WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama shared Washington's high-society spotlight on Saturday night with an unlikely co-star -- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
 
Wearing a black satin evening gown, Palin was spotted by journalists making her way into the ballroom at the Capitol Hilton for the Alfalfa Dinner, an annual closed-door roast of the city's political and business elite.
 
Following in the footsteps of White House predecessors, Obama served as headline speaker at the light-hearted black-tie affair, which in accordance with a 96-year tradition bars reporters.
 
So it was not known whether the president had any choice words from the podium for Palin, who as Republican vice presidential nominee in the 2008 election rarely missed a chance to lash into Obama.
 
But, according to a few of Obama's joke excerpts released by the White House, he had a few zingers for his hard-driving chief of state, Rahm Emanuel, who has a reputation for sometimes harsh language.
 
"It was actually Rahm's idea to do the swearing-in ceremony again," he said. "Of course, for Rahm, every day is a swearing-in ceremony."
 
"Rahm Emanuel is a real sweetheart," Obama added. "Every week the guy takes a little time away to give back to the community. Just last week he was at a local school, teaching profanity to poor children."
 
Of his battle to guard part of his pre-White House lifestyle after his Jan. 20 inauguration, he said, "In just the first few weeks, I've had to engage in some of the toughest diplomacy of my life. And that was just to keep my Blackberry."
 
And Obama, the first black U.S. president, also poked fun at the Alfalfa Club's founding in 1913 by a group of Southern gentlemen.
 
"Many you are aware that this dinner began almost one hundred years ago as a way to celebrate the birthday of General Robert E. Lee. If he were here with us tonight, the general would be 202 years old. And very confused," Obama said.

Photo credit: Reuters/Tami Chappell (Palin at a campaign rally for Senator Saxby Chambliss)

Brian Tierney doesn't dispute that U.S. newspapers are in trouble; he just wants to know why they can't tell the good side of the story. That led to this article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, the paper he owns along with a group of investors:

The pundits and cynics who believe that newspapers are dead are dead wrong.

So says a small group of newspaper executives who this month organized an ad hoc group to alter perceptions and get the facts out...  Dubbed the Newspaper Project, the grassroots effort includes the CEO and publisher of Philadelphia Media Holdings, Brian P. Tierney. [And executives from Parade, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc and others --ed]

Acknowledging that the newspaper industry faces challenges, the group roundly rejects the notion that newspapers have no future.

The group decided "because journalism is so essential for a democracy, we really need to tell this story ourselves in a more aggressive way," Tierney said.

Starting on Monday, the Newspaper Project will launch an ad campaign in the Inquirer, The Washington Post, The New York Times, AdAge and other papers to spread the word. It's a good fit for Tierney, who knows a thing or two about public relations. Of course, it's also something that the Newspaper Association of America has spent millions on over the past few years, and that has yet to turn the tide of public opinion.

As the Reuters reporter who covers newspapers, I was nonplussed to only find out about this on the Saturday before the campaign launched, and said so on a comment on the Inky's article. An hour or two later, I got a call from Tierney. That led to a chat about three fundamental facts about the state of newspapers today:

• Yes, they're more read than ever, thanks to the Internet
• Ad budgets are falling in print, and online ad sales are too cheap to make up the difference
• A publisher might be profitable, but not enough to pay off debt, which raises the possibility of default, bankruptcy and extinction.

We covered the basics of the campaign and he touted how well the Daily News and Inquirer are doing in terms of Web audiences. But what about bringing in more money? Perhaps charging for the paper online (see Silicon Alley Insider for the latest free-vs-paid chapter) is inevitable, he said.

And how are he and his investors dealing with the papers' debt, now at $400 million?

"We put 30 percent equity into our deal, which at the time seemed sufficient. Last year we did almost $40 million EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization], but our debt service is $40 million also, so we're in kind of a covenant default. So the equity takes a haircut... and some of that debt needs to be significantly restructured... But the debt story does get in the way of the audience story."

Tierney hopes to get the debt restructuring sorted out with lenders within a few months. As for injecting more cash into the two papers? "Our investor group is willing to put in more equity under the right terms," he said. "No one in our investor group thought this was going to be a Google return."

