Story By: by Chris Benderev

Ohshiro and Koki Maeda are real-life brothers playing brothers in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film, I Wish, a tale of a divided family and one boy’s plan to bring it back together.

I Wish

Rated PG for mild thematic elements, language and smoking

With: Koki Maeda, Ohshiro Maeda, Ryoga Hayashi, Cara Uchida

In Japanese with subtitles

When you’re young, there’s just so much to misunderstand about the world. And isn’t that kind of what makes it such fun?

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film I Wish is designed to make us long for the misadventures of childhood by giving us another set of ups and downs to follow: the tribulations of Koichi Osako, a 12-year-old Japanese boy with a plan to reunite his family.

Things begin with Koichi (Koki Maeda) casting a sullen gaze at the active volcano that touches — quite literally — everything in his new hometown. The ash it spews 24-7 coats houses inside and out with a constant reminder of the possibility of a molten doom. You begin to wonder if the director is giving us a line into the Japanese psyche, battered by centuries of natural disasters.

But for Koichi, the volcanic dust doesn’t tap into ancient history. It simply reminds him of the past six months, which have been miserable. His parents’ divorce split the family in half, and he pines day and night to somehow undo what’s already done. For now, though, Koichi lives with his mother in Kagoshima, an unfamiliar city he can’t stand. His younger brother Ryu (Oshiro Maeda, Koki’s real-life younger brother) is under the care of their father in Fukuoka, a couple of hours north by train.

As it happens, trains will figure heavily into Koichi’s plan for family unity, which he only hatches in full one day at school upon overhearing a secret about kiseki, or miracles. Any wish you have will come true, his classmate explains with scientific certainty, if you wish it closely enough to the spot where two bullet trains pass each other for the first time. Koichi remembers that a new rail line is set to debut nearby, and suddenly he has his mission.

The narrative centers mostly on Koichi’s trip to this miraculous train-passing zone, which will require backup (his brother and their friends), along with means (there are more loose coins than you’d think under Japan’s vending machines) and a strong alibi for skipping class (it helps to get the school nurse on your side).

Kore-eda wants us to remember the way in which children desire the outlandish and impossible, so he gives them the majority of the screen time here. It’s a decision that pays great dividends. The Maedas — a comedic duo by trade — pair well as the straight man and the jokester; Koki’s Koichi is businesslike in every pursuit, while Oshiro’s Ryu, who wears a constant grin and is prone to chasing dragonflies, tends to live so blissfully in the present that he can’t be bothered with intricate schemes.

When Koichi and Ryu don’t see eye to eye, the tension percolates believably beneath their dialogue. They’re honest while navigating around their conflicts, just like real brothers might be. Of course maybe that’s because they are, but it takes talented performers to make casting brothers as brothers come off as a smart — not simplistic — choice.

Kore-eda got his start in documentaries, and he treats the children in this film more like autonomous subjects than like actors. They weren’t given scripts; instead, he fed them their lines on filming days. Do that, and you’re bound to wind up with glitches of bad timing and jokes that fall flat. I Wish is no exception, but more often than not Kore-eda’s technique creates space for something truly special in a film: kids talking like kids.

The film invites us into the world of a child in more ways than one, though. The director scores life in suburban Japan mostly with bouncy, playful tones and quirky instrumentation. The lighting feels true to life; no one’s manufacturing ominous auras.

Kore-eda has a true talent for the “show, don’t tell” method, letting the story unspool over long periods with minimal dialogue. Applied to subplots like Koichi’s grandfather’s burgeoning cake business, that can grow tiresome. But when the action picks up, his documentarian sensibilities engage. Then it’s terrific fun as his wobbly camera rushes to keep up with our young band of adventurers.

Each of the seven children (Koichi, Ryu and their trusty sidekick friends) brings his or her own wish for the train-passing. Maybe that’s one or two too many; it’s hard to root equally for some of the peripheral characters. Still, it’s the scenes where the kids gather into a circle and share their aspirations —competing with a cartoon superhero, marrying the fetching school nurse — in which Kore-eda succeeds in bottling the energy of that cusp between magical possibility and adulthood. It’s a tiny miracle that we’re allowed to revisit it here.

Iranian rapper draws Shi’ite wrath, death bounty(Reuters, May 14, 2012)

Dubai – An Iranian rapper living in Germany has a $100,000 bounty on his head after an Islamist website offered a reward for anyone who kills him over a song that satirizes the Islamic Republic and irreverently addresses a historic religious figure.

The Iranian news and religion website Shia-Online.ir said hip-hop star Shahin Najafi deserved to die for a song which it said “grossly insulted” Ali al-Hadi al-Naqi, one of the 12 imams, the religious figures highly revered by Shi’ite Muslims.

Najafi denied his song focused on the revered Shi’ite imam or was meant to criticize Islam.

The song takes the form of a prayer to the ninth century Naqi and expresses ironic reverence for many contemporary Iranian figures.

With references ranging from Iranians’ love of nose jobs to economic sanctions and the contested 2009 presidential election, the song’s Farsi language lyrics would mean little to a foreigner but have resonated with Iranians and have earned it more than 320,000 hits on YouTube.

