years. It would still be
used if the Nazis hadn't come along."
The swastika had been a symbol representing peace and good luck for
thousands of years. But a madman and his regime turned it into the epitome
of suffering and holocaust.
The Guardian
Santiago January 11, 2003 (Guardian UK) - Two Easter Island stone heads on sale at an art gallery in Miami have brought to light a mystery about their origin. The Chilean government, which claimed the Pacific island in 1888, is investigating whether the pieces are genuine antiques smuggled from Chile or skillful reproductions.
An expert on the island's archaeology says they seem to be carved from island stone with modern tools.
The Cronos gallery, which is selling them as part of a collection of 15 Easter Island artifacts, says "these rare pieces" were recently revealed to be in the possession of Hernan Garcia Gonzalo de Vidal, whom it inaccurately describes as a former vice-minister of planning in the Chilean government.
It has withdrawn its original claim that they are 1,000 and 700 years old and substituted "age unknown."
They weigh 680kg and 952kg respectively.
In Chile Mr. Garcia is best known as a senior aide to Augusto Pinochet. Magazines have listed him as one of the former dictator's inner circle. He has worked closely with General Pinochet's former wife Lucia Hiriart de Pinochet.
Angel Cabeza, head of the Chilean national monuments committee, said: "We have never authorized the shipping of a private collection of original works from Easter Island. If Mr. Garcia removed these pieces and if these pieces are real, he couldn't have done it with our authorization. We have never received such a petition."
Archaeologists from the committee plan to go to Miami next week to find out if the pieces are authentic.
Mr. Garcia, meanwhile, has disappeared. After agreeing to an interview with the Chilean daily El Mercurio, which first reported the sale, he issued a statement through Cronos claiming a "family emergency".
Patricia Vargas, an archaeologist at the University of Chile's Easter Island institute, doubts that authentic statues were smuggled out of Chile. Before a preservation law was introduced in in 1935, such pieces were routinely taken from the island and are in display in London, Paris and the US. The pieces in Miami, she says, "are made with materials from Easter Island and that alone gives them a certain value.
"They might be nice art pieces, but I doubt any one is 500 years old. It appears that the cuts have been made with modern machinery and not with stone tools."
Associated Press Writer
SANTA CLARITA CA January 13, 203 (AP) - Crews with heavy equipment have started efforts to move the 400-year-old oak that was occupied for more than two months by a demonstrator trying to save the tree from a housing development.
Two days after sheriff's deputies removed environmentalist John Quigley from his perch in the ancient tree, workers dug around the oak's roots and climbed into its branches Sunday in preparation for an attempt to move it.
About 200 protesters gathered outside the fence that was erected to keep them away from the tree they have dubbed "Old Glory."
Officials of developer John Laing Homes have said they will try to transplant the tree to a nearby park — a move protesters fear will kill the oak.
Quigley, 42, climbed into the tree Nov. 1 to save it from being bulldozed to make way for a road to a huge housing development. His vigil in the tree attracted a steady stream of residents, celebrities, folk singers and the just plain curious.
He accused the developer of reneging on verbal assurances given Sunday morning that no immediate action would be taken to move the tree.
"Today crossed a line. It's time for outrage," Quigley said, adding that he would do "whatever we have to do" to stop the relocation.
Company officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment. A company attorney has said the relocation must begin by Wednesday while the tree's root system is dormant for the winter.
Quigley's attorney, Anthony Zinnanti, said he was preparing to go to court Tuesday to attempt to stay the tree's removal. But he conceded that the developer appears to have the legal right to remove it.
Science Editor
The Observer
London January 12, 2003 (Observer UK) - Climate change is inevitable, unpredictable, and has been responsible for bringing down some of the world's greatest civilizations. Soon it may do the same to ours.
That is the conclusion of researchers who have found that the Mayans - whose empire reached its peak around 700AD - were destroyed because central America was afflicted by a 200-year drought.
The discovery has been made by the American archaeologist Richardson Gill, who argues that the Mayans - famed for their massive stepped pyramids and astronomy - simply starved to death when their water supplies ran dry, a fate that has profound implications for the future of humanity.
Gill's research, based on studies of ice cores taken from glaciers in the Andes, is controversial. Many historians believe only cultural changes such as war, trade or rebellion affect the course of history and that people can always adapt to climate change. In the case of the Mayans, it is generally assumed they were destroyed by invaders.
