Economist, Feb 23, 2013

choi

China’s economy | Served in China; Services are poised to become the country’s biggest sector.
http://www.economist.com/news/fi ... sector-served-china
("critics have accused China of a factory fetish. Subsidised land, credit and power have favoured industry, which tends to be capital-intensive and power-hungry. A cheap yuan has also favoured manufactured items, which can be sold abroad, over services, which often cannot be")

choi

Eastern Europe after 1989  | The View Beyond the Wall; A rich account of eastern Europe's ongoing fascination.
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... on-view-beyond-wall
(book review on Marci Shore, The Taste of Ashes; The afterlife of totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. Crown, 2013)

Note:
(a) Marcy is the female form of Marcus (name)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_(name)
(a masculine given name of Ancient Roman pre-Christian origin derived probably from Etruscan Marce of unknown meaning, or referring to the mythological figure Mars)
(b) pedagogy
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedagogy


(to be continued)

choi

Hollywood | Split Screens; A tale of two Tinseltowns.
http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... towns-split-screens

Quote:

"The economics of the film industry are changing. Profits are down, even though Hollywood is making splashier films for new, fast-growing markets. Meanwhile, television, once the unglamorous sister, is enjoying record earnings and unprecedented critical acclaim. * * * 'The business model within film is broken,' says Amir Malin of Qualia Capital, a private-equity firm.

"China, the heartthrob of every studio executive, has overtaken Japan to become the world’s second-largest movie market. Studios’ business in China is “twice the size of what it was a year or two ago”, says Mr Lynton of Sony Pictures.

But even though studios are selling more tickets in emerging markets like Russia and China, they are taking home less money for their hits. In America the big studios keep around half of box-office receipts. In China Hollywood studios keep only a quarter. Moreover, no more than 34 foreign films may be released in China each year. (Last year, the big six studios released 134 films in total.) These countries also generate puny home-entertainment revenues, and this will not change for years. To compete with pirates in Russia one studio starts selling DVDs only a month after a movie’s release.

"Executives have changed their tune about whether the digital companies that have muscled into Hollywood, such as Netflix, are demons or diamond-mines. 'Netflix has been the best thing to happen to Hollywood in a long time,' says Chris Silbermann of ICM Partners, a talent agency.

Note: The report was published before the Oscar night

choi

Africans in the Renaissance | Hue Were They?  A new show asks why 16th-century European artists were fascinated by Africans.
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... d-africans-hue-were

Note:
(a) The title (Hue were they?) is a word play on "Who were they?"
(b) Walters Arm Museum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walters_Art_Museum
(The museum's collection was amassed substantially by two men, William Thompson Walters (1819–1894), who began serious collecting when he moved to Paris at the outbreak of the American Civil War, and his son Henry Walters (1848–1931); museum opened in 1909 at Baltimore)
(c) art exhibition:

Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe. Walters Art Museum, Oct 14, 2012–Jan 21, 2013.
http://thewalters.org/exhibitions/african-presence/
(d) The article says, "Most of the art [portraits of Africans] was created during “the long 16th century” (1480-1610)."

World-systems theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_theory
(Immanuel "Wallerstein [1930- ; American] traces the origin of today's world-system to the 'long 16th century' (a period that began with the discovery of the Americas by West European sailors and ended with the English Revolution of 1640)")

Many academic postings in the Web, though ending the Long 16th century at the same year, starts at "1450"--one is "circa 1450--with Advanced placement (AP) couse note putting the starting year 1500.

(e) The article continues, "Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese sailor who explored the coast of Africa and rounded the Cape of Good Hope, was only one of many intrepid adventurers."  
(i) Vasco da Gama
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama
(c 1460 or 1469-1524; Portuguese; commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India; section 3 First voyage: 1497-1499 reaching Calicut [now known as City of Kozhikode] and Goa of India)
(ii) The "da Gama" is his surname. See

Portuguese name
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_name
("In ancient times it was common practice for daughters to receive the mother's family name and sons to take their father's. For example, from Vasco da Gama's marriage with Catarina de Ataíde, there were six sons who bore the surname da Gama and one daughter who took the surname de Ataíde. Even these days, among the older population, it is still not unusual to find siblings with completely different combinations of surnames")
(iii) Mr da Gama did not discover the Cape of Good Hope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_of_Good_Hope
(section 1 History: Bartolomeu Dias in 1488)

(f) The article mentions "a touching Flemish engraving depicts 'St Philip Baptising the Ethiopian Counsellor.'”
(i) Philip the Evangelist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_the_Evangelist
(baptised an Ethiopian man, a eunuch, in Gaza, traditionally marking the start of the Ethiopian Church (Acts 8); Not to be confused with Philip the Apostle)
(ii) I can not find an image of the engraving in the Web.

(g) The article states, "The man in 'Portrait of a Wealthy Black Man' (pictured) wears a jewel in his turban, a glowing pearl earring and a heavy gold chain on top of his fur collar. An African servant gave birth to a son whose father later became pope. The mixed-race boy, Alessandro, grew up to be the first Medici Duke of Florence."
(i) glow (vi): "to shine with or as if with an intense heat <embers glowing in the darkness>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glow
(ii) Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_de%27_Medici,_Duke_of_Florence
(1510-1537; many scholars today believe him to be in fact the illegitimate son of Giulio de' Medici (later Pope Clement VII) [and] a mulatto servant who was working in the Medici household, identified in documents as Simonetta da Collevecchio; [Pope] Clement assigned Florence to nineteen-year-old Alessandro, who had been made a duke, an appointment that was purchased from Charles [Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor])

(h) The article talks about "Chafariz d’el Rey in the Alfama District" and Saint Benedict of Palermo."
* Chafariz d'el Rey in the Alfama District (View of a Square with the Kings Fountain in Lisbon). Baltimore Sum (a newspaper)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news ... res0220121005073844,0,3674303.photo

details:
Chafariz d'el Rey. The Smithonian Museums of Asian Art, undated.
http://www.asia.si.edu/encompass ... al_Voyages_img1.swf
(The Berardo Collection)

Berardo Collection Museum
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berardo_Collection_Museum
(The museum is "named after José Berardo [1944- ; a Portuguese businessman] and his Berardo Collection")
* chafariz (Portuguese: noun masculine): "fountain"
* Alfama
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfama
(the oldest district of Lisbon; Its name comes from the Arabic Al-hamma, meaning fountains or baths)
* For Saint Benedict of Palermo, see Benedict the Moor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_the_Moor
(Saint Benedict, San Benedetto in Italian; 1524-1589)
* Benedict
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict