Crowded Wardrobes Penned By The Impossible Eu Politician

Editor’s note: African Voices highlights Africa’s most engaging personalities, exploring the lives and passions of people who rarely open themselves up to the camera.

Watch the show: Friday : 0730, Saturday :1430, Sunday : 0800,1730, Monday : 0930,1630, Tuesday : 0430 (all times GMT)

(CNN) — He is lauded as one of Africa’s most unique voices, with a fanbase stretching across the world, but South African singing sensation Vusi Mahlasela remains faithful to his roots.

For more than 20 years, the legendary singer has been celebrated globally for his powerful vocals and universal messages of freedom and human kindness. He has toured the world extensively and collaborated with major music stars such as Sting, Paul Simon and Dave Matthews.

But despite all his success and international acclaim, Mahlasela still resides in Mamelodi, the small township northeast of Pretoria where he grew up and nurtured his passion and talent for music.

He says it all started for him here.

“Quite a lot of inspirations and also some of the songs that I wrote, I penned them here in Mamelodi,” says Mahlasela, who is known in South Africa as “The Voice.” “I still have very strong connections with this place,” he adds. “I feel rooted and connected to this place, I love it.”

A humble star, Mahlasela?s roots are reflected in his songs and lyrics, many written during one of the toughest times in South Africa?s history — the fight against apartheid.

Somali rapper K’naan makes songs in the key of love

Perhaps his most famous song, “When You Come Back,” has become an anthem in the country, celebrating the return of those who escaped apartheid and lived in exile.

Mahlasela says the song’s hopeful lyrics, written years before South Africa?s democratic change, were also for those arrested, like former South African president Nelson Mandela — not surprisingly, Mahlasela was asked in 1994 to perform at Mandela?s inauguration.

Passionate about spreading the traditional African philosophy, Ubuntu, many of Mahlasela?s global tours throughout his career have been benefit concerts. He has also become an ambassador to the 46664 foundation — named after Mandela?s prison number and dedicated to raising awareness about HIV/AIDS.

“That spirit of collective good, it’s still in the principle of ubuntu,” he says. “Everyday kindness, love, forgiveness, reconciliation, so everything about us that makes us human.”

Honoring a career that spans 20 years and 10 albums, Mahlasela was recently given a lifetime achievement award in South Africa.

Watch: Vusi Mahlasela’s creative process

The singer is now focusing on helping younger generations, supporting Africa?s future generation of musicians and songwriters through the foundation he created in 2000.

“It is to give music lessons, but also to develop even those who are playing already and we do have outreach programs for primary schools,” says Mahlasela.

“They’re trying to encourage the schools and the governments to give lessons to the young ones and to encourage also the musicians or the students to start picking up folk, indigenous, traditional instruments, because it’s something that they really have to be proud of and to infuse them with Western instruments.”

On stage, Ubuntu shines through. Mahlasela?s distinctive vocals blend in wonderfully with his enchanting music, taking the listeners on an emotional journey.

“My music is sort of more accessible to every listener, young and old, they love my music,” he says.

“And I’ve seen it also happen that I have also gotten that energy back from the people — performing and after that when I’m going out there to sign CDs people will come to me with quite a lot of different great compliments, so it gives me the pleasurable feeling that I can really give something to the people and that will really change their lives to the better.”

(CNN) — About every two weeks, Rick Allen gets a series of thermal snapshots from high above Earth that show how water gets used across the western United States, a perennial source of friction in the largely arid region.

“We see all of the cold spots, which are irrigated fields,” said Allen, the director of the Water Resources Research Program at the University of Idaho. “We take the relative temperatures and transform that into an equivalent of an amount of water used in cubic feet per acre per day, or cubic meters, or inches of depth. We can transform that information into types of units that are used by water managers and state agencies to manage water consumption.”

The stream of data that Allen dips into has been flowing since 1984, when NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite went into orbit. Landsat 5 finally shut down in November, and it successor, Landsat 7, beams back a set of images of Allen’s region to the U.S. Geological Survey every 16 days — but because of a faulty scanner, they come in with black streaks across them. A replacement is being readied for launch, but it’s unlikely to make it aloft before January.

“We’ll be hobbling through the year 2012 using only Landsat 7 with incomplete imagery,” Allen said. “That’s really hurting us badly.”

It’s a problem facing other scientists as well, as a combination of budget pressure, program delays and a pair of launch failures leaves the United States facing a “rapid decline” in its fleet of Earth-science satellites, the National Academy of Sciences warns. Of 23 such satellites now aloft — carrying dozens of instruments that help weather forecasters produce storm warnings and measure pollution, ocean winds and sea levels — only six are expected to remain in operation by 2020, and efforts to replace them have stalled, the National Research Council reports.

“These precipitous decreases warn of a coming crisis in Earth observations from space, in which our ability to observe and understand the Earth system will decline just as Earth observations are critically needed to underpin important decisions facing our nation and the world,” according to a May report from the Academy’s National Research Council. “Advances in weather forecast accuracy may slow or even reverse, and gaps in time series of climate and other critical Earth observations are almost certain to occur.”

NASA calls the report “overly pessimistic,” however. In a statement to CNN, the space agency says many of its satellites have lasted far beyond their expected lifetimes, and that scientists are getting regular data from other countries’ probes.

“NASA is developing a set of missions that will both continue critical long-term data records and demonstrate new instruments and measurement approaches for important variables that are not presently being measured from space,” it said. “Our research portfolio remains robust.”

The NRC report follows up on a 2007 study that recommended a list of 17 satellite missions for the next decade. But Dennis Hartmann, who led the committee that produced the new report, said none of those have launched “because of a variety of reasons.”

“They didn’t get as much money to use as the decadal survey assumed,” said Hartmann, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Washington. “Some things cost more, especially launch vehicles, so the overall cost has gone up.”

Meanwhile, science budgets for both NASA and NOAA aren’t keeping pace with inflation, he said, and NASA has lost two previously planned missions after liftoff.

The 2009 Orbital Carbon Observatory was to have measured the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, while 2011′s Glory would have measured solar radiation and atmospheric aerosols. Both crashed into the Pacific Ocean when the shell around the satellites failed to break away from the boosters.

The kind of observations those probes send back are critical for climate researchers like Josh Willis, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Willis relies on radar imaging from the Jason-2 satellite, which monitors the rise in sea levels scientists say is a sign of a rise in global temperatures. Jason-2′s expected lifetime is up in mid-2013, but its scheduled replacement, Jason-3, isn’t likely to be launched until late 2014. If the current satellite goes out before the new one goes up, it would break a string of uninterrupted observations that date back to the early 1990s.

“One of the reasons it’s so good and powerful is we’ve been able to link together the satellite records before the last one gets old — we’ve been able to fly a new one and get some overlap,” Willis said. “What’s important is not just what sea level is today, but how today’s sea level relates back to the past.”

The NASA-launched, NOAA-funded satellite, about the size of a refrigerator, scans nearly all of Earth’s ocean surfaces every 10 days from about 800 miles up. It has been orbiting since 2008 — and while its lifespan is officially five years, Willis said its predecessor Jason-1 is still functioning at 10.

“It’s not super-healthy, but it’s still collecting data and it’s still being used,” he said.

Of the 17 recommended missions in the 2007 survey, 15 are still in the study and review phases, NASA spokesman Steve Cole told CNN. The remaining two are expected to launch by 2016, along with a replacement for the OCO.

In the meantime, the space agency is using more aircraft flyovers to take the place of satellite observations of the Arctic and Antarctic. The program, known as IceBridge, is aimed at filling a gap between the shutdown of the ICESAT orbiter in 2010 and the espected launch of its successor, ICESAT II, in 2015. But the report by Hartmann’s committee noted that the flights “must leave unobserved large portions of the major ice sheets and sea ice” until regular space-based observations resume.

NASA is already running two other airborne missions and plans to announce more in the coming year, Cole said.

And NOAA, which manages many of the satellite programs once the hardware has reached orbit, has also made arrangements to share data from a Japanese satellite launched last week. The first of a new series of NOAA satellites aimed at boosting the accuracy of long-range forecasts went into orbit in 2011, and it also carries instruments that monitor ozone levels, energy from sunlight and moisture in the air.

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(CNN) — Lionel Messi is widely regarded as the world’s best footballer — and now it seems the Argentina star is also unrivaled among his peers off the field.

David Beckham has long been the sport’s biggest earner even in his declining years, due to his lucrative endorsement deals, but the former Manchester United and Real Madrid superstar has been eclipsed by Barcelona’s magician.

The three-time World Player of the Year was unveiled by France Football magazine as the highest-earning player in soccer on Tuesday, collecting ?33 million ($52 million) in wages and endorsements during 2011.

The 24-year-old, who has scored 51 goals for the Catalan giants in all competitions, headed a list which placed Los Angeles Galaxy’s former England captain Beckham in second on $50 million.

Beckham recently signed a new contract with the Galaxy, and unveiled a clothing line with Swedish retailer H & M earlier this year.

Messi’s on-field rival Cristiano Ronaldo also featured highly. The Portugal forward’s total earnings of $46 million in 2011 put him third ahead of Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon.

Eto’o secured a lucrative move from Inter Milan to big-spending Russian team Anzhi Makhachkala in August 2011 and he has reportedly banked $37 million.

Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney was fifth on the list with $32.6 million, while the Manchester City duo of Argentina’s Sergio Aguero and Yaya Toure of the Ivory Coast took home $29.7 million and $27.8 million respectively.

Completing the top 10 were Chelsea striker Fernando Torres ($26.4 million), Real playmaker Kaka ($24.5 million) and Bayern Munich’s Germany captain Philipp Lahm ($22.6 million).

France Football is one of Europe’s leading sports magazines, and it formerly organized the Ballon d’Or awards for the continent’s top achievers.

The Ballon d’Or has now merged with ruling body FIFA’s world player of the year awards.

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(CNN) — The life of a tennis professional is tough, but the rewards are plentiful — and not just in a financial sense.

The long trawl around the globe on both the men’s and women’s tours has often been a breeding ground for blossoming courtships, as lovestruck couples decide it is game, set and match while gazing at the figure on the opposite baseline.

With Valentine’s Day upon us, CNN World Sport charts the 15 top romances involving the stars of tennis in the gallery above. If you disagree, or think we’ve missed any out, let us know in the comments section below the story.

Who could forget the enduring romance of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, both multiple grand slam winners, whose love was reputedly cemented at the 1999 French Open champions’ ball and is still going strong after 10 years of marriage?

One of the game’s greatest ever players, Roger Federer, met his wife Mirka when the pair represented Switzerland at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

But it is not all happily ever after. Chris Evert, an 18-time grand slam champion, has served love games to two fellow professionals — Jimmy Connors and John Lloyd — only for cupid to return a double fault.

Several high-profile recent relationships have proved the kinship between tennis and other sports too, especially golf.

Golf star Rory McIlroy, who won the 2011 U.S. Open, is currently dating former tennis world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki. The partnered pair refer to themselves as “Wozilroy.”

Another golfer, Australia’s Adam Scott, has recently rekindled his romance with glamorous Serbian tennis star Ana Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open champion.

Tennis has long been linked with showbiz, and high-profile names in the game have often mingled with stars of stage and screen.

British pop crooner Cliff Richard’s relationship with 1976 French Open winner Sue Barker made waves in the early 1980s, while Agassi’s brief marriage to American actress Brooke Shields also attracted a deluge of headlines.

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(CNN) — The Australian Open provides a testing challenge for the world’s top tennis players as they turn out for the first grand slam tournament of the season.

The searing heat of the Melbourne summer sun, the high bounce of the blue Plexicushion hard-court playing surface and the boisterous atmosphere generated by the packed stands all blend together to make the January 14-29 event an unforgettable experience.

It may not yet have prestige of the other three majors, but it is a place where stars are born and where legendary reputations are no guarantee of success — and the rewards have grown greater and greater.

The 2012 edition is the 100th in the tournament’s illustrious history, but what do you know about it? CNN Sport digs up nine items of interest about the southern hemisphere’s biggest tennis event.

Richest grand slam

Although Wimbledon and the U.S. and French Opens have arguably more prestige than the Australian event, there is no doubt, that in monetary terms at least, the Melbourne grand slam leads the way. And it isn’t just the singles champions who will be laughing all the way to the bank after their $2.2 million payouts. The men’s and women’s doubles winners will each receive $468,000 per pair, while the mixed doubles champions collect $140,000 per pair.

Fighting factions

Melbourne is a melting pot of different cultures and nationalities, and has more ethnic diversity than any other city in Australia. When Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis reached the men’s singles final against Roger Federer in 2006 he was cheered on by Melbourne’s large Greek-Australian community. Sadly, in recent years, nationalistic rivalry has spilled over into sporadic fighting, notably between Serb and Croat fans.

