Investigate HERS, Dec 2012/ Jan 2013

HERS | Gardasil | Global Governance | Return of Ka-Ching | 12/2012

current affairs and lifestyle for the discerning woman

GARDASIL SHOCK

New study says cervical cancer vaccine doesn’t work

ONE RING TO RULE THEM

Helen Clark channels Sauron in a UN global governance speech

GET READY FOR ARMAGEDDON HIS Armageddon | Climate Change | Unholy War | 12/2012

Mark Steyn’s chilling new book

SCARE CON

Why Climate Change is not as frightening as they’d like you to think Dec 2012/Jan 2013

PLUS

Return Of Ka-Ching

Hollywood and NZ hang their hopes on a Hobbit

BEAUTY, CUISINE, TRAVEL, FAMILY, MOVIES, HEALTH & MORE

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 1

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 1

CONTENTS Issue 135 | Dec 2012/Jan 2013 | www.investigatedaily.com HIS Armageddon Mark Steyn’s devastating new book suggests if America falls, New Zealand won’t be far behind

Scare Con They keep telling us climate change is getting‘worse than ever’, but the evidence keeps on saying otherwise…

features Gardasil Shock

New studies suggest the cervical cancer vaccine might not even work, and the company behind it has faced criminal fines in the US page 10

One Ring

If you think the world is going to hell in a handcart, fear not – HELEN CLARK at the helm of the UNDP has big plans page 16

Return Of Ka-Ching

Hollywood is depending on the Hobbit to be a success. So is New Zealand page 24

CONTENTS Formalities

06 Miranda Devine 08 Chloe Milne

Beauty & Health

28 Out & about workout 30 Sugary drink danger 32 Genetically modified foods 34 Anti aging creams – do they work?

28

Cuisine & Travel

46

38 Feeding the multitudes 40 Historical Malta

Books & Movies

42 Summer Books 44 Anna Karenina & Silver Lining Playbook

Extras

36 Christmas gift ideas 46 Virtual plastic surgery

34 40 44

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HERS / DEVINE

Playing the gender card backfires Miranda Devine

T

here are two types of females in this world: t he “woman’s woman” and the “man’s woman”.

The latter adores men and is an incorrigible flirt. At a party she will be the one talking with the men, preferring their company to that of any woman. She will never observe the quaint “BBQ rules” that frequently divide Australian social gatherings down gender lines.

She regards attention from men as more important than the regard of women.

A woman’s woman loves men just as much but, for the most part, she abides by a loyalty code to her own sex, which holds that the best way to ruin a good friendship is to compete for the attention of men.

Most women are somewhere along the continuum between the two extremes, and women can move in and out of each camp as they grow older, and depending on circumstances.

But in the current high-octane climate of political misogyny and sexism it is worth noting that the woman who occupies the highest political office in the land, our first female prime minister, lauded as a latter day Boudicea, the patron saint of feminists, appears very much like a man’s woman.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But a man’s woman doesn’t resort to false claims of sexism and gender victimhood. She appears to know that her sex has been an asset in the climb to the top, and that it is her refusal to be treated as a lesser creature that has earned the respect of men and smoothed her way.

This is especially so in a very blokey environment, such as the union-dominated Labor Party.

The tension between the ALP’s macho culture and Emily’s List feminism, which has infiltrated the party with demands for affirmative action quotas and ideological purity on abortion, makes a man’s woman even more sought-after by male colleagues as a talisman of gender equality. It is not hard to wrap such men around the proverbial little finger with feminine adulation, flattery and harmless flirtation.

This is a legitimate, though unspoken, path to power. No path is pretty and men and women make use of whatever they have.

But women’s women are sometimes the targets of unsisterly enmity.

In her lively new book, Tales from the Political Trenches, 6 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

Despite her raised voice and flapping hands, despite the direct language, whinging about sexism is not her way, and she must be fairminded enough to know it was a fraud ABC journalist turned one-term Labor MP Maxine McKew recounts bitterly how Gillard patronised and ignored her when she served as her parliamentary secretary.

It is venom of a kind that would have a male branded a misogynist, as is the fashion of the moment.

McKew describes Gillard as “punitive and scolding”. She, “never included me in wider discussions or sought out my views on any of the substantive areas. I never shook the feeling that Gillard saw me as an irritant.”

She writes of Gillard’s “girlish giggles”, her “lack of generosity towards me, her pattern of condescension and the way her office had locked me out of some important policy development”.

And later: “The photos of the country’s first female prime minister standing beside Governor General Quentin Bryce suggested a new era of girl power ... But it was a deceptive image.”

McKew was a Kevin Rudd loyalist, so she may not be an altogether reliable witness to Gillard’s sisterliness.

But the point is that when any woman whips out the misogyny card, she’s lost the argument, and a man’s woman knows that better than anyone, because she hunts with the beast.

That is why Gillard’s misogyny speech the other week seemed inauthentic, even apart from its context. Despite her raised voice and flapping hands, despite the direct language, whinging about sexism is not her way, and she must be fair-

minded enough to know it was a fraud. She’s a doer, not a complainer.

She’s a pragmatist who will take any weapon that comes along. But sexism will end up shooting blanks, despite any short-term damage it does to Abbott.

That is what a forensic examination of Newspoll tells us, and I am indebted to Dennis Shanahan of The Australian for his analysis.

When asked if they thought Abbott has behaved in a sexist way towards Gillard recently, 45 per cent of people said no and 16 per cent had no answer. Fewer – 39 per cent – said he had been sexist.

Females were more likely to see sexism. But even then, they were split evenly, 43 to 41 per cent, the difference within the 3 per cent margin of error. More men (48 per cent) thought Abbott had not been sexist than thought he had (35 per cent).

The youngest people, aged 18-34, were least convinced, with just 33 per cent agreeing Abbott was sexist and 45 per cent saying he wasn’t.

As the inheritors of a politically correct world, they are more alert to fakery.

The truth is that while Abbott comes across as a blokey

bloke who would fit right in to the ALP, he also comes across as a woman’s man, one who adores women.

His six-month paid parental leave scheme is one example of how women would fare under his policies, particularly those least respected by Emily’s Listers, women who want to put family before career, at least in the early stages of childrearing.

“Maternity leave schemes are better thought of as a means of encouraging more women to keep the most traditional role of all, that of a mother” wrote Abbott in his 2009 book Battlelines.

“It’s the fact that so many mothers and mothers-to-be can’t afford to give up work that makes a national paid maternity leave scheme necessary.”

He also sees the baby bonus, not as middle class welfare but as a tax refund, “a benefit based not on need but on the contribution (parents) are making to Australia’s future”.

This is a message that will be very attractive to Australia’s women. And that is why Labor is working so hard to cast Abbott as a woman-hater. devinemiranda@hotmail.com

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 7

HERS / GEN-Y

The next chapter Chloe Milne

W

ithin the next few days I will be making the leap from university student to unemployed. I’ll be giving up my five-year-long security blanket in favour of the unknown that doesn’t guarantee $172.51 per week for watching Youtube clips, playing Sudoku and going to the odd lecture. It’s a scary prospect, certainly not made easier by society’s view on what I should be doing.

A typical conversation with someone above the age of 40 generally involves them asking me what I am studying, to which I respond “law,” followed by the dreaded question: “what area do you want to practice in?” My usual response of “Oh, I’m not going to be a lawyer,” is nearly always met with a raise of the eyebrows and a look of concern, with some even acting as if they haven’t heard me properly.

This from the people of the 60’s and 70’s who, by their accounts, spent most of their early 20s in communes feeling the love … and not a lot else.

Now, I know I’m not entirely conventional; my own parents (as supportive as they are) must be thinking, “Oh God, why does she want to brainstorm ways to travel the world, why can’t she just be like her brother? Went to engineering school – became an engineer”. However, it continues to surprise me the number of my peers who admit to me that they’re doing what they think they should be doing, not necessarily what they want to be doing.

I mean, as thrilling as the thought of keeping rapists and murderers out of prison whilst wearing a Harry Potter costume is, I just don’t think it’s me. It might seem risky to go against the grain, but isn’t life all about facing our fears?

I don’t want to get too cheesy or inspirational, but we really don’t know when our lives are going to be over. We should all be living our dreams, no matter what age we are.

It just doesn’t make sense that the older people get, the less they seem to want to take risks. I mean, why aren’t there more 80 year olds base jumping, sailing around the world, becoming stand-up comedians or just living the lives they have always wanted? I mean, you don’t have to go as far Hugh Heffner, there should be limits on some things and even 91-year-old Olivia from New Zealand’s Got Talent (false advertising) is probably pushing the boundaries. But surely the closer to death you are, the less you have to lose.

Some crazy people seem to think that the world’s going

8 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

For example, my biggest goal is marrying Richie McCaw, and I just don’t want to be judged for it to end this December. I’m not saying they’re wrong (… no, wait, I am saying that they’re wrong), but perhaps we should all live like we’re dying regardless. Obviously not to the extent of euthanizing our pets or cancelling our Investigate magazine subscriptions, but figuring out what we want to do with our lives and doing it.

For example, my biggest goal is marrying Richie McCaw, and I just don’t want to be judged for it. www.chloemilne.com

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 9

The Criminals In

White Coats Why you may not be able to trust pharmaceutical companies 10 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

New Zealanders are being hammered with a new wave of propaganda about the HPV cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil.As IAN WISHART writes, however, there’s little scientific evidence that the drug works, and the company behind it has major credibility problems and a criminal record

T

he question of whether public safety is being compromised by a cosy relationship between government health agencies and major drug companies is again raising its head, with the release of a new study on the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil.

Gardasil is manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp & Dohme, a company whose reputation has been seriously stained over the past couple of years, as the Times of India reported: “In 2011, Merck agreed to pay a fine of US$950 million for selling Vioxx, a painkiller for four years before withdrawing it in 2004. It earned about $11 billion from Vioxx, but left behind a trail of patients with heart seizures and strokes.”

Again, this year, Merck was hit with a US$328 million fine on criminal charges in the US relating to its aggressive marketing of what later turned out to be unsafe drugs.

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 11

The question is, as the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s main partner in the cervical cancer (HPV) vaccine programme, is the evidence pointing to another debacle over Gardasil?

New Zealand teenager Jasmine Renata died after receiving the vaccine. Official investigations have tried to shift the blame elsewhere, whilst offering no hard evidence of any other cause, but Renata did not die alone. A number of children and young women have died around the world after being vaccinated with Gardasil, and the British Medical Journal has just reported on the case of a 16 year old girl who became infertile after being vaccinated.

After having periods for three years, the teenager stopped menstruating soon after receiving the HPV jab, and has subsequently been diagnosed with “premature ovarian failure”. The British Medical Journal notes that this condition is very rare in otherwise well teenagers, and it has now been listed as a possible “adverse event” for HPV vaccinations. There was, says the journal, no other rational explanation or known medical cause for her sudden infertility.

Canadian research scientists, Doctors Lucija Tomljenovic and Christopher Shaw, have published a series of papers in peer-reviewed medical journals this year casting serious doubt on both the effectiveness and the safety of Gardasil.

They note, first of all, how aggressively Merck has marketed it, in an article in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. They quote the serious debate in medical circles about this vaccine. On the one hand, the American Academy of Pediatrics has welcomed Gardasil and touted its “excellent safety record…a lifesaving vaccine that can protect girls from cervical cancer”.

On the other hand, Tomljenovic

and Shaw then quote the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons which has stated: “This HPV vaccine costs hundreds of dollars for something that most of the recipients do not even need protection against.”

The AAPS also slammed Merck for its marketing, saying that “without adequate testing but with well-placed political funding and lobbyists, Merck pushed for requiring that the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, be given to young schoolgirls as a condition for entering sixth grade. But the disease it supposedly protects against is not even contagious in the school environment.”

Does that sound like a pharmaceutical company marketing for genuine health reasons?

If you still want to give Merck the benefit of the doubt, consider this: “Notably, Merck-sponsored educational programmes delivered by professional medical associations (PMAs) strongly promoting HPV vaccination began in 2006, more than a year before the clinical trials containing important safety and efficacy data were published,” write Tomljenovic and Shaw.

In other words, long before they knew the drug was safe, Merck were pushing it left right and centre, so much so that in 2006 “Gardasil was named the pharmaceutical ‘brand of the year’ for building ‘a market out of thin air’.”