And advertising? It's chiefly because of the decline in ad revenue that papers are struggling. At the Inquirer and Daily News, ad revenue performance was down about 17 percent over the past year. Factoring in circulation revenue gains from raising the papers' price, overall  revenue was off 10 percent in 2008. Ad revenue likely will fall the same amount this year, he said.

There's no cause to celebrate a second year of 17-percent ad declines. On the other hand, it's the kind of consistency that suggests that a bottom could be near. And a bottom usually is what precedes some kind of recovery. That sort of trend is its own public relations campaign.

(Photo: Reuters)

My favourite scenes in Zoya Akhtar's “Luck By Chance” are when Rishi Kapoor is on screen as the over the top, aging Bollywood producer Romy Rolly.

And that’s not just because he is brilliant in the part -- he is. But the scenes capture perfectly the subtle performances and nuanced characters this film is bursting with.

“Luck By Chance” is the story of Sona and Vikram, both struggling actors who are looking for a break in the big, bad world of Bollywood. Through their story, Akhtar depicts the confounding, ugly and yet oh-so-attractive world of our film industry.

The director tells the story light-heartedly but don't expect direct humour. There are a lot of subtle references to real-life Bollywood characters, dialogues said in the passing and facial expressions, a refreshing change from the in- your-face slapstick humour we are subjected to most of the time.

The film follows both Sona (Konkona Sen Sharma) and Vikram (Farhan Akhtar) through their journey in Bollywood, one they undertake with the understanding that nothing here comes easy. So she sleeps with a producer who promises her a big break and he has no qualms about flirting with a yesteryear actress in the hope she will cast him in her daughter's debut project.

A host of characters as well as some top Bollywood actors make an appearance in this journey. What is commendable is how Akhtar has astutely used even two-minute guest appearances. So you have Aamir displaying his "perfectionist" tendencies, Abhishek mentioning "Pa" and John Abraham talking about doing "experimental films."

Also a part of this colourful ensemble are Juhi Chawla who plays the producer's doting wife, Sanjay Kapoor, who ironically plays the failed actor brother of a big producer and Dimple Kapadia, the yesteryear siren who now grooms her daughter and is referred to as a "crocodile in a chiffon sari" by Romy Rolly in a fit of frustration. One of the highlights of the film is undoubtedly Hrithik Roshan, who plays the role of the insecure star with such skill and ease.

Also I really liked the way Akhtar ended the film, not just because it was different but because it made a point and rounded off the theme of the film very well.

A film like this, with its subplots and layers, is all about the writing but it is supplemented brilliantly by the performances. If you are a keen Bollywood watcher, be sure that this one will have you laughing and reflecting. Even if you are not, be sure of an entertaining watch

How do you keep VIPs -- hundreds of them -- happy?

You can’t, especially at the World Economic Forum. There's no point in pulling that "Don't you know who I am?" line here at the annual Davos gathering, which is attended by hundreds of the biggest corporate and political bigwigs.

Aides to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani (including Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim) and officials traveling with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev were visibly upset after they were refused entry into the opening plenary session. Before the same event, Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade and his aides were made to stand around for 15 minutes or so.

Later in the week, Belgium's prime minister, Herman van Rompuy, was pushed aside by bodyguards to make way for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Every morning, there are long queues at the security screening on the way into the conference, and CEOs who are used to whizzing past barriers must wait patiently for their turn like the rest of us.

"The forum has outgrown this place," one participant told Reuters.

Many of the bankers blamed for the world financial crisis have been conspicuous by their absence from this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos.

They haven’t just missed conventional debate on how to prevent a re-run. They’ve also skipped the chance to hear Richard Olivier, theatre director and son of acting legend Laurence Olivier, draw comparisons between the masters of the universe and Shakespeare’s murderous tragic hero Macbeth.

“Macbeth didn’t set out to be evil,” Olivier told Reuters. On the face of it, he was the kind of bright, ambitious young man who could be trusted with big investment decisions. Equally, Lady Macbeth, who stands for “the familial culture of an organisation” thought she was just nurturing his career.

