RAUL JULIA LEVY LOLITA AND TILIKUM KILLER WHALES

About Rual Julia-Levy
Raul Julia-Levy (born July 10, 1971, Mexico City) is a Mexican film and television actor, and is the son of actor Raúl Juliá. Not only is Julia-Levy involved in the entertainment industry, he also remains interested in Mexico’s politics.

Biography

Julia-Levy was born into one of the most powerful families in Mexico. He is the grandson of the clothing tycoon Abraham Levy, who died when Julia-Levy was 16. In 1989 Latin America’s premier national money investing publication, El Financiero, established that Latin America was being ruled by eight families. The list consisted of Carlos Slim Helú (Mexico), Jerónimo Arango (Mexico), Ricardo Salinas Pliego and family (Mexico), Jorge Paulo Lemann (Brazil), Joseph and Moise Safra (Brazil), Gustavo Cisneros and family (Venezuela), Lorenzo Mendoza and family (Venezuela), and Abraham Levy and family (Mexico). Abraham Levy had only one daughter, Margaret Levy, who at a young age became the sole matriarch of the prominent family who comes from ‘old money’. The living descendants of Abraham Levy are his daughter Margaret Levy and her children: Raul Julia-Levy (1971), Elizabeth Levy (1974), Mexican attorney and politicianJose Martin Levy (1977), Betty Levy (1978), Mexican veterinarian Richard Levy (1979), Mexican architect Carlos Levy (1980). The Levy family’s presence continues to be influential throughout Latin America. Along with his brother Jose Levy, Julia-Levy established a foundation to provide scholarships to select indigenous groups throughout Mexico. The National Foundation for the Education of the Indigenous will work through the United Nations beginning in January 2007.

According to a CNN report on November 5, 2002, Raul Julia-Levy, whose legal name is Raul Julia, Jr., was responsible for organizing an elite group of individuals to attend the inauguration of Mexican President Vicente Fox. The list includes: Hollywood film producer David Permut, Cuban President Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl Castro, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II, Polish politician and leader Lech Walesa and other northern hemisphere and Latin American dignitaries.

According to Reforma, Mexico’s leading newspaper, Raul Julia-Levy participated in an event on Sunday, December 3, 2000 where newly elected Mexican President Vicente Fox met with prominent leaders such as President of Poland Lech Walesa, President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Mexican Congresswoman Ofelia Medina, Bill Gates, Banamex President Roberto Hernández Ramírez, Alfredo Harp Helú, Mexican Congresswoman Viola Trigo, Hollywood producer David Permut and Oaxaca Governor Jose Murat to address how to provide shelter and educational opportunities to indigenous pewople from the state of Oaxaca.

The El Mundo al Dia newpaper reported on Thursday, August 2, 2001, Julia-Levy was invited by President Vicente Fox and Congresswoman Viola Trigo to participate in Yucatan’s newly elected governor Patricio Patron Laviada’s inauguration. Attending the inauguration as Julia-Levy’s guests were actor Forest Whitaker, Damon Whitaker, Bokeem Woodbine who is known as Fathead Newman in the movie Ray, Canadian actor Leila Johnson, senator Viola Triggo, Mexican businessman Pablo Sauma who owns the largest fleet of oil ships leased to Pemex, and Nicaraguan’s former president Daniel Ortega.

In November 2006, Mexican president-elect Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa via Secretary of Agriculture Ricardo Sheffield Padilla invited Raul Julia-Levy, Sean Penn, Jean Claude Van Damme and Hollywood heavy-weight producer Jonathan Sanger to attend his presidential inauguration. On December 1, 2006, Julia-Levy and Sanger attended the inauguration and that evening attended the State Department festivities where they met with future business partners. “TV Azteca” and “Periódico a.m.” reported that Julia-Levy will get involved in various business endeavors during 2007; he will work closely with Ing. Luis Rodriguez Dorantes in reviving the airlines Aerolíneas Internacionales. Additionally, Julia-Levy will work with his family to restore the San Felipe Villas Resort that includes 228 villas located by the Sea of Cortez.

Raul Julia-Levy met his father Raúl Juliá for the first time on the set of the movie Romero, an American production filmed in Cuernavaca.

Julia-Levy has appeared in the Mexican TV series El Vuelo del águila and Canción de amor, and in the 2001 US film Double Take

RAUL JULIA LEVY

RAUL JULIA LEVY

RAUL JULIA LEVY

TILIKUM AND LOLITA KILLER WHALES

SEATTLE — Some big Hollywood names are behind a push to free a captured orca whale and return it to Puget Sound.