The heat is on

As part of the Extreme Heat Policy, which was introduced in 1998, Melbourne organizers have a regulation which is referred to as a “heat stress level.” The measurement of heat stress is a combination of ambient air temperature, wind speed, humidity and the intensity of solar radiation. When daytime temperatures hit 35 degrees and the heat stress level reaches 28, then play can be suspended and the roofs on two of the main arenas closed for any new matches starting.

Nomadic existence

The tournament was initially known as the Australasian Championships, then became the Australian Championships and enjoyed a nomadic existence in its early years. As well as the 56 tournaments in Melbourne, the other 44 have been spread across several cities, including Sydney (17), Adelaide (14), Brisbane (7), Perth (3). Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand’s Christchurch and Hastings also hosted it in 1906 and 1912 respectively.

Follow the crowd

Once Melbourne was confirmed as the definitive home for the tournament, it soon became apparent that a new site needed to be constructed to accommodate the vast numbers of fans wanting to watch the action. In 1988 the tournament moved to the newly-built Melbourne Park complex and, since then, attendance figures have continued to soar. The main Rod Laver Arena has a seating capacity of 14,820, while the Hisense Arena can hold 11,000.

Surface switches

The tournament was played on grass until it left Kooyong. For the first two decades the new playing surface was the green Rebound Ace hard-court material, made by an Australian company, but in 2008 it changed to the U.S.-produced Plexicushion Prestige — which supposedly retains less heat and has better stability for players than its predecessor. Roger Federer and Serena Williams are the only players to have won the Australian title on both types of courts, while Sweden’s Mats Wilander is unique in his wins on grass and Rebound Ace.

Famous names honored

The Australian Open singles trophies are named after Norman Brookes and Daphne Akhurst. Brookes was a legendary player in the formative years of the game. He was the first non-Briton to win Wimbledon in 1907, and in 1926 he became the first president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia — a post he held for the next 28 years. Akhurst dominated Australian tennis in the 1920s, winning five Australian Opens before tragically dying of an ectopic pregnancy at the age of 29.

Hingis makes history

Martina Hingis was just 16 years, three months old when she beat Mary Pierce in the 1997 women’s final to become the youngest winner of a grand slam singles title. Remarkably the youngest men’s winner is also the oldest. In 1953, the 18-year-old Ken Rosewall won the first of his four Australian Open titles. The last of his wins came in 1972 at the age of 37 years and two months, making Rosewall the oldest grand slam singles champion in history — while the 19-year span between his first and last title is also a record.

Edmondson’s shock victory

Australian legend John Newcombe was expected to stroll to his third Australian Open title, and eighth grand slam success, in 1976. His unseeded 22-year-old opponent Mark Edmondson had been taken to five sets by Austrian Peter Feigl in his opening match but caused a major upset by dumping top seed Rosewall out in the semifinals. Newcombe was the hot favorite to retain his title but, after winning the opening set, Edmondson hit back to take the next three for a stunning triumph. Edmondson went on to become an accomplished doubles player, claiming four Australian Open titles in the 1980s, but he never won another grand slam singles title.

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London (CNN) — Manchester City won the English league title for the first time in 44 years to deny rivals Manchester United a 20th domestic championship in a gripping conclusion to the Premier League season.

Defending champions United had looked on course to win the title after winning 1-0 at Sunderland thanks to Wayne Rooney’s first-half effort, but City scored two remarkable stoppage-time goals to fashion an improbable 3-2 home victory against Queens Park Rangers.

City had led the table on goal difference at the start of Sunday and Pablo Zabaleta’s first-half goal suggested Roberto Mancini’s side would comfortably win their first title since 1968.

But a mistake by Joleon Lescott allowed Djibril Cisse to level and following a red card for QPR midfielder Joey Barton, Jamie Mackie popped up to head in the visitors’ second goal to give United fans hope that their team might yet snatch the title from their city rivals.

City bombarded the QPR penalty area and in stoppage time Edin Dzeko headed home to give their fans hope, before Sergio Aguero scored a stunning individual winner in a finale that no script writer would have dared pen.

It was a goal that ensured City won the title on goal difference in the Premier League’s 20th season, arguably the most dramatic finish in its history given it was decided in the last three minutes.

“To win it like this is incredible,” Mancini, who at times during the second half gave the impression he could barely believe his side appeared to be doing all they could to throw away the title, told Sky Sports. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a finale like this.

“We didn’t deserve to lose, we had a lot of chances and we deserved to win the game and championship.

“It’s fantastic for the club and the supporters after 44 years. It’s been a crazy season and a crazy last minute.”

In 1999 United won the Champions League final with two stoppage-time goals against Bayern Munich in Barcelona and Sunday’s epic events bore parallel, though this time the Red Devils manager Sir Alex Ferguson had to suffer as victory was snatched away from him in those heart-palpitating final moments.

“I would like to say on behalf of Manchester United congratulations to our neighbors,” said Ferguson. “It’s a fantastic achievement to win the Premier League. It’s the hardest league in the world and anyone who wins it deserves it.”

The rollercoaster game at the Eithad Stadium that wrung every ounce of emotion out of both City and QPR fans had consequences at the other end of the table given a Rangers defeat would have condemned them to relegation if Bolton Wanderers had beaten Stoke City away — and at one stage Owen Coyle’s side led 2-1 at the Britannia Stadium.

But a 77th-minute Jonathan Walters goal earned Stoke a 2-2 draw to relegate Bolton to the Championship and allow QPR — managed by former Manchester City manager Mark Hughes — to stay up in the Premier League.

Arsenal finished third after a 3-2 win at West Brom to secure their Champions League place, while north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur beat Fulham 2-0 to take fourth.

Premier League’s expansion over 20 years

Spurs will join Arsenal in the Champions League only if Chelsea lose to Bayern Munich in the European Cup final on May 19.

Newcastle’s hopes of a Champions League place evaporated after a 3-1 defeat at Everton, though Alan Pardew’s team have the consolation of a Europa League place.

It is estimated that Manchester City’s owner Sheikh Mansour from the ruling family of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has invested close to $1.6 billion in securing this Premier League title.

The title gives City’s owners huge kudos, though not necessarily immediate financial benefits.

“It should be remembered that there is a price of success, namely bonus payments to players and managers,” financial blogger Kieron O’Connor, who writes the Swiss Ramble blog, told CNN.

“In fact, it is entirely possible that the net financial result might be negative for a direct comparison between finishing first or second, though it might be different if the comparison is against coming, say, sixth the previous season.”

It is a title that City probably should have wrapped up a long time ago.

At one stage in December after their barnstorming start to the season — notably a 6-1 win over the defending champions at Old Trafford — City were eight points of United after beating Norwich 5-1.

However, a combination of Carlos Tevez going AWOL after falling out with Mancini, Yaya Toure’s absence as he played for the Ivory Coast at the African Cup of Nations, David Silva’s dip in form and Mario Balotelli’s ill-disciplined antics allowed the defending champions to claw back that deficit and go eight points clear.

But a disastrous April for United — including a 1-0 defeat by City at the Eithad Stadium — enabled Mancini’s team to move top on goal difference going into the final round of matches.

Sunday’s games were broadcast to 211 countries around the world — testament to the Premier League’s global appeal.

The remarkable end to the season could not have come at a better time for the league given it has recently announced the new tender for its next three-year broadcasting rights starting from the 2013-14 season.

“Games going down to the last game of the season will certainly increase interest and may in turn show the league as more valuable because of the unresolved title, Champions League and relegation issues,” said lawyer Daniel Geey of Field Fisher Waterhouse.

Sunday’s 10 games also ensured this was the most prolific Premier League season ever with 1,066 goals, beating last season’s record total of 1,063.

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Editor’s note: Part culture show, part travel show, over six weeks Fusion Journeys takes six stars of the creative world to a location of their choice. There, they will create something new inspired by their experience.

(CNN) — With a star-studded client list that includes Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Roberts and Michelle Pfeiffer, Trelise Cooper is an internationally known fashion designer.

Starting out with a boutique store in Auckland, New Zealand, during the mid-1980s, Cooper’s ascent onto the fashion stage — and the front covers of Vogue and Marie Claire — is made more remarkable by the fact that she never received any formal training as either a designer or seamstress.

Instead, Cooper relied on her self-confessed “obsession” for detail, as well as a natural eye for fashion. “I was born a fashion designer” she says, and soon after she set up shop, her clothes acquired a reputation for their bold use of pattern and intricate stitching.

Cooper took up the “Fusion Journey” challenge to travel from New Zealand to New Delhi, India’s capital. Although it’s a city she had been to on business many times before, she says that she’d never allowed herself the time to study its traditional dress in earnest.

See more Fusion Journeys

There she was tasked with creating a new fashion line that would combine her own sophisticated modern style with the vibrant, brightly colored traditions of Indian dress-making.

In her own words, Cooper retraces the footsteps of her Fusion Journey.

Trelise Cooper: I absolutely adore the historical aspect of clothing. My ranges are full of influences from 19th-century French, English, even American vintage styles. So it’s no surprise I have always enjoyed combing through flea markets in small towns and finding rare antique gems to steal some inspiration.

I’m also obsessed with detail, so when I find a Victorian gown or a 50s bridal slip that I like, then it’s important for me to be able to emulate the exact stitching, embroidery or beading used at the time. In the West, unfortunately, most of our expert hand-stitching traditions have been lost — the skills have not been passed on and the seamstress geniuses from the couture houses of Europe have not been replaced.

That is why I’m often traveling to India. It’s one of the very best places in the world to find that expertise still thriving. From one village to the next you find whole families, generations, that have their own specialties of stitch work.

Honestly, I can give them any old historical piece that I’ve found and they will either take it away and recreate it almost perfectly, or they’ll say “hmmm … I don’t know this stitching, but I know a place nearby that does.” It’s a fashion designer’s dream!

So in one sense, I’ve been fusing my clothes with Indian influences for a while. However, I think this was the first time I’ve traveled to India with a conscious intention to create a fusion of styles: their own traditional dress with my more modern, western creations.

I just love the color and the vibrancy that is India. New Delhi is exciting and chaotic and noisy and dusty and smoky and hot. Everything is so full of intense color and I realized that, on a subconscious level at least, I’ve been influenced by Indian style … In fact, when it comes to bold use of colors and the use of these rich, deep dyes, how can anyone deny the huge influence of India on fashion around the world?

Read related: Dancing to the music of love in Buenos Aires

Walking through the streets, you see color combinations that you’d never imagine would work. I recall a beautiful woman wearing a sari in bright, radiant pink mixed with a lime green print. I mean, lime and pink! It sounds garish, but on her, with the quality of the dye and the way the colors had been combined it looked absolutely stunning.

We made our way to a shop that I can only describe as a treasure trove of fabrics and other goodies. This was the place to find all the accessories, textiles, ribbons, bows, buttons, and beads that I could take back to my studio in Auckland to use as inspiration for the final creations.

There were ideas there, old and new, that I’d never thought about. Already I could envisage opportunities to use all sorts of different laces and braids, detailed examples of hand stitching, with some other antique dresses we’d picked up from a local supplier.

Much as I love them personally, I don’t sell things like saris — and I never would — it’s not a style that would appeal to the tastes of my particular customers. However, what I took back to New Zealand, was their techniques, their intense celebratory colors, their detailed embellishments, their expert use of beads and sequins.

I worked on the new line for many months, and these are the elements I hope I managed to incorporate into them. I think they’ve added an opulence, a romance. But I’ll only know I have finished the creative process when someone comes in and says that, no matter what, they have to have it.

The garment takes them on a journey, and so my journey with the garment has finished.

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Editor’s note: This is part of look at North Korea from the vantage point of some of those who have escaped and defected. See an accompanying story about a family now living in the U.S.

Atlanta (CNN) — Song Byeok had every reason to be pleased with his success. A gift for drawing led to a prestigious career as a propaganda artist and full membership in North Korea’s communist party.

Then the food shortages started.

Like tens of thousands of other North Koreans in the mid-1990s, Song made forays across the Tumen River to find food in China. Despite witnessing a better material life across the border, he says, he never doubted that North Korea was culturally superior. He never considered leaving his homeland for anything more than food.

“I was a believer. I saw North Koreans as pure,” Song said. “And we needed the Great Leader to protect us from outsiders.”

Today, Song paints in Seoul, South Korea, his art haunted by his former whole-hearted belief in the North Korean regime. Song’s paintings chronicle a personal, often agonizing journey from child-like allegiance to the country’s founder and “Great Leader,” Kim Il Sung, and his son, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, to Song’s life today as a contemporary artist.

