Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered across the nation (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) ? Americans honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday with a traditional day of service as well as a new wave of protests by Occupy Wall Street to promote causes of economic justice.

Across the nation, hundreds of formal events were planned for the federal holiday to celebrate the slain leader's birthday and legacy, from prayer services to parades to performances.

But it was the first time the annual King holiday has been held since the Occupy Wall Street movement reignited debate about social inequality and poverty. The protesters have targeted investment banks, noting the government bailed out Wall Street while many Americans still struggle with joblessness and housing foreclosures.

Not long before he was murdered in 1968, King was organizing a Poor People's Campaign as the next phase in the civil rights movement.

"Occupy Wall Street continues Martin Luther King's quest for economic justice through nonviolent action," the protest movement said in a statement.

"Communities of color ... have been hardest hit by predatory lending practices," it said. "Occupy Wall Street is here to pick up where King left off. We are here to reclaim the dream."

This year's King holiday also comes as officials in more than a dozen states implement new laws requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls. Critics say the restriction violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- one of the key accomplishments of the movement King led.

In New York, Occupy Wall Street protesters were starting their march at an African Burial Ground, where hundreds of slaves were buried in the 17th and 18th centuries. The site was uncovered in 1991 during excavation for construction of a federal building and is now part of the National Park Service.

The march was headed to the Federal Reserve Bank where participants planned to rally for economic justice. The march then was headed to Madison Square Garden, where Cablevision workers were set to vote on whether to unionize this month.

Later, a demonstration dubbed Occupation for Jobs was planned in New York City's Union Square.

Occupy the Dream, a coalition of African American church groups affiliated with Occupy Wall Street, called for a national day of action outside offices of the Federal Reserve in 16 cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco.

Because of the federal holiday, post offices, government buildings and most public schools remained closed.

Community and civil rights leaders urged Americans to make Monday a day on, not a day off, and to honor King's crusade for nonviolence and racial brotherhood by doing volunteer work.

One source for such work is a website, http://mlkday.gov/, set up to help would-be volunteers find local projects.

Elsewhere, prayer breakfasts, concerts and even sporting events were set to mark the holiday, which the nation began officially celebrating in 1986.

In Atlanta, where King was born on January 15, 1929, cellist Yo-Yo Ma was to perform at Morehouse College, King's alma mater.

In Washington, where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963 to more than a quarter million listeners in front of the Lincoln Memorial, a focal point for celebrations was the new memorial dedicated to King last fall.

In Memphis, where King was slain on April 4, 1968, the city's professional basketball team, the Grizzlies, was playing its annual Civil Rights Game against the Chicago Bulls.

In Austin, an annual King Day march was set to start at the University of Texas campus. A "Peace Rally" was set for the Children's Museum in Houston, while a celebration at Dallas Fair Park was host to floats, drill teams and bands.

King, a Baptist pastor who advocated for nonviolence, racial brotherhood and equal rights and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, was assassinated in 1968 as he stood outside his motel room in Memphis, where he had gone to support striking sanitation workers.

The convicted assassin, a segregationist and drifter named James Earl Ray, confessed to the killing but later recanted. He died in prison in 1998.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst and Karen Brooks, editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Barbara Goldberg)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120116/us_nm/us_mlk_holiday

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Golden Globe Awards 2012: List of Winners!


Did the 2012 Golden Globe winners go according to plan? Or were there any big surprises? Are the Oscar favorites more or less cemented right now?

The Help, The Artist, The Descendants and Hugo proved they are early Oscar leaders, with each film taking home some hardware Sunday evening.

The Artist’s wins for Best Score and Best Actor for Jean Dujardin kept the critical favorite squarely in the driver’s seat as an early Oscar favorite.

Morgan Freeman Pic

After winning Best Actor for The Descendants, George Clooney is the man to beat for the honor at the Oscars. That film was also the best drama.

Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical went to The Artist, while Meryl Streep won Best Actress (shocker) as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

The Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement went to Morgan Freeman (above), who received the honor from Sidney Poitier and Helen Mirren.

On the TV side, Homeland, Modern Family and Downton Abbey were the big winners.

