David Wallechinsky: Bud Greenspan, Olympic Filmmaker

Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan dies at 84 in NYC
Bud Greenspan, the filmmaker whose documentaries often soared as triumphantly as the Olympic athletes he chronicled for more than six decades, died at his home in New York City. He was 84. He died Saturday from complications of Parkinson’s disease, companion Nancy Beffa said. Greenspan’s most recent work dealt with the rough cuts of films from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. The award-winning filmmaker unapologetically focused on both the large and small successes of the athletes i...

Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan dies at 84 in NYC
NEW YORK (AP) — The trailblazing filmmaker who spent decades documenting the stories of Olympic athletes has died. Bud Greenspan was 84. Greenspan’s companion Nancy Beffa says he died Saturday from complications of Parkinson’s disease at his home in New York City. The award-winning filmmaker was known for documentaries chronicling athletes and their stories at both Winter and Summer Olympics. Beffa said his most recent work dealt with the rough cuts of films from the Vancouver ...

Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan dies at 84 in NYC
The trailblazing filmmaker who spent decades documenting the stories of Olympic athletes has died. Bud Greenspan was 84. Greenspan's companion Nancy Beffa says he died Saturday from complications of Parkinson's disease at his home in New York City. The award-winning filmmaker was known for documentaries chronicling athletes and their stories at both Winter and Summer Olympics. Beffa said his most recent work dealt with the rough cuts of films from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. A native New Yo...

Police target teenage rock cult...
AFP - When police officers arrived at 13-year-old Masha's home, searched her room and inspected her computer, it was not because they suspected her of any crime. Her offence was simply to be a devoted follower of the angst-ridden punk-rock subculture known as 'emo', in an ex-Soviet state where pressures to conform remain strong. "It was offensive and frightening at the same time," said Masha, a schoolgirl in the Armenian capital, clearly upset by the experience. Police in Yerevan have been condu...

Yiying Lu makes splash with Twitter's 'fail whale'
Yiying Lu's most famous illustration thus far is linked with failure - and that has turned out to be a good thing. The young artist is the bubbly brainchild behind Twitter's "fail whale," the image that appears when Twitter is overloaded and can't function. In the picture, a flock of birds carry an enormous, smiling whale over the water. Through Twitter, the whale has become a sign of the times. This year, the popular San Francisco Microblogging service sent an astonishing 25 billion messages...

Unfiltered: Documentary Videos Made by Young Combat Vets
It has been a hectic day at many airports, as holiday travellers try to make it home in time to Christmas Day festivities around the country. Weather is forcing hundreds of flight cancellations east... President and Founder, Josephson Institute of Ethics, reflects on the state of the nation's character during 2010. The December 24th weather couldn't have been any better for Southern California. But more rain could be on the way. Two arts programs thrive in Los Angeles. It's that time of year aga...

Hawaii's New Governor Takes Up the Fight Against Birthers (The Atlantic Wire)
WASHINGTON, DC – On Friday, The New York Times reported that Neil Abercrombie, the new Democratic Governor of Hawaii, plans to take aggressive steps to address the "birther" movement--the Conspiracy theorists who believe Barack Obama was born overseas rather than in the United States. The Obama campaign has already posted a certificate of birth from the Hawaii Department of Health on its Web site, and two independent fact-checking organizations have verified its legitimacy, but Abercromb...

The weather prayer
Image via Wikipedia LA Times: In early December 1944, Gen. George S. Patton Jr., commander of the United States' 3rd Army, stood with his Troops at Germany's doorstep. He'd pushed his men across France toward Germany with furious speed during summer and early fall, but in the last months, as he drove through France's Lorraine region toward the Saar River, progress stalled. Fuel and supplies were running short, and perhaps even more deviling, the weather wouldn't cooperate. Driving rains had mi...

Hidden Perks of the Marines' Memorial Association
The Marines' Memorial Association founded in 1946 as a "living memorial honoring Marines and other Veterans of the United States Armed Forces" and to aid and assist these veterans, is open to all active and honorably discharged service members. The Association runs an elegant private hotel and club in Downtown San Francisco, near Union Square. The rates are reasonable, the view is incredible, the food is excellent,  and there's a great gym downstairs. The Association runs lectures and speci...

Boxing turns to silver screen for silver lining
The film about the hard-scrabble Boston-area boxer raked in more than $12 million its first full weekend, has been nominated for six Golden Globes and figures to be an Oscar darling when nominations are announced next month. Wahlberg and co-star Christian Bale even graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, which trumpeted the film as an instant classic. The sport itself only wishes it could get the same kind of publicity. While boxing remains one of the great storytelling backdrops, with its inher...

Glimpse Of Horizon
Christmas is about family, it’s about being thankful for those you have around you and the life you live. For many it’s being thankful for their faith. The 17 year old daughter of a member in the Department I work in, Regina Nicholson, filmed a documentary about the pain and misery of Cancer she has endured and the faith that helped her get through it all. She has always loved films and her dream is to work in the film industry, behind the camera. The documentary was featured at the...

Great news: Obama administration giving out advice on how to survive a nuclear attack
For those of you who read the New York Times on Friday, it was right there. Right on the front page. The Obama Administration is giving you advice how to survive a Nuclear Attack. Suppose the unthinkable happened, and Terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb. What should people there do? The government has a surprising new message: Do not flee. Get inside any stable building and don’t come out till officials say it’s safe. The advice is based on recent scientific an...