In his former life, he would paint boyish-looking soldiers with heroic features across an entire side of a factory to inspire workers with the same patriotism he believed in.

His current paintings explore themes of freedom while skewering his former devotion to North Korea’s leaders. He paints children in military uniforms, their heads bowed and eyes closed. His trademark work shows Kim Jong Il’s face atop Marilyn Monroe’s famous film pose on a sidewalk grate, holding down her skirt as it billows around her hips.

The painting created a stir in South Korea, where American Greg Pence saw it and raised funds on Kickstarter to exhibit Song’s work this winter in Washington and Atlanta.

Song is passionate and sometimes brooding when discussing North Korea but gracious and open about his deeply personal passage from propaganda artist to painter who anguishes over oppression in North Korea.

Obama: North Korea will achieve nothing with provocation

Song’s journey to disbelief began the moment he watched, helpless, as his father was caught in a current during a river crossing to China and drowned. Song was halfway across when his father was swept away; he swam back but was unable to rescue him. Despondent, Song searched for his father’s body along the riverbank but was captured by North Korean border guards.

Despite his rank as a party member, getting caught meant questioning and torture by North Korean guards to confirm that he was not working for the South Koreans or the foreign missionaries based in China who proselytize among defectors.

“There were no exceptions,” he said. “All who are caught are investigated.”

In North Korea, a brutal choice

The torment of not recovering his father’s remains was much greater than the broken teeth and beatings, Song said. The beatings were so harsh, he said, he was close to death, and he believes that he was released so he would not die in custody.

More than bones, the guards’ treatment broke Song’s belief in the regime. He describes the moment he left jail as if a veil had been lifted: He saw the world with a new clarity. As he hobbled through the streets, wondering how he’d get home, he decided he wanted a different life. He decided to defect.

In a country of 25 million, only about 20,000 have defected and settled in South Korea, according to the South Korean government. There are no precise figures for how many defectors live in hiding in China; estimates from governments, researchers and non-governmental organizations vary from 25,000 to more than 400,000.

“When people are picked up in China and repatriated, they face prosecution back in North Korea if they are believed to have met with South Koreans or missionaries,” said Marcus Noland, a North Korea specialist at the Peterson Institute.

China labels North Korean escapees “economic migrants” and forcibly returns them despite accounts of torture and execution. So those hoping to defect must make their way across China to a third country.

Of those North Koreans interviewed in China, only about one in 10 say they left because of a longing for freedom, according to W. Courtland Robinson, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the issue for more than a decade.

The vast majority who leave give the same explanation Song did for his pre-defector forays into China during the famine: the search for work or food.

“The (North Korean) system is so integral to who you are,” Robinson said. “People generally don’t say ‘I am frustrated, and I want out.’ “

Song’s paintings explore that theme: a devotion to serving North Korea’s leaders so strong that citizens view it as part of their identity.

“Flower Children” shows a gaggle of smiling, uniformed schoolgirls waving and holding North Korea’s standard reading primers, “The Story of Kim Jong Il’s Childhood” and “History of Kim Il Sung.”

The girls exude childish charm, but some faces show a weariness that only comes with age, and their eyes are all closed. Their shoes have holes.

“They believe they are happy,” Song said. “They believe they are so much better off than the rest of the world because of their two leaders, who are like two suns.”

Song can still recite some of the pages from those reading primers, and he remembers walking to school in similar shoes.

Such memories inspire him to paint, he says, and he hopes people find his interpretations of those memories compelling.

“Tumen River” is done in classical Chinese style. At first glance, with its brushed mountain landscape, the painting looks like it could be from the Tang Dynasty. On closer inspection, its subtleties portray North Korea’s crippling poverty. Peasants work fields with oxen while nearby, a broken-down tractor rusts. Soldiers fish for their dinner downstream from women doing laundry by hand.

In the hills above the river are billboards common throughout North Korea, with phrases such as “All Glory To Our Nation’s Agricultural Independence” and “All Glory to Our Nation’s Great Strength.” Near the billboards, peasants dig for edible roots, which are commonly steamed in a kettle before being eaten.

“The past and the present of North Korea are the same,” Song said. “There is no progress.”

Despite the large and absolute devotion of most North Koreans to their government, Song is optimistic about their future under Kim Jong Un, who recently inherited the country’s reins after his father, the Dear Leader, died.

In a nation where every decision flows from the top, a change of leadership can transform everything.

“Kim Jong Un will want to try something new,” Song said. “You can not change the nature of youth.”

If Kim Jong Un allowed the population access to television, websites and radio from Seoul, with its opulent lifestyle, change would be inevitable, and the emotional connection to the government would gradually wither, Song believes.

Meanwhile, being caught with foreign media can mean public execution or three generations of your family being sent to prison camp. So few people outside the party elite dare to smuggle radios or DVDs from China.

But if those punishments were ever removed, Song says, North Koreans would probably lose their devotion to the regime as quickly as their Japanese neighbors stopped worshiping their emperor after World War II.

It would take only a clear view of the poverty and oppression in their life to spark cataclysmic demands for change, Song says. The spectacular failure of its command economy has made North Korea one of the poorest nations on Earth. By one plausible account, teenage defectors of the past decade are 5 inches shorter and 25 pounds lighter than their South Korean counterparts.

“I feel a great deal of anger now that I understand the problems” in North Korean society, he says. “I never felt it when I was there.”

(CNN) — Classic rockers Van Halen on Thursday abruptly postponed more than 30 tour dates, following their June 26 concert in New Orleans, representative Anna Loynes said.

No explanation was given, and there was no word on when the appearances might be made up.

Thirteen shows, including Saturday’s concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, will go on as scheduled.

The band is on tour in support of its new album “A Different Kind of Truth” — the first complete album with original lead singer David Lee Roth since the platinum-selling “1984,” which was released on the last day of 1983.

Van Halen, which formed in 1974, has a turbulent history.

Roth left the band in 1985 after a falling-out with guitarist/founder Eddie Van Halen and was replaced by vocalist Sammy Hagar, who was with the band until 1996. Former Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone joined the band for 1998′s Van Halen III — the worst-selling album of the band’s career.

At different times, Eddie Van Halen has undergone treatment for alocoholism and cancer.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 and later that year announced a reunion tour with Roth again fronting the band. The band also has replaced original bassist Michael Anthony with Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang. Several shows during the 2007-2008 tour were also postponed, but ultimately rescheduled.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America, Van Halen has sold more than 56 million albums.

Van Halen forums on the web lit up with the news, with some fretting the shows would never happen.

“This isn’t good,” said one fan who goes by the handle bsbll4 on vhlinks.com, which bills itself as “Your Van Halen Internet resource guide.”

ED-A-HOLIC posted, “there is a BIG difference between CANCELLED and POSTPONED, I just hope it’s not Eddie having to battle against Cancer again.”

CNN’s Denise Quan contributed to this report.

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(CNN) — When Arnold Palmer drove up Magnolia Lane on the eve of the 1962 Masters, he was in a confident mood. He’d already won it twice, as well as the U.S. and British Opens, but this was to be his “Annus Mirabilis” — the year he cemented his reputation as a global sporting superstar.

“I was having some of my best times on the golf course,” he told CNN, in trademark understated fashion, ahead of this week’s Masters. “I felt confident about myself and the way I was playing, and it worked out very well.”

As the first major tournament of the golf year, the Masters is a springboard to some of the most magical moments in the sport’s history.

Victory at the prestigious and highly exclusive Augusta National Golf Club would be a career highlight for most players, but for a select few it is often just one jewel in an era-defining crown.

Palmer had been determined to erase memories of the 1961 Masters, where he double-bogeyed the final hole to hand victory to South African rival Gary Player, the first international golfer to claim the coveted Green Jacket.

The following year Palmer led going into the final round, but needed two late birdies to go into a playoff with Dow Finsterwald and Player — “two of my very best friends in golf.”

He started badly in the 18-hole contest on Monday but staged a remarkable late surge.

Fifty years on, Palmer’s memories of his eventual triumph are still sharp. “I had a pretty good back nine, that was the reason for my victory.”

For “pretty good” read “stunning” — Palmer conjured up birdies at 10, 12, 13, 14 and 16 for a 68 to better Player by three shots and don the famous Green Jacket for the third time — he would again wear it in 1964.

Palmer’s caddy, Nathaniel “Iron Man” Avery, summed it up perfectly.

“He just jerks at his glove, tugs at his trouser belt and starts walking fast,” he told reporters after the round. “When Mr. Arnold does that, everybody better watch out. He’s going to stampede anything in his way.”

That year Palmer went on to claim his second British Open title at Royal Troon — “certainly one of my best Opens” — as he finished 12 under par on the seaside links to win by six from Kel Nagle.

His only setback came at the U.S. Open at Oakmont, in his home state of Pennsylvania, despite going into the tournament as a heavy favorite.

I felt confident about myself and the way I was playing and it worked out very well
Arnold Palmer

An eventual loss in an 18-hole play off to the 22-year-old Jack Nicklaus was “very disappointing,” said Palmer — who three-putted 10 times in five days to undermine his fine play from tee to green.

But victories in six other PGA Tour events, as well as winning the Vardon Trophy (named after the famous English golfer Harry Vardon) for the U.S. circuit’s low scoring average, rounded off an incredible year.

Golf’s greatest years

By dominating golf as he did that season, Palmer continued a trend started by Vardon in the first year of the 20th century — following in the footsteps of golf legends such as Bobby Jones and blazing a trail for the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

Vardon, known as “Mr. Golf,” set the ball rolling.

Born in the British isle of Jersey, he left an indelible mark on the game by inventing the Vardon Grip — the overlapping of the small finger over the other when holding a club — which is used by the majority of the top players in the world today.

In 1900 he crossed the Atlantic and became the first player to win both the U.S. Open and the British Open. Overall, he captured a record six majors in his homeland. In 1920, at the age of 50 and having suffered from tuberculosis, he still managed second place in the U.S. Open — a true measure of his greatness.

Paving the way for professionals

I watched him and admired he very much. He was one of the greatest players of all time
Arnold Palmer on Byron Nelson

That decade, another golfing superstar emerged in the form of Walter Hagen, who like Palmer helped to popularize the sport with his attacking play and flamboyant lifestyle.

The American was the first golfer to win $1 million in his career, claiming 11 major titles plus five victories at the Western Open — which in his era was one of golf’s leading events.

In 1924, Hagen was at the peak of his powers and won the British Open as well as the U.S. PGA Championship (then a matchplay tournament). He also won three other PGA Tour events plus the Belgian Open.

While Hagen helped the acceptance of professional players in a sport that had been mainly amateur, in 1930 another man became a worldwide name despite refusing to accept a cent for his many triumphs.

Father of the Masters

When the world’s elite play at Augusta this week, they owe their participation to the foresight and vision of Bobby Jones, who co-designed the course with Alister MacKenzie and co-founded the Masters Tournament with Clifford Roberts.

It was easy to see that Jack would become a great player
Arnold Palmer on Jack Nicklaus

Competing on an equal footing with Hagen and the top professionals, Jones had already won three U.S. Opens and two British Opens plus four U.S. Amateur crowns. But his feats of 1930 will surely remain unmatched.

He claimed his own grand slam of the two pro and two unpaid majors on both sides of the Atlantic before promptly retiring at the tender age of 28 to practice law at the Georgia bar.

Lord Byron

The Second World War brought an end to international competition, but that era saw the emergence of one of Palmer’s heroes — the great Byron Nelson.

“I watched him and admired him very much. He was one of the greatest players of all time,” Palmer told CNN as he recalled the Texan’s feats.

Nelson’s greatest year was 1945, near the end of the war, when he set a record on the PGA Tour which will surely remain unbroken.

The Texan won 11 successive tournaments, beating the likes of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead. His 18 victories out of 35 starts included the PGA championship, and his scoring average of 68.33 stood until it was broken by Woods in 2000.

Nelson retired the following year aged 34 to become a rancher but was the host of a PGA event which bore his name until his death in 2006.

Hogan the hero

As the U.S. economy started booming in the post-war years, golf’s profile was further boosted by the exploits of a player who bounced back from life-threatening adversity.

Ben Hogan took determination and will to win to new levels in 1953 when he won all three majors he was able to contest, and five of six tournaments overall. Badly injured in a car crash in 1949 which nearly claimed his life, Hogan had to limit his schedule to prevent strain on his body.

H won the Masters by five shots and was six clear in the U.S. Open at Oakmont, while he conquered the field at Carnoustie in the British Open by four strokes to be the only man under par on the tough Scottish links.

Hogan was unable to play in the PGA Championships because it overlapped the British Open, but he would have chosen not to compete because he was unable to cope with the 36 holes per day expected of the players in the match play format.