Gill's work challenges this. "I have seen with my own eyes the devastating effects of drought," he says in Scientific American. Deprived of water, the Mayans could no longer grow crops and perished.
Gill and his contemporaries argue that humanity is much more vulnerable to weather changes than realized. Studies of tree rings and ice cores taken from glaciers have created a detailed pattern of climate fluctuations going back a thousand years. When matched against historical events, these have revealed startling correspondences.
The Vikings
colonized Iceland, Greenland and North America at a time when Europe was
enjoying warm weather. Then, around AD1300, the weather worsened and the
Little Ice Age began, gripping the world until around 1880. Its worst
periods coincided with the Irish potato famine, the destruction of the
Spanish Armada, and the French Revolution, while the Viking settlements in
America and Greenland were wiped out.
"The weather of 1788 didn't start the French Revolution,"
historian Brian Fagan says, "but the shortage of grain and bread
contributed in large measure to its timing." Similarly, it wasn't the
navy that saved England from the Armada in 1588, it was the lousy
weather.
Even small fluctuations have had an impact that still affects us, adds
Fagan. For example, in 1816, summer temperatures fell to winter levels.
Lord Byron and Percy and Mary Shelley, stuck in Switzerland, had to
entertain themselves. Thus Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was born in an
atmosphere of dank climatic failure. Similarly, Charles Dickens's
experiences of bitter winters influenced his stories, including A
Christmas Carol, from which we still derive our snow-decked yuletide
imagery.
The new research indicates even cultures in the tropics are vulnerable to
climatic disruption.
"The reasons for the collapse of the Mayan civilization have always
been controversial," bio-geographer Philip Stott says. "But this
indicates that drought was a critical factor, even though the Mayans were
based in a part of the world considered to be hot and wet.
"And if the weather killed off the Mayans, what other great tropical
civilizations might have suffered? The cause of the demise of Angkor, home
of the great Khmer kings of Cambodia, has always puzzled historians.
Drought may well have caused their collapse."
If the world has been so vulnerable in the past, it is certainly at risk
in future. With the world's population heading towards nine billion, and
global temperatures rising, the danger is increasing.
"More than 200 million people now live in marginal lands - round the
Sahara and in Bangladesh, for example," Fagan adds. "Another
major fluctuation and the death toll could dwarf anything that has
affected humanity before."
Stott says: "The fluctuations indicate the cold periods are the
calamitous ones - which suggests all our fears about global warming may be
misplaced."
Boston January 7, 2003 (Boston Herald) - Using their own saliva on cotton swabs, restoration experts delicately cleaned one of the nation's premier mummies yesterday in preparation for exhibition at a Springfield art museum later this month.
"Your own saliva is a very good cleaning solution," said Mimi Leveque, consulting conservator for the daylong project at Massachusetts General Hospital. The work was done in the hospital's original operating room, the Ether Dome.
Padihershef, a 6th-century B.C. mummy affectionately called "Padi" by MGHers, resides at the hospital when he is not touring the country. But Padi was in sore need of some expert cleaning because he had some problems the last time he went before the cameras - TV cameras, to be precise.
Leveque said the bright lights used by crews to film him at the Museum of Science in 1999 caused some of the resin on his face to melt. That created salt stains as salt used in the mummification process started to seep out.
The ancient Egyptians used pine and other resins to seal the skin on a dead body's face from air and moisture before the body was wrapped in linens.
"The resin started to melt," Leveque said. "He looked like he had a very bad case of dandruff, a very white crusty appearance."
As two interns painstakingly moistened cotton swabs and gently wiped salt stains from Padi's 2,500-year-old face and head, Leveque scrutinized his 4-foot-11-inch body, wrapped in yellowed linens, for other damage.
"Every mummy is different because every person is different, but this guy seems to be in fairly solid shape," Leveque said. "I'm shocked, given that he was toured around in America as a sort of side show when he first arrived."
Padi was sent to the hospital in 1823 as a gift from Dutch merchant Jacob Van Lennep. He was one of the first mummies to come to the United States. Later that year, Padi was released from the hospital and took a tour of the United States. Experts who have studied Padi determined he was a male who died in his late 40s of unknown causes.
About 20 years ago, experts also deciphered the coffin's ancient writings, known as hieroglyphics, to figure out his name and his history. It is believed he was an unmarried stone cutter from the famous City of the Dead in Thebes. The centuries-old hieroglyphics and painted pictures on Padi's coffin are still vibrant shades of turquoise, burnt orange, sage and white. But time has taken its toll, with some cracked paint and plaster.