Napolitano: 'see something, say something' campaign isn't Big Brother
The Federal Government's "see something, say something" campaign to encourage citizen vigilance against the Terrorism threat doesn't amount to a "Big Brother"-style spying effort, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in an interview aired Sunday. "It just sounds very Big Brother to me, turning in the next door neighbor..." CNN's Candy Crowley said to Napolitano during an interview on CNN's "State of the Union." "It's not," Napolita...

Lying Lips, Part 704,824
From Gateway Pundit CHANGE! Obama Adminstration Approved Business With Blacklisted Nations Iranian freedom Protesters were being shot at from rooftops We’re starting to see a pattern here… When the Iraqi people were being slaughtered in the street Obama said Genocide was preferable to continued US presence in the region. When the Iranian freedom Protesters were being shot at from rooftops, he turned his back on them. When the Honduran people rose against their Socialist tyrant, he supporte...

US to step up security at hotels and malls
The United States is stepping up security at "soft targets" like hotels and Shopping Malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday. A year after a foiled plot to bomb a US-bound passenger plane, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN's "State of the Union" program that other places and modes of transportation must now be scrutinized. "We look at so-called soft targets -- the hotels, Shopping Malls, for example -- all ...

Are unions the enemy of the arts?
At Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the average stagehand Salary and benefits package is $290,000 a year. To repeat, that is the average compensation of all the workers who move musicians' chairs into place and hang lights, not the pay of the top five. Across the plaza at the Metropolitan Opera, a spokesman said stagehands rarely broke into the top-five category. But a couple of years ago, one did. The props master, James Blumenfeld, got $334,000 at that time, incl...

Weather Causes Chaotic Travel in Europe
(AFP) - A terminal at Paris' main airport closed as a precaution due to heavy snow on the roof but quickly reopened Friday as scheduled, though thousands of of travelers remained stranded there as freezing conditions forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights. Around 2,000 people were evacuated from Terminal 2E at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport because of accumulated snow on the roof in order to give maintenance crews a chance to clear it, before reopening it shortly thereafter at 3 pm loc...

Armenian police target teenage rock cult
When police officers arrived at 13-year-old Masha's home, searched her room and inspected her computer, it was not because they suspected her of any crime. Her offence was simply to be a devoted follower of the angst-ridden punk-rock subculture known as 'emo', in an ex-Soviet state where pressures to conform remain strong. "It was offensive and frightening at the same time," said Masha, a schoolgirl in the Armenian capital, clearly upset by the experience. Police in Yerevan have been conducti...

Big-name sports follow the money to the Gulf
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — It was hardly a marquee moment in the history of world sports. Curious crowds on a Middle Eastern beach watched events that included horse riders slicing a lemon with a sword and a cousin of croquet called woodball. Yet there was the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, looking on from the VIP seats and then coming down to present some medals at the Asian Beach Games in Oman earlier this month. If Rogge seemed out of place, he ...

Brady, Patriots a careful bunch
Don't tell the New England Patriots about the season of giving. They haven't been giving opponents much of anything this season, especially since what coach Bill Belichick likes to call "the real football season" starting around Thanksgiving. The Patriots have set several records for fewest turnovers committed this season, and are on track to set more. That lack of turnovers has been a key to the team's 12-2 season, the best record in the NFL, and the Pats are planning for more of the same Sunda...

Where the Clintons Spent the Night Before the Night Before
Photographs by Neil Leifer Former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea, with Steve Tyrell and his fiancée, Karen Pulaski, and others at the Café Carlyle on Friday. A call came in to the newsroom on a quiet Christmas Eve day with this little gem: Seems that the Clintons — that’s the former president, Bill; the current secretary of state, Hillary; and this summer’s Bride of the Century, Chelsea — stopped by the Caf...

Competition on for presidential library
HONOLULU, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Hawaii wants to be the location for President Obama's library and groups there are already scouting out possible sites, officials said. The library in Hawaii would open in 2019 or 2020, assuming the president is re-elected and picks it to be home to his library, Politico reported. "We have mostly a two-term strategy," said Robert Perkinson, an American studies Professor at the University of Hawaii leading the effort to locate the Presidential Library there. "It's like...

The Obama library
A brilliant story for politics' slowest news day from Carol Lee, who's making good use of her junket reporting trip to Hawaii: Honolulu — As President Barack Obama prepares to battle with Republicans for a Second Term, another fight is already brewing: where to enshrine his legacy once he leaves office. The effort to play host city to Obama’s Presidential Library ...

Chicago, Hawaii Fight Over Obama Presidential Library
Politico reports: As President Barack Obama prepares to battle with Republicans for a Second Term, another fight is already brewing: where to enshrine his legacy once he leaves office. The effort to play host city to Obama’s Presidential Library is being complicated by the peripatetic life he has had. His diverse background — a fixture of his political brand — is now fueling a debate at a time when the White House would like to focus on anything but where to store the Obama archives. The

Video: An Amazing Story of Survival & Salvation
The Story of Louie Zamperini - from the Olympics, to a World War II crash survivor, to a POW: ...