The “Golden Bear”

A decade after Palmer’s great year, one of his arch-rivals bestrode the game like a giant.

Nicklaus, who had denied Palmer victory at the 1962 U.S. Open, was at the peak of his powers. “It was easy to see that Jack would become a great player,” said Palmer.

Nicklaus won two majors in 1972, the Masters and the U.S. Open, and was second to Lee Trevino at the British Open. Seven victories came on the PGA Tour and, like Palmer in ’62, he won the money list and the Vardon Trophy.

Nicklaus would eventually set an all-time record of 18 majors, the final triumph coming at the Masters in 1986 with a famous final-round charge.

Champions duel

The “Golden Bear” would next be challenged by Tom Watson, nine years his junior.

Watson’s win in their famous ‘”duel in the sun’”at Turnberry in 1977 will go down in golf history, but five years later his emergence was complete.

Watson denied Nicklaus victory again at the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach with a miracle chip from the rough on the short 17th hole. The pair were tied for the lead with Watson looking certain to drop a shot when his effort hit the flag and went in for the most unlikely of birdies.

It helped seal a two-shot victory, which the American followed up by winning his fourth British Open title at Troon before being named the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year for the fifth of six times overall.

Ice-cool Englishman

The balance of power in world golf shifted away from the United States in the 1990s, with England’s Nick Faldo taking over as the No.1 as the decade started.

With an attention to detail and competitive edge modeled on Hogan, Faldo claimed the Masters for the second time in 1990 after a playoff with Raymond Floyd. At the home of golf St. Andrews, he dominated the British Open from the start to win by five shots with a record 18-under aggregate.

Faldo also finished tied for third, one shot back, in the U.S. Open at Medinah and was named golfer of the year on both sides of the Atlantic.

Tiger on the prowl

However, golf had to wait another decade before the astonishing feats of a player who has become one of the most recognizable athletes on the planet, and certainly one of the richest.

Tiger Woods could manage only fifth place at the 2000 Masters at Augusta, but it was to prove just about his only disappointment in a record-breaking year.

His 15-stroke victory in the U.S Open at Pebble Beach was “the greatest performance in golf history” according Sports Illustrated magazine. The American broke Faldo’s British Open record with an eight-shot win at St. Andrews and made it three majors for the year by beating Bob May in a playoff at the PGA Championship.

Woods won nine of 20 PGA Tour events that year, with the lowest scoring average in history. He then won the 2001 Masters to hold all four of golf’s major titles — the first player to do so in the modern era.

Palmer believes the 36-year-old, who won his invitational tournament at Bay Hill last month to end a PGA Tour title drought dating back to 2009, “can return to his best” in 2012.

The world of golf is waiting to see.

Editor’s note: Heather A. Conley is director and senior fellow, Europe Program, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

(CNN) — Until the rerun of the Greek elections scheduled for June 17, we will witness an unprecedented game of brinkmanship. The game will be played along the following lines.

European political leaders will state unequivocally to the Greek electorate that it is time for them to make a stark choice: Vote for parties that will continue with the agreed reforms (the dreaded austerity) and stay within the European family or vote for parties opposed to the austerity measures and leave the euro and perhaps the European Union.

This clear and concise message was recently voiced by Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter. She declared that if Greece does not stick to the terms of its bailout program, it will not receive further aid from the EU or the International Monetary Fund.

“One cannot exit from the eurozone, one can only exit from the EU,” she said. She also noted that Greece would have to reapply for EU membership, with no guarantee of readmission.

CNNMoney: Greek banks strain for cash

Greek politicians, particularly Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras, will probably respond to that message with a different one, which he will transmit back to Brussels, Paris, Berlin and Frankfurt (home of the European Central Bank): Europe cannot afford to let Greece fail and therefore, in the name of solidarity, Europe must continue to do whatever it takes to support Greece. But this time it should not require Greece to take such painful measures. Oh, and Europe will need to give Greece additional funds (in the name of “growth”) no matter what combination of political parties enters parliament and forms a new government.

Sounding like a blackmailer, Tsipras has said, “The eurozone is not in danger because of Greek resistance, but because of the bankrupt policies of the memorandum, of yesterday’s political system”; “if the disease of austerity destroys Greece, it will spread to the rest of Europe”; and “the European leadership and especially Mrs. Merkel need to stop playing poker with the lives of people.”

Perhaps it is fitting that a great test of democracy is taking place in democracy’s birthplace.

So, who blinks first? In the past three days, we have seen two actors blink immediately: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek and Spanish bank depositors.

The consummate political tactician, Merkel understood that with French President Francois Hollande’s electoral victory on Sunday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti’s continued public pressure and her party’s recent electoral loss to the social democrats in the largest German state, the political winds were shifting at home and abroad on growth.

This week, Merkel confessed that she was in fact in favor of identifying additional growth measures when she said she was in a “high level of agreement” with Hollande. She noted that for “stimulus to be pursued for growth in the euro zone, which we could pursue in the interest of Greece, we’re open for this. Germany is open for this.” Of course, details and date of delivery of said growth remain a mystery.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter and Facebook/CNNOpinion

Greek and Spanish depositors were the second actor to blink when they removed approximately ?700 million (about $890 million U.S.) from Greek banks and ?1 billion (about $1.26 billion U.S.) from Spain’s third-largest and recently nationalized bank, Bankia.

Their actions were indicative of the fear that the game of chicken is getting out of hand. This sentiment was strengthened by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s decision to cut off certain Greek banks from receiving ECB funds and the IMF’s announcement, earlier Friday, that it would freeze contacts with Greece until the June 17 election.

The ultimate answer to “who blinks first” lies in understanding how this crisis has played out over the past two years.

The Greek bailout package has already been renegotiated twice, most recently in March of this year, to address deteriorating economic fundamentals and to force private bondholders to take losses. There have been no less than 17 European summits to “resolve” the crisis only to return to crisis shortly thereafter.

Three bailout packages (Greece, Ireland and Portugal); ?1.3 trillion ($1.65 trillion U.S.) in cheap, three-year loans to European banks; and a change in government in 10 out of the 17 eurozone countries — the art of the European muddle-through strategy has been perfected.

It is clear from Tuesday’s meeting between Merkel and Hollande that Europe will continue to actively pursue this muddle-through strategy until it is no longer able to pursue it.

The treaties, the summitry and the political volatility that define Europe are completely ill-equipped to handle the crisis as it enters a new and potentially determinate end state. Most important, the collateral damage that comes with muddling through for the past two years is taking a significant social and economic toll: Spanish unemployment is at almost 25%; Greek youth unemployment is at 51.5% and a third of the French electorate in the first round of its presidential elections voted for either an extreme left or right party. Is Europe willing to be home to a lost generation in the name of European solidarity?

No one knows how this brinkmanship will come to an end, or even if it will come to an end at all. And certainly no one knows whether it will result in economic Armageddon or a small blip on a trader’s computer screen. Actions or statements by either side are likely not to be conclusive.

It is more likely that a sudden, unanticipated shock created by either the markets or political actors before June 17 causes an unstoppable chain reaction. Should this be this outcome, in some way it may come as a relief as it is far easier to blame an event than to accept responsibility for Europe’s actions over the past two years.

This game of chicken is not unique to Europe. Washington had its own bout of brinkmanship last summer regarding the increase in America’s debt ceiling, and is likely to have it again in a few months. Europe has just upped the level of play.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Heather A. Conley.

(CNN) — He has a long way to go to emulate the success of his father, who won five majors and thrilled the world of golf, but Javier Ballesteros is off to a promising start.

The 21-year-old made his debut on the professional golf circuit Thursday, 38 years after Severiano began his pro career on exactly the same course.

After starting at the Sant Cugat course in Catalunya, Spain, Seve went on to win three British Opens and two Masters titles and etch his name into the record books as one of the most entertaining and flamboyant players ever to pick up a club.

Seve died in May last year, at the age of 54, provoking an outpouring of grief from the world of golf. Many stars of the game attended his funeral in his home village of Pedrena.

Javier insists he doesn’t feel any weight of pressure being the son of one of golf’s most revered characters, but he offered a glimpse of his talent as he shot a five-under-par round to sit three shots off the lead after day one of the Peugeot Alps de Barcelona.

“My goal for this competition is enjoy it,” he said on the European Tour’s official website. “I don’t set goals when I play a tournament, especially being an amateur.

“What I have to do is enjoy and learn. I have no extra pressure being Seve’s son, I don’t really have anything to prove. I’m just going to be myself.

I have no extra pressure being Seve’s son, I don’t really have anything to prove. I’m just going to be myself
Javier Ballesteros

“When I registered for the Peugeot Tour event at Sant Cugat I didn’t know that my father played his first professional tournament here and now that I know, it’s double the excitement for me.”

Seve won 91 tournaments in a 33-year career and was a crucial part of Europe’s Ryder Cup team during much of the 1980s and 1990s, forming a formidable partnership with fellow Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal.

Javier clearly has inherited a wealth of talent from Seve but says he is yet to decide if he will follow his father’s footsteps and become a golf professional once he has finished studying law in Madrid.

“I have always played golf,” he added. “I was on the national team when I was 14 to 16 years old, and being surrounded by golf at home always made me think about being a pro in the future.

“But I have to finish university first. It is something my parents have always told me to do, especially my father, and that is my priority. Then we will see.

“I have not made a schedule or set a time. It’s not just a case of turning professional as soon as I finish college. We will just see what happens.”

(CNN) — After being photographed without makeup while in Vancouver last month, candid shots of AnnaLynne McCord hit the Web, with with one site noting: “Her facial blemishes were completely visible.”

“This is newsworthy? Me not wearing makeup,” the “90210″ recently actress told CNN. “The more I thought about it, the more upset I got.”

And so, one week later, in her New York hotel room, a barefaced McCord snapped a photo of herself and posted it on Twitter for her more than 140,000 followers to see.

In the past few months, stars such as Bethenny Frankel and Jennifer Love Hewitt have also shared fresh-faced pictures of themselves via their Twitter accounts. Meanwhile, actresses Zooey Deschanel and Paula Patton, among others, posed without makeup for People’s Most Beautiful issue.

And we can’t help but look.

“It’s human nature,” said Brian Solis, a principle media analyst at Altimer Group. “There’s a level of mystique to celebrity, and social media can either add to it or take away from it.” More celebrities are realizing this and jumping on the au naturel-twitpic bandwagon, he added.

“A new generation of publicists are working with their (celebrity clients) to build this much more everyday relationship with fans, where social media is a channel that keeps them relevant in between the things they do that actually make them a celebrity,” Solis said. “(Publicists) will encourage celebrities to share more natural shots, but not completely unmade-up shots.”

For McCord, who said posting the photo was her reaction to society’s unrealistic standards of beauty, the act was just “spur of the moment. … I wasn’t even wearing Chapstick.”

“I was angry,” she said. “There are days where you just want to scream something to the world, and with social networking we can.”

But it’s not just the pictures celebrities share via social media that attract attention. On Tuesday, Us Weekly published the headline, “Beyonce Wears shorts, almost no makeup at Broadway show,” along with a picture of the fresh-faced singer.

Demi Lovato received similar attention last month when E! praised the 19-year-old for tweeting a photo along with the message: “No makeup.”

People are either looking to see a celebrity’s imperfections, to make them feel better about themselves, or because they’re a fan and they find it endearing, Solis said. But just like fans have different reasons for looking at such photos, he added, celebrities have different reasons for posting them.

While some people in the public eye might share a makeup-free photo to “build a more natural relationship with their community,” others might be blindly oversharing or merely pretending to foster a more organic relationship with fans, Solis said.

It loses something when the celebrity is posing in a beautiful setting with their hair done, and hoping it gets picked up by a magazine, he said, adding, “Like, ‘here’s a staged shot of me looking natural.’ “

McCord said she was on Skype when she decided to post a picture of herself without makeup.

“I was looking at (myself in the inset) and I was like, ‘You know what, I don’t care … that I have little dots on my face sometimes,’ ” she said.

Unsure, at the time, of how people would react to the photo, she added, “I thought, ‘You can excommunicate me from Hollywood if that’s what having blemishes does.’ “

Unlike the responses elicited by the candid photographs taken of McCord in Vancouver, fans and media outlets have praised the actress for her post.

“I was just reacting,” she said. “But because my reaction was to own what (the tabloids) were saying about me, I took the wind out of their sails, so to speak.”

McCord said many of her followers have thanked her via Twitter, and that one follower responded by posting her own makeup-free picture to the social networking site.

“I wake up and I go to work and I have a whole makeup and hair team make me up the way people usually see me,” McCord said. “I’m like a little doll. … I don’t try, in my personal life, to live up to that. … I’m very au naturel. I like to let my hair down. Let my skin breathe.”