Mixing their own adhesives, the experts yesterday patched worn areas. Leveque said they had to use materials that would stand a very long test of time.
Padi is scheduled to head out today to Springfield for a major Ancient Egypt exhibit later this month at the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum.
"It is a terrifying thought that if we can do this then anyone can," said Rob Gueterbock, one of the protesters who occupied the plant's roof during the daylong demonstration. "We wouldn't do anything to interfere with the plant, but if terrorists targeted a nuclear power station it would be deadly."
Mike Harrison, maintenance manager at Sizewell B, condemned the protest as a stunt. "It is a totally irresponsible and criminal act which has caused damage to the insulation after a fence was broken through and a door smashed," Harrison said, adding the protesters gained limited access to the plant. "At no time was there any risk to plant safety or public safety."
Suffolk police said the demonstration ended peacefully. Officers arrested 12 protesters, the force said.
Greenpeace said the protesters entered the complex from a public beach just after 6 a.m. (0600 GMT) by cutting through a wire fence. Some climbed onto the roof of the reactor dome, while others entered the central control building.
"The aim was to demonstrate the ease with which lightly equipped, peaceful individuals can gain access to the most sensitive areas of a nuclear power station," Greenpeace campaigns director Blake Lee-Harwood said. "Britain is sending troops into a war. We have a war on terror. The British nuclear industry is meant to be on the highest state of alert. But it was essentially a breeze to get in," he said.
In October, more than 100 Greenpeace activists broke into the Sizewell B plant. Several climbed onto the roof of the building housing the cooling water pump, unfurling banners saying "No More Nuclear." They climbed down after a day and were arrested by police.
The Guardian
Madrid January 9, 2003 (Guardian UK) - They have called it Excalibur, though it was plucked from a pit of bones rather than the stone of Arthurian legend. To the ordinary eye it is a hand-sized, triangular chunk of ochre and purple rock, its surface slightly scratched.
But to the paleontologists who found this axe-head buried in a deep cavern on a Spanish hilltop, it is proof of a terrible and defining moment in the evolutionary history of the human mind.
The discovery in a Spanish cave of what is claimed to be the world's oldest burial artifact was set to provoke a fierce scientific debate about the exact moment when man's mind was lit by the spark of imagination and creativity.
Paleontologists who discovered the axe-head placed among ancient bones in a cave at Atapuerca, near the city of Burgos in central Spain, yesterday claimed that this key moment in the evolution of man's mind had to be placed at a time well before our own race, Homo sapiens, reached Europe.
Deliberately tossed into a primitive burial chamber, the placing of the axe was a ritual act and evidence that, in the minds of some very ancient Europeans, death had become something more than a mere, brutish fact of nature.
This idea first dawned more than 350,000 years ago on the squat, powerful examples of Homo heidelbergensis whose remains are being slowly excavated from the so-called Pit of Bones at Atapuerca.
The find means that man's development of a mind capable of thinking beyond reality and needs into a world of shared ideas, symbols, fantasy and imagination, may have developed 310,000 years earlier than was thought.
Controversy already rages in the palaeontological community over whether Homo sapiens was the first such deep thinker, or whether that honor goes to the slightly earlier Neanderthal.
But it is generally thought that modern, thinking men and women did not arrive until 30-40,000 years ago, sparking a "creative explosion" that produced, among other things, the first art.
"The biggest debate in human evolution is when men's minds appeared, when the spark was lit," Ignacio Martinez, one of the Atapuerca team, told El Pais news paper. The only proof of that spark, he said, would come from rock art, the earliest examples of which are only 40,000 years old, from proof of language use or from burial ceremonies.
The discovery at Atapuerca, if it turned out to be a true example of a ceremonial burial, would be remarkable. As such, it can expect to raise bitter controversy.
Experts contacted by the Guardian yesterday said they were surprised and generally rather skeptical about Excalibur.
"If they could prove it, it would be staggering," said Dr Michael Petraglia, lecturer at Cambridge University's Leverhulme centre for human evolutionary studies. "It would push intentional or symbolic thought back much further than is currently accepted."
Excalibur goes on show for the first time this weekend at an exhibition of Atapuerca's work in the American Museum of Natural History, in New York. It is bound to provoke debate among the many scientists due to appear at the opening conferences.