Then there’s the question of just how reliable those safety tests were. Instead of pitting the Gardasil injection (based on a potentially neurotoxic aluminium base) against a genuinely neutral placebo, Merck’s safety trial matched the injection against an aluminium based placebo. Any nasty reactions caused by the vaccine could be masked by the choice of a potentially problematic placebo in the trial.

“The poor design of existing vaccine

In fact, the latest studies have shown Gardasil appears to be making no impact on cervical cancer rates, beyond what the Pap smear programme has already achieved 12 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

safety and efficacy trials may be reflective of the fact that in the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has gained unprecedented control over the evaluation of its own products,” write Tomljenovic and Shaw.

The former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine has said the same thing: “Drug companies now finance most clinical research on prescription drugs, and there is mounting evidence that they often skew the research they sponsor to make their drugs look better and safer,” said Dr Marcia Angell.

The report in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics pings Gardasil’s manufacturer Merck for skewing data: “With regard to Gardasil, we noted that often in trials sponsored by the vaccine manufacturer, the assessment of the frequency of Adverse Drug Reactions was limited to those trial cohorts which comprised of participants who did not receive the full three doses of the HPV vaccine.

“The result of such population sample bias is a lesser sensitivity for detecting serious ADRs, as such events may be expected to occur less frequently if fewer doses of the vaccine are administered.”

Then there’s the hoopla and hype surrounding Gardasil. Just this month, the New Zealand Ministry of Health announced, “We’d just like to encourage young women that are listening to this to please go and have your Gardasil injection, because you will protect yourself for the rest of your life.”

That comment, by the Ministry’s Dr Api Talemaitoga to Newstalk ZB, seems a trifle over-optimistic, in the face of recent scientific evidence.

“Existing clinical trials show that antibodies against HPV-18 from Gardasil fall rapidly, with 35% of women having no measurable antibody titers at five years. This outcome suggests that rather than preventing future cases of cervical cancer, Gardasil may only be effective in postponing them,” says the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics report.

If Gardasil only protects for a few years, and your daughter is immunised at 12, will she still be immune at 18 or 20, or is the Ministry of Health falsely

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promoting this vaccine as effective when it is not?

In fact, the latest studies have shown Gardasil appears to be making no impact on cervical cancer rates, beyond what the Pap smear programme has already achieved. The journal calls claims about Gardasil’s effectiveness “highly misleading” when the figures are properly analysed.

F

urthermore, because the HPV vaccine only works against a minority of the HPV viruses, there’s every chance teenagers given the jab will falsely assume they are completely protected – “I’ve had the jab” – when in fact there’s still a greater than 60% risk of infection from some of the other viruses.

“To date,” notes the journal, “clinical trial evidence has not demonstrated that Gardasil can actually prevent cervical cancer (let alone cervical cancer deaths) because the follow-up period was too short (five years) while cervical cancer takes 20-40 years to develop… what Gardasil has been demonstrated to prevent are two out of 15 oncogenic HPV strains (HPV-16 and HPV-18).”

And we’ve already seen that immunity to the HPV-18 strain appears to be short-lived.

What is worrying is that the vaccine was given fast track approval for use on children despite a lack of evidence about safety or efficiency.

“Merck’s HPV vaccine Gardasil failed (and continues to fail) to meet a single one of the four criteria required by the FDA for Fast Track approval,” say Tomljenovic and Shaw. “Gardasil is demonstrably neither safer nor more effective than Pap screening combined with LEEP, nor can it improve the diagnosis of serious cervical cancer outcomes.

“In spite of this, Gardasil continues to be promoted as if it already had post-phase 4 confirmatory trial approval and proven efficacy against cervical cancer.

“Any federal agency responsible for assuring drug safety should not exclusively rely on data provided by the drug manufacturer, as unreliable research (ie, use of a reactive and potentially toxic placebo) cannot be used to reliably evaluate the safety of any drug.”

The fact that one of the world’s largest vaccine makers and drug companies is being accused of using substandard research should sound warning bells, especially given recent history of the major pharmaceutical companies.

We are often forced to trust them with our lives. The question is “should we?”: “In the past four years,” reports the Times of India, “leading members of Big Pharma like GlaxoSmithkline, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Merck, Abbot, Eli Lilly and Allergen have paid about $13 billion in fines to settle charges of misleading marketing, promising what drugs don’t do, bribing doctors to get their drugs prescribed, causing sometimes fatal side-effects, and other crimes. The patients targeted by them ranged from children to dementiaafflicted senior citizens. An analysis of their total revenues and the income from the drugs they are charged with shows that while huge, the fines are at best slaps on the wrist — their jaw-dropping revenues far outweigh the penalties.

Here are the facts: GlaxoSmithKline was fined $3 billion by the US Justice Department for marketing drugs for unapproved uses, paying kickbacks to doctors and Medicare system, downplaying known risks of certain drugs.

They sold Paxil, an antidepressant, to children for whom it was not shown to work. They sold Wellbutrin, another anti-depressant, as a pill for weight-loss and erectile dysfunction. They sold the anti-diabetic pill Avandia concealing data that showed it increased cardiac risks. But in the years it took for all this to come through GlaxoSmithkline had made $11.6 billion on Paxil, $5.9 billion on Wellbutrin and $10.4 billion on Avandia. That’s $27.3 billion — about 9 times the fine they are paying now to settle investigations.

“Pfizer, the world’s biggest pharma company with annual revenue of over $67 billion last year, paid up $2.3 billion in 2009 to settle a similar investigation. The drugs involved were Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox and Lyrica. Pfizer had been using illegal methods to sell them, like giving junkets and cash to sales reps for pushing the anti-arthritic pain killer Bextra as an all-purpose pain killer.

“The reason for Pfizer’s huge fine was that it included $1.3 billion for criminal

14 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

liability – because this was the second time they had been caught. Earlier, in 2004, their subsidiary Warner-Lambert had been fined $430 million for the same violations, and they had promised never to repeat.

“All four of Pfizer’s controversial drugs had topped $1 billion in sales before coming under a cloud. And so it goes on. Johnson & Johnson has appealed against an Arkansas judge’s ruling to cough up $1.2 billion for offlabel marketing of Risperdal, Medicaid fraud and paying kickbacks to nursing care provider Omnicare. But industry experts say that J&J is going to settle with justice department for $2.2 billion and avoid nationwide penalties which would run into billions. Risperdal is estimated by industry analysts to have earned $24 billion for J&J since it went on sale in 2003 as an antipsychotic drug.

“Abbott Laboratories aggressively pushed the anti-epilepsy blockbuster drug Depakote on elderly dementia patients saying that it helped control their agitation. There was no evidence that it did so. In fact, there was evidence of adverse effects. They also sold it as an anti-schizophrenia drug whereas it was approved only for seizures and bipolar mania. This year, Abbott agreed to settle all claims for $1.6 billion. Abbott had $38.85 billion sales last year.”

And we have already covered the criminal fines imposed on Gardasil manufacturer Merck Sharp & Dohme.

All of this, then, has caught the attention of the Family First lobby group and its director, Bob McCoskrie.

“At the moment, students are being proselytized with unbalanced information through their schools or government organisations, and parents are being bullied into an uninformed response,” says McCoskrie.

“By spending $177 million on this vaccine, there is less money available for other health issues including drugs like herceptin and heart disease medication.

“It seems that the government has been a victim of aggressive marketing worldwide by the vaccine makers with many questions regarding its effectiveness still unanswered.”

Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

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| Gardasil | Global Governance | Return of Ka-Ching | 12/2012

current affairs and lifestyle for the discerning woman

NEW ZEALAND’S BEST NEWS MAGAZINE

GARDASIL SHOCK

AFTER AMERICA:

ARMAGEDDON

New study says cervical cancer vaccine doesn’t work

Buy tinned beans, guns and a lifestyle block – Mark Steyn’s new book warns Obama is presiding over the collapse of America, and no corner of New Zealand will be safe when the West goes to hell in a handcart

ONE RING TO RULE THEM

Helen Clark channels Sauron in a UN global governance speech

GET READY FOR ARMAGEDDON

Outspoken MP:

HIS Armageddon | Climate Change | Unholy War | 12/2012

Mark Steyn’s chilling new book

SCARE CON

Why Climate Change is not as frightening as they’d like you to think Dec 2012/Jan 2013

PLUS

Consign Treaty to History

Return Of Ka-Ching Hollywood and NZ hang their hopes on a Hobbit

BEAUTY, CUISINE, TRAVEL, FAMILY, MOVIES, HEALTH & MORE

‘Disband the Waitangi Tribunal, hang the Treaty up in a museum’

Scare Con

Why NZ’s decision to ditch the Kyoto Protocol was the only sensible option

One Ring To Rule Them

Helen Clark channels Sauron in UNDP global governance speech

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One Ring TO RULE THEM ALL And in the darkness bind them If you’ve read the article in this issue on Mark Steyn’s chilling book,After America, you’ll appreciate this speech, hot off the press, from Miss Global Governance herself, HELEN CLARK. In particular, note the UN’s definition of global governance for the purpose not just of regulating your life but changing your behaviour – to make you think and act the way the UN wants you to

I

t is a pleasure to join you here in Wellington, at Victoria University’s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies. My thanks go to Professor Jonathan Boston for organising for me to be here, and to the University for hosting the event.

The topic of my lecture is Improving Global Governance: Making global institutions fit-forpurpose in the 21st century. I will

00comment on some of the complex challenges of the 21st century which cry out for effective global governance reflecting today’s geopolitical and other realities; and 00examine whether global governance institutions – particularly in the areas of peace and security, economic governance, sustainable development, and climate change – have kept up with geopolitical changes and been able to tackle emerging challenges to ensure their continued effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability.

16 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 17

My working definition of global governance will be that of Lawrence Finkelstein, former Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University and former Vice-President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Writing in 1995, in the first issue of the journal Global Governance, he suggested that global governance could be defined as “governing, without sovereign authority, relationships that transcend national frontiers. Global governance is doing internationally what governments do at home.”

Finkelstein suggested that use of the term global, rather than that of intergovernmental or transnational, enables discussion to embrace consideration of the roles of both traditional state actors and nongovernmental actors.

The latter category can include global NGO and civil society networks, the private sector, academic and research institutions, and the philanthropic foundations, all of which play a role in advocacy around global issues and in proposing solutions to cross-border challenges.

Finkelstein wrote of governance as an activity which includes not only setting rules and regulations, but

also influencing behavior through the promulgation of principles and norms, the exchange of information, and the provision of assistance. He noted that: “If we need to institutionalize it, we must say the institution in question is a means of governance, a governance organization or agency, or an actor in governance.” The UN plays a very significant role in these respects through the large body of treaties, conventions, and review mechanisms for which its individual organisations are responsible.

1

COMPLEX CHALLENGES REQUIRING EFFECTIVE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE At the turn of this century, world leaders met in New York for the Millennium Summit. They pledged their continued faith in the United Nations, noting that: “We reaffirm our commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, which have proved timeless and universal. Indeed, their relevance and capacity to inspire have increased, as nations and peoples have become increasingly interconnected and interdependent.”

Indeed we do live in an era of

18 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

unprecedented globalization and interdependence, where global public goods cannot be secured and protected by any one nation alone, and where emerging threats and challenges require co-ordinated responses.

The United Nations Millennium Declaration of 2000 acknowledged that a central challenge of this century is to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world’s peoples. Now, four years after the beginning of the global financial crisis, the risks posed by the way in which economic and financial integration has proceeded are clear for all to see.

At UNDP, we are acutely aware of how a crisis generated in the markets of the north spread to all corners of the earth, affecting the poorest and most distant nations which saw weaker demand and lower prices for their exports, higher volatility in capital flows and commodity prices, and lower remittances. Greater global financial stability is unlikely to be achieved in the absence of more co-ordination of financial regulation and oversight.

We see many other trans-border challenges too, which require stepped up global responses - from global

warming, to the spread of pandemics, cyber-war and transnational crime, trade barriers, and the flow of refugees and other migrants.

All these challenges tend to hit those who have the least power and voice to influence solutions, the hardest. For example, 00Least developed countries and small island developing states have done the least to cause climate change, and can least afford the costs of adaptation and mitigation to it, but they are most at risk from increased climate volatility.

00The poorest countries also bear the brunt of the stalemate in the WTO’s Doha Round. They have the most to gain from accessing currently protected markets, and they have fewer – if any – cards to play in bilateral trade negotiations.