And the actress hasn’t gone back.

Sporting only foundation and Burt’s Bees tinted lip color of late, she’s named her new makeup regime “the Dominic Purcell-look,” after her boyfriend, who she said encourages her to flaunt her natural beauty.

Whether more celebrities will follow suit in their daily lives remains to be seen. But, as Solis said, as long as people are receptive to such photos, you can bet the stars will be tweeting.

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(CNN) — Pamela Anderson’s career to date may have been more Playboy than pit lane, but the former Baywatch star has decided to dip her feet into motorsport by launching her own racing team.

The 44-year-old actress and ex-cover girl is fronting the Downforce1 team, which will compete in the 2012 European Le Mans and International GT Open series.

Anderson, more famous for sporting a red bathing suit as C.J. Parker in the hit ’90s TV show than racing overalls, launched the venture earlier this month with the aim of competing in the 2013 open-wheel NASCAR series in the U.S.

“Fast cars and fast women go together,” the former Playmate of the Month said on the team’s website. “Here we are surrounded by men, I love it.”

The Canadian is described as a fan of motorsport divisions “from NASCAR to Formula One” and hailed the venture as “a dream come true.”

“I’m so proud of the Downforce 1 team,” she said. “These gentleman have achieved the impossible and built up a team in just four months.

“I cannot wait to see my cars on the race track, it’s hard to believe until I see it.”

But Anderson’s dream has been temporarily derailed. The team’s sole driver Markus Fux, who also doubles up as Downforce1′s marketing coordinator, announced they will miss this weekend’s International GT race in France.

“Due to technical issues and circumstances beyond the control of the team, the management of Downforce1 have reluctantly decided, in the interest of the team and its sponsors, not to attend the first race at Paul Ricard,” read the statement.

“The team now intends to begin its 2012 race program at the GT Open Series round at Portimao on the 28th April. The team apologizes to its many fans and supporters.”

Anderson is not the first female celebrity to be drawn to the track. Socialite Paris Hilton, heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune, co-founded the SuperMartxe VIP MotoGP team in December 2010.

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Editor’s note: In 2012, the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II became the second-longest serving British sovereign with a reign spanning 60 years. On June 4 – 6, the Queen marks her Diamond Jubilee year with a series of parties and pageants, and CNN will be there to follow the festivities. Leading up to the celebrations, we will put her reign in context with a series of articles, op-eds and interactives.

London, England (CNN) — The 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the British throne marks a major milestone in the remarkable life of a monarch who, though reluctantly thrust into the spotlight at a young age, has won almost universal praise for her steadfast dedication to duty.

Her long reign (second only to Queen Victoria’s) has seen Britain transformed from a war-weary declining imperial power into its modern incarnation as a member state of the European Union that rarely looks to its monarch for leadership, but still holds her in high esteem.

And while it has witnessed its fair share of joy — not least the recent marriage of the queen’s grandson Prince William to Catherine Middleton — Elizabeth’s rule has also weathered many storms, both public and personal, as the monarchy has tried to keep pace with changing times.

Elizabeth Alexander Mary was born in 1926, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York. She did not become heiress presumptive to the throne until 1937 when her father was crowned King George VI after the scandalous abdication of his older brother — events recently dramatized in the Oscar-winning film “The King’s Speech.”

As World War II erupted, Elizabeth was quietly groomed for statehood. While living out the blitz on London in nearby Windsor Castle, she was privately tutored in matters of constitution by Henry Marten, an eccentric yet respected teacher who reputedly kept a pet raven in his study.

She began making tentative steps to public life in 1940 when, aged 14, she made her first radio broadcast: a speech to children displaced by conflict. At 16 she was made an honorary colonel of the Grenadier Guards, a British army infantry regiment.

Wartime offered her certain freedoms beyond the constraints of royal life. In 1945 she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, and spent four weeks getting her hands covered in oil and grease as she learned to drive and maintain military vehicles. When victory was declared in Europe, a uniformed Elizabeth mingled with jubilant crowds outside Buckingham Palace.

Queen Elizabeth celebrates 60 years on throne

Peacetime brought the return of Lieutenant Prince Philip of Greece, a handsome young naval officer who had, by all accounts, had won her heart when she was just 13. The pair married in Westminster Abbey in 1947. Their first son, Charles, was born just over a year later.

With her father’s health in rapid decline, Elizabeth began accepting more official duties, taking his place at the annual Trooping the Color military parade in 1949. In 1952, when Elizabeth and Philip were on an official trip to Kenya, news came of her father’s death. She was now queen.

The next decade saw the queen settle into her role. After her 1953 coronation, she embarked on numerous official trips, oversaw state openings of parliament, welcomed visiting leaders such as President Eisenhower, Charles de Gaulle and Nikita Khrushchev, and toured a coal mine.

In 1964, the queen became a mother for the fourth time as new son Edward joined Charles and fellow siblings Anne and Andrew. There was, however, barely any let up in her busy schedule.

By the arrival of her third decade on the throne, she was in her element. Prince Charles was embarking on a military career, Princess Anne, an acclaimed horsewoman, was married — drawing huge crowds of well wishers.

Girls given equal rights to British throne under law changes

While indulging in her own equestrian pursuits, she continued to throw herself into public life, clocking up dozens of overseas trips and official visits around the UK — one of which in 1976 saw her become one of the first people to send an email (she continues to champion new technology today).

There were family problems in 1976 when her sister’s marriage collapsed and constitutional problems with growing debate among Commonwealth countries about the role of the monarch, but these failed to dampen celebrations to mark the silver jubilee of her reign in 1977.

Another royal wedding followed in 1981 when Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer at London’s St Paul’s cathedral. Millions of people around the world watched the ceremony on television, happily unaware it would usher in the most turbulent period yet of the queen’s life.

The queen’s 40th year on the throne, 1992, marked her lowest moment as three royal marriages fell apart. Princess Anne and Mark Philips divorced, Charles and Diana separated after claims of infidelities while Sarah Ferguson was photographed topless with an American financial manager.

To cap it all, a huge fire ripped through Windsor Castle causing major structural damage. In the wake of the blaze, a furore broke out when it was suggested that public money be used to fund the restoration.

“1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure,” the queen said in a speech later that year. “In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.”

Kate has graduated as ‘fully fledged’ royal

These problems overshadowed the queen as she made an historic visit to meet Nelson Mandela in 1995, but criticism reached new heights in the wake of Diana’s tragic death in 1997 when the royals were accused of being aloof and out of touch amid widespread outpourings of grief.

This marked a turning point. After days of silence, the queen returned to London, talked to mourners and admitted there were lessons to be learned from Diana’s life. The gestures struck a chord with the public and criticism ebbed away.

After Diana, the queen’s popularity rebounded as she presided over what appeared to be a softer, more accessible and thoroughly modern royal family. This was evident In 2005 when, to public approval, she assented to the previously unthinkable marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.

The queen’s most recent decade as monarch has largely been one of celebration. In 2006, she marked her 80th birthday with a series of festivities and goodwill messages from around the world.

She has witnessed both her grandsons graduate as military officers and, of course, she oversaw the marriage of Prince William and Catherine, the woman who — when her husband eventually inherits the throne to become king — will succeed her as Britain’s next queen.

Lauren Said-Moorhouse contributed to this story. Images of then-Princess Elizabeth during World War II courtesy of the Imperial War Museums.

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Editor’s note: Part culture show, part travel show, over six weeks Fusion Journeys takes six stars of the creative world to a location of their choice. There, they will create something new inspired by their experience.

(CNN) — With a star-studded client list that includes Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Roberts and Michelle Pfeiffer, Trelise Cooper is an internationally known fashion designer.

Starting out with a boutique store in Auckland, New Zealand, during the mid-1980s, Cooper’s ascent onto the fashion stage — and the front covers of Vogue and Marie Claire — is made more remarkable by the fact that she never received any formal training as either a designer or seamstress.

Instead, Cooper relied on her self-confessed “obsession” for detail, as well as a natural eye for fashion. “I was born a fashion designer” she says, and soon after she set up shop, her clothes acquired a reputation for their bold use of pattern and intricate stitching.

Cooper took up the “Fusion Journey” challenge to travel from New Zealand to New Delhi, India’s capital. Although it’s a city she had been to on business many times before, she says that she’d never allowed herself the time to study its traditional dress in earnest.

See more Fusion Journeys

There she was tasked with creating a new fashion line that would combine her own sophisticated modern style with the vibrant, brightly colored traditions of Indian dress-making.

In her own words, Cooper retraces the footsteps of her Fusion Journey.

Trelise Cooper: I absolutely adore the historical aspect of clothing. My ranges are full of influences from 19th-century French, English, even American vintage styles. So it’s no surprise I have always enjoyed combing through flea markets in small towns and finding rare antique gems to steal some inspiration.

I’m also obsessed with detail, so when I find a Victorian gown or a 50s bridal slip that I like, then it’s important for me to be able to emulate the exact stitching, embroidery or beading used at the time. In the West, unfortunately, most of our expert hand-stitching traditions have been lost — the skills have not been passed on and the seamstress geniuses from the couture houses of Europe have not been replaced.

That is why I’m often traveling to India. It’s one of the very best places in the world to find that expertise still thriving. From one village to the next you find whole families, generations, that have their own specialties of stitch work.

Honestly, I can give them any old historical piece that I’ve found and they will either take it away and recreate it almost perfectly, or they’ll say “hmmm … I don’t know this stitching, but I know a place nearby that does.” It’s a fashion designer’s dream!

So in one sense, I’ve been fusing my clothes with Indian influences for a while. However, I think this was the first time I’ve traveled to India with a conscious intention to create a fusion of styles: their own traditional dress with my more modern, western creations.

I just love the color and the vibrancy that is India. New Delhi is exciting and chaotic and noisy and dusty and smoky and hot. Everything is so full of intense color and I realized that, on a subconscious level at least, I’ve been influenced by Indian style … In fact, when it comes to bold use of colors and the use of these rich, deep dyes, how can anyone deny the huge influence of India on fashion around the world?

Read related: Dancing to the music of love in Buenos Aires

Walking through the streets, you see color combinations that you’d never imagine would work. I recall a beautiful woman wearing a sari in bright, radiant pink mixed with a lime green print. I mean, lime and pink! It sounds garish, but on her, with the quality of the dye and the way the colors had been combined it looked absolutely stunning.

We made our way to a shop that I can only describe as a treasure trove of fabrics and other goodies. This was the place to find all the accessories, textiles, ribbons, bows, buttons, and beads that I could take back to my studio in Auckland to use as inspiration for the final creations.

There were ideas there, old and new, that I’d never thought about. Already I could envisage opportunities to use all sorts of different laces and braids, detailed examples of hand stitching, with some other antique dresses we’d picked up from a local supplier.

Much as I love them personally, I don’t sell things like saris — and I never would — it’s not a style that would appeal to the tastes of my particular customers. However, what I took back to New Zealand, was their techniques, their intense celebratory colors, their detailed embellishments, their expert use of beads and sequins.

I worked on the new line for many months, and these are the elements I hope I managed to incorporate into them. I think they’ve added an opulence, a romance. But I’ll only know I have finished the creative process when someone comes in and says that, no matter what, they have to have it.

The garment takes them on a journey, and so my journey with the garment has finished.

Editor’s note: Ingo Walter is the Seymour Milstein professor of finance, corporate governance and ethics, and Jennifer Carpenter is an associate professor of finance in the Stern School of Business at New York University.

(CNN) — Here we go again. The perennial question of: “Would you rather own shares in a major financial conglomerate or manage one?” comes up as JPMorgan Chase loses more than $2 billion in trading bets.

The answer seems clear. If you’re an executive who manages the money, you’re likely to get a large paycheck and bonus even if you’re responsible for the loss, directly or indirectly. Jamie Dimon is still getting his $23 million.

Shares of the major banks continue to trade well below book value and generate miserable performance metrics — and have over the years been very poor investments — while senior executives and key employees continue to walk away with vastly outsize earnings, even when they oversee massive losses.

Shareholders certainly have reasons to object to huge executive pay packages, especially ordinary people whose fund managers have put in stakes of the bank shares in their pension and mutual fund accounts.

But the level of executive compensation comes out of shareholders’ pockets. If shareholders are unhappy with the division of the spoils, they have no one to blame but themselves. After all, they can always take their money elsewhere if they don’t think their cut of bank profits is big enough.

The real concern for everyone — including regulators and taxpayers — is not the level of pay handed out to executives, nor how profits in a company are divided between employees and shareholders, but rather, the incentives for risk-taking that bank pay apparently continues to create.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter and Facebook.com/cnnopinion.