Kicking off the night was a Ricky Gervais monologue that went after stars such as Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian this year. So ... there's that.

Here's the list of Golden Globe winners for 2012:

FILM

Best Motion Picture, Drama
The Descendants

Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
The Artist

Best Actress, Motion Picture Drama
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Best Actor, Motion Picture Drama
George Clooney, The Descendants

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Best Animated Film
The Adventures of Tintin

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Director
Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical
Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Best Foreign Film
A Separation

Best Song
Masterpiece, W.E.

Best Score
Ludovic Bource, The Artist

TELEVISION

TV Series, Drama
Homeland

TV Series, Comedy
Modern Family

TV Movie or Miniseries
Downton Abbey

Actor in a TV Series, Drama
Kelsey Grammer, Boss

Actress in a TV Series, Drama
Claire Danes, Homeland

Actor, TV Series Comedy
Matt LeBlanc, Episodes

Actress in a TV Series, Comedy
Laura Dern, Enlightened

Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie
Idris Elba, Luther

Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie
Kate Winslet, Mildred Pierce

Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or TV Movie
Jessica Lange, American Horror Story

Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or TV Movie
Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/golden-globe-awards-2012-list-of-winners/

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Video: Graham says 2012 ?our election to lose?

A Second Take on Meeting the Press: From an up-close look at Rachel Maddow's sneakers to an in-depth look at Jon Krakauer's latest book ? it's all fair game in our "Meet the Press: Take Two" web extra. Log on Sundays to see David Gregory's post-show conversations with leading newsmakers, authors and roundtable guests. Videos are available on-demand by 12 p.m. ET on Sundays.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/46004972#46004972

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Social media widens scope of Nigeria fuel protests

Protesters on day five of the nationwide strike following the removal of a fuel subsidy by the government, in Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Unions in Nigeria announced Friday a weekend pause in a paralyzing national strike amid new negotiations with the government over spiraling gasoline costs. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Protesters on day five of the nationwide strike following the removal of a fuel subsidy by the government, in Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Unions in Nigeria announced Friday a weekend pause in a paralyzing national strike amid new negotiations with the government over spiraling gasoline costs. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

People protest on a sign written on a major road saying' No subsidy removal' on day five of the nationwide strike following the removal of a fuel subsidy by the government in Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Unions in Nigeria announced Friday a weekend pause in a paralyzing national strike amid new negotiations with the government over spiraling gasoline costs. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Muslim women pray as the protest on day five of the nationwide strike following the removal of a fuel subsidy by the government in Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Unions in Nigeria announced Friday a weekend pause in a paralyzing national strike amid new negotiations with the government over spiraling gasoline costs. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Angry youths protest as one youth carries a brazier with burning trash on day five of a nationwide strike following the removal of a fuel subsidy by the government in Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Unions in Nigeria announced Friday a weekend pause in a paralyzing national strike amid new negotiations with the government over spiraling gasoline costs. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Angry youths protest on day five of a nationwide strike following the removal of a fuel subsidy by the government in Lagos, Nigeria, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Unions in Nigeria announced Friday a weekend pause in a paralyzing national strike amid new negotiations with the government over spiraling gasoline costs. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

(AP) ? A nationwide strike and demonstrations have unleashed years of pent-up frustrations in Nigeria over its kleptocratic leaders, and the rage has grown even stronger across social media this week.

Twitter users shared pictures of dead protesters while others broke down the oil-rich nation's 2012 budget figures, comparing funds allocated to the president and vice president's offices with the cost of living of the average Nigerian. Hackers have targeted government websites, while others criticized local news coverage of demonstrations in nation where journalists often accept bribes from those they cover.

"I think the government has opened a can of worms and we are now picking each one at a time," said Kola Oyeneyin, 31, an entrepreneur who uses Twitter to give protest updates.

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets across Africa's most populous nation to protest the government's removal on Jan. 1 of a subsidy that had kept gasoline prices low for more than two decades. Overnight, prices at the pump more than doubled, from $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter) to at least $3.50 per gallon (94 cents per liter). The costs of food and transportation also doubled in a nation where most live on less than $2 a day.