The director of the Atapuerca dig, Dr Juan Luis Arsuaga, argued in an article in El Pais yesterday that the groups of Homo heidelbergensis probably brought their dead, one-by-one, into the cavern so they could be buried together. "It had to be a collective practice," he said.
"We had gradually become convinced that, incredible as it may seem given the age of the site, this was case of symbolic behavior, the first of its kind in the history of humanity," he wrote.
"In order to demonstrate that we needed a symbolic object, with its own significance. Then Excalibur appeared from the sediment," he said. "The Pit of Bones had produced a new historic discovery."
But other scientists, while eager to see the written research, were skeptical, saying there did not seem to be proof that the axe had been deliberately placed. "There might be other reasons for it to be there," speculated Dr. Margarita Diaz-Andreu, a Durham University archaeologist.
Dr Petraglia said the find was "potentially exciting" but doubted that it was sufficient to reach such scientifically explosive conclusions about the development of the human mind. "We often have great difficulty in assessing if something is intentional," he said. "Often we require more evidence than one tool."
The Atapuerca team have produced some of the most remarkable palaeontological finds of the past decade, producing 350,000-year-old crania and proof that Homo heidelbergensis was a cannibal. They seemed yesterday to have the backing of at least one scientific heavyweight for their claims that these were also thinking, imaginative, potentially artistic cannibals.
The legendary French scientist Henry de Lumley, director of France's National Museum of Natural History, visited the cave and was told of Excalibur two years ago. He declared the combination of the two things to be "proof of the birth of the first human myths", according to El Pais.
The Pit of Bones, open for excavation for just one month a year, will be keeping archaeologists busy for decades. Excalibur, pulled from among those bones, looked set to spark a debate about the evolution of man's minds that could last just as long.
Even if Homo heidelbergensis was an intelligent, creative, artistic type, it did him no good. He eventually evolved into a Neanderthal and then became extinct. Homo sapiens came out of Africa to replace him.
January 11, 2003 - A new type of star has been discovered lurking as a low mass component in a very compact binary star system.
Astronomers Steve B. Howell of the University of California, Riverside and Tom Harrison of New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, announced at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Seattle, Wash., that they have confirmed the existence of a new variety of stellar end-product. This previously unknown type of star has some properties similar to brown dwarf stars and may help astronomers understand some of the recently discovered extra-solar planets in close proximity to their suns.
The newly discovered type of star resides in a binary star system known as EF Eridanus with an estimated distance of 300 light years from Earth. EF Eri, with an orbital period of 81 minutes, belongs to a class of binary star called magnetic cataclysmic variables, so named for their sudden explosive brightenings caused by mass accretion events and their very strong magnetic fields.
Using telescopes at the National Science Foundation's Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz., and at Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, N.M., Howell and Harrison simultaneously obtained observations of EF Eridanus using an infrared camera at the Kitt Peak 2.1 meter (84-inch) telescope and an optical camera on the New Mexico State University 1-m (36-inch) telescope.
In typical magnetic cataclysmic variables, the more massive component is a white dwarf star, the remnant of a once massive star with probably 3-5 times the mass of the sun. Most stars, including the sun, will end their lives as white dwarfs - small degenerate objects with about as much mass as our sun smashed into a size equal to that of the Earth. A teaspoon full of white dwarf material would weigh about as much as ~100 elephants. In these magnetic binaries, the white dwarf has a strong magnetic field of order 10-200 million times that of the Earth.
The other component in a magnetic cataclysmic variable is typically a normal star similar to our sun, but smaller and with only about 1/2 the mass. This companion spends its life transferring mass to the white dwarf at a rate of approximately 6 billion tons per second. The white dwarf in EF Eri has an extremely intense magnetic field, 15-20 million times that of the Earth, and when mass transfer occurs, the matter is funneled down the magnetic field lines where it eventually crashes onto the surface of the white dwarf near its magnetic poles within an area about the size of California.
Gravitational energy released from the accreted material produces copious amounts of radiation (equal to about 20 billion megaton bombs per second) coming from the binary, generally swamping the light emitted by either star from the X-ray to the optical and infrared regions. The two stars are, in effect, invisible when mass is being transferred, and observations reveal only strong emission from 1 million degree regions on the white dwarf surface.