Regulators have called for deferred compensation to address the incentive problem. If deferred compensation presents employees with serious exposure to potentially big losses, they’ll have a major stake in the long-term solvency of the business and help spare taxpayers the cost of bailing out firms that have become too systemically important to fail.

But forcing employees to bear significant exposure to potentially big losses may come at a price. Employees may require higher salaries to compensate for increased risk. We’re seeing this reflected in recently announced pay packages. The price is paid primarily by shareholders while the benefits of any improvement in financial stability accrue to society as a whole.

Deferred cash compensation makes employees debt holders, so it ought to reduce risk-taking. So should compensation in a form that explicitly converts to equity when the firm gets into trouble and is bailout-proof.

Deferred stock compensation, however, may do just the opposite. As long as there are implicit government guarantees for financial institutions that are considered too big, too complex or too interconnected to fail, the value of those institutions’ stocks increases with risk-taking.

The more risk a bank takes, the greater the value of government guarantees and potential bailouts. This value gets passed on to the bank’s stock price. If employees are paid in deferred stock, the risk incentives are then passed on to them, encouraging them to speculate.

Rules that mandate more pay in the form of stock miss the point. It helps align the interests of employees and shareholders, but it fails to align their interests with those of taxpayers.

Ultimately, it’s the taxpayers who are held hostage. They care about the size of bailout necessitated by excessive risk-taking taken by banks, and about economic growth, but not about how bank profits are divided per se, since they don’t get a cut in any case.

Regulators are aware that bank stockholders have an overriding desire to take more risk than is good for society because chronic under-pricing of government guarantees makes it profitable for banks to seek risky assets and lever them as much as possible. This is the reason for capital requirements and the Volcker Rule, which tries to restrict risk-taking.

Recent attempts to reform compensation overlook how complicated the compensation process can be. Trying to discourage risky behavior is like fighting an uphill battle against shareholders who like risk. Moreover, risk incentives are harder to measure, and their regulation is easy to circumvent.

Criticizing the compensation packages of JPMorgan’s Dimon and his senior associates might be popular with voters, but regulators would be better off focusing on the source of the problem — the mispricing of government guarantees that create perverse risk incentives in the first place.

Pricing deposit insurance differently or banning activities such as proprietary trading would give shareholders and employees alike an incentive to rein in risk-taking. Employee compensation would then reform itself.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ingo Walter and Jennifer Carpenter.

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Editor’s note: Part culture show, part travel show, over six weeks Fusion Journeys takes six stars of the creative world on a journey of discovery to a location of their choice. There, they will learn from a different culture and create something new inspired by their experience. Watch the show every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from April 9 to May 18, during Connect The World, from 20:00 GMT.

(CNN) — Since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of eight, Sarah Chang has grown through the weight of expectation to become one of the world’s great violinists.

Now aged 31, Chang was born in Philadelphia to a composer and music teacher of Korean descent. She first dabbled with the piano at the age of three, before opting for the violin a year later. By five she had been accepted into New York’s prestigious Juilliard School for Performing Arts.

By her own acknowledgment, the world of grand orchestras and opera houses that she has so long inhabited can be “very formal” and “exclusive.” This perhaps goes some way to explain her choice of destination for her “Fusion Journey” challenge: Buenos Aires.

Here, in the hot-blooded Argentinean capital, she would meet with local band “Orquesta Tipica Andariega,” to learn first-hand the sensual and mysterious art of tango.

See more Fusion Journeys

During her visit, Chang was challenged to produce a fusion of sound that blended the traditions of Western classical music with tango’s emotionally raw and folksy heritage. She says that the process has given her performance a new-found sense of intimacy that she’s carried ever since.

In her own words, Chang tells the story of her Fusion Journey.

Sarah Chang: I’ve been trained as a classical violinist my entire life. It’s all about structure, all about technique. It’s very much a polished profession. But tango music, although it has some classical elements, is very sexy and rough and, in a way, from the earth.

When you walk along the streets of Buenos Aires, fun is in the air. You see children with barely anything on their feet playing soccer, and there is music on every corner. They are playing all sorts of Latin sounds; they’re all dancing and drinking; they’re enjoying life; they are loving life.

One of the cornerstones of tango is definitely the dancing, so I first met up with dance instructor Nora Schvartz.

Now, I’m not really a dancer. I’m a very physical performer when I’m on stage, but of course tango is a completely different thing to thrusting around when you’re performing as a violinist.

I learned that the best tango dancers move not just with their legs and arms, but from their guts. That’s the sign of a true art form, and it’s the source of so much beauty, so much soul and passion.

Even though I absolutely cannot dance — just watch the footage! — I always thought that to experience the whole picture, you really have to open up your vulnerabilities, and sort of take that risk.

Read related: Photographer’s Lapland journey highlights global warming

Tango is — in a sense — imperfect … albeit beautifully imperfect. It’s not about being always metronomically on time, it’s about spontaneity and freedom.

I’ve worked, of course, with a piano and an orchestra before — but never with a band. All of a sudden I find myself rehearsing with the “Orquesta Tipica Andariega,” an extremely talented local tango group. So there I was, playing songs I’d never played before, alongside instruments I’d never heard before, with a group I’d never met before — it was thrilling!

The piece we chose for our fusion was by Carlos Gardel — the biggest name in the history of tango. The tune itself is very famous — it’s used in all these movies, you name it, any famous tango scene. But as far as I know, there is no version for a band with a solo violinist, so I asked a composer friend of mine to make an arrangement for us.

I was really thrilled with the result. We performed it in this intimate little club and it felt so immediate. Everyone was there, drinking wine, dancing, looking so happy. There were no rigid rules, none of this “clap here, oh you have to be quiet here.” Instead, the audience were whistling and yelling and clapping along — it felt like they were right up there with us.

Literally, if I just stretched my arm, I could touch them, they were so close. That sort of intimacy, that sort of physical closeness, the fact that they were dancing when we were playing, I just thought was so beautiful.

“Fusions” can often turn out badly — I can think of some fusion cuisine that I wish I could forget! But when each side brings just the right balance of their experience, their culture and personality, then I think it can be magical — and the only way you know it has worked is when everyone has a smile on their face.

Classical music is one of the world’s longest-standing traditional forms of music-making out there — and I don’t think it will, or should, change over night. There is a sort of purity in what classical musicians do that I cherish very much and want to preserve.

But the big thing that I really took from this experience is that sense of connecting with the audience. Quite often, in grand concert halls where everyone is wearing elegant ball gowns and black tails — that kind of old-Hollywood glamor — it can feel like there is a big distance between the audience and the performers, a sense of “look, but don’t touch.”

But with Argentinean tango, it’s the opposite. They are saying “please touch, please come into and share my world.” Now, every concert that I do, I try to utilize that, I try to connect with every single last person in the balcony on an emotional and personal level.

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) — When I think of the story of African women, I immediately think of my mother and I want to use her story as a frame of reference in how African leaders can improve the lives of women.

My mother is a huge inspiration to me but sadly, many African women do not have the opportunities that she has.

They are the backbone of our nations and their success will lead to the success of Africa. Using this platform afforded to me, I would like to tell our leaders the five things African women need to succeed.

I was born to a woman who having completed high school in the early 1970s, got married, had me and went about the business of being a mother and wife. I must have been about seven or eight years old when my mother got her first job as a secretary.

Today my mother is Group Human Resources Manager (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania) for Car & General. She’s pursuing a degree in clinical psychology. I think I should mention that my mother went back to school at 50. She turned 60 in February 2012.

1. Education

It can never be said enough. Nowhere is it as clear as it is in Africa that educating a woman is educating a nation. My mother is who she is today and my siblings and I have turned out to be who we are because she went out at the age of 50, sat in the same room as people half her age, so she could learn. She already had a job she was great at but she had a thirst for knowledge.

And today, my mum is a better mother, grandmother and friend all because of the education she had and the knowledge she pursues to this very day.

Caroline Mukoto: Kenya’s Queen of radio

2. Economic empowerment

The African woman needs to be able to fend not just for herself but also for her children. This is something my mother always drummed into me and I am largely my mother’s daughter; driven, focused but also determined to be financially independent.

Nowhere is it as clear as it is in Africa that educating a woman is educating a nation.
Caroline Mukoto

In my early 20s, I couldn’t figure out why she went on and on about getting a job, being good at it and earning my own money — but today in my 30s I get it.

What drives me crazy about the policy around this is that money is never allocated in a way that benefits women and home first. Instead, it feeds a handout mentality, we never give women a hand up. It’s a really horrible cycle. This is why I’m very proud of what my mother did. If you can give a woman a hand up and she can stand, she’ll help another woman too.

Anytime I go to an area where there’s poverty, we never give just money, we give seeds so they can plant or animals they can rear. I’m involved in a greenhouse project for the areas where the land is dry. The people always have to pay us back in produce and even when they are done paying, they are so excited because they have money in their pockets, you would think they were Bill Gates. That is what happens when you empower a woman.

See also: Mother’s day not so rosy in Africa

3. Access to health care

My mother had a job that gave her medical cover and hence access to doctors and healthcare facilities for herself and us. For as long as I can remember my mother took charge of our health.

My brother [John] was born with a blockage in one of his lungs and had the worst case of asthma I knew of, but mum’s health cover took care of that and John’s subsequent health needs, as he battled with asthma throughout his teens.

She was a better mum not because she understood medicine, but because she had access to health facilities and doctors. Too many women are forced to watch their children die, even from the simplest, most treatable illnesses, simply because of poor access to healthcare.

Read also: ‘Why women must be free to choose’

4. Exposure

In a world where women have such few role models — looking at my mum whose mother tilled the land — she had no way of doing better for herself or charting a bigger and better path for me and my siblings, if it wasn’t for the exposure to a wider world that she got through the working.

You cannot become what you cannot see. Today, mum pursues her dream in clinical psychology and supports a daughter who chose to adopt because my mum is more exposed to different circumstances than most. Don’t just tell women what is possible, show them.

5. Hope

When all else is gone, nothing remains but hope. If my mother had written this piece, she would say pray and work. To an international audience , I call it hope with a purpose. As long as we give the women of Africa hope, so long as we don’t tread on their dreams and those they have for their children — these women will rise and with them their children and right alongside them this continent.

Today, the daughter of Rose Mutoko stares at the world through the lenses of CNN. Who would have thunk it?

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Caroline Mutoko.

Editor’s note: Timothy Stanley is a historian at Oxford University and blogs for Britain’s Daily Telegraph. He is the author of the new book “The Crusader: The Life and Times of Pat Buchanan.”

(CNN) — Barack Obama’s appearance on “The View” on Tuesday topped a week spent cozying up to the world of entertainment, including a dinner hosted by George Clooney that raised $15 million and a $5,000-a-plate extravaganza with Ricky Martin.

Presidents have always chased Hollywood’s vote. Herbert Hoover’s first overnight guest in the White House was Louis B. Mayer, and Richard Nixon had dinner parties with John Wayne. So Obama’s willingness to dish dirt on the “View” sofa is historically in keeping.

Some in the news media are convinced that Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage was designed to raise Hollywood dollars. They may have a point, but Obama wasn’t just after money. The movie community is enjoying a renaissance of cultural power this election cycle, and that’s what the president wants to harness.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter and Facebook.com/cnnopinion

It’s noteworthy that Obama’s relationship with Hollywood is far from strong. His biggest problem has always been his lack of enthusiasm for massaging the egos of movie stars.

In 2008, he was certainly happy to take Hollywood’s cash: One Beverly Hills fundraiser alone pulled in $9 million. But after the election, Obama remained aloof from those who had supported him, and invitations to the White House in the first year of the administration were surprisingly few.

There’s a glimpse of that alleged awkwardness in Edward Klein’s new book about Obama. In “The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House” Klein writes, Oprah Winfrey arrives at the White House for an interview and is shocked to find that she has to join the queue at security like everyone else. She even has to talk to staff who make only $75,000 a year (yes, Klein lists that as a complaint), and Oprah is humiliated when Michelle Obama fails to treat her as an equal. Clearly the wife of the leader of the free world needs to learn a little humility.

As a result, there had been rumors in the Hollywood press, before the gay marriage endorsement, about declining political and financial support for the president. Matt Damon’s complaint that Obama is too centrist (“I no longer hope for audacity”) summed up the mood of the liberal movie community nicely. When Obama visited Hollywood in September 2011, he was reduced to appearing at an event hosted by a sitcom actor at the House of Blues rock club.

Yet Hollywood is so good at raising cash that reliance on just a handful of loyal friends can still produce impressive results, as the astonishing $15 million takeaway from last week’s Clooney dinner suggests.

