Most Recent Posts

Get recipes for Couscous With Dried Cranberries, Cashews And Orange, Chicken Snow-Pea Stir-Fry With Tangerine Peel and Orange, Almond And Pine Nut Tartlets.

As part of a series called "My Big Break," All Things Considered is collecting stories of triumph, big and small. These are the moments when everything seems to click, and people leap forward into their careers.

Long before Cesar Millan became the "Dog Whisperer," with TV shows and a best-selling series of books, he had to learn how to ask for a job in English.

The first phrase Millan learned, soon after he arrived poor and desperate in the United States, was: "Do you have application for work?"

Millan, whose show Cesar 911 is currently airing on the Nat Geo Wild channel, grew up on a farm in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

"We were the family that had more dogs than anybody else," Millan says of his childhood. "I never saw a dog with a leash on."

He found inspiration watching Lassie and The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin on TV.

"When I was 13 years old," he recalls, "I told my mom, 'Mom, you think I can be the best dog trainer in the world?' And she said, 'You can do whatever you want.' "

Eight years later, Millan borrowed money from his parents and spent it all illegally crossing the border into the United States. (Millan became a U.S. citizen in 2009.)

Initially, he landed in San Diego with no money, no friends, and almost no understanding of English.

"I was homeless in the streets of San Diego," he says, "and my home was under a freeway."

For food, he says, he survived on hot dogs from local convenience stores.

"They will sell you two hot dogs for 99 cents," he remembers. "That means you only have to make $1 to survive in America."

At the same time, Millan made use of that first sentence in English, asking for job applications. He found intermittent employment at a grooming salon in San Diego, where he impressed the owners with his calm, assertive handling of more aggressive dogs.

When Millan moved to Inglewood, Calif., and began walking dogs in the neighborhood, he set himself apart by foregoing the leash.

"I didn't know it was illegal to walk dogs off leash in the land of the free," he says, "especially [in a place] where dogs have birthday parties."

But his unusual style boosted his reputation.

"People started calling me 'the Mexican guy who can walk a pack of dogs,' " he says. "I didn't have business cards, so my business card was the referral."

Over time, Millan built up his dog-walking business, and eventually founded what he called the Dog Psychology Center in South Central Los Angeles, where he focused on rehabilitating dogs with behavioral problems.

As his reputation grew, Millan got more attention from the media, including a lengthy — and crucial — profile in the Los Angeles Times.

"The newspaper came on a Sunday, and by Monday, [there] was a line of [television] producers outside," he says. "That's how Dog Whisperer was born."

Panh was not alone in the work, though. He worked with two screenwriters and has a group of longtime collaborators whose contributions are essential. He says he struggled to make The Missing Picture until he learned that his assistant could sculpt figurines of clay. Another collaborator, musician Marc Marder, has scored 18 of Panh's films.

"I think the music for Rithy's films has to be like these clay figurines in fact," says Marder. "It is the soul of the people. And it's not really a music, it's never an illustrative music. But this score, as for all of Rithy's films, I think I'm trying to [compose] music as soul of the people who are not there."

“ I like people who have the capacity to forget. I think that to forget is a good thing. Forgetting is good. But sometimes I cannot. For me I cannot. I continue to talk with those who died every night, every day.

The Russian troops who are holding Crimea won't be sent into Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says. "We have absolutely no intention of - or interest in - crossing Ukraine's borders," Lavrov told a Russian TV station Saturday, according to a translation by Reuters.

The comments from Moscow come after a phone call from Russian President Vladimir Putin to President Obama Friday. The two leaders discussed possible diplomatic solutions to the crisis, which has sparked Western sanctions. And they agreed that Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry should meet "to discuss next steps," as The Two-Way reported Friday.

"The phone call on Friday lasted about an hour, during which Mr. Obama is said to have urged President Putin to stop provocations, like sending troops to the Russian border with Ukraine," NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Moscow. "The Kremlin early Saturday said Putin told Obama that he remains concerned about the 'continued rampage of extremists' across Ukraine."

In addition to economic sanctions on Russia, the U.S. should give military support to help Ukraine defend itself, Sen. John McCain tells NPR's Scott Simon on Saturday's Weekend Edition.

Calling the seizure of Crimea "a naked act of aggression by Vladimir Putin," McCain said that the U.S. must realize the Russian leader "is what he is: a KGB colonel that is committed to the restoration of the Russian empire."

Lavrov's remarks Saturday included a promise that Russia would protect "the rights of Russians and Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, using all available political, diplomatic and legal means," the BBC reports.

On Friday, U.S. officials said that Russia has massed from 35,000 to 40,000 troops near the border with Ukraine, according to Reuters.

In a symbolic move, Crimea is switching its time zone today to match that of Moscow, according to Russia's state-run Tass news agency. The region has been two hours behind the Russian capital.

i i