00Transnational crime, particularly trafficking in persons, impacts on poor women and girls the most – yet women are heavily under-represented in border control, police, and prosecution structures.

As the challenges requiring global responses have expanded, so too has the range of state and non-state actors seeking influence on global decisions.

The rise of the large emerging economies is of particular significance, as their economic power and reach provides a firm foundation for greater geopolitical reach. The Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, commenting at the 2012 annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank Group in Tokyo on the economic aspects of these trends, noted that, “Economic power is spreading from west to east, and prosperity has begun to move from north to south.”

The evidence of this shift of economic power is clear: 00According to the IMF, in 2007, emerging markets accounted for 25 per cent of GDP and seventeen per cent of world debt. By 2016, they are expected to produce 38 per cent of world output and account for fourteen per cent of world debt; 00UNCTAD’s analysis shows South-

Without stronger and more representative global governance institutions, emerging powers may look increasingly to pursue their interests through alternative – regional, bilateral, or unilateral – mechanisms

South trade increasing dramatically, growing on average by twelve per cent per year from 1996 to 2009, which is fifty per cent faster than the growth in NorthSouth trade, and now accounting for twenty per cent of global trade; 00Countries of the South also dramatically increased their share of global inward foreign direct investment, from twenty per cent to fifty per cent of the total between 1980 and 2010.

UNDP’s next Human Development Report examines the rise of the South and the implications of that for human development.

For example, alongside the growth in the size of developing country economies, there is significant growth in South-South development co-operation – not only in the form of grants, technical assistance, and loans, but also through the exchange of knowledge, innovation, and best practice.

In a recent paper, however, Professor Robert Wade of the London School of Economics issues a warning that the world may be moving towards “multipolarity without multilateralism”, as “economic weight and influence in governance are different things”, and that established states may not wish to compromise with newcomers – and vice-versa.

Without stronger and more representative global governance institutions, emerging powers may look increasingly to pursue their interests through alternative – regional, bilateral, or unilateral – mechanisms.

Calls for reform of international institutions generally highlight the inconsistency between the current structures which reflect the economic

and political realities at the end of World War II, and the vastly different realities of today.

So how are global governance institutions performing currently, and what needs to change?

2

ENSURING GLOBAL GOVERNANCE INSTITUTIONS ARE FIT-FOR-PURPOSE IN THE 21ST CENTURY It is not difficult to draw up an inventory of global institutions and mechanisms which are struggling to reach decisions: 00The veto power in the UN Security Council can be a block to decisive action.

00The annual meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have often struggled to reach agreement.

00The UN Commission on the Status of Women failed to produce an agreed outcome this year.

00The Commission on Sustainable Development ended its nineteenth session, in May 2011, unable to agree on policy decisions on

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composed of member states – while the UN Charter begins with the words: “We the Peoples”. Increasingly the UN’s Secretariat, agencies, funds, programmes, and treaty bodies are interacting directly with civil society networks and private sector organisations with a shared vision for what a better world could be. These non-state actors can also be powerful voices in moving global agendas forward, including perhaps in the future on reform of global governance institutions.

Let me now discuss some of the multilateral institutions and processes in a little more detail, looking at where reform could usefully occur, and at where it already has with some success.

A. The UN Security Council practical measures to advance chemical and waste management, transform transport and mining practices, and establish a longawaited 10-Year Framework of Programmes for sustainable consumption and production patterns.

00The Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development reached a consensus among member states which fell well short of the level of ambition hoped for by those who want to see decisive action.

00Negotiations in New York on the outcome document for the Fourth UN Conference on Least Developed Countries, LDC-IV, last year failed to reach agreement, and required late night compromise to be reached in Istanbul.

00The WTO Doha Development Round launched in 2001 is stuck.

00Negotiations on the Declaration of UNCTAD XIII, the quadrennial UNCTAD conference, which was held in Doha in April this year, appear to have been particularly acrimonious.

00The IMF quota reform negotiated in 2010 still has to be accepted under the rules requiring 85 per cent of the voting power to approve it.

In some cases, the reasons for paralysis, minimal outcomes, or failure to reach agreement are structural – as with the veto in the UN Security

Council, and with other bodies where agreements require full consensus. But also at play in general are the changing geopolitics of our times, as the relative power and economic balances change, and the voice of the South demands to be heard as never before. Multilateralism needs goodwill and dialogue across groupings to be successful, but that is not always to be found in abundant quantities.

Notwithstanding the difficulties, the United Nations with its universal membership enjoys enormous legitimacy and continues to have great convening power.

In late September, more than 100 Heads of State or Government and seventy Deputy Prime Ministers or Ministers participated in the General Debate of the 67th UN General Assembly. High-level meetings, formal and informal, were convened on a wide range of pressing issues from the food and security crisis in the Sahel to events in Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and Yemen, and on important areas in development such as expanding the rule of law, achieving education for all, scaling up nutrition, and preventing maternal deaths.

In his closing remarks in the General Debate, the President of the General Assembly, noted that “this Organization will only be as strong as the membership chooses to make it.”

The UN membership of course is

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The conflict in Syria and the stalemate in the Security Council over how to address it make the issue of reform of the UN Security Council a timely one.

Around the world, people are exposed to media reporting of the human toll of the Syrian crisis, and are asking why the UN cannot act to protect innocent civilians. The same questions were asked about the inability of UN peacekeeping missions to act in Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s.

Discussion on reform of the Security Council has proceeded in fits and starts for years, with a focus on two issues: 00the out-of-date membership structure, and 00the question of the veto held by the five permanent members, which is a key concern in relation to decision-making now over Syria.

New Zealand opposed the veto power from the time of the writing of the UN Charter. At the General Assembly in September this year, the Minister of Foreign Affairs called on the five permanent members of the Security Council to accept restrictions on the use of veto voluntarily, noting that the veto was originally intended only for the protection of vital national interests. Murray McCully was one among many at the General Debate this year who highlighted the importance of ongoing revitalization of the

UN, including reform of the Security Council, for the future credibility of the organization.

It is seldom that those holding power voluntarily cede it, which has always made reform of the veto power a tall order. Discussion on the expansion of the Security Council so that it reflects today’s geopolitics, however, could make more progress.

New Zealand itself is seeking a non-permanent seat on the Security Council for 2015–16. The elections for these seats are hard fought, because of the desire of many member states to play a role in the UN’s most powerful organ. That organ could be more effective with reform.

That reform, when it comes, needs to be designed for flexibility, so that twenty years from now the global community will not need to repeat the current discussion about the Council not representing geopolitical realities.

B. The Human Rights Council

An example of a successful UN reform in my view has been the creation of the Human Rights Council. It replaced the sixty-year-old Human Rights Commission, which had suffered from a lack of credibility.

The new, smaller Human Rights Council introduced the Universal Periodic Review as a mechanism for peer review of the state of human rights in member states. All member states report to the Council accordingly, and the views of non-state actors are heard.

UNDP has played a role in supporting countries to prepare their reports, and to follow up on the recommendations made by the Council. This mechanism is having a positive impact on upholding human rights.

C. Institutions of financial and economic governance

The global financial crisis of the past four years has highlighted the absence of credible and strong global mechanisms for co-ordination of responses.

In this vacuum, the pre-existing G20, designed for finance ministers and central bankers, was ‘upgraded’ to a higher level when President George W. Bush called for a meeting of G20 leaders for the first time in 2008.

While the G20 is an informal intergovernmental grouping, any summit exclusive to leaders of many of the world’s leading economies is of global interest. From the outset therefore, the G20 faced challenges, as others affected by agreements it reached lacked a direct voice in the decision making. A Global Governance Group (3G) was convened by Singapore at the UN in New York to express the views of smaller states about how to engage with the G20. New Zealand is associated with this group.

While it was clear from President Obama’s statements at Pittsburg and from the related Communique that the G20 nations should see the grouping as the premier vehicle for their economic co-ordination, “their” has often been dropped in references to the group, leading to it being seen as positioning itself as the world’s premier vehicle for economic co-ordination. The agreements it has reached appear to have come close to directing the work of formal multilateral institutions which have their own governance structures.

Robert Wade, wrote, for example that G20 leaders “boldly announced their intention to make themselves the global economic steering committee.”

He points to the communiqué of the second summit (London, April 2009) in which G20 leaders stated that: “We are determined to reform and modernize the international financial institutions to ensure they can assist members and shareholders effectively in the new challenges they face. We will reform their mandates, scope, and governance to reflect changes in the world economy and the new challenges of globalization, and that emerging and development economies, including the poorest, must have greater voice and representation.”

Leaving aside the

irony of the G20 calling for greater voice and representation for the poor, Robert Wade notes that G20 critics have questioned what authority G20 leaders have to supersede the governing bodies of the IMF and the World Bank, and to call not only for a change in voting shares, but also to designate, broadly, what the details of the change should be.

Years before the G20 called for reform of the Bretton Woods institutions, the outcome document of the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey in 2002, recognized important efforts to reform the international financial architecture, and called for more “transparency and the effective participation of developing countries and countries with economies in transition”. This was echoed at the 2009 United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development.

In 2010, both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank agreed on reforms to their governance structures, to make the organizations more fit-for-purpose in the 21st Century.

For the IMF, the reforms agreed include a shift of six per cent in quota

New Zealand itself is seeking a non-permanent seat on the Security Council for 2015–16. The elections for these seats are hard fought, because of the desire of many member states to play a role in the UN’s most powerful organ

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shares from over-represented countries to under-represented member countries, including dynamic emerging market and developing countries.

This will have the effect, when implemented, of placing Brazil, China, India, and Russia for the first time all among the top ten IMF shareholders.

The USA alone has accounted for around seventeen per cent of votes at the Fund. It has been the only single country to have effective veto power on all major decisions at the Fund, including on approval of the quota reform which requires 85 per cent of the total voting power to be reached. Some have suggested that the US election campaign has accounted for the delay in completing the IMF reform – if so, there will be an expectation that the reform moves forward soon.

TheUS shareholding does not change significantly with the reform, as it would keep its veto power. Rather it is the European Union member states who are mainly losing shares and seats at the IMF Executive Board.

For the World Bank, reforms in 2010 expanded on previous reforms agreed upon in 2008. These relate not only to increasing voice and participation, but also to increasing transparency and access to information, promoting accountability and good governance, improving risk management, and reviewing internal governance.

The G20 also spurred the creation of the Financial Stability Board, following the 2009 London Summit, where they agreed to “establish a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) with a strengthened mandate, as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), including all G20 countries, FSF members, Spain, and the European Commission”.

At the G20 Los Cabos Summit in June 2012, Leaders endorsed the recommendations and the revised Charter of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) which includes strengthened governance, greater financial autonomy and enhanced capacity to co-ordinate the development and implementation of financial regulatory policies.

Countries of the South have also called for the UN to have a strengthened role in global economic governance, including through a more robust Eco-

nomic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and better co-ordination between the UN, the BWIs, and the G20.

D. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and new governance structures for sustainable development

In 2005, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, issued a report, In Larger Freedom: Towards development, security, and human rights for all, in which he highlighted the need for reform to strengthen the UN system, including ECOSOC. There he proposed the establishment of Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) assessments of progress towards agreed development goals, particularly the MDGs, and the high-level Development Co-operation Forum (DCF), as new, formalized mechanisms of ECOSOC. Following the 2005 World Summit at the UN, the General Assembly adopted resolution 61/16 on the “Strengthening of the Economic and Social Council”, recognizing ECOSOC as a “principal body for co-ordination, policy review, policy dialogue, and recommendations on issues of economic and social development”, and mandating the AMR and the DCF. Both of these mechanisms, launched in 2007, have given ECOSOC greater weight: the former raising the level of debate on international development to the ministerial level, and the latter ensuring that a broad range of actors can engage with each other in a high-level dialogue on development co-operation.

As a UN platform, the DCF has been viewed as more inclusive than the aid effectiveness fora associated with the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.

But now those OECD-associated fora are also being transformed with the outcome of the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, which took place in Busan, and the launching of the Global Partnership for Development Effectiveness. It aims to provide a new platform for dialogue between the DAC donors and developing countries, including the South-South development co-operation partners.

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Along with the reform of ECOSOC, agreement was reached at Rio+20 to establish a universal membership, intergovernmental, high-level political forum for sustainable development at the UN. It should build on the strengths, experiences, resources, and inclusive ways of working of the current Commission on Sustainable Development, which it would replace.