President Goodluck Jonathan insists the move was necessary to save the country an estimated $8 billion a year, which he promises will go toward badly needed roads and public projects. But the president, who used Facebook to announce he would run in the nation's presidential elections last year, has faced increasingly angry comments on his own profile where most offered praise in the past.

Protesters ? who joined the current nationwide labor strike under the hash-tagged slogan of "Occupy Nigeria" ? say the government is in no position to ask people to sacrifice in a nation with extravagant government spending and a history of widespread theft of billions by military rulers and politicians.

Nigeria, an OPEC member nation producing about 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day, is a top supplier to the U.S., but virtually all of its petroleum products are imported after years of graft, mismanagement and violence at its refineries.

"They (the government) are saying that they need to save. OK, but do you need to save by making us pay for your waste?" Oyeneyin asked.

The country only recently passed a Freedom of Information bill granting, in theory, public access to documents. But the nation's budgeting remains opaque at best in a nation that operated for years under an official secrets act that made unauthorized release of government information an imprisonable offense.

"People are now more informed about what's going on and it won't be long before we have an open and transparent government," said Ngozi Sulaiman, a businesswoman who was sending photos to her Blackberry contacts from a protest in a posh Lagos neighborhood.

However, social media also has spread false information about government resignations in recent days as well. Text messages circulating the country also fed a rumor that a radical Islamist sect planned to infiltrate and bomb demonstrations.

A group of hackers also have attacked a series of government websites over several days, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Friday.

Eager to calm public anger, government-aligned groups have published front-page newspaper advertisements for days trying to sell Nigeria's more than 160 million people on the idea that money saved by removing fuel subsidies will go toward needed projects. While Nigeria has an unruly free press, underpaid journalists often accept so-called "brown envelope" bribes slipped into briefing documents at news conferences. And at least one private news channel in the country has gotten calls from government officials asking it not to broadcast live images of a daily demonstration in Lagos that drew more than 20,000 people on Friday alone.

Criticism of news on the state-run Nigerian Television Authority also sparked a protest outside its Lagos headquarters by more than a thousand people Thursday. The channel aired a short story on the protest 43 minutes into its nightly broadcast, after a host of pro-subsidy removal stories and commercials.

The protests will continue to be swayed by social media, despite low incomes, as Nigeria has the continent's top mobile phone market and is estimated to have the largest online audience in Africa.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-01-14-AF-Nigeria-Fuel-Subsidy-Media/id-268c09f867f14ebcbb6752738e207fc5

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Giants Hail Mary: Hakeem Nicks Catches Long TD Pass From Eli Manning Against Packers (VIDEO)

With just 15 seconds remaining before halftime of the Giants-Packers Divisional Playoff at Lambeau Field, New York was pushing to get into field goal goal range. Taking a snap from his own 40-yard line, Giants quarterback Eli Manning tossed the ball to Ahmad Bradshaw, who started left but cut back to the inside and found open space. He bolted across to the right side near midfield and sprinted to the far sideline. Bradshaw burst up the edge before getting pushed out at the Green Bay 37-yard line.

Despite the big gain, Giants coach Tom Coughlin still felt his team was outside of field goal range.

With six seconds remaining and no timeouts, Manning took the shotgun snap and instead of looking for a quick pass to the sideline for a couple extra yards to stop the clock, he took a shot to the end zone. As the hail mary pass sailed through the air, Giants receivers and Packers defenders crowded the end zone. New York wideout Hakeem Nicks got in a central position amidst the scrum and rose up for the jump ball. He got his arms extended and reeled it in for the catch as he fell down on two Green Bay defenders. It was the 6'1 receiver's second touchdown of the game and it gave the Giants a 20-10 lead going into halftime.

GIANTS-PACKERS LIVE BLOG FOR UPDATES!