Protesters have hounded the Miami Seaquarium for years, urging it to free its star, Lolita. The orca was just seven years old when she was captured in 1970 in the waters off of Whidbey Island, and has been performing daily shows ever since.

But now actor Raul Julia-Levy is getting Hollywood involved. He is the son of the late Raul Julia who starred in “Addams Family” films. Also involved in the effort are Ron Howard, Johnny Depp and Harrison Ford.

“I believe we’re going to get her back,” said Julia-Levy.

The Hollywood figures are asking producers and directors to boycott film shoots in Florida.

“I believe Hollywood represents three (hundred) to 400 million dollars in films. We have CSI Miami that brings a lot of money into the state,” he said.

But the Miami Seaquarium says Lolita couldn’t survive in the wild.

“She has entertained and educated millions of children. We think letting her go would be an irresponsible act on our behalf,” said Robert Rose of the Seaquarium.

Aquarium officials point to Keiko, the killer whale who was freed after he starred in “Free Willy.” He died before learning to live on his own.

But activists say Lolita is different. She was captured after she learned to fish and could be reunited with her family, the “L” pod in Puget Sound.

And if Julia-Levy gets his way, she will be back.

RAUL JULIA LEVY INTERVIEW ABOUT TILIKUM AND LOLITA KILLER WHALES

GQ has named Barack Obama one of its “Men of the Year” - along with Baltimore’s Michael Phelps and actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Jon Hamm - with a cover and article that went to press before Election Day, says the Huffington Post.

The article about Obama - also named “Game Changer of the Year” - was written by Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Meanwhile, Obama’s appearance on CBS‘ 60 Minutes on Sunday night gave the venerable news show its highest overnight ratings in nearly a decade, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Steve Kroft spent almost the entire hour interviewing the president-elect and Michelle Obama, drawing 24.5 million viewers, according to the preliminary Nielsen estimate.

That is more viewers than for any other episode of a prime-time show seen this season and is the biggest audience for 60 Minutes since January 1999.

ROME, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — Italy is working towards a meeting between United States President-elect Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday.

    Speaking after an Italo-German summit in Trieste, Berlusconi said it was one of Italy’s top foreign policy priorities to try to return the Untied States and Russia to the “spirit” of a 2002 summit at Pratica di Mare near Rome where a landmark accord between Russia and NATO was signed.

    Berlusconi reiterated his concern over U.S.-Russian tension on tit-for-tat missile deployment, according to Italian News Agency ANSA.

    ”For anyone who lived for decades with the nightmare of two opposing nuclear arsenals, returning to the past is … to be avoided,” he said.

    Italy is making diplomatic efforts to get Obama and Medvedev together, Berlusconi said. It also took advantage of the fact that they are “young, represent the new generation of politics (and are)distant” from the Cold War, he said.

    Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said last week that a strategy of missile proliferation was “no good for Europe, Russia or the United States” and Italy could help ease tensions.

    After Moscow’s decision to deploy missiles near the Polish border in response to the planned U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, Frattini said “Italy is really one of the few countries that can play a facilitating role. And I hope President-elect Obama can meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev really soon to discuss these issues.”

    Frattini denied suggestions that Italy was “veering East” after Berlusconi said the day before Russia had been “provoked” into deploying the missiles.

    The European Union also expressed strong concern over Russia’s decision.

    Medvedev last week hinted the Russian missiles would not be deployed if the United States decided not to go ahead with its missile shield.

Obama Girls Get a White House Tour

Sasha and Malia on their way to school in Chicago last week. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

After trips to two D.C. private schools, Malia and Sasha Obama are getting a special personal tour of the White House this afternoon, accompanied by grandma Marian Robinson and their mother.

“Mrs. Obama greatly appreciated this invitation to provide an opportunity for the girls to feel at home and be comfortable in this transition process,” Katie McCormick Lelyveld, Michelle Obama’s spokeswoman, told our colleague Richard Leiby in an e-mail. Laura Bush was in Kentucky this morning for an event at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site and was expected back this afternoon.

Yesterday Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, visited Georgetown Day School and today toured Sidwell Friends — the two private institutions that seem to be at the top of the future first lady’s list. She visited the both campuses last week.

One of the most burning questions in Washington these days (besides how to get an inaugural ball ticket and where the Obama children will attend school) is: Where will Malia and Sasha get that puppy their father has promised them?