The biggest bundlers, bringing in $500,000 each, include producer Harvey Weinstein and DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, while actress Eva Longoria has raised at least $200,000. There have been $38,000-a-plate dinners with Will Smith, Spike Lee, Tom Hanks and Will Ferrell. Of course, the same-sex marriage endorsement has increased Hollywood enthusiasm for the president and induced liberal skeptics to give more. Producer Norman Lear, who had withheld support until now, announced that he and his wife would give the maximum $40,000 each.

Hollywood isn’t just about money; it also exerts a quiet cultural power. Joe Biden was right when he credited “Will and Grace” with shifting popular attitudes towards homosexuality. Television has the power to acculturate and acclimatize viewers to social change. Consider that “Modern Family,” which features a gay couple and their adopted daughter, was ranked the favorite sitcom among Republicans in 2010. Incredibly, Time magazine put “Glee” star Chris Colfer in its 2011 listing of the 100 most influential people in the world. That’s right: A comedy-musical star is just as important to humanity as Christine Lagarde or Kim Jong Un.

Hollywood’s soft power has been augmented in the past four years by two innovations. First, Twitter has dramatically expanded the reach of stars who aren’t even explicitly political. In 2009, actor Ashton Kutcher entered a contest with CNN to see who could reach a million followers first. Kutcher won. Today, he is followed by 10.6 million people, far more than Mitt Romney’s 500,000. Were Kutcher to write something political, it would require only 10% of his followers — and then 10% of each of their followers — to retweet it for it to become a viral sensation.

Second, Hollywood’s activist base has moved away from pushing candidates and toward campaigning for ideas. The falling price of media technology, and the platform that the Internet provides, means that moviemakers can now “do it for themselves” rather than wait for the Democratic National Committee to recruit them.

Same-sex marriage is at the center of this revolution, resulting in a plethora of homemade Hollywood ad campaigns.

Local Republicans and Democrats are often united in supporting legal efforts to support gay rights, and their focus brings attention to the issue. In March, Dustin Lance Black’s play about California’s Proposition 8, which blocked same-sex marriage, was performed in Los Angeles with an all-star cast. Such events, which pursue political rather than strictly electoral goals, are worth millions in publicity to the gay rights movement.

All this means that even as the money keeps rolling in, Obama has to stay on the right side of the moviemakers. Perhaps this is another reason why he’s intent on playing the culture war card.

Hollywood is full of rich people, so health care and jobs aren’t issues that interest the new power players. But two people denied the right to express their love through marriage? Now that’s a great story.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Timothy Stanley.

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(CNN) — While the business world can be a hostile place, it doesn’t often throw up situations where you’ll literally find yourself with an arrow to your throat.

That’s unless you’re on one of a range of increasingly extreme corporate retreats and away-days, designed to build team spirit or put decision-making skills into practice by relocating participants away from the routine of the office and into demanding situations.

The United States is leading the trend for unconventional corporate retreats — but just how extreme can they get?

James Carter is CEO of Be Legendary, an American company that offers extreme “survival retreats,” held in the blazing heat of Nevada’s deserts, or the avalanche country of the San Juan range in the Rocky Mountains.

“The basics of human survival are shelter and security,” says Carter. “Executives, if they’ve ever lived in that world, have completely forgotten what it’s like.”

“We do what the military does in a safer way — to break them down so we can build them back up again. We give them the skills to survive.”

See also: To reach the top, do what others won’t

The desert experience involves archery and a “fire walk” across hot coals. The latter activity is intended to leave participants energized and on a “spiritual high,” ready to attempt an even more cathartic challenge — having an arrow pressed against their throat until it snapped.

“The arrows take 25 pounds of pressure to break, and it takes 75 pounds of pressure to pierce skin. But all of that information doesn’t matter when you’ve got an arrow against your neck,” said Carter.

“Even though they know they won’t really be hurt, there’s still a sharp pain. That’s a watershed moment when people cry.”

Perhaps even more grueling is the “Deep Snow Survival” retreat, held in the Rockies. Participants are given snowshoes, beacons and taught alpine survival skills, before trekking deep into avalanche country. Their guides then tell them there has been an avalanche, that they will have to overnight in the snow, and they need to begin building snow shelters immediately.

“Here’s a real survival situation,” said Carter. “You’ll see someone who starts absolutely busting their butt to build a shelter. But if you sweat in that environment you’ll get hypothermia. So you have to make sure they ease off, you have to take care of one another.”

After a couple of hours, when the participants have built their shelters, they are collected, told there is no avalanche and returned to base. Although the avalanche is not real, the camaraderie and shared experience it inspired is genuine, Carter said, which is the true value of the exercise.

“That night the beer we share around the fireplace has never been sweeter,” he said. “There’s more color in the world. That memo you wrote last week, the one I was so annoyed about, doesn’t matter now. Everything is put into perspective.”

Adventure Associates is another firm that specializes in physically demanding corporate retreats. On one of their regular offerings, based in North Carolina, participants are made to cycle, hike or kayak in pursuit of tokens they will then exchange for materials that can be used to make a boat. Having designed and built the boat, they must then try to row it across a lake.

According to Adventure Associates director Ed Tilley, the retreat, with its mix of experiential challenges and corporate-training workshops, provides a good forum to strengthen team dynamics and implement communication and decision-making skills.

“It enables our clients to put into practice some of the skills they’ve been learning — how to manage different team members’ strengths, and manage around their weaknesses,” said Tilley.

See also: Want to be a leader? Act like one

If that all sounds a little arduous, there are other offerings that focus on out-of-the ordinary bonding experiences that are more about thrills than endurance.

Jetlev Southwest, headquartered in Newport Beach, California, frequently caters to executive groups — particularly from the tech industry — seeking a novel team-building experience. A day out of the office trialling the Jetlev R200 — a personal, water-powered jet pack that can propel the wearer 30 feet in the air over water — fits the bill.

“It’s a bonding experience, one that very few people in the world have ever had,” said trainer Dean O’Malley, adding that first-time users typically managed to reach heights of 10 to 15 feet with the jet pack.

Another option for executives seeking an invigorating buzz is to take to the skies in an Italian military training plane for an old-fashioned dog fight.

Headquartered in Fullerton, California, Air Combat USA operates what marketing director Denise Jennings describes as a “fantasy camp for wannabe fighter pilots.” Corporate groups receive training before taking to the sky in a SIAI-Marchetti fighter under the supervision of an instructor. A popular format is for corporate groups to book the aircraft for the day so they can operate a 10-person knock-out dog fight tournament.

Jennings said that as well as being a unique and physically demanding team-building exercise — “People come back and say they feel like they’ve run a marathon” — the experience appealed to competitive spirits of “Type-A personality” executives. “They’re drawn to the fact that somebody’s going to walk away the top gun.”

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Editor’s note: Each month, Inside the Middle East takes you behind the headlines to see a different side of this diverse region.

(CNN) — After five years of trying, an international group of authors have achieved their aim of taking their Palestine Festival of Literature to Gaza for the first time.

The annual traveling festival, known as PalFest, was set up in 2008 to bring book readings and cultural events to Palestinians who otherwise had little access to the outside world.

Each year the literary festival has visited several cities in the West Bank, but has been unable to gain permission from Israel to visit Gaza.

Israel imposed an economic blockade of Gaza when Hamas took over in 2007, which it says is needed to stop the transit of weaponry to be used by militants in attacks on Israel

This year, the group of 37 writers, artists and community organizers applied instead to enter Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which re-opened last year. After a two-week wait, they were granted permission from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enter Gaza.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Gaza music students find smart ways around travel ban

“We didn’t know if we would get in until the very last minute,” said Jamal Mahjoub, a British Sudanese author who traveled with PalFest. “We didn’t know if we would manage until we actually crossed the border.”

The group included Palestinians living in Jerusalem, West Bank and around the world, and prominent Arab authors including Egyptians Ahdaf Soueif and Khaled al Khamissi. None of them had been to Gaza before.

They spent five days in Gaza from May 5-9, running workshops for university students, free public events and visiting refugee camps.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Iraqi artist inspired by George W Bush shoe thrower

The 10-piece Egyptian band Eskenderella, which became well-known for playing in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, played its first concert in Gaza to a packed hall.

Omar Robert Hamilton, an independent filmmaker and founder of PalFest, said: “Coming to Gaza was a necessity. We have tried every year but always failed before. Everything was incomplete until we came.

“It was vital to come here because of the fact that it’s so divided and considered a separate entity, but at the same time totally connected to the West Bank.”

In total around 2,000 Gazans attended the PalFest events. In one event, each author had 10 minutes to give the message they had always wanted to say to Gazans.

Hamilton added: “It’s been pretty overwhelming. Everyone is so welcoming and pleased that we have managed to get there.

“They are very frustrated by the lack of access to the outside world. It’s been a very emotional trip, but overwhelmingly positive.

“We began PalFest as an attempt to help connect Palestine with the rest of the world. Lack of access to art, culture and education is a form of restriction.

“We wanted to do what we could to support cultural life in Palestine, and to put on a festival that would be taken for granted anywhere else.”

PalFest collected more than 1,500 books — including copies of an anthology of extracts from works by festival participants — which were distributed to cultural centers and university libraries.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Unspoiled island sanctuary caught on camera

Mahjoub said: “There was a real thirst for any books they could get their hands on: poetry, contemporary novels, books about history and politics. It’s hard for people and institutions to get enough books and resources.

“They are hungry for any kind of cultural life, as there are no cinemas and few concerts.”

He added: “The most important thing has been meeting people and talking on a cultural level, to hear about their experiences and their isolation.

“We have driven up and down the country and have tried to get as broad a picture as possible of what it’s like to live here. I didn’t come to lecture people about my literature, but to find out what their experiences are.”

PalFest organizers said that on Wednesday evening the closing event was shut down by the police, but added that police later apologized for the incident, saying it was an “individual error.”

PalFest is supported by organizations including the UK Arts Council and the British Council. Its patrons including Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, British author Philip Pullman and British actor Emma Thompson.

This year’s festival also included one event in Ramallah in the West Bank and one in Cairo, Egypt, on May 11.

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Editor’s note: Each month, Inside the Middle East takes you behind the headlines to see a different side of this diverse region. Follow us on on Twitter: Presenter Rima Maktabi: @rimamaktabi, producer Jon Jensen: @jonjensen and writer Cat Davies @catrionadavies

(CNN) — Most people would struggle to place it on a map, but Socotra is one of the world’s last unspoiled island chains — an archipelago off the coast of Yemen that has wildlife so diverse it has been described as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean.

Its isolation lends Socotra a bucolic serenity and has blessed it with an array of unique animals and plants. A third of Socotra’s 825 plant species, 90% of its reptile species and 95% of its land snail species do not occur anywhere else in the world, according to UNESCO, which added the archipelago to its World Heritage List for its natural beauty.

German photographer Claudius Schulze had been fascinated by Socotra since reading about it in a magazine, but he was led there by an old proverb.

“I had a project that didn’t work out and we have a proverb in Germany about being ‘ready for the island’ if you are exhausted — so I thought it was time to go to Socotra,” he said. “I started looking up flights and applying for a visa straight away.”

When Schulze, 27, finally made it there he was captivated by both the scenery and the people he met.

“It blew my mind. It’s incredibly amazing and other-wordly,” he said. “The landscape is bizarre, with mountains, valleys that cut 600 meters into the landscape, moon-like desert plains and huge sand-dunes and endemic plants that are completely different from anything I’ve seen.”

The archipelago has four islands, of which one is uninhabited and two others have only 450 and 100 residents respectively. Schulze visited only the main island, also called Socotra, which covers an area of 3,625 square kilometers. He has published a book of photographs and the story of his travels, called “Socotra, an island.”

The tribal Bedouin people of Socotra live mostly from goat herding, date plantations and fishing.

The population of the islands is estimated at 44,000, according to the Socotra Governance and Biodiversity Project (SGBP). However, Schulze said there appeared to be far fewer people, with official figures including many who now live elsewhere.

Although the official language is Arabic, most people speak an unwritten Socotri language of pre-Islamic origin, according to the SGBP.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Qatar’s first female Olympians

Schulze received hospitality from the Bedouin people of Socotra, staying in their homes and eating with them, but said he was never quite able to bridge the cultural divide he felt.

“I discovered I was alien to the people and they were alien to me,” he said. “They were extremely hospitable, they welcomed me in their houses and I had tea with the village elders, but there was an invisible world of extreme cultural difference.”

Schulze said he also witnessed the devastating impact of industrial fishing on the island’s small boats.

“I was a guest of fishermen on the coast and there were days when they didn’t catch anything so there was nothing to eat but yesterday’s bread,” he said.

“They are often victim of pirate European fishing trawlers illegally depleting their stocks, because neither Yemen nor (nearby) Somalia has effective coast guard to stop them.