For reasons that astronomers do not yet fully understand, the flow of matter from the mass donor to the white dwarf occasionally shuts off in these magnetic systems. The mass flow starts again within a few weeks to a few months in most systems. EF Eridanus stopped transferring matter in 1995, became 30 times fainter, and has remained relatively inactive for the last seven years. With the stars in the binary now exposed, Howell and Harrison had the first good opportunity to directly detect the low mass companion in EF Eri.
By FLAtRich
Sunnydale CA January 15, 2003 (eXoNews) - If you believe today's mainstream press, Buffy The Vampire Slayer is over. In a barrage of print and web stories, apparently stemming from a quote from CBS and UPN chief Leslie Moonves at a January 13th Television Critics Association press tour, Buffy is either on her way out or has already been axed from UPN's fall lineup.
According to HR reporter Scott Collins, Moonves actually said: "I wouldn't bet that it comes back, but it's possible."
But HR also says
Moonves added that Gellar "hasn't said no" to an eighth season.
According Variety Reporter Michael Schneider in a story published the same
day, Moonves actually said: "I wouldn't bet that it comes back in the
form that it is now, but it's still possible. (Dawn) has met with Joss a
number of times about different permutations of the show."
That would be UPN Entertainment President Dawn Ostroff and Buffy creator Joss Whedon, of course, in reference to UPN asking 20th Century Fox TV and Joss if they would retool Buffy for a spin-off. The spin-off rumor has been circulating since Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar said last summer that she would rather make movies than ride out Buffy's decline on UPN.
The show has
suffered a serious ratings drop since moving from the WB, although last
week's midseason return earned Buffy a 3.5/5 overnight.
The HR and Variety reporters apparently attended the Television Critics
Association Winter Press Tour in Los Angeles last Sunday where Moonves
bragged that UPN sliced its losses by 50 percent in 2002. Variety puts
UPN's current loss at $40 million-$50 million, down from $80 million the
previous year.
According to
another recent story, UPN is trying to impress Fox affiliates who carry
UPN programming because that association keeps UPN afloat. If Fox
affiliates pull out, UPN could disappear.
So maybe the real story is more about UPN getting the stake and taking
Buffy along with it?
Buffy's impeding demise is no biggie to hard core Buffy fans. We heard
this all before a couple of years ago when the WB refused to up Buffy's
budget and threatened to finish Sarah Michelle and her Scoobies.
Buffy then moved to
UPN, currently owned by Viacom. Viacom also owns CBS, which is how Leslie
Moonves happens to be cast as the current Buffy doomsayer.
Another report on Trek Today says the other UPN genre star, Enterprise,
will return next year for a third season. The ultimate Star Trek news site
quotes Dawn Ostroff as saying: "Enterprise, as far as we know, will
be back."
UPN recently passed
on a pickup of Joss Whedon's Firefly, with Dawn Ostroff cooing over
"Abby", a new UPN sitcom featuring Sidney Poitier's daughter
Sydney Tamiia Poitier. Despite Ostroff's enthusiasm, "Abby" only
managed a 2.7/4 in a "sneak peak" last Monday and failed to beat
out a rerun of Smallville in when it premiered in it's regular slot the
following night.
UPN has a lot of work ahead if it thinks "Abby" will win
viewers. The show is basically another boring sitcom, wasting the talents
of both Miss Poitier and co-star Kadeem Hardison (A Different World). To
quote NY Daily News TV Critic David Bianculli in his pan of
"Abby":
"...what UPN should do is rescue Joss Whedon's 'Firefly' from its Fox
doghouse and put 'Buffy' and 'Firefly,' two Whedon shows, together on
Tuesdays. The only shows that seem worthy of pairing with 'Abby' are
long-gone train wrecks like 'The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer' and
'Homeboys in Outer Space'."
Firefly fans
recently turned their Save Firefly campaign to Sci Fi Channel, hoping that
the genre cable network would continue Whedon's tales of the crew of
Serenity, but The Sci Fi Channel announced yesterday that
it will not be picking up Firefly.
Official Buffy Site - http://www.buffy.com
Firefly: Immediate Assistance - http://www.fireflysupport.com
Enterprise UPN Site - http://www.upn.com/shows/enterprise
Willow and
Wesley Engaged!
Hollywood January 13, 2003 (Sci Fi Wire) - Angel co-star Alexis Denisof
told SCI FI Wire that he became formally engaged to former Buffy the
Vampire Slayer castmate Alyson Hannigan (Willow) over the Christmas break.