The positive role model is the low-key Malcolm, who, after all the bloodshed, quietly and without ego, ushers in a new order at the end of the play.

Olivier’s sessions in the Swiss ski resort have also focused on sustainability, with the help of Shakespeare’s comedy "As You Like It," which distinguishes between the oppressive world of the court and the creative, collaborative forest.

“People cut off from nature will make unnatural decisions,” is the message it holds for the chastened business elite, says Olivier, whose company Olivier Mythodrama gives Shakespearean lessons in business leadership the world over.

He is suitably modest about audience reaction, but his wife Shelley Olivier says he receives ovations that would have made his father proud.

Corn, wheat and soybeans on the Chicago Board of Trade will likely keep within recent ranges in the week starting Feb. 2.
    
A deepening global recession which is easing demand for commodities, plus fewer investors in commodity markets, will continue to limit price volatility and, thus, trading.
    
The slide in the Dow industrials on Friday (down 148 points at psychological support at 8000.86) came after government data showed U.S. GDP for the fourth quarter fell at its fastest pace in nearly 27 years. That just underscored the economic crisis, since the U.S. economy is still the key engine for the world.
    
The mood on the CBOT trading floor has taken an 180-degree turn in the past year. As 2008 began, traders could not believe how volatile grains had become. They watched prices soar day after day on huge world demand for food and feed and biofuels, and hot Wall Street money flooded into commodities.
    
Today, the mood is subdued. Veteran traders are back to worrying about seasonal fundamentals, notably South American weather. Hot, dry weather in Argentina, the world's third largest soy exporter and No. 2 in corn, roasted crops this month with yields likely down significantly from a year ago.
    
Traders now say Argentine soybean output could fall as much as 25 percent from last season and corn production could fall as much as 40 percent. The wheat harvest was already estimated to be the smallest in 20 years. 
    
But the jury is still out, hence the CBOT trading ranges.
    
Argentina also turned a little wetter this week with some expectations that crop conditions have stabilized. Soybeans have the greatest chance to benefit if the weather is milder in February, when the plants fill bean pods. So CBOT soybeans closed below $10 a bushel this week.
    
"We will be watching the weekend weather and the forecast for direction. But beans are also at the bottom end of the range, so a bounce is not out of the question," one floor broker for soybean merchants said on Friday afternoon.
    
Up to 60 percent of the main corn and soybean region in central Argentina is expected to see light to moderate rains on Monday and into Tuesday. Then, it looks dry again, according to the late weather forecasts on Friday. So the on-again, off-again forecasts for Argentine rains will keep trade in soybeans a little more jumpy next week.
    
In contrast, "corn and wheat will continue to focus on demand, in particular into the export sector," said grains analyst Shawn McCambridge.
    
U.S. wheat and corn prices are getting a more competitive in the world market -- a switch from the recent trend. The U.S. Agriculture Department reported strong weekly corn export sales the last two weeks, with this past week a marketing-year high over 1.1 million tonnes. 
    
"Corn will also be looking at what takes place with the soybeans on acreage consideration for this spring," McCambridge added. "While corn might not have the same fundamental support that soybeans would have on the South American concerns, we still can't let soybeans get to far away from corn as we still need to secure enough acreage."
    
Grain analysts have been tracking the price ratio between new-crop November soybeans and December corn in recent weeks. The rule of thumb is a ratio below 2.2-to-1 favors corn acres.
    
Another market factor that will get a little more play as spring approaches is the condition of the U.S. hard red winter wheat crop. The southern plains where the crop is grown is suffering from another dry winter. Last week the Texas state crop report rated 62 percent of the HRW wheat in poor to very poor condition. Texas will issue its next crop update on Monday afternoon and other key states, including top producer Kansas, will release monthly reports.

Photo: Winter field in northern Illinois taken by Christine Stebbins.

U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered the Guantanamo military prison closed within the year, but what about the detention centre in Bagram, the U.S. military base in Afghanistan, which has an equally murky legal status ?