An intergovernmental process will define the features of the new forum, which is expected to convene at the beginning of the 68th session of the General Assembly in September 2013.

UNDP advocated in the lead up to Rio+20 for a new Sustainable Development Council, either to replace ECOSOC or as a stronger subsidiary body to it than the existing Commission has been. We believed that it could benefit from having a peer review mechanism, to encourage countries to act on sustainable development in line with the commitments they make.

This is a question of relevance and effectiveness. The collective of member states is making too little progress on ensuring the future sustainability of our world’s ecosystems. Fine words in outcome documents need to lead to action. It is depressing, yet at the same time encouraging, that the dynamism around sustainable development at Rio+20 was coming for the most part from sub-national governments, NGOs and civil society, and the private sector – notwithstanding some impressive actions by individual member states.

That is why it is becoming so important for the voices of non-state actors to be heard in global governance fora.

E. Global Climate Governance

One of the most visible 21st century challenges is that of climate change.

Co-ordinated action to combat global warming is badly needed, and the risks from failing to tackle the problem effectively are high.

Multilateral action centres on the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its associated Kyoto Protocol (1997), both of which have been ratified by almost all nations. The Bali Roadmap from COP-13 in 2007 and the Durban Platform from COP-17 last year have

attempted to set firm timelines for reaching agreement on further measures for a new global agreement.

Negotiations have been far from smooth, with many items over the years postponed for consideration at future sessions, and climate negotiations often seeming to fail, or be held hostage to a myriad of interests and positioning. As with a WTO round, consensus is required for decisions to be reached – or at least near consensus as established at Cancun.

To any casual observer, the negotiations seem protracted, while the need for action becomes ever more pressing.

It would be a tragedy for future generations if today’s leaders and decision makers prove incapable of taking the bold decisions which are necessary to stop catastrophic and irreversible change to the world’s climate.

The limited accountability mechanisms available for agreements reached, and the lack of meaningful consequences for non-compliance, have also been raised as obstacles to progress on a new climate agreement.

Another concern around the global climate change architecture is that of fragmentation. Both within the UN and beyond, there are a number of new institutional mechanisms, and platforms for negotiation. Critics of this fragmentation have argued that agreements reached by only some countries are inherently flawed.

Meanwhile, at the sub-national level of governance, we see useful developments – for example with cities cooperating as part of the C-40 network to bring about local change through policies for transportation and urban planning which will both reduce emissions and encourage adaptation to the climate change already affecting our lives.

Also, there is room for optimism associated with the expected large increase in the volume of climate finance available. Some of the ten billion USD per year which developed countries pledged at Copenhagen for low-emissions and climate resilient development from 2010 to 2012 has been delivered. By 2020 developed countries have committed to raising US$100 billion in climate finance annually. That would create an even

larger base from which to leverage large scale private investment for climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing countries.

UNDP has long supported countries to overcome barriers to attracting investment. We are now applying this experience to help countries build the capacities necessary to access climate finance and navigate through the plethora of diverse funding sources.

Overall, climate finance is now accessible through more than fifty international public funds, sixty carbon markets and six thousand private equity funds.

Without strengthened capacities too many localities and countries will be left out, unable to tap the upfront resources needed to leverage private investment and put sustainable development into practice.

CONCLUSION In providing a detailed account of some of the successful, and at times less successful, reform efforts of multilateral institutions and processes, I have considered different elements which I believe are essential to make global governance institutions ‘fit-forpurpose’ in the 21st century.

00First, efficiency and effectiveness; I have argued that global institutions are critical for co-ordinated action to tackle the most pressing challenges of our era – whether they be climate change, peace and security, or economic volatility. Outdated structures and functions, such as the UN Security Council veto, can undermine efficient and effective co-operation.

00Second, legitimacy and transparency; I have suggested that much more can be done to ensure that global institutions are representative and inclusive, and that they function in a manner

which reflects the geopolitical realities and economic dynamics of the 21st century. The ongoing reforms at the IMF, the WB, and other institutions, are moving in the right direction for greater inclusiveness and transparency. A reformed ECOSOC which attracted finance ministers to its proceedings would also give the UN a more effective forum and voice on economic and financial issues.

00Finally, accountability and fairness; Here the key question is whether global institutions give voice and decision-making power to those most impacted by global challenges – often the poorest and most vulnerable, and whether recipients of support are enabled to hold these institutions to account. Not enough attention is being placed on these issues, but increasingly global civil society and others will demand that reform agendas take them into account.

Overall, there can be no doubt that progress has been made to enable global institutions to be more fit-forpurpose. So far, however, not enough has been done across the three dimensions I have outlined to ensure optimal functioning of a range of institutions at a time when unprecedented cross-border challenges require improved global governance

There is room for optimism associated with the expected large increase in the volume of climate finance available. Some of the ten billion USD per year has been delivered

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The

Return of Ka-ching WORDS BY AMY KAUFMAN hen The Hobbit unveils on cinema screens this summer, for one man it could be a career-maker.

Kevin Tsujihara is the Warner Bros executive who helped shepherd the delicate negotiations that finally got Sir Peter Jackson’s epic rolling into production two years ago. Now, Tsujihara is one of three candidates vying for the top job at Warners.

The expected blockbuster comes at an opportune time. US movie theatres posted their worst attendance since 1994 last year, but Hollywood is poised for a big comeback–with the help of a secret agent, a sullen vampire and the aforementioned hairy-footed hobbit.

US ticket sales – which ultimately determine the fate of the movie industry – are already up by 3% compared with the same period last year, and a bumper crop of strong films this holiday season–including movies that will

appeal to both popular and discerning tastes–could push annual box office receipts above US$11 billion for the first time.

A strong finish to the year could ease the uncertainty gripping an industry under pressure to cut costs and boost profits, especially as revenue dwindles from once-reliable DVD sales and as more fans turn to video-on-demand and streaming to catch the latest movies.

“We’re still facing the same structural issues–the DVD business is declining and there are distractions for the audience–so studios have to rationalize their costs,” says Stacey Snider, chief executive of DreamWorks, which has just released Lincoln. But she points out: “All that doom and gloom people were talking about after the summer ticket sales didn’t come to bear.”

Snider was referring to the anxiety rampant in Hollywood earlier this year, amid the box office flop of big-

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budget films including John Carter and Battleship. But those disappointments have been tempered by a handful of certified hits, including The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Hunger Games.

And some movies have performed better than expected. One of those is the Iranian hostage drama Argo, which has taken in nearly $80 million since opening Oct. 12.

“I’m becoming increasingly concerned about the movie business ... there’s the feeling that it could all sort of fall apart or at least be greatly diminished,” muses Ben Affleck, who directed and stars in “Argo.” “But there is a huge crop of really interesting movies coming out in the next couple of months, and I think that’s great for the movie business.”

The latest James Bond film, the wellreviewed Skyfall, kicks off the holiday movie season and was expected to haul in about US$100 million for its opening,

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which would be the fourth-highest opening of the year. It managed to hit US$88 million for the weekend, but its global takings for the same period took it to a worldwide haul of US$429 million, leaving producers stirred, not shaken.

N

ext cab off the rank sees multiplexes swarming with young women eager to see Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, the fifth and final installment of the vampire franchise.

In December comes The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the prequel to Sir Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which grossed more than US$2.9 billion worldwide.

“There’s a good feeling about the business right now,” note Amy Pascal, co-chair of Sony Pictures. “It really looks like we have a lot of fantastic movies coming at the end of the year.”

In addition to the slew of big-budget

films hitting theatres, an above-average array of less costly movies aimed at sophisticated filmgoers could provide a crucial assist for a box-office record: Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, the dramedy Silver Linings Playbook with Bradley Cooper, a star-studded version of Broadway’s hit musical Les Miserables featuring New Zealand’s Russell Crowe in the role of Javert, and Zero Dark Thirty, about the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

“Unlike last year, which had a very slow December, the final six weeks of this year are going to make up for that ... because of the mix of summer-style blockbusters and Oscar-bait films,” says Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com.

Still, there could be some costly misses. Director Ang Lee’s 3-D spectacle Life of Pi has earned favorable reviews in early screenings, but with a production cost of $120 million and an unknown 19-year-old lead, the holiday

release is considered a big gamble for 20th Century Fox and its financial partners.

“We all have a lot riding on these films, and you want people to be buying tickets,” agrees Elizabeth Gabler, whose Fox 2000 Pictures produced Life of Pi. “But I think ... the more exciting movies you can offer people will get them to the theatre. When there’s a lot of energy there, that fosters excitement about the moviegoing experience.”

Only two films released during the fourth quarter in 2011 had U.S. ticket sales top $200 million, and the season also brought some unexpectedly expensive misses in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo and the animated comedy Arthur Christmas.

“Admissions going up is always good news. Would you like them to go up more? Of course,” says Warner Bros.

Motion Picture Group President Jeff Robinov – a rival for Kevin Tsujihara in the bid for the top job at the studio.

Holiday movies: Saving the best for last WORDS BY COLIN COVERT/MCT ANNA KARENINA Director Joe Wright (Atonement) boldly recasts Tolstoy’s classic story of forbidden love as a stage play/stylized costume extravaganza. A brilliant script from Tom Stoppard focuses on the story’s core, following Anna (Keira Knightley) as she spurns her cold husband (Jude Law) for dashing cavalry officer Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), scandalizing St. Petersburg society. The artifice of the setting becomes a perfect frame for the mannered, play-acting characters.

LINCOLN Daniel Day-Lewis offers a towering performance as the 16th president.

Steven Spielberg’s film forgoes his usual visual spectacle to focus on the political struggle of Lincoln’s final four months, with the climax of the Civil War and the congressional battle

to free the slaves. Day-Lewis makes the Great Emancipator a pragmatist who could be folksy or hard-nosed as events demand. Tommy Lee Jones is a thundering counterweight as Pennsylvania’s radical Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, Lincoln’s impatient, implacable political foe.

LIFE OF PI Taiwanese director Ang Lee turns Yann Martel’s unfilmable novel into a remarkable technical and artistic achievement.

Following a tragedy at sea, young student Pi Patel (first-timer Suraj Sharma) is stranded on a lifeboat with a fullgrown tiger, where they must learn to coexist or die. The movie is a triumph of immersive 3-D and seamless computeranimation effects in service of a grand adventure tale.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY Brad Pitt goes gangster in this violent, darkly funny crime comedy. Pitt rocks a rad goatee and mullet as Jackie Cogan, an enforcer hunting two robbers who

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ripped off a high-stakes New Orleans poker game protected by the mob. As Pitt’s clinically cool killer squabbles over the skimpy budget for the operation and scuffles with his stubborn sidekick (James Gandolfini), the film scores satirical points about a U.S. economy in which murder is just another tool for doing business.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY Peter Jackson, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett and Andy Serkis return to Tolkien-land in another tale of “little people” on a perilous expedition with Gandalf the Grey. Fussbudget Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and 13 dwarf soldiers of fortune contend with goblins, giant spiders, ravenous wolves and treacherous Gollum to reclaim a lost kingdom from the fearsome dragon called Smaug. The trailers are tempting

“But the business is in flux–there’s a diversity of choices for consumers, home video is shrinking and there’s a debate over release windows.”

Ticket sales have been trending down since hitting the 1.57 billion mark in 2002, falling to 1.28 billion last year, the lowest in 16 years.

Box office revenue, by comparison, has shown modest gains–largely because of higher ticket prices and new premiums for Imax and 3-D showings.

To end the year strong, Hollywood has to score a robust holiday season, which accounts for about 20% of annual box-office receipts.

“We look forward to these last six weeks of the year to really ramp up business,” says Gary Dupuis, the general manager of Montana-based Polson Theatres. “It’s one of the better holiday seasons coming up. I think that’s positive, because we are certainly still in the economy crunch where people know it’s not cheap to go to the movies.”

teasers of a sweeping Middle Earth epic with high drama, grand adventure and knockabout humor.

HYDE PARK ON HUDSON Bill Murray enters the presidentialimpersonation sweepstakes as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hosting the king and queen of England at the Roosevelt home in Upstate New York on a prewar weekend in 1939. FDR juggles the competing claims of his wife (Olivia Williams), mother and mistress (Laura Linney) while orchestrating a crucial public appearance for the pompous royals that will win American support for the coming war effort. Murray is a breezy, charismatic delight as the only four-term U.S. president.