"I'm the luckiest guy in the world right now," a beaming Denisof
said in an interview at The WB's winter press preview. "Sorry. She's
mine. All mine! Ha ha ha ha!"
Denisof, 36, who
plays former Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce on Angel, met Hannigan, 28, when
they both appeared on UPN's Buffy, and the two have been dating since
Denisof moved to The WB's Buffy spinoff series. He said he decided to
propose while the two took a break from production for the holidays.
"We were driving up to my family up in Seattle during the Christmas
break from our shows," he said. "And I had the ring. And I had
thought of a hundred different crazy, romantic, complicated plans of
asking her. And at the end, I was just like, 'You know, I'm going to keep
it simple, and I'll know when it's the right time.'"
Denisof added, "So I had the ring with me. .. It was burning a hole
in the ... armrest of my car, where it was locked. And we drove all night
from L.A. to get north of San Francisco, so we could spend the following
day in Napa Valley. And we were just having the most perfect day. We
stopped at a winery, and stopped at a Dean and Deluca and got some
beautiful food to make a picnic, and then we drove up to a mountain lake
in Napa Valley. And it was there that I asked her. And lucky for me, she
said yes."
The couple have set a tentative September or October date for the
nuptials, which will likely take place in California, Denisof said.
Meanwhile, he said, "We're both working on our shows, and she's also
doing the third American Pie movie, so ... I won't actually see her until
March [laughs]. So if we can manage to plan a wedding, then we'll be doing
pretty well, yeah. But we're shooting for September or October if
possible."
Angel returns in its new 9 p.m. ET/PT Wednesday timeslot on Jan. 15th.
Buffy airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Angel's Official Site - http://www.thewb.com/Shows/Show/0,7353,||139,00.html
Angel
Returns!
By Brill
Bundy
Zap2it TV News
LOS ANGELES January
13, 2003 (Zap2it.com) - There are those who think The WB is condemning
"Angel" by moving it to Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. ET, a highly
competitive hour of television already occupied by NBC's "The West
Wing" and ABC's "Bachelor" franchise, but the network
itself thinks it's the natural choice to replace freshman flop "Birds
of Prey."
"What we saw with 'Birds of Prey,'" says Jordan Levin,
entertainment president of The WB, "was even though we felt we didn't
do a good job of executing that series, that there was a core male
audience there that was available for fantasy-type programming. With
'Fastlane' vacating that time slot, 'Angel' becomes the only real male
drama in the time slot."
"I think it's a show that's proven it can move; it's a show that's
proven that it has a very loyal audience, and we're counting on it to do
some heavy lifting on that night."
Last year, while "Felicity" was on hiatus, The WB filled the
post-"Dawson's Creek" slot with a new Kevin Williamson show,
"Glory Days." Levin candidly acknowledges that the show was
"a failure." Luckily, its lack of success only spells good news
for "Angel."
"I have no doubt that 'Angel' will improve year-to-year on that
series, so that gives it a bit of breathing room," Levin says.
"Angel" hasn't been picked up for a fifth season yet, and The
WB's option for the show expires this season. So, if it does return the
network will have to negotiate a new deal -- something that didn't go so
well with the show that sired "Angel," and "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer."
However, Levin says
that they're not burning off episodes by any means, rather they are giving
it a chance to prove itself on Wednesdays instead of being the show that
loses its "Charmed" lead-in on Sundays.
"We're hopeful that it will perform and it will continue on The
WB," Levin says. "I think Joss [Whedon, the show's creator]
really found the show last season; I think it's improved creatively this
season."
"Angel"
moves to its new Wednesday home on Jan. 15th
Angel's Official Site - http://www.thewb.com/Shows/Show/0,7353,||139,00.html
Hallett Upped At
Angel
Hollywood January 13, 2003 (Sci Fi Wire) - Andy Hallett, who plays
green-skinned Lorne on The WB's Angel, told SCI FI Wire that he's becoming
a regular cast member, starting with the vampire series' upcoming 14th
episode.
"They just announced it two days ago," Hallett said in an
interview Jan. 11 during the network's winter press preview. "So
you'll be seeing more of Lorne, which I never expected, by the way."
Hallett, who had only been a recurring player, will also appear in
revamped credits opening the show.
Hallett added, "I was originally signed on for, like, two episodes at
the very beginning. And yesterday or the day before was my 48th episode.