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/15/giants-hail-mary-hakeem-nicks-eli-manning-packers_n_1207845.html

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Candidates make final push ahead of Taiwan vote

A supporter of Taiwan opposition Democratic Progressive Party, DPP, presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen reacts during the last election rally at New Taipei City, Taiwan, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Taiwan will hold its presidential election on Saturday, Jan. 14. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

A supporter of Taiwan opposition Democratic Progressive Party, DPP, presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen reacts during the last election rally at New Taipei City, Taiwan, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Taiwan will hold its presidential election on Saturday, Jan. 14. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Taiwan former president Lee Teng-hui , center, speaks next to Taiwan opposition Democratic Progressive Party, DPP, presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen at her last election rally at New Taipei City, Taiwan, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Taiwan will hold its presidential election on Saturday, Jan. 14. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Taiwan's President and presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou flashes double V-signs as he's greeted by supporters during a night rally in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Taiwanese go to the polls to choose their next president on Saturday Jan. 14. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Volunteers check and organize ballots at voting headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Taiwan will hold its presidential election on Jan. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)

Democratic Progressive Party's Presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen delivers a speech to supporters during a presidential campaign rally in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Taiwan will hold its presidential election on Saturday, Jan. 14. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

(AP) ? Candidates in Taiwan's closely fought presidential election appealed for last-minute support Friday, with President Ma Ying-jeou offering his vision of better relations with China, and his main challenger attempting to galvanize resentment over growing income inequality.

Amid swirling campaign banners and cheering crowds, Ma and Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party crisscrossed the island ahead of a contest that pits Ma's experience against Tsai's populism.

Eighteen million Taiwanese are eligible to vote in Saturday's election, with results expected by about 10 p.m.

Opinion surveys published a week ago ? the last permitted under Taiwanese law ? showed Ma clinging to a slim 3-4 percentage point lead that was within the statistical margin of error, despite Tsai never having won an election for public office in Taiwan.

A third candidate, James Soong, a former heavyweight in Ma's Nationalist Party, has little chance of winning, though political analysts say he could draw voters away from the president.

Legislative elections being held at the same time are likely to see Ma's Nationalists retain a majority in the 113-seat house, although with a diminished margin.

Ma, a 61-year-old former justice minister and Taipei mayor, is staking his re-election on his success in tying Taiwan's high-tech economy ever closer to China's lucrative markets. During his 3 1/2 years in office, his China initiatives ? including opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists and increasing the number of flights across the 100-mile- (160-kilometer-) wide Taiwan Strait ? have helped reduce tensions between democratic Taiwan and authoritarian China to the lowest level since they split amid civil war in 1949.

Ma's signature achievement has been the completion of a China trade deal in June 2010 which lowered tariffs on hundreds of goods. While most of Taiwan's $124 billion worth of exports to China last year were electronic goods like television displays and cellphone chips, there was also a big upsurge in agricultural sales from southern Taiwan, long a stronghold of Tsai's party.

Tsai, 55, who has a doctor's degree from the London School of Economics, has acknowledged that the economic aspects of Ma's China policies have received broad support and shows no sign of undoing them. But she has hit out repeatedly at the growing economic inequality she says they have spawned. She has also accused Ma of undermining Taiwan's de facto independence in exchange for economic benefits from China ? a claim that resonates strongly with her party's pro-independence base.

There is some evidence that her claims are starting to hit home.

"The economy is the main thing" in the election, said Jenny Wu, the proprietor of a small home wares shop in Taipei. "People will be looking for more opportunities for employment and help for the working class."

Taiwan, one of Asia's economic successes for decades and now a center of high-tech development, has turned in a mixed performance under Ma. Unemployment has fallen in the past two years after reaching a high of 6.16 percent in 2009, and preliminary growth figures for 2011 were a respectable 4.5 percent. But housing prices in urban areas have skyrocketed and the income gap has widened, as large companies that invested in the China trade have profited handsomely from new opportunities.

In the closing days of the campaign Tsai has been moving relentlessly toward the center, promising to open a channel to China to offer assurances that she has no intention of embracing the pro-independence policies of Ma's predecessor, the DPP's Chen Shu-bian. Chen's policies infuriated Beijing, and caused great consternation in the U.S., Taiwan's most important security partner.

Through proxies, Ma has been trying to undermine support for Soong, out of fear that if enough Nationalist backers choose the third-party candidate, the president could lose the election. Some analysts have suggested that if Soong garners 7 percent of the vote or more, Ma will be defeated.

In a separate development, Ma has been buoyed by the arrival of an estimated 300,000 China-based Taiwanese businesspeople, most of whom are expected to vote for the president. Many Taiwanese businesses on the mainland are big Ma backers, and have encouraged their workers to support him.

