Michelangelo Antonion, dead at 94

Michelangelo Antonioni, 94, Italian Director, Dies
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:54 a.m. ET

ROME (AP) -- Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, whose depiction of alienation made him a symbol of art-house cinema with movies such as ''Blow-Up'' and ''L'Avventura,'' has died, officials and news reports said Tuesday. He was 94.

The ANSA news agency said that Antonioni died at his home on Monday evening.

''With Antonioni dies not only one of the greatest directors but also a master of modernity,'' Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni said in a statement.

Antonioni depicted alienation in the modern world through sparse dialogue and long takes. Along with Federico Fellini, he helped turn post-war Italian film away from the Neorealism movement and toward a personal cinema of imagination. More

Mind? We gots minds?

Who’s Minding the Mind?
By BENEDICT CAREY

In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee.

The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.

That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

Findings like this one, as improbable as they seem, have poured forth in psychological research over the last few years. New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there’s a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like “dependable” and “support” — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it.

Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have. More

Hmm, gives me a new idea for running a consuite...

Fringe

Da Fringe is starting soon. Tomorrow my Fringe Guest arrives.

Meanwhile, there's this WorldCon, friends in France, and a wedding in the south of Viet Nam in September. The Other Brother:

Is getting married. Not to be confused with the PC Baby Brother (This Side of the Wide Pond Baby Brother) or the Baby Brother (Otherside of the Wide Pond Baby Brother).
The PC booked his flight already. Thong's waffling. The wedding's probably going to be at the Rice Farm.

Elms

Two of the elms on my street are coming down today. The one in front of my house is still going but its days are probably countable on fingers & maybe toes.
via TREO
Larry

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon we're talking real money...

All told, Congress has appropriated $602 billion for military operations, foreign aid and other costs related to Iraq, Afghanistan and the war or terror, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Of that total, $533 billion has gone to the Defense Department.

Stepped-up military operations are costing about $12 billion a month, with Iraq accounting for $10 billion per month, according to a previous congressional analysis. More