And then I got a wonderful call from [series co-creator] Joss Whedon, ...
and I was absolutely stunned. He caught me totally off guard. And he said,
'I want to let you know that we're making you a regular for the back nine
episodes of this season.' ... They've been using me a lot anyway, so I
kind of anticipated being with them for the duration, but I really wasn't
sure. So this just really solidified it."
Angel airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the WB.
Emma Caulfield
Rises in Darkness Falls
Hollywood January 15, 2003 (eXoNews) - Buffy co-star Emma Caulfield (Anya)
is about to hit the big time in her first starring movie role as Caitlin
in director Jonathan Liebesman's Darkness Falls, coming to theaters
January 24th.
If you've seen a preview, you may know that the screamer uses the age-old
legend of the tooth fairy, but check out the Darkness Falls web site
before you start to laugh. Sony Pictures has constructed a great site with
very entertaining features to support the film's release.
No pix of Emma to speak of, but you can Create Your Own Nightmare, play
the Stay In The Light Game and watch the excellent animated Tooth Fairy
Legend to get the whole story behind the evil at Darkness Falls.
The film's synopsis goes like this: Lyle Walsh (Chaney Kley) must return
home to confront his troubled past and save his childhood sweetheart
Caitlin (Emma Caulfield) from an unrelenting evil that has plagued the
town of Darkness Falls for over 150 years.
Smell a new franchise brewing? Save those baby teeth!
We all love Emma,
of course, who is also the subject of a feature story in this month's
Fangoria Magazine.
Official Darkness Falls website - http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/darknessfalls
Fangoria - http://www.fangoria.com
Spielberg Impersonated a Movie Executive
NEW YORK January
13, 2003 (AP) — Steven Spielberg learned about con men long before he
directed "Catch Me If You Can."
Spielberg was in high school when he and his friends answered an ad for
movie extras. Spielberg says a guy in a trailer had them fill out
applications and then asked for a $10 processing fee. Spielberg says he
read in the newspaper about scam-artists who made believe they were making
a movie and instead made off with $2,000.
In a separate incident, Spielberg says he got off the bus during the
Universal Studios tour in 1965, wandered around the lot and ended up
impersonating a movie executive. "I spent the whole day walking
around Universal watching TV shows being made," Spielberg told AP
Radio. He says he got a ride home and then took a chance. He put on a suit
and borrowed a briefcase. "Then next day I was driven to the lot, got
out of the car and walked past the guard," he said. "I couldn't
believe how easy it was."
Spielberg said he continued impersonating the executive for three summers.
"I actually went to a camera store and got little plastic titles with
stick-ons and found an empty office and stuck my name on the directory.
And my room number in front. That was an Abignale. That's my only
Abignale," he said.
Spielberg said he made the movie 'Amblin' in college, and the head of
Universal saw the picture and offered him a seven-year contract.
Spielberg says he was looking over his shoulder like Frank Abignale the
entire three summers. "I always thought I'd get caught. Every single
day, I feared police uniforms," he said.
Insomniac Dave Atell DVD Release
LOS ANGELES January
15, 2003 (Zap2it.com) - For those nights when you can't sleep, but are too
lazy (or scared) to actually go out, "Insomniac with Dave Atell"
is made-to-order.
The stand-up comic takes viewers on surreal jaunts through the after hours
life that is being lived in cities all over the country, and come Tuesday,
Feb. 4, his trips from the first two seasons of his Comedy Central show
will released on DVD.
Featuring trips to Chicago, Houston, Montreal, New Orleans and New York
City, the DVD will also contain unedited footage of the nudity and
profanity Atell regularly encounters.
On the same day, and just in time for Valentine's Day, Comedy Central
Records will release Atell's first comedy CD, "Skanks for the
Memories," recorded live in Denver last October.
Official Insomniac site - http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/insomniac
Frakes Directs
Thunderbirds
By Fiachra
Gibbons
Guardian Arts Correspondent
London January 10, 2003 (Guardian UK) - After years of rumor, false dawns and delays Thunderbirds are finally go. A big-screen live-action version of the cult 60s children's TV show is at last leaving the launching pad - and its first mission is to rescue the British film industry from the doldrums.
At more than £50m, the budget for the film is the biggest that Working Title - the powerhouse behind such successes as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones and Billy Elliot - has gambled on a single production. But few would bet against Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner scoring another major hit, the first they hope in a whole new franchise of Thunderbird films to rival Bond and Harry Potter.