It certainly is the question being asked at area animal shelters.

Puppymania has ignited fierce competition among local pet rescue organizations clamoring to be the go-to adoption center for the next first family. The two most prominent shelters in town, the Washington Humane Society and the Washington Animal Rescue League, have both begun quiet lobbying blitzes to woo the Obamas.

The Washington Humane Society thinks Dave, a toy poodle mix, could be a contender for the Obama puppy search. Dave is considered hypoallergenic.

“The League would be deeply honored to be the source of the nation’s next first canine,” WARL executive director Gary Weitzman wrote in a letter to President-elect Obama the morning after the election. “We would love to help you add a new member to your family.”

WARL actually began its letter-writing campaign to Obama back in July - more than a month before he had formally accepted his party’s presidential nomination. “It is our fervent hope that you and your family will soon be moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” Weitzman wrote in the July 17 letter.

He even asked Obama to come in person to the shelter. “We hope that you, too, can find the time to visit the League with your family and choose the perfect dog,” he wrote. “All of our resources stand at your service, and we would be deeply honored if you could find a way to agree to this request.”

The Washington Humane Society hasn’t contacted the Obamas, but the organization recently posted a notice on its blog announcing: “WHS Offers Puppy Kindergarten Classes to First Family Adopters.”

The humane society’s president and CEO, Lisa LaFontaine, wrote that even if the Obamas don’t choose their pet from one of the WHS’s two shelters in the District, the organization would still like to do the puppy training. At the White House, of course.

“Perhaps WHS can best be considered as a resource in helping the family, and particularly the girls, with training and socializing their new companion,” she wrote.

What about finding a shelter dog that won’t exacerbate 10-year-old Malia’s allergies?

No problem, says Tara de Nicolas, spokeswoman for the Washington Humane Society. “We currently have a few dogs that might fit the bill, such as poodles and a 4-month-old Wheaton Terrier,” she says. (We like Dave, a one-year-old 7 lb. black poodle mix who is described as “gentle with kids.”)

As President-elect Obama has articulated, his family needs a hypoallergenic dog because Malia, his oldest daughter, is allergic. He said while their preference is to rescue a puppy from a shelter, “a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.” (Meaning, probably not hypoallergenic.)

Spokesman Jim Monsma at the Washington Animal Rescue League says “you can’t put in an order for hypoallergenic” but such shelter dogs do exist. “As of last week we had a number of dogs who we believe were hypoallergenic,” he told us.

The Sleuth’s non hypoallergenic pup Zola.

The Obamas have said they aren’t getting their new dog for at least two more months, until they’re settled in the White House. And something tells us, there’ll be plenty of hypoallergenic puppies to choose from come late winter in Washington.

Full Disclosure: The Sleuth adopted her puppy, Zola (who - sorry, Malia - is not hypoallergenic), from the Washington Animal Rescue League last year. As you can see in this photo, she was pretty irresistible.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — It was heartwarming, in a way, to see Sen. John McCain and President-elect Barack Obama together the other day.

Sen. John McCain and President-elect Barack Obama meet Monday in Chicago, Illinois.

Sure, the photo op was a tad uncomfortable: The men looked like wary heads-of-state waiting for their translators.

As the cameras captured every uncomfortable moment, the two men tried some football chit-chat, but it looked forced — because it was.

Behind closed doors, the discussion was more real.

A close aide to McCain told me that the senator really didn’t know what to expect when he went into the session, but he knew he was ready to tell Obama where he could help him. He related that, after a couple of days of unwinding at his Sedona, Arizona, retreat, the senator was “back to plotting” what he can do in the Senate with his best-pal, Sen. Lindsay Graham, a Republican from South

As for Obama, he had a clear agenda. We’ve heard a lot lately about Obama’s interest in Abe Lincoln’s “team of rivals” in his Cabinet. He’s not about to go that far with the man he beat for the presidency, but he also knows that McCain will be a very useful ally.

One clear, and pressing, issue: the closing of Guantanamo. McCain is one of a small number of Republicans who agree with Obama that it ought to be closed. Obama can (and might) do this by executive order, but it’s not as if that’s the end of it. Questions remain about how to handle the detainees, and who would be better in handling that thorny issue than John McCain?

If Obama needs political cover — and credibility — on Gitmo, McCain is his man.