“I realized for the first time what overfishing means. It’s not about running out of tuna in 10 years’ time, it means people will starve now because they don’t get their daily fish.”

Also on Inside the Middle East: Auctions celebrate art of the Islamic world

He visited Socotra three times over a year, each time for three weeks, in order to see it in different seasons.

Schulze has been unable to return to Socotra with his finished book, and a lack of a postal system makes it impossible to send it there. However, he has presented the book to members of the Friends of Socotra, an international group composed mainly of scientists interested in the unique biodiversity and culture of the islands.

In addition to its endemic plants, reptiles and snails, Socotra has 192 species of land and sea birds, including many threatened species, and diverse marine life, according to UNESCO.

The SGBP says the local population has developed strong traditional rules to protect the island’s natural resources because of its isolated position and history of self-sufficiency.

Schulze’s book is available through his website and at selected bookshops listed on the site.

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Western Cape, South Africa (CNN) — In cafes across Cape Town, brewing the perfect cup of rooibos has become a fine art.

Measuring just the right amount of tea is key while great care is needed to not allow the leaves to swirl for too long. Once ready, the rooibos cups, gleaming in a sumptuous deep red color, bring with them a reedy scent that greets the noses of the customers waiting to enjoy a sip.

Grown only in South Africa’s Western Cape province, the naturally caffeine-free tea used to be a specialist drink appealing to only some taste buds.

But in recent years, its refreshing taste and inviting aroma, coupled with its health benefits, have turned rooibos into a popular choice for tea lovers across the world.

“Germany really was the start of the big export boom,” says Martin Berg, managing director of Rooibos Limited in South Africa, the largest rooibos tea processing factory. “Since then, Holland, UK, USA, Japan — all the first world countries, rooibos has grown in there, grown in popularity,” he adds.

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The increasing popularity of rooibos, an Afrikaans word that means “red bush,” has created an industry worth around $23 billion. Some 15,000 tons of rooibos are harvested every year and at least half of that is then exported to the increasingly health-conscious consumer.

Willem Engelbrecht, whose family have been farming rooibos for four generations, believes that the natural herb’s popularity has increased because of the plant’s health benefits — documented in several studies — including its anti-oxidant properties.

“It’s also got a soothing effect, and that is what we need for our everyday high-speed lifestyles,” says Engelbrecht. “The Japanese did a lot of research early in the 1990s. Once that research became public and also South African research, people all over the world started to drink the product, not only for its very exceptional taste, but also for its wonderful health attributes.”

In Western Cape, the rooibos industry is a major employer during the summer months of harvesting. Under the hot South African sun, the workers, who are paid per kilogram, are constantly cutting down and piling up the tea to satisfy the increasing demand from abroad.

Read more: Is narcotic khat funding terrorism?

Once the bushes, which are actually green, are cut down into small pieces, they are laid out to dry. The intense sunlight in the Western Cape slowly then turns the rooibos into its rich dark red color .

After it has been processed and sterilized, the tea is ready for the consumer.

This trade has become so lucrative that the industry is now trying to protect the rooibos name and its heritage. Producers are lobbying for the tea to be given geographical indication status (see fact box) to protect this unique brand — a lengthy lawsuit with a U.S. company, which tried to use the rooibos name, went the way of the South Africans.

But farmers, like Engelbrecht, believe more should be done.

“There is not currently the legislation in South Africa to protect the word rooibos as a geographical indicator or G.I., similar to what exists in France, where the French government makes sure that champagne can only be used by the wine producers in the Champagne region of France,” he says.

“I think it is the responsibility of government to make sure that legislation come in place, because we need to protect our cultural assets,” adds Engelbrecht.

Read more: Rise of the ‘repats’: Africans shun crisis-hit West for jobs back home

But while the industry waits for government reforms, plans are already in place for further expansion into new markets, such as India and China.

As a result, laboratory tests are underway to develop new products to broaden the tea’s appeal and suit different palates across the world.

“We now have a vast array of different rooibos products, from the traditional unflavored tea to all the flavored tea, cappuccinos made from rooibos, cosmetics, rooibos used in cooking,” says Engelbrecht.

Back in Cape Town, customers are already enjoying some of these new products. There’s a whole new menu of fruit-flavored rooibos teas, rooibos cappuccinos and even espressos.

But despite this extensive range, the perfected traditional cups of rooibos remains the firm favorite.

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(CNN) — It’s no wonder the illustrious Silver Arrow has a special place in the Mercedes team’s hearts. The car with the distinctive silver livery has delivered some of its greatest victories — from successive world championships in the 1950s to the China Grand Prix earlier this month.

Now a new generation of Mercedes stars will be paying homage to the racy little number — and its most famous driver — ahead of the DTM season opener this weekend.

Almost 57 years after F1 legend Juan Manual Fangio won the Italian Grand Prix in the Silver Arrow, driver Nico Rosberg will again be getting behind the wheel of the classic car.

Rosberg’s career-first F1 win at this month’s China Grand Prix is Mercedes’ first victory since Fangio in Italy in 1955.

And to mark the occasion, 26-year-old Rosberg will be taking the classic Mercedes W196 for a spin on Saturday before the DTM touring car series season opener at Hockenheim.

“I am absolutely delighted to be returning to Hockenheim as a Grand Prix winner,” he said on the Mercedes F1 website.

“Last year, I was able to drive a classic Silver Arrow on the famous Nurburgring Nordschleife, so now I’m really looking forward to climbing into the cockpit of Juan Manuel Fangio’s phenomenal W196 streamliner from Monza in 1955 and driving a few laps at Hockenheim.

“It means a lot to me that we have written a new chapter in the wonderful history of Mercedes in motorsport — and that there is plenty more still to come.”

The German follows in the footsteps of F1 racing father Keke, who won the world title with Williams in 1982.

However he still has some catching up to do to his famous Finnish father who collected five race wins in a nine-season career from 1978 to 1986.

“I have great memories of the DTM,” Rosberg said.

“The earliest date back to when my father was still racing. Then I started competing in the various junior classes that are staged as part of the DTM race weekend as I started out on my own motorsport career. A lot has happened in the meantime, and the highlight so far was obviously my win in China one week ago.”

Rosberg, who failed to repeat his performance in last week’s Bahrain Grand Prix, finishing fifth, will be joined on the track by fellow Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher.

The seven-time world champion, who finished 10th in Bahrain, will be behind the wheel of the 2011 Silver Arrow MGP W02 on Sunday.

“After a busy start to the Formula One season with four flyaway races in succession, it will be nice to come back to Germany,” said Schumacher, whose younger brother Ralf — a former F1 competitor — drives in the DTM series.

“I’m especially looking forward to the chance to give the fans a taste of a Formula One Silver Arrow in action. This will be my first visit to a DTM race in 20 years, and I hope that my brother and his fellow Mercedes-Benz drivers will get their season off to a great start.”

Abu Dhabi, UAE (CNN) — France’s new Socialist government is already causing ripples throughout a Europe struggling to balance government budgets without making ordinary people’s lives miserable, but it has created a completely different problem in the Middle East.

The prime minister’s last name, it turns out, sounds like an Arabic slang word for penis.

His name is Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Pronounced properly in French, the last name is very much like a moderately rude Lebanese and Palestinian term that is widely understood in the Arabic world.

The name has left broadcasters trying to determine if they should pronounce it as the prime minister does — “ai-roh” — or if they should resort to voicing the “L” and “T” in the written word.

An editor at the pan-Arabic network Al-Arabiya said it would pronounce the name in the French way.

“We cannot change names, so we have to deal with it and live with it. We have to be professional,” said the editor, who asked not to be named because of the subject matter.

Al-Arabiya is writing the name in Arabic in a way that makes clear it is not the offensive word.

The French Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the issue but had no comment. The office of the French president, sounding amused, referred CNN questions to the prime minister’s office, which had no comment.

The story echoes reports that two years ago, Pakistan wanted to appoint an ambassador to Saudi Arabia whose name sounds like an even more offensive word for penis in Arabic.

But Pakistani diplomat Akbar Zeb denied the story, telling the Globe and Mail in Canada, where he is posted, that there had never been a plan to send him to Riyadh.

CNN’s Rachel Ramsay contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: Paul Sracic is a professor and chairman of the Department of Political Science at Youngstown State University in Ohio.

(CNN) — During his 2010 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama made headlines by directly criticizing the Supreme Court for its decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the political funding case. He said Citizens United would “open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”

Certainly the decision has made it much easier for corporations and unions to directly spend unlimited sums of money in support of their favored candidates. One wonders, however, whether Obama realized at the time how much his own political allies, and therefore his own re-election effort, might benefit from Citizens United.

This is nowhere more likely to be true than in Ohio, and the one thing that Democrats and Republicans seem to agree upon is that the path to victory for both parties in November runs through the Buckeye State.

The first real hint of how Citizens United might benefit Obama in Ohio came in the weeks leading up to the recent primary in a Pennsylvania congressional district that borders Ohio. As a result of redistricting, the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, which runs southeast from the Ohio border beginning just north of Pittsburgh, pitted two incumbent members of Congress against one another. Organized labor was determined to punish one of the Democrats, Jason Altmire, for voting against the Affordable Care Act.

Toward this end, the Workers’ Voice Super PAC, formed by the AFL-CIO, funded an independent campaign operation for their endorsed candidate, Mark Critz. With the union’s help, Critz, a first-term member of Congress who had been elected in a 2010 special election to fill the unexpired term of late John Murtha, was able to eke out an upset win over the initially favored Altmire.

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What is really interesting about what happened in this Pennsylvania race, however, is that the AFL-CIO referred to what it was doing as a kind of “trial run” for the general election.

Almost all of the commentary on the Citizens United case has focused on conservative groups funding Republican candidates. But Citizens United also freed up unions to spend unlimited amounts of their money to directly advocate for the election of labor-friendly candidates, usually Democrats.

Whereas conservative leaning groups have so far mainly used their money to fund campaign advertising, the AFL-CIO and other unions have made it clear that their money will be spent on grassroots get-out-the-vote activities. This is what they did in Pennsylvania.

Just imagine what this might mean in the general election in Ohio. Mitt Romney will likely face two separate yet well-funded and well-organized ground operations knocking on doors throughout the state. The Obama team’s 2008 get-out-the-vote operations were tremendously effective. This year, however, organized labor will be able to open up their treasuries to fund their own parallel operations.

This is not to say that the pro-Romney groups will be silent.

Super PACs backing Romney demonstrated during the Republican primary that they could raise seemingly endless amounts of cash and spend it effectively to drive down support for their opponents. The AFL-CIO’s own political director told the Los Angeles Times that he expects labor to be outspent 20 to 1. Still, beyond religious groups and perhaps the tea party groups, Republicans do not really have any freestanding organizations upon which to piggyback their door-to-door efforts.

This is significant because recent polls indicate the margins in Ohio and in fact all of the swing states are razor thin this year. In close races, turnout is everything. One of the reasons that Karl Rove was so successful in making sure that his boss, George W. Bush, was successful in the Buckeye state in 2000 and 2004 was that he understood the importance of an aggressive and well-organized get-out-the-vote plan, especially in the crucial 72 hours leading up to Election Day.

It is an open question, however, whether Rove’s 72-hour task force would still be as successful in Ohio in a post-Citizens United world, where the unions have much better funding opportunities and are freed from long-standing restraints on contacting nonmembers.

Beyond religious groups, whose role should nevertheless not be underestimated, Republicans do not really have any freestanding organizations upon which to piggyback their door-to-door efforts. Moreover, in Ohio, unions have something else that is working in their favor.

Last year, organized labor worked furiously to place a measure on the ballot repealing a bill signed into law by by Republican Gov. John Kasich restricting the bargaining rights of public employees.  They ended up gathering more than three times the signatures necessary, and when Election Day rolled around, 62% of voters cast their ballots in favor of the union position.  

The names and addresses gathered, contacts made, and skills learned during that campaign will be available to groups like Workers’ Voice in 2012.

Of course, this does not mean that Obama is a shoo-in to win Ohio or the election in November. It does suggest, however, that regardless of what the national head-to-head polls say, Romney will need more than television commercials and mailings to win in Ohio. He will also need a grassroots get-out-the-vote strategy that outperforms even the plans of Rove. So far, the team that Romney has in place has not demonstrated that they grasp the importance of this type of work.

It may be telling that when Obama kicked off his re-election campaign at Ohio State University on Saturday, he emphasized that he would win the race “door by door, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.” He said this secure in the knowledge that organized labor will have thousands of volunteers who are willing and, thanks to Citizens United, able to be on the ground rustling up every last vote for him.

So, if Obama has the opportunity to give another State of the Union address in February of 2013, he might just want to look down at the justices sitting in the front row and, instead of criticizing them, give them a little wink.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul Sracic.