The human faces for Gerry Anderson's family of marionettes, led by the astronaut-turned-billionaire Jeff Tracy, who ran International Rescue from a South Sea island with his sons Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John - and inventor Brains - have yet to be cast, although the model-turned-actor Sophie Dahl is being mentioned as a possible Lady Penelope. Parker, her deadpan and ever-resourceful butler and chauffeur, will also return to the wheel of her Rolls.
But last night
Bevan stressed that the real stars of the show would be the Thunderbirds
craft - eye-popping cars, planes, spaceships and sub marines that could
soon be appearing in toy shops as the film's merchandising machine begins
to roll. On the back of TV repeats alone, Tracy Island has been one of the
bestselling toys for the past two Christmases.
Anderson's series was shown in the US, but did not quite have the same
purchase on the imagination as it had in Britain, Australia and
Japan.
Previous attempts to bring the stiff-upper-lipped puppets to life withered
on American indifference to the idea, but Bevan batted away worries that
the film might not take hold there.
"The important
thing is that Thunderbirds are known there," he said. "We showed
some people in Los Angeles a mock-up of Thunderbird 2 outside parliament
the other day and they really sat up and took notice."
With Star Trek veteran Jonathan Frakes in the director's chair, the first
film will in March take over most of Pinewood studios, which had been
looking empty and forlorn after Tomb Raider 2 and the last Bond film, Die
Another Day. The all-important special effects will be created in Britain
by Framestore, which also worked on Bond but is most famous for the BBC's
Walking with Dinosaurs series.
Bevan said the time was at last right to revive Anderson's wooden heroes:
"We started work five years ago on this but we could never quite get
the script right, and in retrospect, thank God we didn't. The special
effects and their cost in particular have moved on so much since then -
you can see it between the first and second Harry Potter
films."
The key to the film was getting the look right, he added. "Getting
the Thunderbirds craft right is as important as getting the casting right.
Thunderbirds 1, 2, 3 and 4 are the heroes of the piece in many ways.
"We have been faithful in the new designs to Gerry Anderson's
original concepts in the way that the new Volkswagen Beetle or the new
Mini are to their old ones."
The focus of the film will be Alan, at 15 the youngest of the Tracy clan.
Art Directors
Set Design Nominations
By Sheigh
Crabtree
Hollywood January 14, 2003 (Hollywood Reporter) - In announcing its
nominees for excellence in production design, the Art Directors Guild on
Monday said it has selected Miramax Films' "Chicago" and
"Gangs of New York," New Line Cinema's "The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers," 20th Century Fox's "Minority
Report" and DreamWorks' "Road to Perdition" in the period
or fantasy films category.
In the contemporary films race, ADG members named Universal Pictures'
"The Bourne Identity," DreamWorks' "Catch Me If You
Can," Paramount/Miramax's "The Hours," Fox Searchlight's
"One Hour Photo" and Sony Pictures' "Panic Room."
Among TV movies and miniseries, the productions singled out include two HBO features, "Live From Baghdad" and "Path to War"; two TV films that aired on CBS, "Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story" and "Martin and Lewis"; and the Sci Fi Channel miniseries "Taken."
The Lone Ranger
Rides Again!
LOS ANGELES January 11, 2003 (Zap2it.com) - The exceedingly contemporary
WB network will take a little trip back in time on Wednesday, Feb. 26 for
the two-hour movie "The Lone Ranger."
Chad Michael Murray - one of the network's "It" boys
("Gilmore Girls," "Dawson's Creek") -- stars as Luke
Hartman, a 19th century law student who takes on a secret identity as the
masked man after witnessing the murder of his brother. Nathaniel Arcand
("American Outlaws" ) co-stars as Tonto, in a role that is sure
to be upgraded from sidekick to partner.
Of course, being The WB, "The Lone Ranger" will get a little
sexing up with the addition of Tonto's sister Alope (Anita Brown) creating
a love triangle between her tribe's chief and Luke. Also included is a hot
tub scene that takes place in a teepee.
"We could name it 'The Long Ranger,'" Jordan Levin, The WB's
president of entertainment jokes.
The project was originally a pilot for a series, and should the movie do
well it could still happen. However, Levin concedes that the network's
options with the cast have expired and producing a western on a regular
basis is an extremely costly proposition.