Many rap songs by exiled Iranians would be politically and morally offensive to authorities in the Islamic Republic, where little home-grown pop music is allowed. But Najafi’s constant refrain of “O Naqi” has drawn more ire than usual.

“A (website) founder who lives in one of the Gulf Arab states has promised to pay the ($100,000) bounty on behalf of Shia-Online.ir to the killer of this abusive singer,” the site said in a posting.

In echoes of the 1989 fatwa – religious ruling – ordering the death of British author Salman Rushdie for his novel “The Satanic Verses”, which was deemed blasphemous – a senior cleric in Iran said Najafi’s rap might merit a death sentence.

Asked by his followers about the song, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi said in a ruling: “Any outrage against the infallible imams … and obvious insult against them would make a Muslim an apostate,” Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

Apostasy carries a death sentence under Islamic laws which are applied in predominantly Shi’ite Iran.

Speaking to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Najafi said: “I thought there would be some ramifications. But I didn’t think I would upset the regime that much. Now they are taking advantage of the situation and making it look like I was trying to criticize religion and put down believers.

“For me it is more of an excuse to talk about completely different things. I also criticize Iranian society in the song. It seems as though people are just concentrating on the word ‘imam’.”

Najafi, in his early 30s, was active in Iran’s underground music scene before he left the country in 2005.

Iranian officials have not yet commented on Najafi’s song and Iran’s media have not widely reported the bounty put on his head by the Shi’ite website.

Najafi said he had taken some “precautionary measures” because “some of the supporters of the regime want to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation”.

Dubai: As Pakistan’s bowling coach, Aaqib Javed played a pivotal role for his country, but he admits it was the biggest challenge of his career.

"I joined the Pakistan team as coach during the toughest phase of our cricket," the new UAE coach said.

"We missed playing home series during the last three-and-half years and I am glad the way Pakistan team has faced the challenge and still produced good performances.

"It is not easy to play all the time away from their home but they had to and it was tough for everyone.

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This is not by accident, a case of insurmountable physical challenges, an unwilling partner or prioritizing career over children. At age 39, the window of my fertility is sliding shut, but I feel no sense of dread, panic or regret. I have known since I was a child myself that I didn’t want to have any of my own. It’s simply astonishing to me how frequently people — strangers, especially — have felt that I should answer to them for that.

A married woman who chooses not to have children is highly suspect to some, broken in some fundamental way. My friends know that I am not and that I support their parenthood in any way I can. I have offered solace while they grieved over infertility and miscarriage. I have wept with joy, staring into the faces of their children for the first time — seeing in them the undeniable imprint of their parents and loving them already and always, just for that. I have taken my friends’ sad and stumbling teens on long walks, under the auspices of their parents to whom they’d simply stopped talking.

When my best friend of nearly two decades asked me to be present at the birth of her child, I simply said yes. I did not know that it would entail kneeling aside a tub for hours, her head in one of my hands, and her knees locked into her husband’s and my elbows as she heaved and strained their son out into the world in a bloody, howling, miraculous mess. I watched her face as she held him to her chest and fell in lifelong love with him — as her heart grew extra chambers, as she metamorphosed into a mother.

I felt nothing but pure bliss for her budding family — and nothing but contentment for myself having been lucky enough to witness this momentous thing. Not a pang, not an emptiness, not a tick or a twinge. One of the concerns often levied at intentionally childless people is that we’ll never truly know love until it is reflected back to us by our own flesh and blood. I suppose I should be grateful for that level of solicitousness, but it tends to smack of pity and disdain. So do the allegations of selfishness.

Mother’s Day after losing mom

I remember this as clear as day, being 10 years old and a friend telling me I’d be a bad mother. The children from her parents’ home day care had crawled up to the tip-top shelf where she’d stashed her social studies project and smashed it all to bits. She’d brought in the tattered remains to our unsympathetic teacher, who gave her a failing grade for the project. I was livid from the injustice of it all — from the cranky, burned-out educator who no longer had any business molding young minds, to her parents who made her live in a home that stank of diapers and was never silent, to the pint-sized savages who had laid waste to her lovely work.

“How do you stand it?” I asked. “All of it. The noise, the diaper changing, not having anything ever be private?”

She hissed at me, wounded, “You’re going to be a horrible mother!”

“No, I’m not,” I calmly replied. “I’m not going to be a mother at all.”

Somehow I understood it in my bones, as deeply and simply as know I have hazel eyes and cannot sing: I was never going to carry a child inside my body, and I was completely at peace with that. The need, want and drive are simply not there. Nearly three decades later, that hasn’t wavered, though it has hardly gone unassailed by others who have felt compelled to critique or to pry.

My Mother’s Day gift to myself: Forgetting fear

My family has always understood this about me and was content with my sister and me finding fulfillment in other arenas. On both sides, there were some aunts or uncles who never married or reproduced, and it wasn’t seen as a metric for happiness. When my husband and I married, he was 40, it was his second time, and the next generation (and their children) were well under way. I gather that being spared familial pressure is a rare and tremendous thing, and I am grateful for it.

