Sept. 20, 2015 BRUSSELS—Mayonnaise
here is a sauce celebre, so important that a 60-year-old royal decree
governs what goes in it. But the mayo
edict is getting a dressing down these days from Belgian food producers, who
fear slipping behind in Europe’s cutthroat condiment market. Nicholas Courant, a
spokesman for Belgian food producers’ association Fevia, is part of a
strengthening movement to “create a level playing field for mayonnaise” by
loosening standards and lowering costs for local producers. That idea isn’t going down well with chefs,
consumer groups and smaller producers who warn against diluting the royally
approved recipe: Belgian mayonnaise must
contain at least 80% fat and 7.5% egg yolk.
European rivals are permitted to sell mayo with a mere 70% fat and 5%
egg yolk. “It’s like comparing a chicken
raised by a farmer with a factory hen,” says Philippe Lartigue, head
chef at the Brasseries Georges, a prestigious restaurant in Brussels. “Qualitatively, it’s not at all the same
thing.” In a nation riven with
linguistic and cultural fault-lines, such foodstuffs as beer, chocolate
and waffles have a strong grip on the Belgian psyche. Nearly
every town square from the Flemish North Sea coast to the mountainous
French-speaking south has a shack serving potato fries with a dollop of
mayo. Belgian dance-pop star Stromae
paid homage to mayonnaise in his 2013 hit “Moules Frites.” Antiausterity activists last December
launched a messy fries-and-mayo attack on Prime Minister Charles
Michel. With national sales exceeding
€1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) a year, according to Mr. Courant, only a handful of
nations consume more mayo per head than Belgium. Conflict has marked mayonnaise from the
start. The Oxford English Dictionary
traces its origins to an assault on the Spanish island of Minorca in 1756, when
French forces, led by the Duc de Richelieu, seized
the Port of Mahon. For the victory
party, according to legend, the duke’s chef wanted to make a sauce with cream and
eggs. Finding no cream, he substituted
olive oil. Voilà, “Sauce Mahonnaise” was
born. Another story traces the condiment
to the town of Bayonne in southwest France—hence “sauce bayonnaise.” The Larousse Gastronomique, France’s culinary
encyclopedia, indicates that mayonnaise is derived from the old French word
“moyeu,” meaning egg yolk. Some
Spaniards, however, claim the French copied their recipe. Unilever, the
maker of U.S. mayo market leader Hellmann’s, last year filed a lawsuit against
Hampton Creek Foods Inc., a San Francisco startup, for implying its “Just Mayo”
product was mayonnaise even though it substituted Canadian yellow peas for
eggs. The U.S. also has its standards,
dating from 1977: Mayonnaise must
contain egg yolk and at least 65% vegetable oil. Unilever dropped its lawsuit in
December after tens of
thousands of people signed a petition calling on the company to stop what they
called bullying of the startup. Tom Fairless http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-belgium-mayonnaise-makers-want-a-new-recipe-1442787350
A human tooth
dating to around 565,000 years ago has been found by a 16-year-old volunteer in
France. The tooth was found at Arago
cave near the village of Tautavel, one of the world's most important
prehistoric sites; it has been under excavation for about 50 years. The owner of the tooth--a very worn lower
incisor--lived during a cold and dry period, according to scientists. They hunted horses, reindeer, bison and
rhinoceros. "A large adult
tooth--we can't say if it was from a male or female--was found during
excavations of soil we know to be between 550,000 and 580,000 years old,
because we used different dating methods," paleoanthropologist Amelie
Viallet told the AFP news agency.
"This is a major discovery because we have very few human fossils
from this period in Europe," she said.
Volunteer Camille, 16, was working with another young archaeologist when
she found the tooth July 23, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33690713 See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautavel_Man
COPYRIGHT A
California federal judge ruled
September 22, 2015 that “Happy Birthday to You” does not belong to
the mega music corporation that has long claimed it. Instead,
the world’s most popular song belongs to, well, the world. The ruling brings to an end an intense
two-year legal standoff between a handful of independent filmmakers
and massive company Warner Music. It
also throws into doubt as much as $50 million in licensing fees collected
by the music giant over the past 27 years, raising the possibility of a
class-action lawsuit to come. The
decision by U.S. District Judge George H. King delighted the plaintiffs, who
portrayed their lawsuit as a David-versus-Goliath battle over the
so-called “birthday song.” “‘Happy
Birthday’ is finally free after 80 years,” Randall Newman, an attorney for the
plaintiffs, told the Los Angeles Times. “Finally, the charade is over. It’s unbelievable.” Warner/Chappell, the publishing arm of
Warner Music, told the newspaper that the company is “looking at the court’s
lengthy opinion and considering our options.”
The ruling could have a much broader impact than money from licensing
fees or even movie scenes, however. Instead, it could allow businesses of all type—from
TV shows to Broadway plays to greeting cards to your local
restaurant—to use “Happy Birthday” without fear of a lawsuit. “Happy Birthday to You” has been claimed by
Warner since 1988, when the company bought its copyright. That meant that anyone wanting to use the
song for commercial purposes—such as in a film, Broadway play or on
television—would have to pay at least $1,500.
Lots of people did.
Warner/Chappell makes an estimated $5,000 per day, or $2 million per
year, licensing the rights to the song.