JACK REACHER Tom Cruise plays a ruthless ex-Army homicide investigator seeking the truth behind five random killings attributed to a military sniper he thinks was framed.

Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) likes to undercut audience expectations with audacious surprises, so there may be more in store than a standard mainstream thriller.

Good sign: renowned director Werner Herzog plays the heartless villain, which should add a clinically cool, performance-artist vibe.

RUST AND BONE/ THE IMPOSSIBLE Two riveting arthouse tales of waterbased melodrama. In Rust, Marion Cotillard plays a whale trainer at a French seaquarium who works to rebuild her life after a tragic accident. Impossible stars Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as parents of three young boys who are separated when a tsunami hits their resort hotel. Each film braids scenes of chilling anxiety with heroic determination. Both manage to be genuine and moving through the strength of the stars’ affecting performances.

LES MISERABLES A fully sung presentation of the heartrending Victor Hugo novel and stage play, a decades-long story of one man’s

fight for freedom and another’s quest for vengeance. For greater emotional immediacy, director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) insisted that his cast sing live on set rather than lip-synch.

Luckily Hugh Jackman (as persecuted ex-prisoner Jean Valjean), kiwi Russell Crowe (vindictive police inspector Javert) and Anne Hathaway (downtrodden factory worker Fantine) are accomplished vocalists.

DJANGO UNCHAINED Another Quentin Tarantino expedition into alterna-history. This time he weaves spaghetti western revenge themes into an Old South slavery tale, with a side order of foppish male wardrobe. Inglourious Basterds Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz plays a German bounty hunter who frees Django (Ray Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx) and promises to help track down the men who sold his wife. Also on hand are Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson as a villainous duo, Kerry Washington and Jonah Hill (!) as a Klansman.

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HERS | HEALTH

How to work a stroller – and infant – into a workout WORDS BY DANIELLE BRAFF

O

nce you have a baby, it’s easy to let exercising fall to the wayside. After all, if you can barely fit in time to shower, then making time to work out may seem as extravagant as taking a quick trip to the moon.

But while hitting the gym daily with an infant or tot may be nearly impossible, getting your workout done doesn’t have to be. Simply pop your baby into the stroller and hit the streets.

Fitness instructor Jennifer Lungren, shared her best tricks to working out with a baby on board.

Before you start, warm up with a 5-minute jog or power walk. After each exercise, repeat the run or power walk for 3-5 minutes. If any of the exercises are painful, stop immediately.

SQUAT

Starting in a standing position with your hands on the stroller handlebar, place your feet hip-width apart with your feet and knees facing forward. Sit down as if you’re moving backward into a seat, and squeeze your glutes and thighs to bring yourself back into the starting standing position. Push the stroller out as you sit, and pull it back in as you come up.

Reps 15-25

28 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

SIDE PLIE SQUAT

With your right side facing the stroller and right hand on the stroller, stand with your toes facing out and take a large step away from the stroller. Squat down, dropping your bottom as low as you can with your body weight in your heels, pushing the stroller away from you. As you come up, pull your right leg in to meet the left leg. Repeat all the reps on this side, and then switch sides.

Reps 15-25

WALKING LUNGES

Standing behind the stroller with your

hands on the handlebar step forward with your right leg. The stroller will move forward as you move forward.

Bend your front knee to a 90-degree angle so that your right thigh is parallel to the ground and your right shin is perpendicular to the ground. Your back leg should be almost straight.

Keep your torso upright with your hips and shoulders facing forward. Use your right leg to return to your starting position. Don’t use your stroller to help lift you; it may tip backward if you put too much weight on it. Instead, use the power of your front leg. Alternate with the other leg.

ABS PULL

Face the stroller with your right side, standing with your feet no more than hip-distance apart with your toes facing out. Use your right hand to push the stroller away while reaching overhead with your left arm. Your right arm should extend out straight. Use your abs, focusing on the left side, to pull the stroller back. Go through all the reps and then switch sides.

Reps 15

CARDIO BABY TICKLE

Standing in front of the stroller with

your feet together, jump your legs apart and lower your bottom into a squat position with your body weight in your heels. As you lower, reach forward with your arms and do a tickle motion toward your baby, but don’t actually touch your baby, as this could put stress on your lower back.

Reps: Do this for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds. Repeat four times.

PEEK-A-BOO STROLLER CRUNCHES

Lie on your back next to the stroller facing your baby with your feet flat on the ground, knees bent at 90 degrees.

Put your hands behind your head, keeping your elbows back. Squeeze your belly button to your spine and crunch up. As you come up, peek into your stroller, saying “Peek-a-boo” to your baby, and lower back down.

Exhale as you come up, keeping your elbows back.

Reps 25

CARDIO DRILLS

Standing in front of the stroller, bend at the knees and push your hips back, running with your feet staying as low as possible.

Reps Run for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds. Repeat four times.

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 29

HERS | HEALTH

Sugary drinks increasingly singled out for health risks WORDS BY BILL DALEY

S

odas may not sport the obvious dangers (or the kick) that a litre of scotch or a kilo of cocaine represent, but health advocates, researchers, nutritionists and, increasingly, government officials are speaking out everlouder about the perils of consuming too many of these sugary soft drinks.

New York City has barred the sale of large-size sodas in restaurants and concession stands. Banned in Boston are full-calorie sodas and soda advertising in city buildings. And it was front-page news when it was learned Chicago and San Antonio will get some of the nation’s first soda machines featuring calorie-count listings as part of an effort to win a $5 million grant from a national beverage lobbying group to reward city workers for living more healthily.

“The point about sodas is they are an easy target for public health intervention,” said Marion Nestle, a nutritionist, New York University professor and influential author of What to Eat. “All they are is sugar and calories. There’s no redeeming feature. The last thing Americans need is extra calories.”

Nor, soda’s opponents add, do Americans need increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay and other problems.

“People need to step back and look at their health,” said Michelle Dudash, a registered dietician, author and nutritionist. “If you’re overweight, cut back

on the soda. If you have weak tooth enamel, cut back on the soda. If you have a risk of heart disease, cut back on the soda.”

Wrapping all these concerns up into one brand-new animated short film is the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the non-profit health advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. The film “takes back” the polar bear, one of the most popular figures ever used in soft drink advertising, to illustrate what too much soda drinking might lead to.

“The Real Bears” follows a cartoon polar bear family swilling soda as they huff and puff across the ice cap as a catchy tune by Jason Mraz plays in the background. It quickly becomes clear the family is having trouble getting around. Little Boy Bear is too fat to catch a fish through a hole in the ice, while his sister loses a tooth to sodainduced decay. Papa Bear suffers from obesity, which leads to diabetes, which leads to impotence. Only after Papa’s leg is lopped off (you might want to watch the film first before sharing with the kiddies) does the polar bear family wake up and pour their sodas into the sea.

“This is the unhappy truth about soda. It wasn’t so bad when soft drinks were the occasional treat,” reads a statement at the film’s website (therealbears.org). “But now sugary drinks are the No. 1 source of calories in the American diet.”

Here’s are some of the things top

If you’re overweight,cut back on the soda.If you have weak tooth enamel,cut back on the soda.If you have a risk of heart disease,cut back on the soda 30 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

nutritionists and dieticians want you to think about next time you’re thirsty and reaching for yet another soda or sweet drink: SWEAR OFF THE SUGAR, NOT THE BUBBLES

“Soda is not the only culprit,” said Andrea Giancoli, a dietician and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Watch out, she said, for fruit drinks, bottled ice teas, energy drinks. Some of these drinks can have as much sugar – or more – than soda, she said. Read the labels.

“We are getting way too much added sugar in our diet,” she added. “If you drink one 20-ounce sugar-sweetened beverage a day on top of your regular diet, that would be an extra 250 calories every day. You could gain 26 pounds in a year.”

What to do? If it’s the bubbles you crave, consider this advice from Lara Ferroni, the food writer and author of the new book, Real Snacks: Make Your Favorite Childhood Treats Without All the Junk. She recommends spiking club soda with a few drops of non-alcoholic bitters. These bitters, available in a variety of flavours including orange, lemon and rhubarb even, add flavours without a lot of sugar,” she said.

DON’T SUPERSIZE IT

Once upon a time, a 12-ounce serving of soda was considered enough. Now, as Nestle notes, even the “small” soda at the movie theatre is pretty darn big.

“People are not getting 20-ounce sodas, they’re getting 40-ounce sodas that can have the same amount of calories as a meal,” agreed Dudash, author of the upcoming book, “Clean Eating

for Busy Families.” It’s important, she added, to “prioritize” those calories to focus on good-for-you foods and drinks that provide nutrients, fibre, protein, vitamins.

DIABETES AND HEART DISEASE

Papa Bear’s travails vividly connect soda drinking to being overweight to eventually getting diabetes. The film cites a 2010 article in the journal Diabetes Care, which reported drinking one or two sugary drinks a day can increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 25 per cent.

The other concern, Giancoli said, is heart disease. Metabolic syndrome, a precursor to heart disease, is a “cluster” of symptoms – obesity, high blood sugar, hypertension, high triglycerides and low levels of so-called “good” cholesterol – that can, if not caught in time, lead to both cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes in people who don’t have diabetes already.

TOOTH DECAY

Phosphoric acid gives soda that “zippy taste,” Dudash said. But that acid can also be corrosive to the protective enamel found on your teeth; decay results.

There are other foods and ingredients, like citrus and citric acid, that can also be hard on the tooth enamel, but Dudash said at least these items offer something in return the body needs, be it fibre, vitamin C or folic acid.

WEAN KIDS OFF SODA, SUGARY DRINKS

“Soft drinks of any kind do not belong in young children’s diets,” declared Tina Ruggiero, a registered dietician. Growing bodies and minds need lots of nutrients, she said, adding, “There’s no room for that junk.”

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 31

HERS | ALTHEALTH

Safety of genetically modified foods is debated WORDS BY LAUREL ROSENHALL

S

usan Lang doesn’t know for certain if her son’s itchy skin and upset stomach were caused by eating food made from crops whose genes were altered in a lab.

But over the years, she believes she’s been able to soothe the eight-yearold’s eczema and digestive problems by eliminating genetically modified organisms from his diet.

“I know that when I feed this child better he does better, and feeding him better includes not feeding him GMOs,” Lang said.

She concedes, however, that her evidence is not scientific, saying she has “More than a hunch, but I don’t have proof.”

Lang learned about genetic engineering – the process of splicing plant or animal genes to create new characteristics – as she began altering her family’s diet to help her son. In the process, she became concerned that consumers don’t know enough about the technology that goes into producing a huge part of the American food supply.

Eventually she became a volunteer for the Proposition 37 campaign.

The measure on this month’s California ballot asked voters if food companies should be required to label genetically engineered food. At the core of the debate is a seemingly simple question: Is it safe to eat?

Proposition 37 supporters offer little scientific evidence that genetically modified food is dangerous to human health. A recent French study that found rats developed tumours after months of eating genetically modified corn was quickly panned by the scientific community.

Supporters instead point out per32 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

ceived deficiencies in most studies that exist, raise questions about the procedures for approving the food and argue that the biotechnology industry has undue influence on government regulators.

“Experts are still debating if foods modified with DNA from other plants, animals, bacteria and even viruses are safe,” says a radio ad urging a “Yes” vote on Proposition 37. “But while the debate goes on, we all have the right to make an informed choice.”

Opponents are making the case that labelling the food implies health dangers that haven’t been proved.

“As a doctor, it concerns me when families are given misleading health information,” Dr Sherry Franklin says in a No on 37 ad.

The ad also points out that the American Medical Association has said there is “No scientific justification” for labelling genetically engineered food.

That is true – but incomplete. The association that represents the nation’s doctors also calls for greater “Availability of unbiased information and

research activities on bioengineered foods.” And it says there should be a different system for testing genetically engineered food before it hits store shelves. Right now, the testing process is voluntary; the medical association says it should be mandatory.

The voluntary testing system is a concern to Proposition 37 supporters.

They say it puts too much control in the hands of companies that stand to profit from their biotech inventions.

Most corn, soybeans, canola and sugar beets grown in the United States are engineered to kill pests or withstand being sprayed with weed killers such as Round-Up. Those genetically engineered crops wind up in thousands of non-organic grocery products in the form of corn syrup, sugar, canola oil or soy-based emulsifiers. Some nonorganic papaya, crook neck squash and corn on the cob is also genetically modified.