In the past week police have intensified security for the candidates, mindful of violence during recent Taiwanese polls. In 2004 incumbent President Chen Shui-bian was shot and lightly wounded on election eve ? he went on to win by a razor-thin majority ? and in November 2010 the son of Taiwan's former vice president was shot in the head while campaigning for a mayoral candidate in suburban Taipei. He has since recovered.

Late Thursday police in the central city of Taichung said they had detained a 65-year-old man who called in a threat to bomb Tsai's local campaign headquarters. They said no explosives were found in the man's home.

And on Friday, police hustled away a knife-wielding woman from outside Tsai's central election headquarters in the Taipei suburb of Banciao.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-13-AS-Taiwan-Presidential-Election/id-d2499c5b093d48138d91c6725d6c7ee8

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Wearing contact lenses can affect glaucoma measurements

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 13-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jim Ritter
jritter@lumc.edu
708-216-2445
Loyola University Health System

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- A study about how wearing contact lenses affects glaucoma measurements has been named the top presentation at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine's annual St. Albert's Day research symposium.

First author of the study is Marie Brenner, a fourth-year student at Stritch School of Medicine.

Brenner and colleagues studied the effects of contact lens wear on retinal nerve fiber layer measurements, which ophthalmologists use to diagnose and manage glaucoma. The researchers found that in patients with lower refractive errors, better quality measurements were obtained without contact lenses in place. But in patients with higher refractive errors, wearing contact lenses could improve measurements. (A refractive error is an error in the way the eye focuses light.)

Brenner, who is from Grand Rapids, Mich., plans to do her residency in ophthalmology. Her co-authors are Pooja Jamnadas, MD; Peter Russo, OD; and Shuchi Patel, MD.

St. Albert's Day is an annual event that showcases research by students, residents, fellows, post-doctoral researchers and faculty members at Stritch. It is named after St. Albert the Great (1206-1280), a German philosopher and theologian known as "teacher of everything there is to know."

###


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?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 13-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jim Ritter
jritter@lumc.edu
708-216-2445
Loyola University Health System

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- A study about how wearing contact lenses affects glaucoma measurements has been named the top presentation at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine's annual St. Albert's Day research symposium.

First author of the study is Marie Brenner, a fourth-year student at Stritch School of Medicine.

Brenner and colleagues studied the effects of contact lens wear on retinal nerve fiber layer measurements, which ophthalmologists use to diagnose and manage glaucoma. The researchers found that in patients with lower refractive errors, better quality measurements were obtained without contact lenses in place. But in patients with higher refractive errors, wearing contact lenses could improve measurements. (A refractive error is an error in the way the eye focuses light.)

Brenner, who is from Grand Rapids, Mich., plans to do her residency in ophthalmology. Her co-authors are Pooja Jamnadas, MD; Peter Russo, OD; and Shuchi Patel, MD.

St. Albert's Day is an annual event that showcases research by students, residents, fellows, post-doctoral researchers and faculty members at Stritch. It is named after St. Albert the Great (1206-1280), a German philosopher and theologian known as "teacher of everything there is to know."

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/luhs-wcl011312.php

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Cooperation, the secret weapon of our species

Mark Pagel, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Reading

together-jacket.jpgIn his thoughtful Together: The rituals, pleasures and politics of co-operation, Richard Sennett argues there are ways to overcome ingrained tribalism

RICHARD SENNETT'S Together is the second in a planned trilogy of books about "the skills people need to sustain everyday life". The first instalment, The Craftsman, proposed and explored the notion of an innate human impulse to do things well. Together is about the craftsmanship of cooperation.

Sennett, a sociologist, worries that humans suffer from a deeply ingrained tribalism that "couples solidarity with others like yourself to aggression against those who differ". He is alarmed by the way societies develop tribalism within their ranks. The US has become "an intensely tribal society", he says, noting that "tribalism, in the form of nationalism, destroyed Europe during the first half of the twentieth century". Today, he warns, the once inclusive Netherlands "has its version of American talk radio, where the mere mention of the word 'Muslim' triggers a Wagnerian onslaught of complaints".