Likewise, McCain can also be incredibly useful to the new president on issues of climate change, defense procurement, earmarks and corporate welfare. He’s not a fellow who can possibly care anymore about angering members of the Republican Party. He’s already been there and done that. It’s now time for McCain to burnish the legacy, and his place in the Senate could do just that.

It’s no coincidence, by the way, that Obama sat down with McCain so quickly after the election. He knows he will need him.

The same goes for Sen. Joe Lieberman, the renegade independent (once a Democrat) who endorsed McCain — and said some nasty things about Obama at the GOP convention.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other angry Democrats were ready to toss him overboard, taking away his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Then came a phone call from Obama to Reid, cautioning him not to do anything that would drive Lieberman into the arms of the Republican caucus.

The result: Lieberman remains chairman, and loses some other, more minor, posts. Without Obama, he probably would have been dethroned entirely.

Then, of course, there’s the overture Obama made to Sen. Hillary Clinton about becoming secretary of state. Needless to say, there’s not a warm and fuzzy history there.

But Obama understands this is not just about him — it’s about uniting a party, putting a best face on America to the world and, maybe most of all, bringing the Clintons into his tent. It’s an idea that comes from a leader dealing from strength, not weakness.

In fact, if Obama had chosen Clinton as his running mate, that would have been a choice made out of weakness.

The new White House chief of staff-designate Rahm Emanuel is a Chicago-style representative known for his tough politics, his tough language and the occasional unfriendly finger gesture.

But just weeks before the start of the historic Barack Obama administration, the last thing the boss-elect wanted was a public hanging of Connecticut’s sort-of Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman for his outspoken support of the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin the last several months.

There was some support for revenge (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) among those (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) who wanted to slice away Lieberman’s committee chairmanship of Homeland Security and membership on the important Armed Services Committee with McCain and Hillary Clinton.

It was the Democratic Party, you may remember, that started this fight by supporting an insurgent primary challenger of Lieberman in 2006 over the senator’s support of the Iraq war in general and the Bush administration’s troop surge in particular.

The insurgent won the primary but was blown away in the general, where Lieberman ran as an independent and drew on his longtime statewide name recognition as a former attorney general and senator who suits the state’s moderate-to-conservative Democratic mind-set. And the Republicans tacitly supported Joe by putting up a nobody and not supporting him.

So jolly Joe returned to the Senate and the Democratic caucus, where his vote was the leverage that gave the party the 51 votes necessary to control that body.

It’s one thing to support the war. It’s another, however, to support Republicans, which Lieberman did big time, even speaking in prime time at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

With a newly-enlarged Democratic majority now, Joe’s lone vote is less important. It came time to take him to the woodshed during this week’s brief congressional session before another vacation. But how would that look as a pre-inaugural first step for a new administration pledged to change the way Washington doesn’t work?

So Lieberman keeps his Homeland chairmanship, his Armed Services membership and loses a minor subcommittee chairmanship, which is like detention for a week. And life goes on.

Lieberman told reporters he appreciated colleagues’ respect for his “independence of mind.”

“That’s who I am,” said the 2000 Democratic party vice presidential nominee.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats in the caucus wanted to keep Joe on, Reid said, looking like he was not a member of that overwhelming majority but got the word from Chicago. “It’s all over with,” he said.

A little rump-session drama that may give an inkling of the Obama-Emanuel style to come. (For an entertaining video of a roast of Emanuel and his kick-em-between the legs political style, click here and see what Obama had to say about him way back in 2005.)

Jacob Straw at Scrufts with his lurcher/whippet cross

Elsa Poutler with her Fern Collie cross Photo: Philip Hollis

Copper, a Beagle/Jack Russell cross, with Shannon Weekly Photo: Philip Hollis

Gregory Short with Sally, a Yorkidoodle

Fifty-six dogs wait to go into the ring at Earls Court in an atmosphere rich with doggy shampoo. Short ones, tall ones, miniature fuzzballs with arching tails, soppy eyes and lean, mean, hunting machines; the only common feature in this canine melting pot is beautifully groomed Dennis Healey eyebrows.

Scruffts is the antidote to dog shows: a wet-nosed waggy-tailed celebration of mutt power. While Crufts draws the cream of the 209 breeds registered by the Kennel Club, its almost-namesake is open only to cross-breeds and mongrels. They are judged on good looks, good health and good manners, just as a pedigree dog would be, but without the rigid breed specifications.