“There is no evidence that there is any health issue with any of the products on the market. And there is nothing particular to the technology itself that makes it dangerous,” said Kent Bradford, director of the Seed Biotechnology Center at the University of CaliforniaDavis, which uses genetic engineering to develop agricultural seeds.

He dismisses the idea that there is not enough testing of genetically engineered food, saying the voluntary testing by companies that modify crops has created a pile of credible evidence.

But such tests are biased by commercial interest and too short to show the long-term impacts of eating engineered food, says anti-GMO activist Jeffrey Smith, who has written two books and made a film criticizing the technology.

Smith lives in Iowa but has been touring California promoting his work and Proposition 37. His film, Genetic Roulette, features about a dozen doctors describing health problems – including allergies, diabetes, gastrointestinal distress and autism – they associate with eating GMOs. “I decided strategically – because I think it’s a greater motivation – to focus on the health dangers,” said Smith, whose background is in marketing not science.

One solution, he said, is labelling

Most corn, soybeans, canola and sugar beets grown in the United States are engineered to kill pests or withstand being sprayed with weed killers such as Round-Up engineered food so people know what they’re eating.

Proposition 37 is more about ideology than science, said Bob Goldberg, a UCLA biologist who teaches a class on genetic engineering.

“I’m against this proposition because I’m a scientist and I’m a person who has done genetic engineering my entire career,” Goldberg said. “In many respects, I don’t view this as a political campaign; I view this as an anti-science campaign.”

Goldberg, a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, said the organization believes it’s wrong to lump all genetically engineered foods into the same category because they use the same laboratory

technique. Instead, he said, the safety of crops and food products – whether the result of genetic engineering or other scientific processes – should be judged on a case-by-case basis.

A National Academy of Sciences spokeswoman said the group has not evaluated whether it’s safe to eat genetically engineered food.

Goldberg points to a statement this month by the American Association for the Advancement of Science that says, “The science is quite clear: crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe.”

On US election day, voters rejected Proposition 37, but there, as in NZ, the debate continues.

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 33

HERS | BEAUTY

Anti-aging products – do they really work?

WORDS BY SUSAN SALISBURY

W

hat can you believe when it comes to marketing claims about beauty products such as face creams, body lotions, shampoos, and makeup?

Not much, because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has no definition for terms such as hypoallergenic and natural, making them virtually meaningless, according to the November issue of ShopSmart magazine, from Consumer Reports.

“Only a few claims used on cosmetics are regulated and the government doesn’t review labels before products hit store shelves,” said Lisa Lee Freeman, editor-in-chief of ShopSmart.

The FDA has cracked down in the last couple of months on at least four cosmetic companies, including giants Avon Products and Lancome, for making advertising claims that go too far.

All involved anti-aging products. In the highly competitive anti-aging skin care market, companies constantly try to outdo each other with the latest ingredient claiming to reverse wrinkles. Mintel Group, Chicago, reports that last year Americans spent $2.3 billion on anti-aging face creams.

Despite that, Mintel found that 69 percent of consumers believe how you age is mostly genetic, and external products are more hope than help. That said, women keep buying the products hoping they will see results. More than a third of U.S. women have used antiaging creams and serums for the face.

The FDA does not allow companies to claim that a product will change the structure or function of your skin or other body part because that would make it a drug. Drugs are regulated differently than cosmetics.

The FDA sent the companies warn34 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

ing letters saying if the violations of the federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act were not corrected, it would block sales or seize products.

The claims for products such as Avon’s Anew Clinical Advanced Wrinkle Corrector promise they will change the skin’s structure and reduce wrinkles by “rebuilding collagen in just 48 hours.” That type of claim would make the product a new drug, and it’s not approved as a drug, the FDA says.

Michael Roosevelt, FDA acting director, listed four Avon products in the letter, but stated that the agency has not attempted to list all of the products promoted on the Avon website for intended uses that cause them to be drugs.

Lancome USA received a similar letter from the FDA about its claims for products such as its Genifique Repair Youth Activating Night Cream which it advertises as boosting the activity of genes.

Another example the FDA cited is Lancome’s Renergie Microlift Eye R.A.R.E. Intense Repositioning Eye Lifter. Among the claims are that it provides “immediate lifting, lasting repositioning,” and helps to “re-bundle collagen.”

“Lancome is in the process of responding to FDA’s concerns. We are proud of the science behind our products and remain fully committed to complying with all FDA laws and regulatory standards,” said Rebecca Caruso, spokeswoman for L’Oreal USA, which owns Lancome.

What should consumers do? Ignore the following meaningless label terms, says Consumer Reports ShopSmart:

1 2

HYPOALLERGENIC

The FDA website lists the definition of this term as “whatever a particular company wants it to mean.”

NATURAL

“Natural” holds no regulatory definition. And just because something isn’t man-made doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe (consider poison ivy, poisonous mushrooms, or hemlock.)

3

LIFTING

The term implies the product will reduce sagging or drooping, but dermatologists say a formal treatment such as a heat-generating

In the highly competitive anti-aging skin care market, companies constantly try to outdo each other with the latest ingredient claiming to reverse wrinkles ultrasound is usually needed to boost collagen production.

4

100 PERCENT PURE

Meant to imply the product is clean and contaminant-free, this is a general term that doesn’t necessarily say much about the product’s contents.

However, there is one exception – products with just one ingredient, such as 100 percent aloe vera, should be purely that one ingredient.

5

FOR SENSITIVE SKIN

This claim implies the product was specially formulated for and tested on sensitive skin. The manufacturer may have minimized the use of irritating ingredients such as fragrances, but there’s no way to know for sure.

While it’s disheartening to know how little many of the claims mean, it’s also difficult to know which ingredients to look for to ensure a product really works. Many of us have purchased products that don’t live up to the advertising. When that happens, complain to the manufacturer and tell others to not waste their money.

But there is some advice about possibly harmful ingredients that should be avoided.

Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Database at ewg. org/skindeep provides a guide to ingredients in more than 70,000 personal care products.

Some companies are listening to consumers’ concerns about chemicals in personal care products. EWG applauded Johnson & Johnson this summer when it announced it is reformulating many of its products, including baby shampoos and lotions.

EWG advises avoiding the following ingredients: In soap and liquid soap: Triclocarban and Triclosan In toothpaste: Triclosan In moisturizers: Retinyl palmitate or retinolin In shampoo and conditioner: Fragrance, PEG, ceteareth and polyethylene, DMDM hydantoin and various types of parabens: propyl, isopropyl, butyl, isobutyl In lip products: Retinyl palmitate or retinol In nail products: Formaldehyde or formalin, Toluene, Dibutyl phthalate (DBP)

EWG suggests avoiding certain “problem products” completely. These are hair straighteners, dark permanent hair dyes, loose powders, perfumes and fragrances and skin lighteners.

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 35

HERS | GIFTS

Gift ideas A

B C

E D

Adding two new color variations to the popular X-Large series, G-Shock utilizes red & black and white & black, both in an all matte finish. Let your imagination run wild and travel back in time with a statement watch from Pascoes the Jewellers.

36 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

for

Christmas G

F

H

I

A. Honey Vegas pink python bra $24.95 and bikini $12.99. B. Boston and Bailey hat $49.99. C. Oh la la reims gift pack $99.99. D. Boston and Bailey sunhat $39.99.

E. S&P set of 6 round mirror madison coasters $14.99. F. Oh la la phone holder coral $59.99. G. Acapello Belle contour bra $34.99 and hipster bikini $17.99. H. Boston and Bailey scarf $29.99. I. Holly lacquer bamboo vase $29.99 [Available at Farmers] Dec 2012/Jan 2013  INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM  37

HERS | CUISINE

Feeding the multitudes

James Morrow offers a crash course in crash cuisine

W

arren Buffett, perhaps t he world’s greatest investor, the Sage of Omaha, and the distant relative of Margaritaville’s Jimmy, is by all accounts a pretty odd cat. According to the new doorstop-sized autobiography, this brilliant man with all his wealth is also known for his frugality (he lives in a modest house in Nebraska) and his all too human frailties and vulnerabilities, a man who could not bring himself to attend his wife’s funeral.

But one piece of wisdom he is well known for – even if those who are aware of it do not put it into practice themselves – is the notion that one should buy into a bear market and sell when the bulls are running.

It is perhaps in that spirit that auto

racers, seeing a crash up ahead, drive towards the carnage, knowing full well that if they aim for the periphery they will head right for where the twisted metal is spinning.

So it is in that spirit that I think we need to talk about food. Not in the sense that most food columns around the world are doing these days: This is not about supposedly rediscovering the Depression or wartime-era “joys” of Marmite soup and victory gardens, nor about hedge fund managers telling their cooks lay off the premium, organic baby spinach.

No, in the spirit of Warren Buffett, I think if the spirit of the times calls for more eating at home, than we must do so in style. Indeed, doing so might just paradoxically be the answer to the

38 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

Western world’s woes. Yet every day we are warned to cut back, buy home brands, and generally immiserate ourselves. It is almost as if, with scepticism over climate change becoming ever more widespread, our media and elite classes need a new way to sell retrograde lifestyles and increased government regulation to a broad-based middle class that has enjoyed too much freedom to live as they like over the past few decades.

This is exactly the wrong approach to present financial calamities. Buying good food from reputable producers shoots money straight into the local economy. Meanwhile avoiding processed food which is deceptively expensive is in the long run better for both health and wealth.

And for those of us who still have jobs of reasonable security, a roof over our head, and more than two bob savings in the bank, avoiding panic also, in a small way, helps fight the culture’s tend to reify the crisis. For the paradox of the markets are that the more we act like there is a problem, the more the problem grows.

It’s a bit like a faltering relationship, or the last days of a Parliamentary government, where the problems between the partners, or between electors and elected, become the entire rationale for transactions between them. The same thing happens in the economy: Consumers and business owners are told there is a crisis, thus they act as though there is, thus they exacerbate it. It’s what the suddenlyrediscovered economist John Maynard Keynes called the paradox of thrift.

Yet there is another principle which, at the table at least, should be invoked in protest. The late, great Australian wine character Len Evans famously said that life is short to drink bad wine, and thus that one should, when drinking, drink the best wine one can afford – even if that means taking care to find out what a good $8 drop is versus one that tastes like paint thinner.

The same thing should apply to food. While the newspapers are full of stories about hedge fund managers coming home and announcing to their trophy wives that they need to stop buying organic by way of economising, and guides to actually living within one’s means, this doesn’t mean one should sit at home and eat toast by candlelight.

Instead, embrace the new austerity and do like the US Congress: Socialise your losses, get some good food into the house and have a feed with family and friends. They’re more permanent than bank balances anyway, and where we should all be investing. One could do worse than making them the following lamb dish…

Rack of lamb with pearl barley and black olive jus (Adapted from Steve Szabo, Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast, Queensland) You’ll need Olive oil 3 racks of lamb (8 cutlets each), French-trimmed 25 gm unsalted butter 500 gm washed baby spinach leaves For the Black Olive Jus 1.2 litres beef or veal stock 1 onion, chopped 1 carrot, chopped 1 leek (white part only), chopped 1 head of garlic, halved lengthways 125 ml dry red wine 40 gm chopped, pitted kalamat olves Sprigs of rosemary and thyme

For the Pearl Barley 25 gm butter 1 onion, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, finely chopped 1 litre chicken or veal stock 140 gm pearl barley, rinsed and drained Juice of half a lemon 60 gm goats feta Sprig of thyme

Method 1. Organise your jus and pearl barley. For the jus, reduce the stock over medium heat for 30 minutes or until halved. In another pan, add onion, carrot, leek and garlic and sauté until golden, then add wine, and, when the liquid is all but gone, Add the reduced stock, and boil over a low heat until reduced to a sauce-like consistency. Remove from heat, add olives and herbs to infuse for at least 15 minutes, season to taste, and strain well, pushing down on the solids.

2. Meanwhile for the pearl barley, heat butter in another saucepan and fry garlic and onion over low heat until soft. Add stock, bring to a boil, add the barley, return to the boil then reduce heat to low and simmer for an hour, or until liquid is absorbed and barley is tender. Remove from heat.

3. With all the fiddly prep done, when it comes time to serve heat some oil in a heavybased frying pan and brown your lamb over medium heat, then roast in the oven at 200C for 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven, tent with foil and allow to rest. Before serving cut each rack into quarters and reheat jus.