An estimated 600 detainees are held there, without any charge and many for over six years, rights activists say. That makes it more than twice the number held in Guantanamo, and according to military personnel who know both facilities, it is much more spartan and with lesser privileges as this report in the New York Times says.

Few detainees have had access to lawyers, and there was no question ever of allowing journalists or human rights advocates into the facility. I lived on the military base for four weeks as part of a group of journalists covering the war in 2002 and we had no clue where the prison was located, and we would keep guessing which one of the cavernous Soviet-built aircraft hangars the detainees were kept in.

Since then, the New York Times says, the population at the Bagram prison has expanded substantially, especially after the Bush administration largely halted the movement of prisoners to the Cuban facility in September 2004, making the Afghan centre the preferred alternative.

Indeed there is a U.S. plan to expand the prison complex to hold 1,100 "enemy combatants" - prisoners who cannot see lawyers, have no trials and never see any evidence there may be against them, Britain's Telegraph said. The one concession that has happened over the past year is that every Monday families gather in a Red Cross compound in Kabul for a glimpse by live video of brothers, sons and husbands who have disappeared into the feared detention centre in Bagram.

The U.S. military says the detainees are Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who must be kept off the battlefield. But human rights lawyers say the prison also holds scores of innocent people, many seized after tip-offs from feuding rivals in a viciously warring tribal society, as the Telegraph story says.

The question of Bagram becomes more vexed given that the new administration plans to step up combat operations in Afghanistan, which means there will be new waves of detainees.

Obama's team is silent on its plans for Bagram, and there seems to be little likelihood of change at the prison, the Telegraph quotes Joanne Mariner, a lawyer and terrorism expert at Human Rights Watch, as saying.  "Right now they are expanding it, they are building a new facility. Clearly closing it isn't on the agenda."

One more challenge for Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, as he heads into the region next week?  Holbrooke faces a  "dim and dismal" situation in both countries as Bruce Riedel, a South Asia expert, said in an interview with the Council for Foreign Relations. Any opening to the Afghan people or even the Pakistanis for that matter, would have to answer the question : how do you justify holding scores of people without any recourse to justice ?

[Reuters pictures of a protest against Guantanamo prison in Washington and U.S. soldiers at the Bagram air base]

Business and political leaders congregating in the ski resort of Davos took a break from rosti, raclette and other Swiss cuisine as Japanese clothing maker Uniqlo sponsored a Japanese lunch and gave the conference hall a Tokyo-style makeover.

The six-course lunch, packed neatly in a black bento box, contained: seafood and vegetable tempura, Japanese vegetables, asparagus with beef, tofu with miso, shrimp, tuna, Japanese omelet, sushi topped with fish and grilled marinated salmon.

Participants later snapped up Uniqlo's "manga" pop culture T-shirts handed out for free, while Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso -- here on an 8-hour trip -- enjoyed a photo-op with an exhibition of T-shirts with embedded video footage of modern works by Japanese artists.

I just don't know how the Oscars can turn a blind eye, year after year.

For my money, the best actress award should go to these chicks who manage to look like they really want to be hanging onto the greasy-mouthed guy who ate the most chicken wings in the Wing Bowl.

You can't learn that kind of acting in drama school. Behind thin smiles, these women are praying for a way to flee when the winner's 203 masticated wings reverse direction and head north.

You can already see chewed bits of poultry flesh, oozing past his lard-lubricated lips.

Can I borrow some dental floss, gals? Squeeze in close. Big hug! Hey, you hear a rumbling noise?

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Wing Bowl champion John "Super Squibb" Squibb celebrates after winning the 17th annual chicken wing eating contest in Philadelphia, January 30, 2009. REUTERS/Tim Shaffer

More stuff from Oddly Enough

Fidel Castro demands Obama return Guantanamo base

Cuba indefinitely leased Guantanamo to the United States in 1903 after the United States occupied the country during the 1998 Spanish-American War. Castro charges that the base at the south-eastern tip of Cuba was taken over illegally.

You should have said the 1898 Spanish-American War. You currently give the false impression of a non-existent recent war to those that are unaware.