It is these that have got the Kennel Club into hot water, after a BBC exposé of the health horrors caused by breeding – and inbreeding – dogs for showing. The club is reviewing its standards in time for Crufts next year, but it hasn’t stopped the RSPCA and Pedigree, show sponsor for 44 years, boycotting the biggest date in the canine calendar.

Scruffts is small fry by comparison: four classes shoe-horned into an hour and 20 minutes at the annual Discover Dogs event. Instead of an expert, celebrity dog nut Summer Strallen, the ex-Hollyoaks actress starring as Maria in Andrew Lloyd- Webber’s The Sound of Music, is doing the judging. Fourteen hundred dogs entered the regional heats this year (for £1 each).

There are many mixes on show. There is a goldendoodle, pictured above, and Daisy a labrador/terrier cross who won the golden oldie category.

Gregory Short and Sally, pictured in panel above far right, are finalists in the child’s best friend class and prettiest bitch, an amazing feat since neither dog, a one-year-old Yorkiedoodle, nor owner (aged nine) had done anything like this before their local Scruffts in Co Durham. Gregory explains Sally’s pre-show beauty routine. “She’ll have a bath and get her teeth done. I had a Doctor Who toothbrush but I’ve got one now that fits onto the end of my finger.”

Small boy and small bundle of fluff with black button eyes march into the ring like pros. “Gregory didn’t strike me as a confident child but he loves it,” says his mother Wendy.

There are oodles of poodle crosses like Sally at Scruffts, some with rough coats, others sporting 1980s bubble perms. Labradoodles were first on the scene. Intelligent and even hypoallergenic, they have become super-fashionable and can fetch over £1,000 (surely the perfect puppy for the Obama girls?). “In the late 1990s we used to get calls from people wanting wolf hybrids,” says Liz Colley of the Crossbreed and Mongrel Club, founded in 1994. “Now it’s Goldendoodles, Jackadoodles and Cockadoodles.”

Holly Ralph, 12, is a member of the Young Kennel Club and is showing her skateboarding labradoodle, a roguish dusty-black creature with highlights in her beard. “Scruffts is the most serious thing we’ve done,” says Holly. Roxy’s vet bills are lower than for the family’s two pedigree dogs, which is true generally of mongrels and crossbreds. “It’s called hybrid vigour in the world of genetics,” says Life pet adviser Dr Roger Mugford, the owner of a vigorous rangoon terrier. “Statistically mongrels are marginally healthier.”

They’re also brighter than many of their overbred cousins, or so scientists at Aberdeen University concluded earlier this year after testing both for spatial awareness and problem-solving abilities.

• The Scruffts 2009 heats begin in February and the final will be at Discover Dogs on Nov 15 (0870 606 6750; www.thekennelclub.org.uk ).

DOGGY DIRECTORY

• Crossbreed and mongrel puppies are much harder to find than pedigrees, particularly in southern England, because of campaigns to encourage responsible dog ownership. Many of the Scruffts finalists were rescue dogs. Try Dogs Trust, which has 17 re-homing centres nationwide (020 7837 0006; www.dogstrust.org.uk ).
• Dogpages.org.uk has links to more than 1000 rescue centres.
• Fashionable dogs are abandoned too; contact Labradoodle Rescue (01933 443007; www.labradoodlerescue.com ). To find a puppy, try the UK Labradoodle Association (0208123 8156; www.labradoodle.org.uk ) or the Labradoodle Club of Great Britain (www.labradoodleclub.co.uk ).
• The Crossbreed & Mongrel Club website has excellent advice on how to choose the right dog. It also runs its own competition, Scamps, with the grand final on Sept 20, 2009 (01522 751576; www.crossbreedandmongrel-club.org.uk).

CANINE GLOSSARY… A WHATADOODLE?

GOLDENDOODLE: golden retrieverand poodle

COCKAPOO: cocker spaniel and poodle

YORKIEDOODLE: (or Porkie): Yorkshire terrier and poodle

JACKADOODLE: Jack Russell and poodle

SPOODLE: springer spaniel and poodle

DOODLE: dachshund and poodle

CHI-POO: chihuahua and poodle

PEEKAPOO: pekinese and poodle

PEEK-A-POM: pekinese and Pomeranian

DORGI: dachshund and corgi

CHORKIE: chihuahua and Yorkshire terrier

PUGGLE: pug and beagle

DOLLIES: dalmation and border collie

WEIRDIE: West Highland terrier and bearded collie

SPANADOR: spaniel and labrador

SPRINGBATT: bassett and springer spaniel