4. While the lamb is resting, reheat the pearl barley, stir in thyme, lemon and feta, and season with salt and pepper.

5. Melt butter in a pan, and fry your spinach off with some salt and pepper until just wilted, and plate up!

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 39

HERS | TRAVEL

Little Malta’s history far outweighs its size WORDS BY ROSS WERLAND

T

he danger of going to Malta for a relaxing vacation is that a history lesson might break out.

Frankly, the place even exceeds the limits of history, because we don’t really know a lot about those people who built temples here that predate the pyramids by about 1,000 years. The people we do know about made the two main islands of Malta a destination as soon as mankind learned how to float boats in one direction. Its desirability for navigation makes sense, because it sits nearly equidistant from each end of the Mediterranean.

But Malta’s history is not all ancient.

It was here that Chris Stevens, the recently slain U.S. ambassador to Libya, visited frequently to prepare for his posting in that war-ravaged nation just to the south.

Before that, it was such a strategic aggravation to Hitler, because of British guns and aircraft, that he did his best to reduce these chalky limestone islands to gravel with bombings several times a day during World War II.

Because war has so defined the place, the warmth of the Maltese toward strangers is all the more amazing. If you’re lost, I know for a fact that they will gladly help you get found, and they will do it in English, thanks to a British past dating back two centuries, though now it’s an independent and also Maltese-speaking country.

like Zurich), because I wanted a more genuine Maltese experience and not one more urban European visit. Honestly, though the capital of Valletta is beautiful in its antiquity, if that’s all you experience of Malta, you might as well pick any of half a dozen Italian cities for the same kind of vacation.

THE LAY OF THE LAND

My favorite small town is the Norman city of Mdina (St. Paul’s Cathedral and the gorgeous medieval Palazzo Falson

Sitting 60 miles south of Sicily, the nation of Malta is about 122 square miles, most of that on Malta, the biggest of the stunningly deforested handful of islands. Although its 408,000 people make it the most densely populated nation in the European Union, the main island actually has enough countryside to get lost in if you’re driving, which I was.

I rented a walled villa in one of the oldest cities, Zurrieq (pronounced

40 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Dec 2012/Jan 2013

SMALL-TOWN FAVES

house/museum). You probably could get your fill of ancient architecture in Valletta and environs, but Mdina is a fascinating, scenic place to walk, with immaculate, narrow stone streets built on a curve supposedly to make the flight of arrows more difficult.

There also is a fair share of shopping, so you will find that Maltese-cross pendant you didn’t know you wanted.

The picture-perfect fishing port of Marsaxlokk (pronounced marsashloke and home to a fishing fleet and attendant great seafood) is near the airport and thus a great way to decompress whether coming or going. On a Saturday in Marsaxlokk, restaurants offer all kinds of alfresco dining. I eeny-meeny-miny-moed one of the tents arrayed along the harbor and had some of the best amberjack I’ve ever tasted (they call it acciola).

I liked Zurrieq for a different reason: Not a tourist town, it seemed the most genuinely Maltese. It’s also where a shopkeeper – a sweet man – started crying when talking about the global economic downturn. Until that moment, I’d envied his situation in life. Turns out he envied mine.

The town seemed Italian, with old men gathering on the streets near dusk to talk about a day that was a lot like the one before. Meanwhile,

the old women went into the main church, I think to pray for their old men outside.

THE FOOD

I’m not a foodie, but the standard fare of Malta seemed bland for a country so close to Italy, where you can find great restaurants blindfolded. I’m sure there’s great food here; I just didn’t find it, with that one exception in Marsaxlokk.

The only chichi restaurant I wanted to try was the one in Mdina seemingly favored by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie when he was shooting a movie here in 2011 (“World War Z,” set for release in 2013).

The man answering the phone at GETTING ARO De Mondion UND: Arriva M alta (arriva.co mt) provides (tinyurl.com/ m. bus service al l over Malta, in the airport. Dai cluding csyq5r2) ly and weekly passes are di driving, expect rt cheap. If seemed Italian-like inte nsity while driv ing on the stunned that left. GPS advise d.

STAYING THER I thought I E: I rented thro ugh homeaw last October, bu ay.com could make a t the Malta To urism Authority vides a wide ar prosame-day resray of options at visitmalta. com.There yo ervation. I didn’t u also find lin ks to try again. historic sites.

Malta’s national

IF YOU GO

dishes are rabbit stew and lampuka (dolphin fish). I thought the “stew” part meant I would not see enough rabbit shape to discern that I was eating a bunny. But there that big leg sat. It wasn’t bad, but I prefer fish. The lampuka was OK, but my serving was no big deal.

OK, THE HISTORY

You could spend an eon visiting crypts, churches, museums. For a comprehensive history lesson in one 45-minute sitting, do it with a film, “The Malta Experience” (themaltaexperience.com) along the Grand Harbor in Valletta.

See St. John’s Co-Cathedral in central Valletta for jaw-dropping opulence.

This place is integral to Maltese history’s chief players: the Knights of Malta (the Crusades, the Maltese cross, etc.)

You should see at least one of the prehistoric temples. Some are on the smaller island of Gozo, requiring a ferry ride. I preferred the Hagar Qim Temple on the southwest coast of Malta, minutes west of Zurrieq. (How the heck did those guys quarry and transport a 20-ton stone?)

And spend a day in Mdina. The Normans did nice work. Trust me. History can make for a relaxing vacation.

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HERS | READIT

Fifty shades of schlock WORDS BY MICHAEL MORRISSEY FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

By E L James Arrow books, $19.95

A few years ago I witnessed a phenomenon never seen before or since. If you took a walk in the park, a ride on a bus or a train or a stroll along the beach, you would see someone avidly devouring The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Why that book and not some other is the question writers and publishers might ask.

In the case of The Da Vinci Code, an answer can be proffered – the subject matter. Brown had revisited and fictionalised Holy Blood, Holy Grail. (itself a work of fiction one might argue). The Saviour was portrayed as not celibate but sexually linked to Mary Madgdalene – they had had children and the Catholic Church was determined to cover up the scandal.

So prevalent was the book, the Vatican issued a stern denial of its inaccurate assumptions and presumptions.

Now we have a second book selling

as hotly as a sausage sizzle – some 40 million copies (including two sequels) to date – putting it (alas) on par with 1984 by George Orwell, another book that explores pain, though in much more sobering fashion.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a mono dimensional traditional woman’s romance (never short of a sale) plus heavy injections of sado-masochistic sex. There is even a contract to be signed, sealed and delivered. Fortunately, the heroine can opt out without financial repercussion but of course she doesn’t because if she did there would be no “story” and there would only be five shades of beige.

Christian Grey (surely to be played

by Christian Bale in a film version) is a ridiculously handsome, obscenely wealthy alpha male who seeks only women willing to be Submissives to him, the Dominant. I thought feminism had made these guys obsolete or out of date but it seems not – at least not in fiction.

Like the cheap porn it emulates, Fifty Shades of Grey is repetitive, obsessive and ultimately boring. But in this case, these drawbacks seem to have acted as commercial advantages. Despite his one-sided style of loving, the abused heroine falls in love with her abuser (I’m sure the money and the power did not discourage her). And I thought the scenario of this book was a male fantasy! It seems I have been proved wrong. I like to think the millions of female readers will keep its contents as a fantasy.

Far too long – the plus 500-page book could easily have been halved. I frequently felt I was re-reading passages already written. In real life, though not often in fiction, emotional scenes repeat and repeat. Here we are not spared and Fifty Shades of Grey must be equivalent

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in bulk to three Mills and Boons. Be warned the two sequels entitled Fifty Shades of Darker and Fifty Shades Freed all heft in at over 500 pages. That’s 1500 pages of torrid prose and one hundred and fifty shades of grey. Time to reach for a copy of War and Peace which in terms of readability gives a lot more bang for your buck. Sample quote: “My heart clenches anew and releases a fresh wave of sobbing.” Tissue, anyone?

THE NIGHT CIRCUS

By Erin Morgenstern Harvill Secker, $37.99

Magic? All done with mirrors – right? But suppose the weird tricks perpetrated by magicians were real? This is the underlying proposition of this wonder-ful novel.

Not that The Night Circus reads like a work of fantasy. This is fantasy without swords, dragons and witches, science fiction (so to speak) without mutants. And it all happens in that golden age of stage and spiritualist fakery, that late nineteenth century when the table-tapping Fox sisters ruled supreme Much of is narrative conclusion and power derives from successfully sustaining the delusion that the extraordinary illusions are real. Here is a sample: ”...in the blink of an eye folds of silk are glossy black feathers, large beating wings, and it is impossible to pinpoint the moment when it is fully raven and no longer cloth.” Of course a Houdini might say, “Anything you claim to be magic I can duplicate as a trick.” In this respect, The Night Circus out-Houdini’s Houdini.

Dramatic suspense is sustained by having the two main protagonists locked in a mysterious duel. The master manipulator is a somewhat Sevengali-esque figure, Prospero the

Enchanter (real name Hector Bowen), who is competing with Mr A H via his daughter Celia and Marco as to who can out-perform the other. The clash of wills and temperaments between father Hector and daughter Celia livens up the emotional aspect of the novel which leans towards being overly descriptive. Celia’s tricks are real physical magic whereas Marco manipulates the mind – again the illusion seems real so the effect on the viewer is much the same. A double layer is added by having Celia unaware of much of the time of the identity of her rival. The rich cast of characters swarms a little too richly with so many “mutant” magicians, it is a relief (almost) to find that Herr Friedrick Thiessen’s hyper ingenious clock is actually real and no trick of the mind. Some of the

subsidiary characters have more subtle powers like the ability to tamper with memory – powers that could obviously put to sinister use though here are not so power-corrupted.

Marvellous as The Night Circus is, it suffers from a surfeit of its own over inventiveness of which the most striking is a ship made of books floating on a sea of ink. A library as The Flying Dutchman!

Almost, I found myself longing for an elephant or a lion but nowadays that sounds like I’m pining for the abuses of a bygone era of Roman excesses.

But The Night Circus is a flagrant and superb weaver of spells and well worth the journey. Regrettably, no actual circus will equal its fantastic splendours.

Incidentally, the book production is elegantly done with star-studded sky scapes adding to the nocturnal theme.

Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand

By William J. Mann Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ($30) Among the more startling revelations in William J. Mann’s engrossing chronicle of Barbra Streisand’s ascent to superstardom emerges in one of the book’s photos. It’s a childhood picture showing Streisand, as its caption notes, “with friends outside their Brooklyn tenements.” It doesn’t say how old she is, but it doesn’t matter. She’s already carrying the face that millions would soon recognize as belonging to no one but her. And her expression, as she leans on a bicycle, is a mesmerizing blend of self-possession and pugnacity that all but says aloud, “Whether you like me or not, I am going to rule your world. So why don’t you just save us both some time and get out of my way already.”

What startles about this photo isn’t just Streisand’s precocious magnetism, but how much at odds it seems with Mann’s portrait of a smart, sensitive young girl who was anything but completely self-assured, even in the years to come, when her conquests were within her grasp. And yet, as made clear throughout Hello, Gorgeous, Streisand managed to use all the things that made her seem nervous, ungainly, abrasive and unconventional as assets in her meteoric rise to the top. It was a willful act of self-invention, as unlikely as any in show-business history.

The title of Hello, Gorgeous is taken from Streisand’s opening line in Funny Girl, the 1964 Broadway musical whose tumultuous production and galvanic success make up the book’s climax. Its narrative begins four years earlier as a 17-year-old Barbara Joan Streisand – it’ll be a little while before she drops that second “a” in her first name – is taking acting lessons in Manhattan, which, despite its relative proximity to Brooklyn, seems to her light-years from her mother Diana’s apartment where, “even when nothing was cooking on the stove, the place reeked of kale,” Mann writes.

And it was as an actress, not a singer, that Streisand wanted to be taken

seriously, despite her prodigal gifts as a vocalist. (“She could speak at length about Chekhov and Shakespeare and Euripides, Mann writes. “But about music she was largely ignorant, except for some classical works and pop singer Joni James.”) A young actor named Barry Dennen, who became her first lover despite his preference for men, encouraged her to see the art of singing as yet another means of dramatic storytelling. She starts collecting prizes in singing contests, club gigs and, by the summer of 1960, has dropped that aforementioned “a” to become “the only Barbra in the world.”