To friends and strangers who ask, I say I just don’t want to. If they push further, “You two would make such great parents!” (Take THAT, childhood pal!), I tout the role of the fabulous New York City aunt — an Auntie Mame (minus the mansion) or Cousin Serena (minus the magical powers). Often, that stops the interrogation, but on occasion (or online), it gets hostile. How dare I? What’s wrong with me?

I toss aside the accusations of selfishness: Not having to care for children of our own makes my husband and me nimble with our assistance when it’s needed. We’re quick with a listening ear and a chilled cocktail for friends in need of company, share cash and volunteer time we might not have otherwise had and are fluent in cranky, misfit teen. As we often tell our friends and family, we may not be especially comfortable cradling babies, but when your kid hits puberty and decides they “hate” you and the rest of humanity, hand ‘em over. We’ll let them know how lucky they are to have you as parents.

A Mother’s Day confession: I’m jealous of my baby

Less easy to shake off is the assertion that a female who does not bear a child is somehow not a real woman. I’m secure in my choice but deeply disappointed that one woman would wield that as a slur against another. I’ve no right to mandate what a mother should teach her daughter, but I hope, deep down in my nullipara heart, that some of the lessons would be about personal freedom, the beauty of difference and the possibility that a person could be content and complete all on her own.

And I am not alone. In the world I’ve made for myself, I have a career I adore and friends who fill my head, heart and waking hours. They are in various stages of couple and singlehood, childlessness and large-brooded, and each illuminates my world in a different way. They make my heart larger, stronger and better.

At home, there is my family: the husband who I tell on a daily basis that he is my favorite person on Earth (I made sure on our second date that he didn’t want kids either; otherwise, there would not have been a third), a rabbit and our two dogs. They are not our children, as they are for some people, but they are our charges, and we fuss and spoil accordingly.

On Mother’s Day, I’ll come downstairs, rub the sleep out of my eyes, pour some coffee and cuddle in with my odd little pack on the couch. There might not be a greeting card for that, but I don’t need one. Everything I want is right here.

Story By: by Scott Neuman

“It was a bad strategy. It was badly executed.”

The words of JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, as he admitted late yesterday that the investment bank — or, more precisely, a single “rogue trader” working for the bank, had lost some $2 billion in the last six weeks in risky hedge-fund trades.

The news has sent chills through the markets. Shares of JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, lost 7 percent in after-hours trading and British bank Barclays lost 2.9 percent, while more than 2 percent was shaved from Royal Bank of Scotland.

NPR’s Jim Zarroli reports, the trades at JPMorgan Chase:

took place in a unit of the company that is supposed to manage or hedge risk. But this time the unit employed an unusually complex strategy that ended up backfiring on the bank.

The losses are especially embarrassing for Dimon because he had taken pains to deny the rumors circulating around the bank.

“We operate in a risk business and obviously it puts egg on our face and we deserve any criticism we get, so feel free to give it to us and we’ll probably agree with you,” he said in a conference call yesterday.

The Wall Street Journal elaborates:

[the losses] stemmed from trades in the bank’s chief investment office, where a single trader — dubbed the “London Whale” — reportedly took massive positions in credit-default swaps.

Mr. Dimon, who in April had described news reports of the trader’s leviathan market exposure as a “tempest in a teapot,” on Thursday called the losses “egregious mistakes” and said the losses could deepen this quarter and beyond.

Dimon acknowledged yesterday that he had been speaking to bank regulators about what had happened and that they are likely to launch an investigation.

The losses at JPMorgan Chase come as Congress is debating the so-called Volcker Rule. Named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, it is designed to prevent certain kinds of high-risk trading, but it’s not clear if the rule would cover the precise trades that got JPMorgan Chase in trouble. Dimon has been a big critic of the rule.

The Wall Street Journal‘s MarketWatch says:

Dimon denied on a hastily convened conference call that the trading activity of the bank — which in part were bets that the corporate credit on an index of 125 companies — violated the Volcker Rule, part of the sweeping Dodd-Frank bank reform measures passed after the financial crisis.

There’s one good reason for Dimon’s contention: The Volcker Rule isn’t in effect for another two years. In fact, Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, was in front of Congress just Wednesday defending the still-to-be-implemented regulation against ferocious attacks.

…

But Dimon may have been right even if the Volcker Rule were in effect today. That’s because the rule does permit trading on behalf of a client. It’s going to be down to judgment calls by regulators as to whether trading is proprietary or not.

The most significant damage to JPMorgan Chase may not be the $2 billion in trading losses or the even bigger hit it’s likely to take from shareholders in the next few days. The image of JPMorgan Chase as one of the best-run investment banks is also going to be tarnished.

Salon says:

Until now JPMorgan was renowned for the excellence of its risk management strategies. It was one of the few big banks to come out of the financial crisis stronger than before the meltdown. While other banks collapsed or sought shotgun mergers, J.P. Morgan was the killer whale gobbling up the weakened predators around it. Dimon even complained mightily about being forced to take a government bailout. His bank didn’t need it, he said, and he returned the money as fast as he possibly could.