(Donaldson, the entertainment attorney, said that number is low. “I think when they dig into it, it’s going to
be a lot more than $2 million per year,” he told The Washington Post.) In
2013, however, a group of filmmakers sued Warner/Chappell, arguing that the
company didn’t actually own the song and, therefore, couldn’t charge people to
use it. For
two years, and in several federal courts, both sides have dropped
documentary bombs on the other. Most
recently, Jennifer Nelson, a former X-Games biker turned filmmaker who is not only
a plaintiff in the case but is also making a documentary about the song and the
legal battle, unearthed “a proverbial smoking-gun” that “proves
conclusively that there is no copyright to the Happy Birthday lyrics.” The “proof”:
a 1922 songbook containing “Happy Birthday” but no copyright, a
finding that, Nelson and her attorneys argued, undermined Warner/Chappell’s
claim to ownership. Michael E. Miller
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/23/happy-birthday-to-all-of-us-judge-gives-world-a-gift-says-song-belongs-to-everyone/ Robert
Brauneis, a George Washington University law professor who has extensively
researched the copyright history of the song, says the ruling does not
explicitly place "Happy Birthday To You" in the public domain. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-happy-birthday-song-lawsuit-decision-20150922-story.html See also http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/judge-warners-2m-happy-birthday-copyright-is-bogus/
COPYRIGHT A federal appeals court has found that two
famous versions of the Batmobile were protected under the copyright for the
original Batman comic strip held by DC Comics.
DC Comics, a unit of Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Entertainment that owns
the copyright to the original Batman comic book series, had sued a San Diego
area man who was selling full-sized replicas of the Batmobile—some for as much
as $90,000 each—as depicted in both the 1966 television series “Batman”
starring Adam West and the 1989 movie “Batman” featuring Michael Keaton. “Holy copyright law, Batman!” wrote Judge
Sandra Ikuta in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the
September 23, 2015 opinion, which found that the
Batmobile was a “sufficiently distinctive” character to the original Batman
comic book series. “Since his first comic book appearance in
1939, the Caped Crusader has protected Gotham City from villains with the help
of his sidekick Robin the Boy Wonder, his utility belt, and of course, the
Batmobile,” Ikuta wrote. “Here, DC
retained its copyright in the Batmobile character even though its appearance in
the 1966 and 1989 productions did not directly copy any comic book depiction.” Amanda Bronstad http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202738032636/Holy-Copyright-Batmobile-Protected-Against-Replica-Seller?mcode=1202617074964&curindex=1&slreturn=20150824082555
"As Batman so sagely
told Robin, 'In our well-ordered society, protection of private property is
essential,'" 9th Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote for a unanimous three
judge panel. The case in the 9th
Circuit is DC Comics vs. Towle, 13-55484. Dan Levine
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/usa-batman-ruling-idUSL1N11T1JF20150923
Jack
Larson, best know for his role as reporter Jimmy Olsen on the first
Superman TV show, died September 20, 2015 at his home in Brentwood, Calif. He was 87.
Larson played George Reeves’ (Clark Kent/Superman) wide-eyed coworker at
The Daily Planet—a role he tried, in vain, to escape throughout his career—on “Adventures of Superman”
in the 1950s. Larson appeared on
“Superman” for six seasons, beginning in 1951. The series came to a close following Reeves’
sudden death in 1959. Larson was also a
playwright; his works include 1966’s “The Candied House,” based on “Hansel and
Gretel”; “Cherry, Larry, Sandy, Doris, Jean, Paul,” a comedy about being gay; 1968’s
“Chuck”; and 1998’s “The Astronaut’s Tale.” Larson wrote librettos for operas,
such as Virgil Thomson’s “Lord Byron.” He
produced several films written and/or directed by his longtime partner, James
Bridges, who he met on the set of Ethel Barrymore’s final film, “Johnny
Trouble,” in 1957. Larson produced “The Baby Maker” (1970), “Mike’s Murder”
(1984) and “Perfect” (1985), among Bridges’ other movies, through their production company.
Larson also appeared in the 1991 series “Superboy” as “Old Jimmy Olsen”
(an older version of Justin Whalin’s character), in an episode of ABC’s “Lois
& Clark: The New Adventures of
Superman” and Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” in 2006. Maane Khatchatourian
Get Fuzzy is an American comic strip written and drawn by Darby Conley. The strip features the adventures of Boston
advertising executive Rob Wilco and his two anthropomorphic pets,
a dog named Satchel Pooch and a cat called Bucky Katt. Get
Fuzzy has
been published by United Feature
Syndicate since
September 6, 1999. Get Fuzzy often
eschews the traditional "setup-punchline" format of most funnies,
instead building on absurd dialog between characters. The
unusual title of the strip comes from a concert poster that Darby Conley once created for his brother's band,
the Fuzzy Sprouts. "Life's too
short to be cool," the poster read, "Get Fuzzy." In 2011, Get Fuzzy began
to incorporate more and more reprinted strips into its daily rotation. Initially, these would alternate from week to
week with a new strip. Eventually, the
reruns became more frequent and by the beginning of 2013 (perhaps earlier), the
daily Get
Fuzzy strips
consisted entirely of strips from previous years. The lack of new content has caused a
significant decline in the popularity of Get Fuzzy, and in some cases
reader feedback polls have been conducted as to whether or not to keep the
strip. One of these was conducted by The Washington Post in
October 2013; the paper cited the reruns as the reason for the strip's lack of
support and announced that they would be dropping it from the paper. The Seattle Times, which stopped carrying Get
Fuzzy on
March 3, 2014, said their reasoning was "because the creator is no longer
producing new installments." The
Sunday editions of Get
Fuzzy, incidentally, have been largely unaffected by this and new
installments have continued to appear on a regular basis, much in the same vein
of how Bill Amend's FoxTrot does. The difference is that Amend made a conscious
decision and an announcement that he would be making the move, while neither
Universal Uclick or Darby Conley have ever made an official statement on the
status of Get
Fuzzy. In addition, Conley has never
explained his reasoning for no longer drawing daily strips. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Fuzzy
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1351
September 24, 2015 On this date
in 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
American novelist and short story writer, was born. On this date in 1957, Camp Nou, the largest stadium
in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.
No comments:
Post a Comment