Through interviews with Dennen and such friends of Streisand’s from those early 1960s years as the late comedian Phyllis Diller, vocalist (and Funny Girl understudy) Lainie Kazan and actress Kaye Ballard, Mann assembles an origin story that is vividly detailed, yet judicious in tone, even when he recounts the rapture audiences felt upon first contact with that “euphonious voice.” (Streisand herself didn’t cooperate with Mann, but he thanks her “for not throwing up any roadblocks.”)

Mann’s reporting adds much to what’s already known about her early appearances on television, including her rambling, sometimes acrimonious run-ins with Mike Wallace on his local New York talk show as well as her noteworthy guest shots on the Judy Garland and Garry Moore variety shows (where she first reinvented the old New Deal rouser, “Happy Days Are Here Again” as a bittersweet mood piece).

The other high spots are thoroughly covered: Her showstopping turn in 1962’s I Can Get It for You Wholesale, whose star Elliott Gould would become her first husband; her groundbreaking Columbia albums; and the rocky road to Funny Girl, where she faced down the skeptics (at times, herself included) who doubted she could triumph.

It helped to have a team of publicists and marketers willing to sell Streisand as “uniquely self-made” – in other words, by letting Barbra be Barbra, unfurling her carefully calculated eccentricities and self-deprecating bravado. (“If I’d known the place was going to be so crowded,” she told a glittering Hollywood nightclub audience, “I’d have had my nose fixed.”) All of which could have only happened in the 1960s, when everything seemed possible, and even a kid from Brooklyn could rise to rule her world before she’d turned 23.

By Gene Seymour

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 43

HERS | SEEIT

Anna Karenina WORDS BY ROGER MOORE & RENE RODRIGUEZ

T

he new Anna Karenina is as regal, romantic and tragic as ever. The Tolstoy tale of a bored wife and doting mother martyred by her scandalous love for a rakish cavalry officer in Imperial Russia is a perfect period vehicle for Keira Knightley, who always brings a chest-heaving sexuality to such pieces – even the understated romances of Janes Austen.

But her reunion with her Pride & Prejudice director Joe Wright has been stage-managed by the great playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard.

And he’s given Tolstoy something no earlier screen version could claim – playfulness.

Stoppard, of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, and Wright imagine the whole of Tolstoy’s rich canvas of 1870s Russia as a stage – the many melodramatic characters in his uppercrust soap opera mere players, actors stepping into the spotlight, leaning over the footlights, or ducking backstage where the ugly “real” world of just-freed peasants and poverty live among the catwalks and ropes used to raise and lower scenery.

A stellar cast waltzes through stunning sets, mixed with painted backdrops and model locomotives, some covered with snow from the pre-Soviet winters. It’s an obvious artifice that renders the over-the-top emotions and overly baroque decadence of Russia’s ruling classes, “polite society,” just a tad risible. And it’s a welcome touch.

Anna Karenina (Knightley) is lost the moment she locks eyes with the preening pretty boy Count Vronsky (played here by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, exchanging his “Kick Ass” costume for fancy military dress).

“Give me back my peace,” she pants as he curls his mustache and simmers over her.

“There can be no peace between us.”

It’s wrong. It’s sinful. And as Anna’s

statesman-husband (Jude Law, spot on) lectures, “Sin has a price. You may be sure of that.”

Anna has a sort of Emma Bovary boredom about her knuckle-cracking spouse, from his imperious ways of ordering her to bed to the fancy silver case he keeps his condoms in.

Vronsky forgets he is supposed to be smitten by Kitty – Princess Ekaterina (Alicia Vikander), younger sister to Anna’s sister-in-law. As reckless as he is rakish, he is catnip to Anna. Countess Lydia (Emily Watson) may lecture her that her husband is a “saint” and that “We must cherish him, for Russia’s sake,” but Anna’s not buying it.

And even though Anna just talked her sister-in-law (Kelly Macdonald, earthy and distraught) into forgiving and taking back Anna’s wayward brother (the hilarious Matthew Macfadyen, Knightley’s Pride & Prejudice co-star), she tumbles into an affair that will be her ruin. Will she herself be forgiven, taken back and “saved?”

Knightley and Taylor-Johnson, dolled up so that he looks like a younger Jonathan Rhys-Myers here, have a certain chemistry. But the icy parameters of a

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stale marriage were never more vividly captured than in the Law’s scenes with Knightley. Count Karenin has a sort of compassionate severity that Law, who would have made quite the Vronsky himself, ably translates.

It’s an over-familiar story, thanks to the many big- and small-screen versions of it over the years. There are too many characters to juggle, not enough scenes suggesting Anna’s obsessive devotion to her young son. But this Karenina, from its dancers-frozen-inplace waltzes to the public whispers that play like shouted indiscretions, reminds us that all the great period romances weren’t written by Ms. Austen, or even written in English.

ANNA KARENINA Cast: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kelly Macdonald Directed by: Joe Wright Running time: 129 minutes Rating: R GGG

T

he various characters in Silver Linings Playbook are gamblers, addicts, widows, adulterers and occasionally violent.

Some are certifiably insane. This is writer-director David O. Russell’s idea of a romantic comedy, and it’s terrific – one of the freshest, funniest, most elevating crowd-pleasers of the year.

Like Russell’s previous entry into the rom-com genre (1996’s Flirting with Disaster), the movie uses a hearty and deep ensemble cast to distract you from the formulaic nature of the plot.

You know where this one is headed right from the start, but the journey there is sheer pleasure and filled with surprising, strange detours.

Adapted from Matthew Quick’s novel, the film opens as Pat (Bradley Cooper), a former schoolteacher who had a breakdown when he walked in on his wife with another man, is released from a mental institution.

He’s not entirely cured of his violent outbursts – he finishes Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and chucks the book through a glass window because he’s angry over the sad ending – but he’s trying. His forgiving mother (Jacki Weaver, radiating warmth and love) tries her best to keep her son calm and happy. His father (Robert De Niro, in his liveliest performance in years) is a superstitious bookie who tries to draw Pat into his obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Even though his wife has a restraining order on him, Pat still tells everyone he’s married and believes he will somehow

be able to win her back. When he meets Tiffany (a shockingly adult Jennifer Lawrence, leagues away from her adolescent Hunger Games persona), a widow who shares his manic-depressive ways, she doesn’t even register as a possible romantic interest. Part of the fun in Silver Linings Playbook is how long Russell makes us wait for Pat to realize what’s standing right in front of him: He’s too obsessed with the past and atoning for his bad behavior to be aware of the present.

The style of Silver Linings Playbook is intentionally rough and messy, with characters talking over each other a la Robert Altman and Russell’s camera weaving through rooms without always telling you where you should look. The picture captures the boisterous nature of an extended group of relatives and the things we put up with for the sake of family, because what other choice is there? The director’s touch is present in every beat of the film, from the

uniformly great performances (Cooper in particular is amazing here; for the first time in his career, he comes across as a true leading man) to the off-kilter rhythm of the humor.

The movie doesn’t break any new ground thematically, and in other hands this same material, which climaxes with a high-stakes dance contest (!), might have made for an insufferable Katherine Heigl vehicle. But Russell and his cast make it sing – and soar, too. This is a wonderful movie that makes something really difficult seem easy: Getting you to fall in love with characters that bear little relation to the real world.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK Cast: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver Directed by: David O. Russell Running time: 117 minutes.

Rating: R GGG

Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 45

HERS | TECH

3-D modeling gives me a peek at my (virtual) nose job WORDS BY OMAR L. GALLAGA

“ Y

ou don’t have a very bad nose,” the plastic surgeon told me. “There’s not a lot to do here.” I breathed a sigh of relief. It’s one thing to have a healthy self-image, it’s quite another for a professional to tell you that a prominent feature on your face isn’t making her scalpel hand itchy.

I’ve never wanted (or, it turns out, needed) rhinoplasty, but I was very curious about a new technology housed in Dr Jennifer Walden’s plastic surgery practice. “Vectra 3D,” an imaging tool put out by a company called Canfield Imaging Systems, has been in use there since September and nearly 100 patients have been digitally scanned using it.

Vectra 3D looks like a tall piece of gym equipment with arms, but instead of working out on it, you stand in front of its six cameras, holding perfectly still as it photographs your face, breasts or any other body part expected to go under the knife.

The photographs go to a nearby computer that builds, in just a few minutes, a highly detailed 3-D model that can be rotated and adjusted with a set of tools used by plastic surgeons like Walden.

It was at this point, after my face had been swabbed with alcohol and I’d been scanned, my pores and eyebrows and beard and that nose digitally rebuilt, that my virtual plastic surgery consultation began.

Walden, an Austin native who brought her practice to town in December after a successful run in Manhattan, is well-known on TV channels like E! and VH1 for her frequent appearance on celebrity plastic surgery shows like Extreme Dr. 90210. One of her clients was The Biggest Loser winner Olivia Ward. Walden, who came back to town to raise her two-year-old twin boys here, is an early adopter.

Though they’ve only been around four or five years and are still not mainstream, she believes such 3-D imaging systems will be standard in about 10 years. Walden’s Vectra system is the first of its kind in the Austin area and cost about $40,000.

As we examine my face in great detail, I decide to leave all vanity behind. That turns out not to be so easy. I’m not really planning on having surgery, but when a digital image of your face is blown up on a monitor and a doctor starts examining the contours of your schnoz, it’s difficult not to feel self-conscious.

“You have a very good bridge,” Walden tells me.

My confidence surges.

“If I were doing your nose, I’d probably lower it just a bit. You have good tip projection. I might just bring it back a bit.”

What? Is my bridge too high? Does my nasal tip stick out too much? You guys, DOES THIS NOSE MAKE ME LOOK FAT?!

Walden assures me that this is just a

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hypothetical to test out the technology.

I try not to freak out.

What follows wouldn’t seem unfamiliar to anyone who’s watched a graphic artist do detail work in Photoshop or a video game player who’s uploaded a webcam image of his or her face to use in a football or hockey game. Using the system’s software, Walden can make adjustments to the nose, narrowing it, eliminating a nasal lump or making other automated visual changes, then going in and finetuning manually.

She carefully carves the bridge of my digitized nose a bit, brings in the tip and, using a front view, narrows the nose carefully.

“Do you have anything in a Disney Princess nose?” I ask, trying to help.

The digital imaging appears much finer and the tools more subtle than those you’d find in most consumer photo-editing software. There are no seams in the constructed digital face and you’d swear you could print out a fleshy copy of it and stick it on Nicolas Cage for a scene in the movie Face/ Off. The image swings smoothly in 3-D from front to profile view. It can be rotated back so that you can get a clear view up my nostrils.

When the doctor is done, she shows me a side-by-side comparison of my nose before and after the digital rhinoplasty.

It’s not an extreme change, but there’s a clear difference. My nose is a little thinner and sticks out a bit less, but doesn’t seem out of place on my face.

“You just got a conservative nose job,” Walden says.

You could have a lot of fun with Vectra, I imagine, playing “Weird Science” with people’s bodies, but Walden says that above all else, the system is practi-

cal and useful for both patients and plastic surgeons.

“It shows people what they’ll look like, realistically, after the surgery.

It really is just a better, more accurate analysis of the anatomy.”

Plastic surgeons typically use 2-D imaging tools now and in the past simply drew on printed photos to give patients an idea of what to expect.

In some examples that Walden showed me, a more extreme rhinoplasty eliminated a patients pronounced bridge bump. And in the case of a recent breast augmentation, the 3-D model was able to help the patient and doctor determine the appropriate size for implants and to see that, due to scoliosis, one implant would need to be slightly larger than the other.

“It confirmed the pre-operative analysis and aided in the decision making,” Walden said. “Not unlike a lot of women (the patient) waffled in what size implants she wanted for a while. I was able to give her objective evidence of what it would look like.”

The imaging is so helpful that Walden doesn’t add the use of it to the cost of any of her procedures.

Despite the plastic surgeon’s obvious skills, I’m keeping my current nose. But if I decide in a few years that a brow lift or tummy tuck is in order (hey, don’t judge), it’s reassuring to know that I’ll be able to get a pretty detailed 3-D preview of the new me.

When the doctor is done, she shows me a side-by-side comparison of my nose before and after the digital rhinoplasty. It’s not an extreme change, but there’s a clear difference Dec 2012/Jan 2013 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 47