If Sennett is right, trouble is brewing. Our world is more interconnected than at any time in its history, and all demographic projections point to mass human migration from poorer to more prosperous regions. In response, Sennett wants to explore the nitty-gritty details of how people can be encouraged to cooperate. He is especially interested in modern capitalist societies that, he says, promote conditions leading to social withdrawal or, as political scientist Robert Putnam puts it, "hibernation".

The causes of this hibernation are many, but Sennett singles out the corrosive effects of economic inequality, the breakdown in workplace relations and the psychological effects of living in an uncertain world with few social supports. These will sound familiar, but Sennett fleshes them out with the degree of detail and analysis we expect of sociological field studies, including his own interviews with Wall Street workers who lost their jobs in the 2008 banking crisis.

Sennett is stern in his prescriptions for rescuing cooperation in the light of these isolating forces. He cautions that it requires commitment and empathy, and he champions the repetitive shared experience of ritual, from religious ceremonies to workplace routine, as a way of promoting social cohesion.

By "commitment", Sennett means more than just personal commitment - to running a marathon, for example. It is a commitment to community. One example where this was lacking, he notes, was among young African Americans in the 1960s. Having enjoyed better education and economic prospects than their parents, this generation had the choice of remaining in their (often poor) communities or seeking out more salubrious ones. Many did the latter, often perpetuating deprivation in the areas they left.

Still, there are reasons for optimism. The history of the many tribal societies that have colonised the world ever since our species walked out of Africa around 60,000 years ago has indeed been one of near-continual conflict over land and resources. But conflict turns out to be an endlessly creative force, responsible - surprising as it might seem - for most cooperation. No species has exploited this fact more than our own. Early bands of humans formed into tribes that were bands of bands. Collections of tribes later coalesced into chiefdoms and collections of chiefdoms became nascent nation states. At each stage formerly competing entities formed cooperative coalitions that generated wealth more often than conflict.

As challenging and demanding as cooperation is, it has been our species' secret weapon, and those of us alive today are the descendants of people who had what it takes to make it work. This thoughtful book outlines the craftsmanship we will need to ensure that it continues to do so.

Book Information
Together: The rituals, pleasures and politics of co-operation
by Richard Sennett
Published by: Allen Lane/Yale University Press
?25/$28

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'Artist' wins 4 trophies at Critics' Choice Awards (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? "The Artist" waltzed away with its first wins of Hollywood's awards season.

The black-and-white ode to the silent-film era directed by Michel Hazanavicius led winners with four honors at Thursday's 17th annual Critics' Choice Awards, which are presented by the 250 members of the Broadcast Film Critics Association.

"The Artist" took the evening's top prize, best picture, as well honors for best score, costume design and director.

"I made a silent movie," French director Hazanavicius joked in English while accepting the award for best picture. "I don't like to speak so much."

"The Help," the adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel about black maids speaking out about their white employers during the civil-rights movement, followed behind "The Artist" with three wins in the ceremony's acting categories: Viola Davis as best actress, Octavia Spencer as best supporting actress and the film's cast as best acting ensemble.

"I absolutely knew I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to be somebody," an emotional Davis said accepting her award. "I wanted to dream big and make a mark somehow. That's something absolutely that Aibileen was not afforded. I considered it my honor to pay homage to these women at this time period who were not allowed to dream and not allowed to find their purpose."

Others who accepted trophies at the lavish Hollywood Palladium ceremony included George Clooney as best actor for "The Descendants," Christopher Plummer as best supporting actor for "Beginners" and Thomas Horn as best young actor for "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."

"Frankly, I didn't even imagine I would get this, but I have," beamed a surprised Horn.

Funnymen Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel hosted the ceremony, which was broadcast live on VH1.

Other winners included "Bridesmaids" as best comedy movie, "Drive" as best action movie, "Rango" as best animated feature, "Midnight in Paris" as best original screenplay, "Moneyball" as best adapted screenplay, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" for best editing and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" for best makeup and best sound.

___

VH1 is owned by Viacom Inc.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

___

Online:

http://www.criticschoice.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120113/ap_en_mo/us_critics__choice_awards

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